The Scroll - Chapter 1
It's been 7 months and 8 days since he last heard from the Underland, as his internal clock never seemed to forget. His family had been planning on moving to Virginia but as recent events unfolded and a job for his dad had appeared, they decided it was worth the risk to stay in new york. While he was enjoying his life back in the Overland, he was missing out on so much. His scars had made a bigger difference than he had thought, he had to skip gym class in school, couldn't wear shorts or t-shirts in summer, or even just relax on the beach. His friends didn't know why he was doing all this, but they still supported him, which he was very grateful for, to know he still had friends. With all of this going on he still had fun, doing the many activities that a normal person would do, you know, just practicing echolocation and sword moves. He actually managed to take up gymnastics, of course, he had to cover his entire body but this seemed to help his flexibility a lot. His family had been trying to get past everything that had happened in the Underland, the rats, the death, the plague, the near death experiences, but no matter how many times they tried to forget about it, it always seemed to come up by accident in a conversation.
"hey mom, is that bacon I smell?" Gregor said drowsily, he had just woken up, no more than 10 minutes ago due to the smell. "ahh, knew you'd wake up son, and why yes it is, you've got a keen sense of smell don't you." Gregor felt a tinge of sadness go through his body, remembering Twitchtip, it was like a shock of electricity going through his veins, his mother noticed this and almost immediately knew what she had said, all she managed to mumble out was a soft "sorry..." Gregor knew she hadn't done it on purpose but he still couldn't help but feel sad. Attempting to change the subject and get out of there, Gregor remembered he had been starting a pile of dirty clothes in the corner of his room, he instinctively said "hey um... I've got some clothes that could use some washing up in my room ill bring them down to the laundry room." His mother agreed and let him go down, on any other occasion she would have forbid it on the chance he might sneak off and run away, but a new laundry machine had been installed and it had covered up the duct, which meant he couldn't even sneak off if he tried.
As Gregor went down the steps into the laundry room he noticed something odd, the laundry machine had been moved, not by much, maybe only a few centimeters, but it had evidently been moved. As the laundry machine weighed a few hundred pounds, since it was one of the new double ones, which was also secured to the floor, he wondered what could possibly have moved it. Then he noticed them, the thousands of tiny little claw marks and footprints, all around the room. They all lead to the laundry machine, Gregor knew something was up, this wasn't natural, then he remembered. Ripred had sent an army of regular-sized rats up to his house one day to convince him to come back, but no, he hadn't heard from them in months, it must just be his imagination. but a few squeaks brought him back to reality, obviously noting he was drifting off and continued walking by, the rats thought something was up, but Gregor knew better, he knew it was on purpose. Against his better judgement, he bent down and looked behind the machine. Something caught his eye, a glint of metal, the duct, it was shifted off the wall, and stuck between its metal hinges, swaying in the current, was a small rolled up scroll...
