Anne steps out of the portal horizon, definitely finding herself in a different place. It looks like it's about to rain.
In front of her, and to her sides are red brick walls. She turns around, walks around the portal, and finds an asphalt road. However, she can't tell exactly where she is yet.
Anne takes out her phone, watching in anticipation to see if she has network reception wherever she is.
"Come on, come on, come on...", a small ping lights up, relief overcomes her, "Yes! I'm... home."
She turns on her location search and opens maps on her phone.
'United States... Good. Okay...', her location narrows down further, 'California, great...', it narrows down even further, 'Aand I'm in LA. Perfect.'
"Sasha!", she shouts out, knowing full well that she won't answer, as angry as she ran away. "Sasha!"
She sighs.
'I could go look for her... But from the way she stormed off, I don't think that would do any good. She needs to vent her anger somehow before I try to find her...', Anne turns around and lets her gaze wander into the alley, at the end of which the portal emits an electric hum. She spots an old, wrinkled, dirty looking couch standing on the side, among some other trash, lovelessly discarded in here. 'Hm, if I'm going to wait for Marcy, I might as well do it sitting down.'
She takes a few steps to the couch and presses her hand on one of the seat cushions, which make a sap-like sound when she touches it.
'Ew.', she thinks to herself. She also checks the other seat cushion, which produces the same disgusting sound. She repeats it on one of the couch armrests, which is fortunately dry, sits down on it, and she starts waiting for her girlfriend.
First just one minute.
Then two.
Then five.
Anne watches the cars that occasionally pass her on the street. 'Should I call mom and dad and tell them I'm back?'
Another five minutes pass and Anne starts drumming mindlessly on her knees. Eventually she begins to get actively bored and brings her backpack forward. She packs away the golden gauntlets of her armor, and rummages through the other things that are in there.
That is until she hears the electric hum of the portal start flickering. In an instant her head snaps to it.
"Oh no-", it takes a few moments before she realizes the portal is beginning to dissipate. In her rush, she drops her backpack to the ground and sprints off toward the portal. 'No MarMar, you're not staying behind!'
She leaps forward off the ground, but just before she can reach the event horizon, it has already completely dissolved, and Anne falls face first to the ground.
She props herself off the ground with her arms and wipes the dirt from the floor off her face before slowly turning around.
"It's gone.", she mutters, tears forming at her eyes, "Marcy... no...", More and more tears begin to flow from her eyes. Her chest gets heavier and it's getting harder to breathe, but she still tries to pull herself together and not be the girl who cries in public.
However, when it becomes clear to her that Marcy did not follow her through the portal, it's obvious how much her heart is breaking right now.
'Nothing bad will happen as long as we're together.', Anne recalls. And that's the point where all her dams break, and she completely collapses onto the floor.
Sobs escape her body, along with heart wrenching cries. It no longer matters what others may or may not think of her if they saw her like this now: Overwhelmed by feelings of loneliness, loss, but also betrayal, which she can no longer hold in.
Oum and Bee Boonchuy are both alone at home with just the radio running.
They had just eaten the leftovers for lunch from previous days, and together they are cleaning up. Bee, Anne's father, is washing dishes, while Oum, Anne's mother, is putting dried dishes away.
The last few months have been the hardest of their lives.
It has been more than three months since Anne and her friends disappeared.
More than fourteen weeks since Anne's birthday.
Exactly ninety-nine days since they last saw their daughter. But who's counting the days?
Anne's birthday is still as strong in their memory as if it had happened yesterday.
- 3 Months ago -
The day itself began quite nicely. They both had taken the whole day off to plan her birthday party.
Oum got up extra early to make Anne 'knao niew bing', a Thai snack consisting of rice and coconut milk. When Bee drove Anne to school later, he went straight on to buy party-supplies afterwards, as well as some missing ingredients for her birthday cake. Originally, they had planned to go to the temple for her birthday and spend her birthday in traditional Thai fashion, thinking that Anne was old enough by now to be more deeply aware of her Thai identity and heritage. Anne herself objected in advance, but her parents were able to persuade her to go to the temple on the weekend, in exchange for a proper party on her birthday itself, as she had received one every year so far, together with her friends, cakes, and presents.
