Just One Spark
By HonestFFWriter
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know. I know. Why start a new fanfic when I have some that needs to be done? Well let's see: my last one is going to be on hiatus until wintertime 'cause I thought it'd be appropriate. My other one is in desperate need of a rewrite and I'm still working out the kinks to it. And my first one is still on hiatus, where I might go back and have to rewrite it.
Until then, enjoy yourselves with this. Before we begin the story, yes, this story has OCs in it. Yes, it will follow the plot of the original movie. There will be differences and changes down the road though. There will be romance in this story! Just don't expect it to happen anytime soon though.
To better understand my two main OCs, let's start with their bios.
SHORT BIOGRAPHY TIME
Dawn Rivers: She's 17 in the beginning. She has mid-length black hair and blue eyes. She has light skin complexion and is American. She's a bit shy and keeps to herself, but is considerate of others. She has a tattoo on the back of her left hand. She was named 'Dawn' because she was literally born at dawn. She plays piano, and has a secret talent for singing. She has no clue what she wants to do for a career. Her original name was Rosetta, Rose for short, and was named based on the Rosetta Stone. I scrapped that because I don't want others thinking I stole the name from other OCs. I needed a name to go with her somewhat shy personality, and I thought Dawn would be a good fit.
Christopher "Chris" Rivers: He's 20 in the beginning. He has shaggy blonde hair and blue eyes. He has light skin complexion and is American. He's smart, outgoing, and a bit bold and sarcastic. He was named 'Christopher' by his grandfather, after his great-uncle. He loves to read, and studies to be an Egyptologist. He wears glasses but only when reading. He has a secret love for guns. He was originally going to have a bad-boy attitude and was supposed to be a Gothic punk. I could not for the life of me picture him like that especially with other characters, so I changed his personality altogether. His original name was also supposed to be Charles.
So, the first two or three chapters might not be considered the beginning. We'll finally start the story either on chapter three or chapter four. I also want to be as original as I could.
With that said, I hope you enjoy the story. P.S. I haven't written in weeks, so my writing style's a bit crappy. Please forgive me for that.
CHAPTER ONE
Dear Diary,
Is that what they call you back in this time, or do you want me to call you a journal? I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything anymore. A lot has happened, it's become too much. I need to tell someone, and I happened to stumble upon a blank book at a local stall at a market, so I went and bought it.
Where do I begin? I should probably tell a little about myself first. My name is Dawn Rivers. I'm pretty shy for someone my age, and I tend to keep to myself. I didn't have a good experience in school, and my family was the only friends I could rely on. But I'm nice and considerate of others, according to my parents and brothers, and I do try to be helpful when I can.
I think I should start from the beginning. No, not when I was born. When this whole catastrophe started.
Dawn looked over the music sheet sitting across from her again. Her eyes scanned over the notes, and her fingers hovered over the selected keys over the piano. She took a deep breath and started to play the notes. Her hands moved about, trying to keep up with the rhythm while making sure not to screw up.
Oops. Spoke too soon.
Dawn rubs her blue eyes out of annoyance when she realized she played the last few notes wrong. She looked over the notes again, and went back to playing. She messed up again. She looked over the notes to see what she was playing wrong.
"Ms. Rivers, I believe that will be all for today."
Dawn turns her head and laid her eyes on Mr. Johnson, her piano instructor, who was sitting on the other side of the room leaning back against his green chair. Dawn turns in her seat where she would face him fully.
"But Mr. Johnson, I have to get these parts right. I can't be done already."
"I'm sorry Rivers, but your lesson's over. Besides, you're overworking yourself again. That puts a strain on you're playing if only for a bit." Mr. Johnson stood from his seat and looks down at his wristwatch. "Why not practice at home and I'll see you next week?"
Dawn let out a sigh of defeat. She shuts her music book and stood from her seat. She opened her backpack and threw her music book in alongside her other books, homework, and notes, and throws it over her shoulder.
"Yes, Mr. Johnson. Same time at 3:30?"
"Can we reschedule for three o'clock instead? My kid's got a conference at four next week that I need to attend."
