Chapter One - The Key

"It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunderstorm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one."

-Good Omens

Jessi Marcelo woke up and her entire high school was gone.

The building, not the people. It had happened overnight, which was better because if it had happened in the day then who knows what would've happened to all the people in there, but it was still gone. Really gone. Literally, physically, completely gone. Like a big hand had come and grabbed it and just left an empty field behind. Nobody had even noticed it get removed, which was the weird part because somebody would've seen a fire or a bomb or something, even at night. But there was nothing left.

That's what the news report was saying, anyways. Jessi was sitting on the couch eating cereal straight out of the box, tearing up the little squares of shredded wheat and eating them one piece at a time. Her brother Herman was in his room upstairs calling his friends, which she knew because he was shouting. His school had been canceled, too, because the whole town didn't really know what to do in a situation like this. That was lucky for him, Jessi guessed, but she wasn't sure if that would last long. Meanwhile she got to brag that she wouldn't be returning to school indefinitely because her school building got wiped off the face of the planet. So it was still a victory on her end.

Her mother was on the phone, too, standing right there in the kitchen and watching the television set through the doorway. Probably calling the school board, as if they could do anything about it at this point. She looked worried, because she was often worried. She didn't seem to care much that Herman was yelling excitedly upstairs even though he was very nearly loud enough to drown out the television. Though they had been watching the television screen for several hours now, everything still felt like a dream. No one had discovered much of anything yet.

It was 11:45, give or take, and the police investigation hadn't really wrapped up but they'd left the field open to whoever because they hadn't found anything there, of course. So different news stations lingered around, still broadcasting, because this was the only news that'd ever really happened in their little town and maybe they expected the school to drop back out of the sky or something. Jessi didn't know. She wasn't even sure what the police had done, but early that morning around six or so when they'd woken up and turned on the news they'd seen the whole field taped off and covered in police dogs. They'd eliminated most options, though, because there was no trace left behind of anything and no way an entire building could just be displaced like that. Scientists somewhere were probably losing their minds over this whole thing.

Jessi set the box down on the floor (Frank, their lazy Boston Terrier, looked over in interest but didn't attempt to move from his dog bed) and then took the stairs two at a time into her room, getting dressed quickly and tugging a baseball cap over her long, black braid. She pulled on her ratty tennis shoes, the dirty white ones that she'd partially duct-taped back together without her mom knowing (Jessi disliked quite a few things, and breaking in new shoes was one of them) and pulled on a jacket. It was cloudy outside, like a storm was rolling in, which felt pretty fitting for the whole situation. But the sun was peeking out behind the clouds occasionally still so at least she wouldn't have to worry about rain yet.

Her phone only had two texts, both of which were from the same person because she only really had one friend. Jessi didn't mind admitting that. She just wasn't loud like Herman was. Her mother called her 'detached' and she guessed that was one word for it, though it wasn't as though Jessi didn't care about people. Optimism was just a hard emotion to work up to but people seemed to expect it immediately all the time as if she really cared about hearing how the school play was going or what somebody's new boyfriend was like. There were more important things to focus on than that, like graduating on time even though she skipped class at every opportunity.

Her friend's name was Clancy, and she looked like someone who cried when they got a B in their home economics class (which she did). She was slightly awkward but very friendly and whenever she came over they'd work on homework together and Clancy would talk softly about how pretty Jessi's hair was or her latest knitting project or something (Jessi didn't actually know if Clancy knitted or not, but it seemed like something she might do). It was alright, though she didn't have enough experience with close friendships to know if it was good by those standards. The two of them had met in middle school and Clancy had latched onto her, probably because Jessi didn't have any friends prior to that.

The texts weren't really anything of consequence- of course she'd seen the school thing, it was on every news station- so she ignored them, tucking her phone into her back pocket and taking the stairs back down to the living room. Frank had his nose buried in the box of cereal, but Jessi's mother hadn't seemed to notice. The news channel on the screen was now interviewing random townsfolk who had come out to see, but no one had anything of consequence to say. No one had even really processed what had happened, much less formed actual theories about what was going on. They'd probably have more luck having scientists call in or something. Jessi supposed they were trying to get as much information as they could from the scene before some important organization came and forced everyone out so they could examine the dimensional wormhole that had swallowed up the school building. Or some other weird thing like that. Jessi wasn't a scientist.