Not long after Bee and Anne left, the work really started for Oum: Putting up decorations which were already on hand, including a 'Happy Birthday, Anne'-banner, and starting to bake the cake. And while Anne did note that she didn't want to have a Thai-themed birthday party, Oum had decided to incorporate a little Thai culture into her work. And that came in the form of green cake decorations, the lucky color of Anne's birth weekday.
They had agreed that Anne and her friends would be home between five and half past five in the evening, and the party would start at six. At a quarter to six, Oum had texted Anne where she was staying, along with a reminder of when the party was supposed to start. Anne had actually read the message, though she hadn't replied directly.
At six, her parents were confused.
At six-thirty they became angry about Anne's unreliability.
At seven, they began to worry.
By eight, they had already left twenty voicemails and sent Anne dozens of texts, before eventually calling 911. In the meantime, they had also called Marcy's parents, who were equally unaware of their daughter's whereabouts, and they tried to call Sasha's parents, who they knew were currently both on vacation.
While Oum was anxiously on the phone with emergency services, Bee had gotten in the car and driven all night across LA to all the places Anne usually went with her friends. And even when it started raining hard around midnight, he didn't stop looking.
He returned home the next morning, just as the sun was rising over the still overcast Los Angeles, after the unsuccessful search. When he pulled up in front of the garage, the dejection readable on his face, Oum was already waiting for him at the front door. She stood there all night, simply hoping that her daughter would come home.
She looked at him through the still-closed car door. He returned her gaze and merely shook his head slightly. Then, with tears in her eyes, she went back into the house. Both of them were devastated, and they had to face a grim reality for any caring parent: Their own daughter has disappeared without a trace and was officially reported missing.
The very next day, at very early hour, the Boonchuys had received a visit from three police officers who wanted to have a bit of a chat with them. Two of them asked to look around Anne's room, while the third remained downstairs.
"Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy, I need to ask you some questions about your daughter's disappearance. First of all, when exactly did you last see her?"
"Yesterday morning. I had driven her to school."
"And you, Mrs. Boonchuy?", he turned to Oum.
"Before they both left. I stayed home to prepare some things for the birthday party."
"Birthday party?", he inquired.
"Anne turned thirteen yesterday."
"I see. And after you, Mr. Boonchuy, dropped your daughter off at school, you didn't have any further contact with her?", he continued, but Oum spoke up first.
"We had sent her several messages in the evening to remind her when the party would start. Anne had- has a tendency to not be totally reliable... And she had read those first messages, too."
"When was that?"
"Quarter to six."
The other two officers then came down the stairs, one of whom went outside, while the other two remained inside with the Boonchuys.
"Your daughter, did she have any friends?"
"Oh, yes. Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu. The three of them are pretty much inseparable.", Oum replied with a nostalgic smile that disappeared as quickly as it arrived.
"Do you think it's possible that your daughter is just with her friends? That she didn't just sneak off to celebrate her birthday alone?", he asked, to which he gave the Boonchuys a strange look.
"What are you getting at?", Oum asked, her mood drastically changed.
"We get calls every day from crying, worried parents, especially from this area, where in the end it just turns out that their kids haven't disappeared, but ran away. After all, you yourself had said your daughter was unreliable."
At that moment, something snapped in Oum. She stood up, slamming her fists on the table. The officers instinctively reached for the holsters on their belts.
"HOW DARE YOU?", Oum asked angrily, "HOW DARE YOU DISMISS OUR DAUGHTER'S DISAPPEARANCE AS IF IT'S NOTHING?"
"Mrs. Boonchuy, if you don't calm down right now, you are going to be arrested for assaulting a police officer!", one of the officers threatened, his hand still on his holster. At that, Bee stepped in.
"C-come on. It- it's all right. Let's not make it worse.", Bee gently held her by her shoulders, which caused her to seemingly calm down slightly. "Why don't you lie down for a bit, huh? I'll take care of the rest."
Without further words, but with a livid glare, Oum left the room, locking herself in her bedroom.
