It was peculiar, Edd thought as he readjusted his telescope while simultaneously typing keys furiously on his laptop. No one saw the meteor storm coming, but that didn't stop it from being one of the most spectacular light shows he had ever seen. He didn't even know that shooting stars could be green and pink. He had to let out a dazzled "Oh," as he saw another bright light fall. Some of those stars were colors he had never even imagined.

An hour or two passed, Edd really hadn't been keeping track of time, after all. He eventually stopped taking notes, settling for turning his camcorder on and having it record the sight, for later review. He let out a chuckle when a particularly big stream of orange light streaked through the sky as the younger kids made a collective awed gasp. Even Kevin and Rolf were enjoying the sight. He smiled, everyone and their parents were outside now, enjoying the scene. This would be one of the moments he'd remember for the rest of his life.

Even the Kankers were there, sitting right in the dead center of the Cul-de-sac, with their mother. They weren't harassing him of his friends either. They just sat there, gazing upwards while messily chugging on their gallons of pop.

To the right, just down the driveway, he heard Ed nailing a sign to Eddy's worn wooden stand. He was selling the stars that he caught. And by that, he meant he was really selling the pieces of coal he managed to snag off of Nazz's grill just a few minutes prior. Edd's warm feelings of content changed to those of dismay as Jonny and Jimmy, who pulled a disgruntled Sarah along, brought out a fistful of quarters to buy the stars.

"Better be careful with that one," Eddy shouted out as he ordered Ed to grab a still burning lump of coal with a pair of tongs. "That one's fresh."

Jimmy was gleeful, until the red hot coal was placed into his hands, which then resulted in him screaming "Owie," and running back home for "gauze, ointment and marmalade."

Edd, or Double D, as he was called by his friends, continued observing the meteor storm, even after everyone else had gone to bed. It wasn't until 5 o' clock when the streaks of light stopped appearing, though Double D suspected that it had more to do with the rising sun blotting them out. A wave of sadness passed over him. He had really enjoyed the spectacle, and seeing everyone's faces around him reacting to them.

He looked forward to looking over his notes as soon as school was over, but even more than that, he wanted to see if the meteor storm continued by next nightfall. Still, he realized as he let out a hearty yawn, he would need to get some sleep. As much as he hated to say it, his homeroom teacher was a jerk, and being tardy for class would mean trouble, even on the last day of school.

He packed up his belongings and started to head inside. In the corner of his eye, however, he thought he saw someone. With a quick turn, he realized that his eyes weren't deceiving him. There was, in fact, a slender figure still staring upwards. He was too tired, however, and let out a yawn as he waved to the person and shut the door to his house. Must've been a new neighbor, he thought as he made his way upstairs and into his bed. Perhaps the new family had kids who, hopefully, wouldn't be taken aback by any of his friends' tendencies. Either way, he thought, shutting his eyes, he'd greet them after school as well.

*"Oh well, time for bed, I suppose."*

Eddy's head couldn't hit his desk any harder. Having a full day of school, on the last day, was incredibly pointless. Maybe, he thought, if he kept knocking his head against the hard material of the desk, he'd knock himself out and wake up back home.

No, that wouldn't work.

He looked at Ed, who was currently busy playing with his earlobes. He looked pretty pleased with himself too. Eddy, on some level, envied Ed's simplistic way of life. It'd be pretty damn great if he could entertain himself by playing with his earlobes, of all things. Next, he looked at Nazz, who sat back in a corner along with Rolf and Kevin. Nazz was playing with her phone while simultaneously telling gossip about some girl on her cheerleading team. Rolf was eyeing her phone curiously, asking how there could possibly be so many zombies and pea shooting plants in the realm her phone led to. Kevin was chilling on Nazz's desk, obviously flexing, though the girl didn't seem to notice.

None of the other kids in class were doing anything interesting either. A bunch his classmates he hadn't bothered to learn the names of were chatting, probably about the thing in the sky last night. The other group of no names, in another corner, were doing the same. He couldn't blame Double D for dozing off while still upright in his seat, the class was a snoozefest.

The door suddenly slammed open, and their teacher, a husky, balding British man walked on through. "Yes, sorry I'm late. I had a bit of a rough night out." He set down his briefcase and, without looking up said, "Oh Nazz, put that phone away. One day. Detention."

Eddy heard Nazz grumble. It wasn't a joke. Their teacher was the same guy who ripped on Eddy for having his shirt slightly wrinkled and gave him two days detention for it. Really, Eddy couldn't think of anyone else who lived off other people being miserable as much as his teacher did. Well, besides his own brother, but that was a different story for a different time, and not something he liked talking to other people about.

Well, his mother had told him that "Misery loved company.''