"Going out to see the school," Jessi said at as low a volume as she could manage, poking her head around the doorway to the kitchen. Her mother arched her eyebrows and pulled the phone an inch or two away from her face for a second.

"Jessi, it isn't very safe-"

"Mom, there's like fifty news channels there. I won't even manage to get close enough for anything to happen if it does." Which was true, probably. And it wasn't as though she really thought anything would happen- it seemed a little late for it at this point. "I'm just going to check it out and then I'll be right back. Maybe you'll see me on T.V. or something." She shrugged.

Her mother pursed her lips, but after a half-second of studying Jessi's gaze she pulled the phone back towards her cheek. "Be quick." She had no real argument to stand on, anyways. Jessi knew that both of them were fully aware that there was no explanation for this, or at least not one that put anyone in real danger.

Still, Jessi thought it was strange how much her mother seemed to worry about her poking her nose into everything. She didn't purposefully get involved in much of anything- nothing ever happened in Salt River to begin with, and she lacked what her mother called 'drive'. Jessi took that to mean 'enthusiasm' or 'the ability to care about much', which just made it all the more hypocritical that her mother worried about her safety when she never did anything stupid like Herman did with his tendency to jump his bike off of hills and break bones jumping off of roofs just to prove he could stick a landing. Jessi's mother seemed to worry about her in general, though. Maybe it was just something mothers did once their kid hit eighteen.

Jessi gave a lazy salute, backing out of the garage door. Her bike's front tire was about half-flat, but it was fine enough to ride. They lived in the middle of a street in a pretty small neighborhood about a ten minute walk from the school and a ten minute car ride from the main part of town. There were empty fields stretching around the edges of the neighborhood, and a variety of small creeks that branched out from the river on the far edge of the town. The place was named after said river- Salt River. Jessi's mother often said it wasn't even really a town, it was more of a community because of how small it was, and while Jessi didn't really know how populations worked or impacted the classification of a city she was inclined to agree with that assessment.

Jessi hadn't lived there her whole life, but she'd lived there for most of it. They'd moved when Herman was born (when Jessi was seven), and he was eleven now, so Jessi didn't really have many memories of wherever they'd lived before. The rest of their family still lived back in the old city, which was in Philadelphia, but they visited occasionally so Jessi didn't mind that much. She didn't have many aunts or uncles or cousins to speak of anyways so there was no real loss. She hadn't thought about where she was moving for college, though. She hadn't thought much about college at all, despite the fact that she was graduating at the end of the year.

In a way, the school disappearing was some sort of blessing. There wasn't any sort of future planning to get caught up in when the whole world seemed to be on hold. She wondered how long it would be until the government and scientists and big news companies came by and overran the whole town. It was strange how detached she felt, even in the face of something this big. Herman felt the same, or at least Jessi thought he did, given that he seemed more excited about missing school than the fact that the school was missing. Maybe it just didn't seem real. Everything was just floating because how could normal life continue when something didn't make any sense? How did people in The Twilight Zone usually respond to these things?

The path to the school was quick, running alongside nothing but fields for the most part. Normally Jessi would've been able to spot the school from a few minutes away, but today there was nothing but another empty space. The news vans were the most noticeable thing in the area. There were a couple more of them now, hanging around waiting for something to drop out of the sky or maybe just waiting to see if the people would disappear next.

Disembarking from her bike, Jessi leaned it up against a tree a ways back from the field, taking care to make sure no one saw her leave it. Not that there'd been a problem with bike thieves in the past, but news like this could bring anybody into town. Including notorious bike thieves.

It was hard to get through the barricade of reporters, or at least enough to see anything. Jessi found herself weaving through various vans and pushing aside people milling around and spectating the field. They all crowded around the edges mostly, as if afraid of stepping into the space where the school had once been. One or two teenagers had moved over to the center of the field, though. They probably thought they were showing off, or maybe they just wanted to be sure they were on camera. No one was really watching them and even the cameras weren't focused on them. It felt as though there was a strange mix of danger and safety. The field was too dangerous for the reporters to move to directly but not so dangerous that a couple of kids couldn't go and run around in it. It was really just a normal field, all things considered. The danger was from the unknown.