"I can assure you, officers, that Anne did not run away. Especially not on her birthday.", he continued, forcing himself to remain calm. The officers didn't really seem to believe him but accepted this answer for now. "And her friends disappeared, too, after all. Or are at least unreachable."
"Well, when only one child is missing, usually family problems are involved.", one of the officers continued, not even a hint of remorse or apology in his voice for the previous accusations, "But when several children disappear at once, especially if they know each other, it changes the situation. It is not at all uncommon for children to be taken and abducted on the open road. Even in broad daylight. On the contrary, 2,300 children disappear every day throughout the country, eighty-one percent of them older than twelve. In the vast majority of cases, the kidnappers are family or acquaintances who plan to sell them, murder them, use them for forced labor, forced marriages, or sexual slavery."
Bee found it harder and harder to keep his composure as fear grew within him of what exactly could be done to his daughter at that very moment. And yet they didn't stop talking.
"Even if it is not impossible that we should find your daughter and her friends, I still think it is realistic that she would not be the same after that."
At that, Bee spoke up.
"I- I would like to ask you to leave. Un-Unless you have any further questions?", he asked in an enormously shaky voice.
As they left but before Bee could close the front door behind them, one of the officers spoke up.
"Mr. Boonchuy?", Bee just listened, not having the strength anymore to speak, "It might be in your best interest to accept that your daughter might not return, and you'd be better off planning her funeral already."
Once he finally closed the door, all the walls inside him broke, and he slid to the floor, crying heavily. A little later, Oum came back down and sat with him in silence, where they would remain for the next few hours.
In the weeks that followed, not much had changed. Thai Go, the Boonchuys' store and only source of income, had been closed for quite some time now, and the two were not seen at the temple for the same amount of time. At some point, however, someone knocked on the Boonchuys' door: It was their family and friends from the Thai-temple, who had somehow learned that their daughter had disappeared and was missing. Many came with containers full of home-cooked food or cleaning supplies, and they had taken it upon themselves to support the grieving parents. A few volunteers had even agreed to take Thai Go for them until they had the strength to stand on their own two feet again.
This was the time when their lives would start to adjust to this new reality. The reality that their daughter might never come back, and they would have to move on with their own lives.
Over the following weeks, updates from the police became increasingly infrequent, with fewer and fewer new leads and information each time, until at some point they stopped contacting them altogether. Oum and Bee assumed that the search had been officially stopped.
It took a while, but after a few weeks, they were actually ready to move on with their lives instead of just mourning. They found themselves working in the store again, and both of them found their own ways to express their grief over their lost daughter. Bee lost himself in distractions through new, as well as old, hobbies. For example, he rediscovered his love of video games, which had become somewhat stale after Anne's birth. Oum, on the other hand, had spent days locked in the hobby room of the house all day, unwilling to show or tell anyone what she was doing in it. And luckily, no one pried about it.
Just after Oum and Bee finished washing up, Oum puts on two cups of hot cocoa. Admittedly, it's still a long way from Christmas, but they have decided to enjoy a movie marathon to pass the miserable, gray weather, with hot cocoa as a feel-good drink.
She has already brought Bee's cup into the living room, printed with the Starzgate logo. She picks up her own favorite blue mug, ready to join her husband in the living room, when suddenly the house phone rings, which is hanging on the wall between the kitchen and the open living room. Oum picks it up.
"Boonchuy residence.", she answers.
"... Mom?"
Within moments, her cup falls from her hand, shattering on the floor as her body begins shaking. Bee turns to face her and catches sight of her shocked expression and watery eyes. Their eyes meet before she continues.
"A-Anne?", she asks back in a shaky voice, Bee's eyes widening. "Is- is that really you?"
"Y-yes, it's really me.", she sniffles. A mix of a relieved laugh and more tears escapes Oum. Bee gets up with the intention of holding his wife.
"Where- where are you?", Oum inquires. Anne doesn't answer right away, though, which makes Oum have a sense of unease.
"I don't know.", Anne answers silently, her voice sounding broken. "Somewhere in LA... I think."
"Are you safe? Are you hurt?"
