Normalness Aside…

CRASH!

I fell out of my bed. I was dizzy and light-headed from the fall. What was that loud noise that went off?

I could hear a little girl's scream. Tracy can get scared easily, I suppose.

The door knocked. I had no idea what was going on, and I had a serious migrane.

Knock. Knock. KNOCK!

That didn't help my head.

Being the couragous young boy that I am, I rushed downstairs to see who was there. I opened the door, and to my surprise…

"PIG BU-I MEAN NESS, THERE WAS, I SAW, I HEARD, THERE WAS A METEOR THAT JUST CRASHED NEAR MY HOUSE! I'M SCARED!"

"You fat lard. Leave me alone."

"BUT..BUT.." the chubby boy stuttered, "WHAT IF IT'S…AN ALIEN!"

With an annoyed sigh, I decided to follow this dullard to the alleged meteor. Right before I left, my mother said, "Sweetie! Change out of your pajamas!"

Moms. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.


So I took her advice, and put on my favourite ball cap, striped shirt and shorts. For protection, and if Pokey tried to hold on to me, I grabbed my favourite baseball bat.

After a long walk up a hill, and sneaking passed various police and guards, there it was, lodged into the ground.

"See? I told you!" Pokey shouted obnoxiously.

My head was spinning. I stared into the glowing meteor. It meant something..it meant…I heard a voice. Just then, out of nowhere.


"I feel so…happy.."

I held my head and grunted. I was in pain. What was…going..on…

"Ness! NESS!" a girl shouted, "Wake up!"

I could feel someone rubbing me, then upon opening my eyes, I saw Paula. She started flailing her arms around in panic. "Ness, we missed it! We missed the bus to Fourside! The Runaway Five left without us. Good going."

She then turned around and stormed off, mumbling under her breath. I ignored her ramblings and rage, and ran my hand through my black hair. Was that a dream? It had to be. I sat there, staring with a blank expression, pondering what it all meant.

I decided to take a look around the room I was in, and discovered I was in the Twoson hotel. I got out of bed very slowly and groggily, not in a rush for anything in particular, considering I missed the bus. Jeff had poked his head into my room, and said, "Don't worry about Paula, she's just cranky. I'm sure we can catch a Twoson bus. One of them has to go to Fourside, I'm certain."

"Alright...thanks, Jeff. Now do you mind? I need to change," I said.

"Okay, sorry." He closed the door behind him and left.

I put on my favourite ball cap, stri- whoa, déjà vu. So anyways, after I had changed, I left the hotel room and went down a long flight of stairs. I saw my three partners, standing in a circle and chatting amongst themselves. Paula turned around and looked at me, then once again started shouting.

"WELL, WELL, WELL. Look who finally decided to wake up and get ready! Jeez, we're supposed to save the world and you can't even set an alarm clock. Why are you looking at me like that? Don't play stupid, Ness. Ness? Are you listening to me? Good. Like I was saying, if you're not responsible, then all of Eagleland would be destroyed and it'd be alllllllll your fault. I mean, seriously, THINK before you ACT! That isn't too difficult to understand. Ness…Ness? You're not listening! That's it, you're going to get it now.." She held her hands together, and they had started to glow, with her muttering, "PSI-"

Poo pulled her back before she could do any damage. "Paula, keep quiet! There are people sleeping in this building! Such a disgrace." She looked at him and growled. What WAS her problem today? Girls are weird.

After that whole fiasco, we decided it was time to leave and wait for the next bus. We all trekked together over to the nearest bus stop, and there was nothing to do but sit and wait. While waiting, Jeff was checking the equipment in his backpack, Paula was brushing her hair, Poo was eating a cup of Life Noodles, and I was contently playing my Nintendo DS. Those people at Nintendo can think of anything. As we were busy, we lost track of time, and the sky had started to turn a hue-ish orange in colour, with the sunset being seen way over in the horizon. "Holy cow!" I shouted, "What time is it!" Jeff looked at his watch, then said, "8:00pm. Wait a second…how could we have been waiting for this long?"

It only felt like we were waiting 20 minutes at the most, really. Something was being screwy in this world of ours and I had decided to find out what. "It could've been.." I started. "A…"

Before I finished my sentence, I looked ahead, and there it was. On the other side of the street there was a large, grey machine. And I mean it was BIG, about half of the size of a house. We all looked at each other and disbelief, then simutanously shouted out, "YOU CHECK IT OUT!" I sighed. Even before they said anything else, I knew I'd end up going over there. I gripped my bat tightly in my hand, then started to walk across the street.

I stood in front of the object, and lifted my head up. After then examining around it, I noticed a small red button on it. Without thinking, which I usually do, I was just about to press the button when suddenly it dissapeared right into thin air. Jeff, Paula and Poo rushed over to me.

"What WAS that?" Jeff said, "I've never seen anything like it. Andonuts would've said something to me about a new invention."

"Maybe it's an illusion," said Poo. "I have learned about these from my meditations, they are quite common."

"No, you loons, it was….an…errrr…a ghost. Yeah, a big, spooky ghost!" Paula exagerated.

I still stood there looking at the spot where the whatever-it-was used to be. Just then, a thought struck into me. "A time machine." They all looked at me, and I continued, "It's obviously one. I don't know how it got there, but it was there for a reason." Jeff held his hand to his chin and thought of a hypothesis, then he finally had an idea. "What if we're not meant to go to Fourside? Maybe the Runaway Five left us on purpose. Maybe the time machine had come when we were waiting on purpose. There must be something in that city that we're not supposed to know about."

"You are very wise," Poo told him. Jeff put his hand behind his head and blushed. I stood there with my hands in my pockets, trying to put pieces of the puzzle together. Could that dream I had be connected to any of this? The time that it occurred, before he was to leave Twoson, could have played a part. I couldn't get a grasp on all of these happenings, it was too much.

Paula was rocking back and forth on her feet, then said, "What if Giygas has anything to do with this?"

As soon as she said that, rather the name, I had a headache. It started small, then felt like a great force was trying to get out of my head. I started to groan inaudibly, and Jeff looked at me and asked, "Ness? Are you okay?" Moments later, it had all left. My head had felt as if nothing happened just now. I glanced at my friends. "I'm alright," I lied. It was for sure now that something was wrong.