"As you'll remember, I assigned you a one page paper on what you learned from my History class. I trust you all have it completed. You know what'll happen if you don't." He meant detention, of course. Giving every student ever a detention was kind of his thing. In fact, Double D was one of the only students left who hadn't gotten a pink, handwritten note from the guy. That didn't mean he liked his friend, or anything, in fact, he especially had it out for the boy.

The teacher practically snatched each paper from the hands of each of his students and took a brief look before crumpling them and throwing them behind his back. He stopped once he got to Double D, who was still fairly dazed. Sockhead was literally outside looking at the sky all night, no wonder he was so zoned out.

"Excuse me," the teacher said a little too roughly. "My paper?"

Eddy had always found the teacher to be annoying. It didn't matter what a student did, it was never good enough, or nice enough for his liking. But he had absolutely no right to be impatient with Sockhead. Him or Ed, maybe, given that he was intentionally antagonistic to the man while Ed was just stuck in his own world the entire time. Double D never did anything to tick off the old man.

"I… I'm sorry." Double D dumped the contents of his satchel on his desk in shock. "I… I… I wrote my paper, I swear. Ed, and Eddy's are with me too. If you would allow, could I call my p-parents. I promise, they'll get it a-and…"

Their teacher's face lit up like a Christmas tree. Eddy noticed the look in his eyes, like he had just caught his long awaited prey. "No, it's late. Detention for you, and…" His eyes shifted to Eddy and Ed, who was stilling playing with his earlobes. "You two, as well.

Great, he could have the whole set of Eds, Eddy thought as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Just like he always wanted.

The day dragged on, everyone, minus the four that had gotten detention, quickly left the campus. Currently, they were outside, sitting on the stairs that led to the entrance of their middle school. Eddy laughed, at least they wouldn't have to come back here again. They'd be in high school come fall.

"So…" Nazz had her hands in her pockets. She didn't dare pull out her phone, not while there was a chance that their teacher could jump out and award more detentions. "I haven't, like, talked to any of you since last quarter. How've things been?"

Had she tried talking to him a year ago, Eddy would've choked up. He had gotten over his crush on her, like, forever ago. "It's whatever," he said with a shrug.

Double D and Ed were different. Already, he could see Ed sweating bullets, his tongue literally tied into a knot. How'd he do that?

Double D could be seen constantly shifting from feelings of utter delight that the prettiest girl in school was talking to him, to terror that the prettiest girl in school was talking to him, to showing that huge wave of exhaustion that threatened to swallow him any second. He muttered something that sounded a bit like "Uh, a ki… uh… huh…"

"That's cool," Nazz redirected her attention to Eddy, who mentally screamed. Of course he had to be the only one capable of talking right now. "What're you doing over the summer?"

Eddy very visibly rolled his eyes. "Not much," he said with an obviously forced grin. "Just scamming, living, thriving."

She let out a chuckle, but Eddy felt like she only did that out of courtesy for his joke. She probably really didn't care. "I'm going on a cruise with my dad in a few days. It's going to be so rad. I hear there's a huge slide on the boat!"

Eddy smiled and nodded, trying his best to make it looked as forced as possible, and the girl's huge smile quickly died down. Good, he thought, it may have been cruel on his part, but Nazz was just as bad as the others. Why would he have to put her on a pedestal and pretend to give a crap about her plans just because she was an amazingly attractive girl?

A gust of wind blew by, highlighting how quiet the four have gotten. A white bird flew just overhead, the sound of its wings flapping being the only sound besides the calm rustling of leaves. The delicate creature came to rest on top of the lone sedan in the parking lot, and stared at the four people blankly. Eddy got a good look at it, and suddenly, his blood began boiling.

It was a seagull. And not just any seagull.

It was that seagull. The seagull that had stolen his quarter last summer. And it still had the quarter held in its beak, as if it was mocking him.

Ed and Eddy both launched themselves off the stairs. Eddy wanted to get his quarter back. Ed thought it was a chicken.

Eddy reached the sedan first. In a effort to grab the bird, he stomped on top of the car's hood in order to make a grab for it. The car's alarm made a blaring sound, though Eddy didn't pay mind to it. His mission right now was to get his money back.

He swiped his hand through the air, but their bird simply hopped back, just out of his reach. In an effort to further taught him, it seemed, the thing dropped the coin on top of the car's roof, and flapped its wings, as if it were beckoning him to attack.

"Why you little," Eddy didn't get a chance to make another movement. A shadow from above was slowly getting bigger and bigger. Something was about to land on top of him.

Eddy had just a second to see what was coming.

"Chiccccckkkkkeeeeennnnnnn!"