Jessi tried to pick her way closer, but was stopped suddenly as a camera was shoved into her face.

"Excuse me, young lady," said the reporter standing next to the camera, and Jessi turned over her shoulder to glance down at her. Jessi was the tallest person in her family, and significantly taller than average otherwise, so it was a bit awkward given how short the reporter was. "Do you attend school here?"

"I did, yeah," said Jessi.

"Did?" The reporter pressed.

"I mean, the school's gone."

"You don't think it will come back?"

"I don't know. I don't even know how it left in the first place."

"I see," said the reporter, who for some reason didn't seem thrilled with Jessi's honesty. "And how is this going to affect the rest of your school year?"

"Guess I just won't graduate on time," Jessi said. It was only November, though, so it was a bit too early to say if she'd be graduating on time to begin with even if the school hadn't disappeared.

"And you don't have any idea what happened here?"

"No," said Jessi. "Do you have any idea what happened here?"

The reporter didn't respond, and instead turned to catch the attention of another townsperson who had pushed their way through the crowd to ogle the empty field. Jessi, glad for the interruption, slipped around the cameraman to jog past the other reporters.

She wasn't sure what she expected when she crossed the threshold of the school. Or the place the school had been, rather. It was almost hard to tell what with everything being gone, even the sidewalks, but her feet knew the path into the building well enough that if she didn't focus on the grass at her feet she could almost imagine the walls surrounding her. The teens further out across the field were doing cartwheels, ignoring both Jessi and the crowd of reporters and spectators. A couple other townsfolk, most of them younger, cautiously ran out several seconds after Jessi did, encouraged by the bravery of the other teenagers.

Jessi didn't really have any plan as she wandered. She tried to map out the place her classrooms would have been, the spot her locker was in, but it got harder to tell the more she walked aimlessly. More and more individuals found their way over to the empty space, too, and slowly the strangeness of it all faded. It was just an empty field full of people, really, even if those people were only together in the same place because the fabric of reality was coming undone.

With the spell broken and her interest in the situation satisfied, Jessi turned to look past the reporters circling around the field and all the other cars and bikes pulling in. She could barely see her own bike hidden in the treeline, and with a vaguely unsatisfied feeling of confusion she meandered her way back towards it.

Or she started in that direction, at least. She only got a few steps in before something at her feet caught her eye. It was something bronze that glinted dully in the sunlight that was breaking through the oncoming clouds. Nudging it with the toe of her shoe, Jessi bent down to scoop it into her palm. It was a key- an old-fashioned one, nothing that would be used for any sort of modern-day lock. It was scratched up and worn, but surprisingly not very dirty.

Scanning the field around her, Jessi searched the grass for anything else that may have been left behind, but nothing caught her eye immediately. No one else in the field seemed to be seeing anything, either, even though most of them had their eyes fixated on the ground around them. Maybe they were trying to ignore the fact that there used to be walls in the place they were walking.

Jessi stood there for a second or two, looking at the key in her hand. She felt vaguely excited, just for a moment- excited and perhaps a bit smug. Either this had been left behind by the school or the school had been built on top of it, she thought, and she was the one who found it. None of the reporters seemed to have noticed, or else they just didn't care that she had picked something up, because none of them were moving in her direction. She thought for a moment what someone should do in a situation like this. Did people usually turn old keys into antique stores or something? Salt River probably didn't even have one of those.

After a moment of consideration, Jessi tucked the key into the pocket of her jacket and all but sprinted back across the field to her bike.

The roads were busy on her way home, or at least busier than they had been on the way there and far busier than she'd seen them before. By then most of the news teams who could get there in a reasonable amount of time were already there, so it was mostly people from outside of the city coming to see. As if their physical presence would make the situation any different. Maybe they just wanted to take family photos in front of the empty field where a school once stood. At least if it never came back Salt River would have something to bring tourists in. They'd probably put a museum or something there, if they were smart.

By the time she got back to the house her mother had switched from one news station to another, a national channel that was interviewing people who might know what was going on. Important scientists and things like that. Apparently more were heading directly to the scene, but Jessi didn't really know what they expected to find. The guy on the television sounded like he was making a lot of baseless theories from nothing- things that only sounded legitimate because he used long and complicated words.