"Of course. I don't get out till two-thirty, anyways." Dawn shrugged, tugging a strand of her black hair back behind her ear.
"That's great to hear. I'll see you next week at three then. Take care, and do say hello to your brother for me." Mr. Johnson said with a smile.
Dawn smiled back and nodded her head. "Will do. So long."
With that said, Dawn left through the front door, and as soon as she walked across the yard, she turned her head to look at Mr. Johnson's white two-story house. She always adored that home. It wasn't small, but it wasn't big either. It looked just right in her eyes. She hopes to someday have a home like this.
Dawn took off down the street. Her house was about four blocks down, in just a simple neighborhood somewhere in the suburbs of New York. She prefers this over living in the big city. It's too crowded, at least that's how she felt. She'll never understand why her brother would prefer living the city life.
Dawn has had more than her fair share of troubles in school growing up, and she considers her home to be the only sanctuary she has where she feels truly free. She doesn't really have any real friends, though she considers her older brothers Christopher and Alfred to be her best friends other than her brothers, and the same can be said for her parents.
Dawn is in her junior year now. She just needs to endure one more dreadful year until she can finally graduate and escape that horrid place for good. She still doesn't have anything planned for which college she wanted to attend or what she wanted to major in, but she'll worry about that when she cross that bridge.
Other than having to deal with school, life outside of it was simple, and Dawn prefers to keep it that way. Unlike her brother, she's not much of an outgoing person seeking nothing but excitement in life.
Dawn finally made it home and walked through the front door into the living room. She shuts the door behind her and puts down her backpack.
"I'm back!" She called out. "Anyone home!?"
Dawn heard a distant voice calling back, "I'm in the kitchen, honey!"
Dawn recognized that voiced anywhere. She makes her way to the kitchen, and spotted her mother putting away the dishes from the dishwasher.
"Hey Dawn. How was school today?"
Dawn simply shrugged while looking away. "Same as always."
"Learn anything new from your piano lesson?" Her mother also asked.
"A little bit, yeah. Mr. Johnson wants me to come a half-hour early next week because he has some kind of conference to go to for his child." Dawn told her.
"That's good to know, sweetie." Her mother said, putting away the last dish into the cupboard. As soon as she did, she turned to face her daughter and said, "I got a call from your father earlier. He has to work overtime tonight in the E.R. He probably won't be home until around midnight."
Dawn nodded in understanding. "Are they shorthanded again?"
"Something about a medical convention in the next town over." Her mother explained. She walked over to her daughter, reached into her pocket, and took something out to hand to her. "Here."
Dawn took it, and saw that it was a twenty dollar bill. "But Mom, I don't get my allowance until…"
"It's for dinner tonight, Dawn." Her mother explained. "I can't cook tonight because I got a call from the Retirement Village again."
Dawn didn't need to guess what that means. "What did grandma do this time?" She asked.
Her mom let out an irritating sigh before she explained, "She started hallucinating thinking she's Peter Pan and tries to fly off to Neverland by jumping off the roof…again."
"Did she?" Dawn asked, looking a little worried.
"They grabbed her before she could." Dawn let out a sigh of relief. "Your aunt Milly is going to meet me there tonight to see if it's the medication or one of her delusions." She scoffed a bit. "It sounds like a good way to spend a Friday night, huh?"
Dawn could only nod. "I could only imagine."
"I'm leaving in an hour. You and Chris can order out a pizza. Remember to leave the receipt and change on the counter this time."
"Yes, Mom." She said. "Is Chris home yet?"
"Not yet. He's probably at the library studying again."
"Okay." Dawn started to turn away. "I have homework I need to get done. I'll be in my room if you need me."
Her mother smiled proudly. "Sure thing, sweetie. Would you like a snack or something to drink?"
Dawn couldn't help but to smile at her mother's generosity, but she shook her head. "I think I'm good. Thanks anyways."
Dawn left the kitchen, stopped by the front door to grab her backpack, and went into her bedroom. The first thing she did was turn on her radio, took out her homework, took a seat by her desk, and got started.