Ed landed, headfirst, on the roof of the car, which completely caved in on itself. Eddy ignored the nicks and scratches he had gotten to look up and see that the bird was flying above them, circling the car. It still held onto the coin, and Eddy could've sworn it tried to crap on him as it flew overhead again.

Ed looked back towards the school and froze, though Eddy didn't look to see why. The only thing that concerned him now was that bird. He hated those things. Who the hell invented them?

"What. Did you do. To my car!?"

Damn it all. Their lousy teacher was there.

"Forget your car," Eddy shouted. "That bird still have my quarter!"

Everyone looked at him, blankly. He knew what they were thinking, of course. A car was way more valuable than a quarter, and he knew very well what he had said. He just wanted to rustle his teacher's jimmies a little.

The teacher's pasty pale skin turned a bright red. His tongue must've been tied, Eddy thought, because he couldn't form any words, settling for angrily mumbling incoherent grunts.

Ed tugged on Eddy's sleeve. "Hey Eddy, should steam be coming out of his ears like that? And why does he look like a bomb?"

Bomb was probably the most accurate word Ed could've chosen. The man practically exploded, and Ed and Eddy, along with Double D and Nazz, ran for their lives.

There was a fence lining the border from the football field to the dense forest just beyond. Eddy and the others quickly jumped over it, with the teacher following. Eddy was actually a bit surprised that the pudgy man was able to keep up with them.

"Eddy," Double D panted out, mid-run. "Are you sure we should be doing this? M-maybe he'll understand if we sit and talk to him."

"Then you stay behind," Eddy replied.

The hatted Ed didn't answer, instead opting to continue running.

"Come back here!"

Eddy looked back just in time to see the man trip on something, possibly a fallen branch. None of them wanted to stop now. They needed to get as much distance between them and their teacher as possible.

They continued like that for a while, though Eddy couldn't tell how far they had come. None of the trees around here looked familiar, not that he expected to recognize anything. The surrounding plants all looked the same to him. Still, his fears of them being lost in the woods were confirmed when he heard Edd skid to a stop.

"Ed… Eddy… I don't know where we are. The flora here look remarkably different from the ones near our home."

Eddy took a look around. Yeah, he guessed they were pretty different. He forgot the name of those trees with the needles for leaves, but he was pretty sure they didn't have any of those near the forest by the neighborhood.

"I don't think we've been running all that long," Nazz said. She snuck a peak at her phone. "We were running for, like, less than 5 minutes."

Eddy rolled his eyes when he saw Edd kneel towards the ground. He was overreacting. Again.

"I wasn't prepared for this. I didn't pack gloves or boots or sunscreen."

Oh yeah, Eddy forgot, his friend only liked going out into the wilderness when he had proper supplies, like boots, gloves, and sun block. Apparently, it was possible to get sunburn in the deep parts of the woods too.

"Oh well," Nazz said. "We lost him, right? So we might as well enjoy the trip out here." She took the lead just as Eddy rolled his eyes at her statement.

They continued going through the dense foliage for a while. At one point, Double D asked Nazz where she was leading them, to which she responded, "I dunno, I just feel like going this way."

Eddy didn't care though, and Ed was enjoying himself again, smelling the flowers that he walked by, and even giving a few to Nazz, who tucked a few behind her ear, and stuffed the rest in her pocket.

Thirty minutes had gone by, and Double D was starting to grumble worryingly to himself. "Could we please get back to the road? We're already in trouble, but at this rate, I'm sure our teacher's already called the authorities on us. If we don't return soon, I'm afraid we might get into deeper…" He let out a sigh when he realized that Nazz had already run off toward a huge pile of rocks that towered above the forest's trees.

"Hey guys!" Her head peeked out from behind a rather dark boulder. She beckoned them to come closer, almost as if she had found something.

After he had gotten close, Eddy could see that the pile of rocks hid a tunnel that gradually sloped downward into the earth. Nazz's hair was being blown back by the cool breeze that blew out. Her eyes opened wider than he had ever seen and, with a gleeful laugh, she charged inside, practically flying down.

Ed let out an equally amused laugh and followed. "Last one there is a rotten egg," his voice echoed.

Double D let out a sigh and wordlessly followed after them.

The whole adventuring thing didn't really interest Eddy, but he would much rather follow his friends inside than stay outside where –he swatted the air in front of his face- those damned flies were trying to eat him up.

His footsteps echoed after he got to the base of the steep, rocky slope. Strangely, he could still see everything clearly, despite the fact that there wasn't any sunlight inside.

"Hey, look at this."

He turned to see Nazz staring inquisitively at a large wooden door seemingly glued to the rocky crevice's wall. Nazz tried turning the knob, to no avail. That was weird. It didn't look odd. It was just a plain old wooden door, complete with a small keyhole right under the knob. Why was it in an underground cave, Eddy wondered.