"... ... I'm- I'm safe.", Anne sounds like she's crying.
"Okay, stay where you are.", Oum speaks with newfound determination, "We're coming to get you!"
"Please.", Anne says before the call ends.
"Get your laptop! I'll start the car!", Oum, who is just wearing pyjamas, orders Bee. She puts on her slippers, grabs the car keys, and practically runs to the car, starting the engine. Bee follows a mere thirty seconds later clutching his laptop under his arm.
He doesn't even have time to grab his seatbelt before Oum backs out of the driveway and then speeds off. He boots up his laptop on his lap.
"I hope she has her GPS turned on.", Bee says anxiously as he loads the tracking program he and Oum had set up when Anne got her first phone of her own years ago. When Anne disappeared, they had used it actively for the first time in an attempt to find her, but they were unable to locate her.
"And if I drive down every single street in the city, we'll find her!", Oum clutches the steering wheel.
The program shows a map of the western United States with a moving dot in the northern part of Los Angeles on it.
"Okay, we are here.", Bee points to the dot. Oum obviously doesn't look, since she must concentrate on driving and not running into any pedestrians. "Come on, come on, come on...", he mutters, until after a few seconds a second dot appears. "YES! She's in North Hills!", he cheers, "Drive to the cemetery, then onto the 4-0-5."
"San Fernando Cemetery?", Oum asks as she speeds around a street corner.
"Is there another one?", he replies.
"Don't worry my baby. We're coming! We'll bring you home!"
"Okay, stay where you are. We're coming to get you!"
"Please."
Anne ends the call and activates her phone's GPS before turning it off and putting it in her bag.
She had spent the last twenty minutes sobbing and crying her eyes out, which are now all red and swollen. It took her a while to find the strength necessary to get up from the exact spot where the portal disappeared. She is currently sitting on the floor, leaning back against the arm of the couch, her backpack pressed tightly against her chest.
The gray overcast weather over Los Angeles only grows gloomier, and though it's just about noon it seems like dark early evening.
She watches the handful of cars as they pass on the road in front of her. She watches the low-hanging clouds pass over her head. She feels the first drops of rain land on her skin. She notices a spider weaving a spider web high up on the huge wall next to her.
She tries to turn her thoughts away from her current situation as best as possible. From the fact that she lost her girlfriend. From the fact that Andrias has betrayed her after all. About the fact that Sasha has abandoned her. About the fact that she probably won't be able to see the Plantars again. About the fact that she can't go back to Amphibia. About... how alone she is, and how helpless and tiny she feels right now.
Tears burst through her eyes again and she buries her face deep on her backpack, sobbing heavily as it begins to rain harder.
Only when she hears a car come to a halt in front of her ten minutes later, tires screeching, does she straighten her head again. They are here, and Anne tries to get up. Her knees buckle, however, and she falls to her knees. Her parents sprint out on the car, also with tears in their eyes, and drop to their knees beside her, hugging her as tightly as if their lives depended on it.
"Mom... Dad...", Anne cries, completely melting in the embrace, "I... I- I...", she tries to find words, anything she should or could say to them, but nothing but sobs come out of her mouth.
"It's okay my little gem.", Oum holds her close, "You are home."
"Let it out.", Bee also tries to comfort her, "It's over."
At that, however, Anne just starts crying louder. She only grips her parents tighter while her father's words wander around in her head as an eternal echo.
'It's over - It's over - It's over - It's over-...'
More than twenty minutes the three of them do not move, until Anne's sobs and tears gradually subside.
With teary eyes herself, Oum leans back a bit, silently holding Anne's face with her hands, wiping one cheek dry with a thumb.
"Shall we go home?", Oum asks her quietly, to which Anne nods, barely perceptible.
Oum and Bee stand up, each holding out a hand to Anne. Together, supporting their daughter, they all walk slowly back to the car.
Oum opens the rear sliding door, helping Anne getting in.
"You stay with her. I'll drive.", Bee states softly. Oum nods to him and gets in the back with Anne. He gets into the driver's seat, but before he drives off, he turns around to the back, looking at Anne leaning her head against Oum's shoulder, holding her hand, thoroughly exhausted.