Dawn began with her algebra homework, and while she was answering problems, she couldn't help but to have her eyes wander to the back of her left hand. She moved her hand up to take a good look. It looked like a drawing of a simple lioness head with strange brush marks on the bottom, done in black ink. The style looked like the drawings Rafiki would draw in the Lion King, at least to Dawn.
She didn't remember getting the tattoo. She was told by her father that they gave it to her on her fifth birthday, and since she loved that Disney movie, they thought a lioness would be appropriate. Eh, not many people remember stuff when they were five, so what else is new?
Besides, who do you know has a tattoo since they were in preschool?
Chris rubbed his eyes from behind his glasses, to lessen the stress before returning to his studies. He was sitting at one of the open tables at his college library, surrounded by nothing but opened textbooks, taking down notes on his journal. His eyes roamed over to one of the textbooks, where it looked like nothing but gibberish to anyone else who would happen to walk by.
Just then, he spotted someone heading his way out of the corner of his eye. He narrowed his eyes, not even moving his head, to see the librarian coming over with a couple of books in her arms against her chest.
"Mr. Rivers, why don't you head on home? It's the weekend. Take some time off."
Chris smiled and clicked his tongue. "Sorry, Lillian the Librarian." He joked. "I can't. My midterms are coming up and I can't stop studying now."
"What's wrong with taking a break? You don't want to overwork so hard." Mrs. Lillian tries to assure him, and then smiled teasingly. "And besides, I thought you were already finished studying for the midterms. And if I recall, didn't you already finish that paper that was supposed to be due in two weeks for your history class?"
"You know me so much, it hurts."
"Of course I know you. You're always spending your free time here. It's like the library's your second home." Mrs. Lillian rolled her eyes up in thought. "Speaking of which, how is your family doing?"
"They're doing well. Thank you for asking." Chris said, focusing on writing down some notes.
Mrs. Lillian glanced at one of the textbooks, and made out the strange symbols and words written within one of them.
"What's this for?" She asked curiously.
"For one of my classes, we have to research dead languages." Chris explained. "I decided to choose Ancient Egyptian."
"Ancient Egyptian, huh?" Mrs. Lillian repeated, looking a bit amazed. "Most others would choose any other dead language like Latin. Why this?"
"Don't get me wrong, I think Latin's cool and all. I find Ancient Egyptian much more interesting. It's necessary if I want to be an Egyptologist."
Mrs. Lillian smiled rather proudly as she stated the obvious, "You want to visit Egypt."
Chris nodded, turning a few pages in one of the textbooks to look for something. "I've always been fascinated by the mysteries behind Egypt. There are still so many things left unexplained, many more discoveries waiting to be uncovered…"
"And you want to see your name in the paper for finding a tomb of a famous pharaoh." Mrs. Lillian said teasingly.
It was at this that Chris finally turned his full attention to her, and he shook his head. "What? No, of course not! I…"
Mrs. Lillian chuckled under her breath. "Relax, I'm only kidding." She looked down at one of the books in her arms as she asked, "Speaking of Egypt, do you recall the return of the Ten Plagues back in 1926?"
"Just the six that came back, yeah." Chris said while returning to his studies. "I remembered having to do an assignment like that for my history class back in high school. No one knows why it happened again. You think there would've been warnings of it coming back, let alone why only six of the ten plagues happened again."
Chris turned back to Mrs. Lillian as he asked, "Why bring that up?"
Mrs. Lillian simply shrugged. "Just asking."
Chris was not convinced, and returned to his studies. "Of course."
Unaware of the two, out of the corner of one of the aisles, there stood a girl with long brunette hair with matching eyes wearing a gray shirt with black shorts with a few books in her arms, listening in on the conversation. She had her head turned and sticking out of the aisle and watched the two happily converse. You could make out a twinge of jealousy in her eyes.
"Chris, seriously, I know working hard is a good thing, but there's a fine line between how long you have to work and when to take a break." Mrs. Lillian places a comforting hand on Chris's shoulder, prompting him to look up to her. "Go on home. Go see a movie this weekend, a walk in the park, hang out with your little sister. Do something relaxing."
Chris looked to be in thought. He then rolled his eyes and took off his glasses. "Yes, Mother." He said in a teasing tone.