"Hey Ed," she called the taller boy over. "Give me a hand."

Nazz grabbed onto the door hinge while Ed began pulling on the doorknob itself. After one final heave on his part, the doorknob flew off and Ed was sent flying backwards.

Somewhere behind him, Eddy thought he heard gentle footsteps walking around, but didn't pay much mind to it. The door, on the other hand, intrigued him. It was inappropriate, yes, but he couldn't help but wonder what was behind it. Maybe it had a huge stash of jawbreakers. He couldn't hide the huge grin that appeared on his face. Curiously, he put his eye to the empty hole for the doorknob and tried to look.

There was nothing except darkness and an unbelievably cold breeze.

"This is odd," Double D said as he cocked his head to the side. "As far as I know…" he began muttering to himself, "There aren't any underground sewers, pipelines, or subways anywhere near here. And…" he closed his eyes and tapped his feet.

"This world…"

Everyone took a step back and looked towards the person who had spoken. Whoever it was, she -Eddy assumed it was a woman, considering her voice- was wearing a large raggedy brown cloak that covered their entire body, except for a small part of their chin. They didn't recognize the voice though. She definitely wasn't someone they knew.

"Excuse me, my name is Eddward." Double D spoke. "Do you know what this door is do-"

"This world is connected…"

"Pardon?"

"Tied… This world… is tied…"

Eddy didn't know how to respond to that. Neither did any of the others, apparently. They all just stared on, confused.

Small drops of water dripped down from the person's chin.

"Hey," Nazz said. "Are you alright?"

The hooded woman didn't answer, instead, she brought her right sleeve up. Then, she stood perfectly still, and the Eds all looked at each other questioningly.

Suddenly, dark purple beams of energy shot out from the empty socket of her sleeve, and all three Eds were sent flying backwards. Nazz was the only one who had managed to dodge the attack, though she had just barely avoided it, apparently. Her left arm was now hanging limp and useless at her side.

Eddy checked the area on his chest that had gotten hit. His shirt was still intact, and he wasn't bleeding, but he still felt a searing pain. It felt like all the energy from his body had gotten completely erased.

Nazz took on a wide stance, with her only useful arm now protecting her head. She charged forward, trying to sweep the figure off her feet with a kick. The cloaked woman made a graceful jump into the air, literally flipping around before landing, noiselessly on the floor.

The woman brought her left sleeve up. Nazz wasn't going to let herself get hit with that weird beam again. She ran in a zigzag formation towards the lady. Finally, she had gotten close to the woman pulled her arm back to land a punch. The woman thrust her arm forward, catching Nazz's arm before she could launch the attack. The other sleeve's hollow armhole began glowing a bright red, and Nazz let out a gulp.

A billion different possibilities were going through Eddy's mind now. If that woman could fire dark laser beams, who was to say she couldn't use other types of magic. The sleeve was pointed right at Nazz's face. What if she blew Nazz's head right off?

The light in the sleeve died down, and several small, bright red bubbles flew out. They circled and danced around Nazz's body like elegant rings. What the hell was that woman doing?

Eddy's question was answered the moment the bubbles stopped dancing in the air. All at once, they stuck to Nazz's body. At least a dozen were stuck to her legs, with even more around her torso. The bubbles gave off one more flash of light before they exploded, engulfing Nazz in a burst of fire.

Eddy couldn't see her body, but he assumed she had fallen when the pillar of flames toppled over to the floor. Eventually they died down, and to Eddy's surprise, Nazz's body was still intact. Even her clothes were the same, save for a little dirt from their adventure outside. What the hell was that woman doing to them?

She left Nazz's body on the floor, practically stepping over the girl on her way to the door.

"No…"

The figure looked back just in time to see Nazz drunkenly stumble back onto her feet. She seemed to have regained the use of her arm, though it clearly wasn't in shape to fight. It looked like she could barely keep it held up, much less punch with it.

Eddy's heart stopped the minute he saw what was leaking from her eyes. It was blood. It came from her eyes like water from a dripping faucet.

The figure raised her left hand upward. In an instantly purple lightning struck down from the ceiling, destroying the floor, which shattered from the impact, and striking Nazz, who screamed as the energy shot through her body.

Almost as quickly as it appeared, the lightning dissipated into nothingness, and again, Nazz fell face first onto the floor without another word.

"This world… This world is at its end…"

Eddy swore he heard the door from behind him creak open. Almost as soon as it did, streaks of inky blackness began to cover the room. And then it began to blot over Double D, then Ed, then Nazz. And then he felt like he, himself, had disappeared from all of reality entirely.

Now he was cold.