"Did you see me on the news?" Jessi asked as she walked through the front door. Her mother was on her phone still, though she was sprawled across the couch now rather than standing in the kitchen. She was texting someone rather than calling.

"No," her mother responded, hardly glancing up.

Jessi shrugged. "They didn't ask me much, anyways." And she couldn't blame them. What was there to ask? Nobody knew anything.

"Wait, what?" Herman poked his head out of the kitchen- or, more accurately, out of the fridge where he'd been scavenging for food. "You got on the news?"

"There's a million reporters down there," Jessi said. "Everybody's on the news."

Herman stared at her for a second as if trying to judge how serious she was, and then put a bag of ham back in the fridge. "Mom, can I go down to the school?"

"If Jessi will go with you," said their mother. Her worry for Jessi paled in comparison to her worry for Herman, which was fair. He was only eleven and he was a magnet for trouble.

"What? I just got back," Jessi protested.

"See if Clancy will go with you," her mother suggested. "You two can talk while Herman bothers the reporters."

"I'm not gonna bother them," Herman said, but he was grinning. "I'm just gonna make sure I get their attention."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll manage."

Jessi groaned under her breath, but conceded. She didn't mind going back that much, anyways, and she and her brother got along for the most part. It was just the principle of the thing- he easily could've gone with her earlier. But maybe Herman would find something like the key or maybe some scientist had shown up with real results.

"Let me text her," Jessi said, bounding her way back up the stairs.

Clancy agreed, of course, though it took some convincing on Jessi's part because Clancy wasn't sure how safe it was. She'd been watching the news religiously since that morning, same as everyone else, and it'd only increased her anxiety about the situation. Jessi pointed out that with all those people there nothing could really happen, and at this point it was one in the afternoon, several hours after the school had initially disappeared. If something wasn't happening now then it wasn't going to happen at all. Clancy decided to just meet them there, as she could drive (Jessi kept failing her driving test) and it was easier than biking. She lived twenty minutes or so away from Jessi and Herman, so Jessi couldn't blame her for that.

Before she went back downstairs, Jessi dug through the drawers in her closet for a while before pulling out a bronze necklace. The charm that hung on the end was a simple 'J', something she'd gotten for a birthday when she was younger. Unhooking the clasp, she slipped the key onto the chain with the charm. It was large enough that the charm rested perfectly in the loop of the key, and the colors matched well. Satisfied, she hooked it around her neck.

The ride back to the school was as uneventful as Jessi's first trip there, though they had to avoid traffic this time around. The two of them raced most of the way there on their bikes and made it within a reasonable amount of time. Clancy's car was parked far back from the field, out of the way of all the other cars pulling into the area. A circle was starting to have formed around the perimeter of the school, though the field was filling in with people at this point.

"I'm gonna go get on the news," Herman said as soon as their bikes were leaning up against Clancy's car, and he took off running towards the cameras.

Clancy smiled, watching him go. Her curly blonde hair was pulled back by a headband. "Guess he's got a goal in mind, huh?"

"That was the whole reason he wanted to come down here," Jessi said. "It's not like he's even got anything useful to say if they interview him."

"He's excited, I guess," Clancy shrugged. "You have to admit, Salt River isn't exactly the most exciting place to live. Might as well get his five seconds of fame while he's got the chance."

"Sure, fame," said Jessi. "If you want to call it that."

Clancy laughed, not at all put off by Jessi's unenthused attitude. Jessi was quiet for a moment as the two of them started dodging various others trying to get closer to the school, meandering closer aimlessly. She ran her fingers over the key hanging from her necklace, looking at Clancy out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to ask her about it, just so someone knew, even though Jessi didn't think it was anything that really mattered that much. But the air around them was filled with the noise of other people's conversations and she was certain her voice would be drowned out.

They stayed like that for a while, weaving in and out of various townsfolk and visitors on the edge of the circle. It was a strange feeling, knowing how many strangers were here just to stare at something that had become their new reality within several hours. Clancy occasionally asked her questions, sometimes about theories and other times just about what she'd been doing recently even though they'd just seen each other at school last Friday. Jessi was half-distracted, thinking of the key and trying to keep an eye on Herman. Or, rather, an ear on Herman, because he was chattering excitedly to any camera he could find, loud enough to be heard over the other conversations going on around them. At some point Herman had moved into the center of the field, where a couple news teams had ventured. He was pointing out various rooms, or whenever the rooms would've been. Jessi didn't even think he really knew what he was talking about, but he had the confidence to convince everyone that he did.