Mrs. Lillian laughed a little and turned her back to him. Before she left, she turns her head to him and said, "Do take care this weekend."
"Same to you."
Mrs. Lillian walks off as Chris got up from his seat. He put away his glasses in his jacket and closed up the textbooks and journal around him. He reached down to the floor to pick up his backpack and laid it on the desk. He began to shove his textbooks and journal, and as soon as he was done, he swung it over his shoulders.
He ran a hand through his short blonde hair and turned to leave, but jumped at an unexpected presence. Chris grabbed hold of the desk behind him for support as he felt his heart almost jump out of his chest.
"Wow, Christopher. You look like you've seen a ghost."
Chris looked unamused when he realized who it was. "Eliza. Don't you dare scare me like that."
Eliza places a finger on her cheek and looked up. "Oh? You think I'm scary?" She said teasingly with a hint of venom in her voice.
Chris scoffed and leaned back up, straightening his jacket. "I'm not in the mood for one of your games, Eliza. I'm heading out."
Chris walked passed her as Eliza watches him go. "Oh, and to your coward of a sister, no doubt?"
Chris stopped in his tracks and turned to Eliza before he said, "My sister is not what you say she is. You're in college, Eliza. Grow up, why don't you?"
Eliza places a hand over her chest as if she was offended, and said, "Why Christopher, your words hurt me. I'm only telling the truth, and for the record, I am just as matured as the rest of the people here."
Chris scoffed again while he rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Is there something you need, Eliza? 'Cause if you're wasting my time, congrats. You did. Now buzz off."
He turned around again, but stopped in his tracks when he felt Eliza's hand grab his arm.
"Look Christopher, I'm sorry. Old habits are hard to break, you know."
Chris turns to her and muttered, "Gee, I wonder why."
Eliza looked up into his blue eyes and looked at him pleadingly. "Listen Christopher, the reason why I want to talk to you is because I was hoping you could help me with something for our language class."
Chris raised an eyebrow. "You? Asking me for help? Last time you asked me for help, we ended up blowing up a stink bomb in the gym!"
"Christopher, that was back in junior high. It's just a thing in the past now." Eliza opened up a folder she had alongside the books in her arms and took out a piece of paper and handed it to Chris. "I just need help translating this for the class."
Chris took the paper and took a good look, and saw that it was a photo taken from a page of written hieroglyphics that was printed off. He looked back at Eliza and asked, "You're studying Ancient Egyptian too? Let me guess, you want to pay me to translate this for you, huh?"
"No, nothing like that." Eliza said making a gesture with her hand. "I have another copy of the page, so you can keep that one. I'm planning to translate it over the weekend, and I was hoping if you have the time, you can do the same, and on Monday, we can exchange our translations and see if ours match."
"How would this help you?"
Eliza rolled her hazel eyes as she explained, "Come on, Christopher. Who else do I know is studying Ancient Egyptian? We can go over the textbook I took this from to see if we got it right or not."
"Um…Question. Why?"
"It's just so I know if we need to study this a bit more for class. How about we make it interesting: if yours is accurate, I'll give you a hundred bucks. If mine is, you owe me a hundred bucks. If ours match, we give each other fifty bucks. If our translations are incorrect, then none."
"Wow. I never thought you would stoop so low as to gamble."
"You'd be surprised how much my father gets paid for being a lawyer. Money's not a big deal for me. Is it on or not?"
Chris looked down at the page and took a look at the hieroglyphs. They don't look at all troubling to translate, at least to him, and after thinking it over a bit, he shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay, it's on."
Eliza offered her hand and asked, "Shake on it?"
Chris looked down at her hand with a hint of disgust in his eyes. He had to ask, "When's the last time you washed your hands?"
"Who cares about hygiene nowadays?"
"All the poor people in the world who would die just to have clean water." Chris stated. He folded up the paper and placed it inside his jacket. He turned his back to Eliza and without looking back said, "See you Monday."
Eliza stood as she watches Chris leave the library. As soon as he left, she smiled a mischievous smile.
"Oh, you'll win, alright." She looked down at one of her hands to inspect her manicured fingernails. "Too bad I won't be able to pay you."