Rain gently pelts the roof of the car and it is not long before a light snore escapes from Anne. Coming to a stop at a traffic light, Bee turns around again, finding his wife smiling at him, still holding Anne's hand.
"She's totally out.", Oum whispers. Bee turns back to the front and drives the rest of the way back home, overjoyed that her daughter is back, but at the same time confused on what he will discuss with Oum later.
Fifteen minutes later, they find themselves parked outside the Boonchuys' garage. The rain has eased a bit, but it's still gray overcast.
Bee gets out first while Oum unbuckles Anne's seatbelt. She is fast asleep. The relieved parents can't help but smile at the sight.
Oum is about to wake Anne up, but Bee stops her.
"Let her sleep.", he whispers, "I'll carry her to her room. You take her things."
Oum nods affirmatively and Bee easily lifts her out of the van and carries her into the house, up to her room, which they had not dared to enter for ages. He gently lays his daughter down on her bed before observing her peacefully sleeping pose. Oum stands behind him, leaning against the doorframe.
"What do you think happened to her?", she asks him in a whisper. "And why is she wearing... armor?"
Bee merely shakes his head in response to those questions. Silently, he looks at Anne's golden chestplate with its crystalline embellishments, as well as her golden shinbone armor that blends into equally golden boots.
Bee leans forward, giving Anne a kiss on her forehead and removes some of the leaves and sticks that have gotten caught in her hair.
"Sleep tight, sweetheart. I'm so glad you're back!", he whispers before leaving the room with Oum, closing the door behind him. The two of them quietly descend the steps again.
They sit down at the kitchen table where Oum has put Anne's backpack earlier.
For a few moments, they look at the backpack intently.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?", Oum asks.
"I want to know what happened as much as you do, but I don't think we should be digging through her stuff just like that.", Bee argues, "I'm sure that when she wakes up that she'll tell us everything eventually."
Oum thinks about his words for a moment before completely dismissing all of it.
"I can't wait that long.", she states, opening Anne's backpack and dumping everything out on the kitchen table.
Out fall a few clothes, two golden gauntlets that match Anne's armor, as well as two phones.
Although Bee was at first against going through her things, he very quickly found an interest in one of the gauntlets. He lets his fingers glide over the smooth surface, the transparent blue crystal-like ornaments, and the black velvet fabric the gloves are made of.
"This is real.", he marvels.
"Huh?", Oum asks.
"This is real gold. The gold, the velvet... This thing alone must have cost a fortune...", he looks at his wife in confusion and amazement before turning his gaze up towards the stairs, "Anne, where have you been?"
"And this.", Oum holds up a blue and white hoodie, as well as jeans shorts, "These are not Anne's clothes."
"How do you know?"
"You know how Anne dresses. And there's no way she'd wear a hoodie with cat ears sewn on it."
"Okay, good point. But let's say you're right, and these aren't Anne's clothes. Whose are they then? Sasha's? Marcy's?", he asks, "And if they are theirs, why didn't they show up with Anne? Why was she all alone?"
"I think they belong to Marcy rather than Sasha. She always struck me as a cat ears type, even if those aren't really her colors.", Oum comments, "Do you think... that maybe... they might not all have made it?"
A horrifying thought manifests at that in their minds and a meaningful silence fills the room.
"I think you were right.", Oum admits, "Maybe we shouldn't have done this.", she starts stuffing the clothes as well as the gauntlets back into the backpack when suddenly, unconsciously, she drops the two phones down to the floor.
Bee bends down to pick them up again. He recognizes Anne's phone with the orange cat-shaped case. The second one is purple with the face of a bat on the back. Both phones in hand, he accidentally activates Anne's and her lock screen lights up. He smiles slightly as he looks at the picture: It's a selfie of Anne and Marcy, with Marcy giving her a kiss on her cheek. She looks happy.
"Take a look at this.", he turns Anne's phone so Oum can see it too. She smiles at first, too, before a confused frown appears on her face. "Is something wrong?"
He turns it back around to look at it again himself.