Jessi turned away from looking in Herman's direction and instead faced Clancy, who had just asked a question that Jessi hadn't quite heard entirely. She was about to speak, but then… something shifted.

It was hard to pinpoint what it was at first. It seemed like a great deal happened in a very short moment, as though time had slowed to a crawl for that brief second. There was a strange noise, like a tearing or a buzzing or a hum (Jessi couldn't even place which one it was specifically, but it was overwhelming and yet muted as though merely a background noise to the reality of the situation). The air around them grew still, and then there was a great rush of motion in the wind and sky around them.

Clancy's face held a look of shock, and then of horror, and she cried out. She was the first to do so, but then the others in the area joined her. Jessi, alarmed, turned back over her shoulder in time to look to the center of the field that was now entirely empty. Herman was gone. All of them were gone, the whole group that had been within the school building's walls, or lack of walls.

She barely had time to process this fact before several other reporters, closer to the area where the school had once been, suddenly weren't there anymore.

Jessi couldn't describe how it happened. They were standing there and then they weren't. There was just a space where they had been. For a moment one or two had yelled in surprise, though Jessi wasn't sure if it was in response to the previous disappearances of because they felt something, and their stance had shifted nearly imperceptibly as though bracing for a fall and then they were gone.

Something in Jessi screamed to run, but her feet wouldn't move in time and she reached out with one hand to grasp for Clancy, who had already backed away, frightened and confused. Jessi instead brought her hand up to her necklace, where she clasped the key in a fist.

The townsfolk standing three feet in front of her disappeared.

Jessi wondered how much of this was broadcasting and if her mother had seen Herman disappear. She wanted to take her phone out to call her but there wasn't any time, her brain was moving much faster than the reality of time around them and in the next instant the sky clouded with a strange darkness and a great noise rushed into Jessi's ears all at once. She felt the ground shift away below her and her stomach dropped and then it all just seemed to be... gone.

AN: Alright, I've got a whole ton to say here, so bear with me because this will hopefully answer some questions you guys likely have and also give you some information you're probably going to want to hear. Cool? Cool.

So first of all, thanks for reading! I've had this idea in mind for a while but couldn't commit myself to spending the time to write it because I have a million other Actual Writing Projects to tackle. But it's all in good fun, I guess, and if anybody enjoys reading it then it's worth writing. So here we are.

Secondly, I apologize for the format of this chapter- it was necessary in order to properly establish, firstly, the regular world, and secondly, Jessi (as well as a couple other important characters who she'll be pretty focused on for a good chunk of the story). I promise, we're kicking off the next chapter by getting things actually moving, and hopefully it'll be out within a week. That's my goal, here: a chapter every week. No promises, of course, because of those previously mentioned Actual Writing Projects, but I'm sure gonna try.

So some of you likely saw in the description that this is a SYOC story. And it is- it's open indefinitely, meaning there's no cap on it because these OCs have a whole lot of roles to fill. Based on the quality of the description you send in or just how interested I am in the character in general, most will fall into tertiary or background roles, but some might get genuinely fleshed-out secondary character roles.

As you can guess from this chapter, the basic premise of this narrative is that things (and people) from the regular world are getting pulled into another world. So any character description you submit ought to explain how they fit into the regular world and how you envision them fitting into Disney once they're pulled through.

There's going to be a basic form in the next chapter, as well as some of the questions I'm looking for. Of course, feel free to PM me if you have very specific ideas in mind or just want to know more about the world. I can't spoil everything right away, but I can help out some. And if I have questions about characters you send in, I'll ask you, too. A basic rule of thumb is that the more detailed they are in terms of personality and motivations, the easier it will be for me to find a place for them in this story. I don't want to restrict anyone in regards to their ideas.

The possibilities will become more clear in future chapters, of course, and as I said there's no timeline or guidelines. So go wild.

All that aside, please feel free to leave feedback on how you feel it's going thus far. Much more will be explained as we move forward, but I hope it's a foundation that's at least caught your interest.