Dawn dropped her pencil on her desk and leaned back against her chair, lifting her hands up and starts to stretch her arms. She had finally finished her homework for the weekend, and she was glad to get it all done. She reaches a hand behind her neck and begins to massage it, and took a look at the clock. It was about five-thirty.
Her mother had left about a half hour ago for the Retirement Village. Dawn turns off her radio and got up from her chair, using the desk to help her up. She was contemplating on whether to order pizza now or wait a bit until Chris got home.
"Knock knock! Anyone home!?"
Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
Dawn left her bedroom and entered the living room, and smiled at her older brother who dropped his backpack on the floor.
"Chris, hey!"
Chris looked up and watched his baby sister walk up. "Hey, sis." He said with a smile, taking his sister into his arms and giving her a hug. They both pull apart as he asked, "Where's Mom and Dad? I don't smell dinner cooking."
"Dad has to work late tonight and Mom was called to the Retirement Village to visit grandma."
"She flipped out again, didn't she?"
Dawn nodded. "Unfortunately."
"Let me guess: Peter Pan again?"
"Peter Pan."
"That's what I thought."
"Mom said we can order pizza tonight."
"What a great way to start the weekend by ordering pizza." Chris said with a chuckle. Dawn giggled a bit in response.
And so Chris got on the phone right away and started to order out pizza, while Dawn was sitting comfortably on the couch watching a movie on TV. As soon as he got off the phone, Chris took a seat right next to his sister on the couch.
"So how was school today?" Chris asked, without even looking at Dawn. "Were there any trouble again?"
Dawn pushes a lock of her hair behind her ear as her eyes wandered to the floor, looking a bit uncomfortable. "…Only words today. Nothing bad."
"Words are considered bad when you use them wrong." Chris reminded her. He leans back against the couch and made himself more comfortable. "How's your arm? Has it been sore again?"
As soon as he asked that, Dawn places a hand over her right arm and begins to rub it slowly over the fabric of her sleeve. "No, not really. I'm okay."
They both turned their attentions back to the television where they were showing a talk show on the network. Chris wraps his arm around Dawn by her shoulders and couldn't help but to ask in a worried tone, "When do you think you'll tell Mom and Dad?"
Dawn looked at her brother for a moment before turning away. She said, "I'll tell them someday. Just not anytime soon."
"Dawn, this can't keep going on." Chris told her. "You're not always this sheltered. Why do you let those…those animals treat you this way? You can't keep letting them do this."
"What? Do you think it will all magically go away if I told someone about it? I tried that once and look where that got me." Dawn clutches onto her right arm as if to illustrate her point.
"Would Alfred want you to keep doing this?" Chris had to ask.
Alfred was their older brother, a year older than Christopher. He's travelling abroad in France at the moment and wouldn't be back for a couple months. Dawn remembered a time where it was just the three of them when they were younger. They would always play together and share each other's' secrets. How she wished time would have slowed down, or at the very least stopped, so that their family would always be together.
Father Time, however, has other plans in mind. Chris is in his second year of college, and recently received a scholarship to enter a state-of-the-art university down in Florida. He's scheduled to leave after this year, and it wouldn't be long until Dawn would have to graduate and leave for college as well.
Then it would just be her, all alone.
"…No. He wouldn't." Dawn finally found her voice.
"If you keep this up, I'll have to tell Mom and Dad."
Dawn snapped her head to Chris as she exclaimed, "But you promised! You promised you wouldn't tell them!"
"And that you'll tell them yourself! That's the agreement!" Chris snapped back. "This can't keep going on, Dawn!"
"It'll go away once I graduate!" Dawn retorted.
"Do you think starting a new life would make everything better? Do you think that's good for your health!?" Chris shouted.
Dawn leaned down and places a hand over her face, feeling the tears forming in her eyes. Chris finally composed himself, took a few deep breaths, and made himself comfortable on the couch.
"I'm sorry, sis. I'll give you a week to tell Mom and Dad. If you don't, I'll tell them myself."