"Look at the background. Notice anything?", she inquires, "Where are they?"
"I see a lot of green... A tree trunk in the background...", he describes.
"There are windows in there."
"A tree-trunk-house?", he asks, confused. Oum shrugs her shoulders. Bee puts Anne's phone away and picks up the other one and activates it. A mixed expression of surprise but also slight disgust graces his face as he looks at the lock screen. He turns the phone to his wife, who also looks quite surprised.
The image shows a girl with a dark brown pixie cut, wearing the hoodie that Oum had just been holding. Next to the girl is a kind of oversized, humanoid light-blue frog with pink hair and one visible yellow eye. It's wearing a black cloth for clothing and they're both smiling at the camera.
"That's definitely not one of my daughter's friends that I know.", Oum comments before pointing to the frog, "And that... That's definitely a doll, right?"
"I think... I don't really want to know.", he replies before turning off the phones and carefully putting them back with the other things into Anne's backpack. Oum shuts the zipper again before the two of them lean into the backs of the kitchen chairs, looking at each other wordlessly.
"So, what do we do now? Should we just wait until she wakes up again?", Bee asks after a long moment of silence. "Should we inform the police? Or anyone else?"
"No.", Oum answers firmly, "At least... not yet. We should see how she's doing later first and talk to her. We'll do the rest when she's ready.", Bee nods in agreement, Oum's head turns towards the living room, "I should probably clean up the cocoa stain on the floor and all the broken pieces though."
"Wait, I'll help you."
"Mmm- hnm- nnnmmm-", Anne tosses and turns on her bed, caught in a nightmare, "Mar- Mmm-"
She's breathing hard, sweat beading on her forehead.
"MARCY!", she suddenly shoots up from her pillows, panting heavily. Her hand instinctively shoots to her mattress right next to her, trying to reach for her girlfriend.
But she's not there.
Anne's gaze lingers on her hand. Only after a few moments does she begin to realize that she is not in their shared bed in the Plantars' basement, or in Marcy's room in the Palace in Newtopia, but in her own bed... In her own room... On Earth.
With her mouth open, she lets her gaze slowly glide through her room.
She looks at the posters hanging on the slope of the roof, right next to her bed. One is the poster of her favorite tennis player Naomi Ōsaka from Japan, and underneath is a smaller motivational poster, printed with the text 'Swing It!'
Her gaze continues to slide down the slope of the roof over her school's banner, which hangs above the poster of her favorite K-pop band, and next to a painting of a lonely house suspended on a small island in outer space. On the corner opposite her bed is a beanbag chair, with her desk right next to it, decorated with a string of multi-colored lights. Her gaze continues to her completely cluttered shelf, to her closet, and further on to her dresser.
Anne sits down on the edge of her bed and glances at the clock on the nightstand right next to her bed.
'It's just after five...', her gaze wanders out of her bedroom window. It is raining.
She stands up, but almost loses her balance when she realizes that she is still wearing her armor.
'I'm home... Right?', she pinches her hip, 'Nope, this is real.'
All of a sudden, she notices a noise. Something is scratching against her door, followed by a soft meowing.
Anne's eyes widen and she opens the door, slamming it against her bed.
"Domino!", Anne squeals at the black cat sitting patiently in front of her, lifting her up and cuddling and hugging her until Domino herself regrets her decision to come here. "Oh Domino, I missed you soooo much."
Anne squeezes her with all her love before ultimately holding her way directly in front of her face.
"And you're just the cat I need to solve a very important mystery.", Domino tilts her head slightly and has her tongue hanging out the side. She holds her even closer. "How exactly did I get into my room? I just remember getting in the car..."
Anne stares deeply into Domino's eyes for several meaningful seconds, full of expectation. However, she merely licks the tip of Anne's nose in response, genuinely bringing a smile to Anne's face.
"Oh, I love you so much.", she gives her a few more kisses before setting her down on her bed and turning to her closet.
