Chapter 1
Gregor was running down a tunnel, slipping and sliding on the wet stone surface. He heard the rats coming and knew he needed to get to Boots. He took off and heard Boots' screams get, if possible, even louder. "Boots!" Gregor screamed. He came out of the tunnel, searching for Boots.
And then he saw her.
A large rat was holding his eight-year-old sister off a cliff, dangling her by the back of her shirt, grinning menacingly.
Gregor's heart skipped a beat. If he ran up to the rat, it surely would drop his sister, but it would probably drop her anyway, and with no flyer to catch her...
The rat chuckled, watching him choose whether or not to attack, when something slammed into Gregor's back.
Gregor flew across the ledge, landing at the rat's feet. The rat laughed and suddenly, Boots wasn't in its claws anymore. She was sailing right past Gregor, screaming.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" Gregor screamed, but it was too late. Boots was falling, and now, suddenly, he was falling, falling, falling...
Gregor woke with a start. He'd been having dreams much like that lately, ever since his rager side had been taking over him… Don't think about that now, he thought. You're never going to see them again.
It had been six years since he'd been in the Underland, a place hundreds of miles beneath Earth's surface. It was a place full of people with pale skin and purple eyes among many giant cockroaches, rats, ants, moles, snakes, mice, spiders, and plants that would try to kill you. Gregor had accidentally fallen down there when he was eleven with Boots, who had been two at the time. The Underlanders had thought him destined to be the warrior mentioned in several prophecies written by the founder of the Underland, Bartholomew Sandwich. He'd been on many quests with the Underlanders, and even bonded with a bat, Ares. But Ares was dead now, killed by Pearlpelt, who was called "The Bane." The only thing Gregor could remember him by was a little, plastic bat Boots had given him when she saw he was sad about Ares.
The Underland used to be a place full of war, but as far as Gregor knew, his old friend down there, Luxa, had put a stop to it by bonding with Ripred, a rat. Their only problem now that Gregor was aware of was the cutters, ants who eat through everything, threatening to attack Regalia's borders.
After Gregor and his family had come back up to the Overland, they had decided not to move to their uncle's farm in Virginia like they'd been planning, but to move to a nicer, fancier apartment building that they could then afford, since his dad was going back to his old job as a science teacher. Mrs. Cormacy, their neighbor, had moved to the same building. When Gregor had asked her why she was "following" them, she had said, "I just felt that I needed a change. And as old as I am, I need it." Mrs. Cormacy didn't strike Gregor as old exactly, but he figured that was only because of her personality. She always wanted to help, no matter the cause; as long as it did some good in the world, she helped the best she could.
Gregor swung his legs over the side of his bed and yawned. He'd been having nightmares all night. He heard his sisters fighting over something, so he went out of his room- if you could call it that- to find them arguing over a book.
"It's mine!" Lizzie screamed.
"No, mine!" Boots screamed back.
"Hey!" shouted Gregor. The two stopped screaming and turned towards him. "What are you fighting about now?" Gregor asked, annoyed. Both of his sisters were getting older, which meant a teenager and a third grader, which doesn't work out very well.
"Boots took my textbook, and I need to do my homework!" Lizzie said. Gregor realized she had been screaming out of desperation, not anger. That explained quite a bit, as Lizzie almost never really got angry.
"I wanna do something!" Boots shouted back. Now that Boots was eight, she always wanted attention, therefore causing arguments and fights about stupid things.
"Boots, it's Lizzie's book, and you don't need it," said Gregor. He finally convinced Boots to go with him to the playground to leave Lizzie in peace.
"Thanks, Gregor," Lizzie whispered to him as he pulled on his coat.
"No problem," he whispered back.
When Boots and Gregor came home half an hour later, Lizzie suddenly looked very cheerful. Too cheerful.
"Hi! Did you have fun?" She asked them.
"Um, yeah, I guess- well, I mean, Boots had fun, she was playing, but why are you-" Gregor pulled up short. He'd just noticed his mom and dad were in the room. Sometimes Lizzie acted like this when their parents were there so Gregor could tell if she needed to tell him something without them listening.
"Yeah, it was really fun! I took some pictures on the cell phone, but it's about dead, let's go charge it." Gregor said.
"Yeah, ok!" Lizzie said, and they went to his room.
When the door had shut, Gregor said, "Okay, what's going on?"
"Well, you have mail," she said nervously. Gregor's heart skipped a beat. "Mail" was what his family used to call it when the head of the Underland council, Vikus, would send messages up to the laundry grate downstairs.
But they hadn't gotten any messages from them in years- what could they possibly be needing now?
"Oh...well, what'd they say?" Gregor asked, trying not to sound too worried.
"All it said was something about... well, here, I'll show you..." She said, and she started digging around her shorts pocket.
"Yeah, here." She handed him a crumpled up piece of parchment with writing on it. Gregor took it, his hand shaking, and read it. It was written in sloppy writing, as if someone had written in in a hurry, with ink blots everywhere.
Neither the Overland nor the Underland is safe anymore. You are in danger. Gather your family. Meet Nike at the Central Park opening as soon as you can.
-Vikus
Gregor read it through several times before saying anything.
"Well, we better get over there. I don't know how Mom will let us go, though," he said glumly.
"Don't worry- you get Boots, I'll go convince Mom." Lizzie said, getting to her feet.
"You sure?"
"Trust me." She said, squeezing his hand.
They left the room to find their dad watching TV and their mom on the couch, reading a book. Gregor saw a puzzle scattered all over the floor, Boots crawling around it, looking for a piece. Gregor walked over to her and whispered, "Do u remember going down the laundry grate, and the rock in Central Park to the Underland?" Her face lit up as soon as he said, "laundry grate" and she said, "Yeah, and Luxa and Ares and Ripred and the rats and-" Gregor shushed her, not wanting their parents to hear. Luckily, his dad's show was blaring so loud that he could barely even hear himself talking to her. Once his dad had gotten rid of the returning sickness from the rats' land miles below them, he had gone back to being his old self.
Gregor hesitated to ask another question, not wanting her to get his parents worked up over it without him explaining what was going on. They were already sad about his grandma dying that summer. Their grandma was a very touchy subject lately. She had been very sick before, but that summer, it had gotten way worse. She died a month after finding out she had a brain tumor.
Anyway, Gregor was getting really worried about the note. How much time had passed before it'd been sent? He thought about Luxa, about Vikus, about Ripred; about all of the people down there he loved- were they okay? He wasn't sure of anything anymore. None of it seemed real.