Dawn couldn't help but to agree, and so she nodded her head. In truth, she didn't want to tell her parents about her troubles. She didn't want them to worry, what with her father's work always getting his attention and her mother having to help out the others in their family. She felt as if she would just be a burden, and that they have other important things to do than to worry about something going on with one of their children.
So after getting their pizza and eating their dinner, they decided to go ahead and watch a movie together. After making some popcorn and getting some drinks, both Rivers siblings took a seat on the couch and they both put on an old-fashion horror flick, back when black and white films were a thing.
The only lights illuminating the living room were the TV and a lamp sitting on a stand beside the couch. They just got to the middle of the movie when Chris tried to make himself comfortable and shifted in his seat on the couch. When he did, he heard something crumble in his jacket. He reached inside and took out the folded piece of paper he recognized from earlier.
It was the one Eliza gave to him. Chris turned to his little sister who ate from the popcorn bowl and then to the TV. He shrugged. If he did want to have some free time this weekend, might as well translate this now and get it over with. Using the light from the lamp, he puts on his reading glasses and looked over at the hieroglyphics, and couldn't help but to raise an eyebrow.
His studying was all worth it. In his eyes, the hieroglyphs were nothing but English to him. It was strange though. Chris looked over at the hieroglyphs and the symbols, read them in his mind and began to translate it. Something about…gates and time?
Dawn's eyes wandered to her brother next to her and asked, "What do you have there, Chris?"
"Something for class." Chris only said, his focus still dead on the paper.
Dawn leaned over to take a peek, and asked, "Is it Ancient Egyptian?"
"Yep. I mean, I'm reading this clear as day and I can understand it perfectly well, but…"
"But…?"
"I'm having trouble trying to decipher this into English."
"Maybe reading it out loud can help?" Dawn suggested.
"Maybe, but it says something…about some gates, I think? I'm not sure."
"What can you make out?" Dawn asked.
Chris places a finger over a certain sentence and traced it over. "I think…it says on the top…
Once it has been done, it can never be undone."
"What can't be undone?" Dawn had to ask.
"Not sure." Chris shook his head, looking a bit troubled. He has a gut feeling that something wasn't right, but he had to translate it into English just to make sure, but for some reason, his mind couldn't decipher the words he needed to translate. He took a deep breath. Maybe reading it out loud can help him translate it better.
"Here goes something…"
With that, he began to read out loud the sentences in Ancient Egyptian. There were four sentences in total, and as he continues to read, Dawn couldn't help but notice the TV flicker a couple of times. She assumed it was because the movie was old, and so she paid no mind to it.
Chris finished reading the fourth and last sentence, and after he was done, he raised a brow. Dawn waited for him to say something, but he was only silent.
"...Well?" She finally spoke up after a few more moments of silence.
Chris shook his head and shoved the paper and glasses back into his jacket. "Nothing. Still can't make out what it translates to. I'll have to look in one of my textbooks and..."
Before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted when the TV and the lamp went out, engulfing the Rivers siblings in darkness.
"C-Chris…!"
"Relax. Must be a shortage. Let's wait a few minutes, see if it'll go back on."
It was so dark, they couldn't even see their hands right in front of them. They were expecting some sort of light from the streetlamps shining through their windows, but there was none. They can't make out anything from out their windows, if they could see them.
"There's no light from outside." Dawn pointed out. "You don't think it's a power outage, do you?"
"Hopefully not."
They both paused when they heard some movement. It sounded like it was coming from outside. It wasn't the sound of cars or anything. It sounded more like…like loud footsteps trekking on the hard cement sidewalk, and some words being exchanged in the air.
"Did something happen outside?" Chris asked.
"If we find our way through the dark…" Dawn said.
They both got up from the couch. Dawn took her brother's arm while Chris uses his free hand to hold it in front of him, to guide him through the darkness in case of bumping into something. He reached where he remembered where the front door was, but all he felt was a cement wall.
"What?" Chris freed his other arm from Dawn's grasp and lets his hands roam over the wall in search of the door, but couldn't find it. "Maybe…Dawn, check out the windows."
"Okay." Dawn's meek voice spoke. She placed her hands on the wall and used them to help guide her to where one of the windows were supposed to be, but she can't make out any hard glass. "Chris, I can't feel the windows. They're not where they're supposed to be."