She opens the doors, her eyes beginning to sparkle. She admires her comparatively huge selection of clothes, which she has missed since she arrived in Amphibia. Dozens of jackets, hoodies, t-shirts, leggings, shorts, and shoes, just to name a few things. While she's not in the mood to rummage through her clothes like crazy, thanks to Domino she feels good enough to get out of her armor, and especially the school uniform she's been wearing almost continuously for more than three months now. She grabs the first available T-shirt and casual jean shorts. The t-shirt is white with pink sleeves, with the symbol of an orange flame printed in the center of her chest. She throws her school uniform into the empty laundry basket next to her door while she carefully puts her golden armor on her bed. Thoughtfully, her gaze remains for a while on her breastplate, on which she can clearly see her own reflection. With a determined look, she looks into her own eyes.
'I'm coming back for you Marcy. Somehow...', she thinks to herself, brimming with determination.
Anne turns to her door and takes Domino up into her arms, who has so far just been rubbing herself along her legs. Now held by Anne, she begins to purr relaxingly.
Anne leaves her room and descends the stairs as quietly as possible, listening out to see if she can locate her parents. Arriving at the bottom step, she hears the television running in the living room.
She gets nervous all of a sudden and unconsciously starts to scratch Domino. 'I can do it. I can- do that.'
With tight steps she enters the living room, immediately catching her parents' attention.
Anne releases Domino back down to the floor while Bee and Oum get up from the sofa and take her in one big, tight hug. This time, however, without tears, but, at least in Anne's case, actually with a smile on her face.
"How did you sleep, Anne?", Bee asks after the embrace broke up again.
"You have no idea how much I missed sleeping on a real bed- on a real mattress.", Anne smiles. Bee and Oum, in turn, look at each other rather apprehensively. Anne notices that, her own mood thus dimming down as well before she continues. "I... I should probably tell you what exactly happened, and where I was."
"Not if you're not ready for it.", Oum reasons, "I don't even want to imagine the horrors you must have gone through-", Anne raises her hand, interrupting her mother.
"Please let me tell you. You deserve to know.", Anne gestures her parents to sit back down, "I missed you guys tremendously, but I can also imagine that it was so much worse for you."
"Okay.", Oum complies. Anne sits down right between her parents, right before she remembers something.
"Wait, where's my backpack?", she asks.
"In the kitchen. Why?"
"I took pictures.", she gets up and heads to the kitchen. She comes back with her backpack in her hand and sits down again. "It might help prove some of the things I've experienced."
"Prove things?", Bee asks confused. "Why? Were you abducted by aliens?", he jokes. Oum also grins in amusement, but Anne's expression is rather serious.
"Something like that.", Anne answers dryly. Her parents open their mouths to say something, but she cuts them both off immediately. "Please let me explain. Okay? And please, keep an open mind."
Bee and Oum look at each other in confusion, but then nod to their daughter, gesturing for her to begin.
"Before I start going into any details, I need to preface some things. First, I didn't go willingly, but I wasn't kidnapped either. That will make more sense later... Second, get rid of the idea that Earth is the only planet where there is intelligent life.", Anne tells them, looking at her parents, searching for any signs of whether or not they believe her. So far, she is optimistic. "Alright so far?"
Bee and Oum nod, and Anne takes a deep breath.
"Okay... The story starts on my birthday, at school. Sasha and I were in biology class and we were supposed to dissect... things. Sasha then had the idea that she and I should skip class-"
"You skipped class?", Oum inquires angrily.
"Yes, and that's by far the most harmless thing I've done in the past few months.", Oum is puzzled by Anne's calm reaction, and that she's not arguing back, "May I continue? This story is long enough already."
Oum nods once again.
"So, Sasha had dragged me all over town: To the mall, to the arcade, and so on. I remember you, Mom, had texted me for the party, but Sasha had been very insistent that I not go home-, and rather spend my birthday with her and Marcy. At the time, I had no idea how much she had manipulated me into doing whatever she wanted-", there was a hint of aggression in that last sentence, something Bee and Oum both picked up on. They don't mention it yet, and Anne continues.
"It was around six when Marcy, Sasha, and I had met up at that nearby playground... You know, the one where Marcy and I first met Sasha when we were little."
"Yeah, I remember.", Bee recalls nostalgically, "That was the beginning of very, very- upf.", Oum elbows him behind Anne's back.
