Chapter three

Shayla

"What do you mean I'm grounded?!" I asked my father.

"Shayla, you know what grounded means. Go to your room, we'll talk later," his voice had an edge to it, warning me not to argue with him.

"Yeah, go to your room, Shayla," my brother, Brandon, said.

"Oh, shut up," I said to him, then went to my room.

I really want to say my father's punishment was unfair. I really do. The only problem is that what I'd done had been completely unacceptable.

I laid down on my bed. I grabbed my phone and headphones, then played music. I tried to calm down my anger. I didn't want to make things worse with my dad. My pink hair tickled the back of my neck as I sat up, reminding myself of what had gotten me into this mess in the first place. I looked its singed edges, feeling lonelier than ever. All I wanted was to belong somewhere.

I stood to pace, my headphones popping off my ears. I felt energy building up in the back of my head. My head suddenly throbbed. The energy pulsed, my head feeling like it might explode. Then, as soon as it had started, it was gone. Then darkness creeped in from the edges of my vision. Thunder boomed. My hair stood up, crackling with electricity. Then I fell.

I swam in the darkness, no longer knowing which way was up, down, forward, backwards. Was this the end?

I got my answer pretty quickly.

Wind whipped my hair over my face as I fell. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The wind felt cold against the exposed bits of skin on my legs and my bare arms.

The ground raced towards me. I've never felt so helpless in my life. I knew I was going to die, but I couldn't do anything about it.

A cloud of dust was lifted as I hit the ground, then the world dissolved into darkness before my eyes.

"Please work, please work," I heard a voice mutter. Warm soup was put into my mouth. I swallowed it.

I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was a boy. He was my own age, with chocolate-brown curls of hair, light brown skin, and green eyes.

He smiled at me, a mixture of relief and pleasure.

"Where... Who... What?" I had a million questions, but couldn't put any of them into words. The boy seemed to understand.

"You're in Encanto, in Colombia. You fell, from, like, all the way up in the sky," He must've seen the panic in my face, because he laughed and said, "you're safe now, don't worry."

Even though he told me not to worry, I still did it. I mean, if you fell down a void, traveled all the way to a different country, and then get told you fell out of the sky, would you stop worrying just because someone tells you not to?

Something seemed off. The house, the boy's clothes... they all seemed...

An idea dawned on me, too scary to be voiced, but demanding to be acknowledged. I mustered all my courage.

"What year is it?" I asked, quickly and quietly. The boy smiled, probably thinking it was a joke. Still, he answered.

"1951"