"Same with the door. It's supposed to be right here. I'm sure of it." Chris said.
"Let's find the flashlight, or at least some candles and matches." Dawn suggested.
"Good idea. Where do we keep them again?"
"The candles and matches should be in a cupboard in the kitchen. I think the flashlight's in a drawer in either the kitchen or the bathroom. I can't remember."
"Okay. Hang tight. I'll be right back."
Using his hand to help guide him, Chris walked his way through the darkness, this time knowing exactly where the kitchen was. The only problem would be to find the candles or the flashlight. Even matches sound like a good idea right now.
Chris walked towards where the kitchen was supposed to be, and out of the corner of his eye, he made out a small dim light. "Now we're talking." He followed the light and reached his hand out, thinking that maybe it was the flashlight. Maybe their mom or dad left the flashlight on and forgot about it? Hopefully there'll be extra batteries in the drawer just in case.
Dawn stayed where she was with her hands on the wall, and waited for her brother to come back. When she had least expects it…
"WHAT THE FLIPPING FLIP FLIPPER!?"
Dawn almost jumped out of her skin when she heard Chris scream out. She still remained where she was and called out, "Chris, are you alright!?"
"DAWN! GET OVER HERE, DAWN! DAWN!"
"Where are you!?"
"JUST GET OVER HERE!"
"Okay! No need to shout!"
And so Dawn made her way through the darkness, holding her hands up in front of her so she wouldn't bump into something. She followed where she assumed Chris's voice came from, and made out a light in the darkness.
"Chris!?" Dawn called out.
"OVER HERE!"
Dawn made her way over to the light, and saw it shining on Chris, who looked like he was holding something in his hand.
"Chris, what is it? What's wrong?" Dawn asked.
Dawn made out the horrified look on Chris's face who looked back at her. She realized that something must've gone wrong.
"Dawn, I want you to hit me." Chris ordered.
Dawn blinked. "Why?"
"Just hit me!"
"Uh…okay?"
Dawn then punched him lightly in the arm, though that wasn't enough.
"Harder."
"But Chris…"
"Harder!"
"Okay, okay!"
And with that, Dawn punched his arm again, this time harder, causing Chris to flinch and grasp his arm.
"Oh gosh, I'm sorry!"
"N-No! I needed to make sure…" He hissed. "I wasn't dreaming."
Dawn raised a brow. "Why?"
Chris held something in the darkness with his painless arm and said, "Get a load of this."
He pulled something back, and the light had shined even brighter, causing Dawn's eyes to wince at the sudden brightness. She closed her eyes and places her arm over her eyes as the light blinded her. It took her a good minute or two to get used to the bright light, though it made her eyes water a bit. She lowers her arm and took a good look at what Chris had found.
Dawn's eyes widened, her eyebrows rose, and she could feel her heart skip a beat or two.
Both Chris and Dawn stepped closer into the light, and found themselves emerging from a dark alleyway with the entry covered by a large cloth.
They looked around and found the air around them thick and hot, they made out buildings and houses made of cement and mud and bricks, there were stalls all around, the ground was covered with sand, and they were surrounded by people walking by, all of them wearing robes and turbans and dresses, a few of them even had camels with them.
They made out the people talking as if in another language, and they could only make out little English up in the air.
"Chris...what just happened?" Dawn had to ask, clutching onto her brother's arm again.
"I'm not…I don't…" Even Chris was at a loss for words.
Were they even dreaming? Was all of this real? It was as if they were thrown into a different world entirely.
We realized we weren't dreaming. It all felt too real to be a dream. It was a good thing we found a few people who spoke English, since we didn't know what language they speak. Chris pointed out that they might be speaking Arabic since he was learning it himself.
We found ourselves in Cairo, Egypt. My brother was amazed. He always wanted to visit Cairo. He didn't expect to visit it this soon. At first, we thought that somehow we were transported to the other side of the world. Our first plan was to locate the nearest airport, or at the very least find a phone booth.
But then we found something else shocking.
We were in the year 1923.
…Shoot.
End of Chapter One