"Don't.", she admonishes him. Anne looks at the two of them, utterly confused.
"You okay?"
"Everything's fine. Please go on.", Oum says in an exaggeratedly friendly voice. Anne doesn't have the slightest clue what exactly that just was, and just continues.
"Okay, now comes the first part, which will seem a bit unbelievable. But don't worry, I have proof of everything.", Anne assures her parents, who are just waiting to hear what she has to say, "Marcy had read in some library book about an antique music box, that she later saw in a thrift store, which she then wanted to give me for my birthday as a present. So, we were at the playground later and we were going to open it. I was the one who did it, and all of a sudden I was no longer in LA, or even on Earth, but in another world called Amphibia."
Anne looks at her parents again, searching for reactions. And there were plenty of them.
"Wait. Wait...", Bee begins, sounding confused, "You mean to tell us you've spent the last few months on another planet?"
"Yes."
"...", speechless, the two parents look at Anne. They need quite some time to process this. "Okay. You said to keep an open mind, so I'll save my questions until later. Please carry on."
"The first three to four weeks were the worst. I ended up in a dense forest, alone. Sasha, Marcy, and I got split up in the transport...
... and I had to sleep in a cave alongside the grossest bugs you could imagine. ...
... turned out there was intelligent life there ...
... a frog boy named Sprig. Wait, I have a picture here of us when we went to ...
... and he took me in. Here, this is Hop Pop, this is Polly ...
... I even tried making pizza, but the tomatoes there were no fun. Like, imagine ...
... Domino 2, but it turned out that she was not a cat-a-pillar, but a ...
... totally loved Suspicion Island. So much so, that he literally drained my phone battery in just ...
... and it was my job to get them together. Admittedly, it didn't work first time, but Sprivy needed ...
... where all of them turned into ice. I mean, I knew that frogs were cold-blooded, but ...
... where I met a newt named Valeriana for the first time. She will come up later again. ...
... they voted me 'Frog of the Year'. Me, Anne. A human. And it then was my job to throw ...
... until Sasha showed up. Turned out that she joined the Toad Army, whose sole purpose it was to ...
... named Luz. She probably saved Hop Pop's life, even if not for long. ...
... able to do magic with these things called glyphs. ...
… from Earth, but back then from yet another place called 'Boiling Isles'. …
... I probably made my biggest mistake. I let Sasha into the house ...
... SHE STABBED HIM! SHE KILLED MY- MY- ...
... at the end she just lost an eye. But if my powers didn't run out, I'm sure I would have ...
... and I was soo happy when he woke up again… If it weren't for Maddie and Luz, he ...
... she and Maddie left for Newtopia. Me and the Plantars left a few days later. ...
... weird dude in a shack wanted to seal me in wax. If I weren't so ...
... those huuge walls. You remember Avatar, dad? THAT huge ...
... reserved the penthouse suite just for us. But it wasn't until hours later, that ...
... she confessed that she trapped us there on purpose. And that just because ...
... WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY MOVED ALREADY?", Anne yells in disgust. Oum lowers her head.
"Since August 1st. We had been talking with the Wu's, trying to persuade them to postpone their move as long as possible.", Oum recounts, "But Zumo's hands were tied. His reassignment came with a huge pay raise, and you know how much they can use the money currently."
At that moment, Anne's face suddenly drops.
"I totally forgot...", she mutters, to which her parents just nod casually, "Is she...?"
"She's fine.", Oum explains, "Chemotherapy is incredibly expensive, but she'll get through it. Even before you disappeared, the doctors said she would make it. And that hasn't changed."
Anne breathes a sigh of relief.
"Okay good. I don't know how Marcy would have taken it if she came back and the first thing she learned was that her mother died."
"So you understand?", Bee asks, to which Anne nods coyly.
"Okay, back to topic... Umm, after her confession, I later went to her place in the palace where ...
... a sleep-over. And it was awesome, but only until Luz got possessed by some kind of wolf-ghost ...
... yeah, and he lived for a thousand years already. I'll come back to him later ...
... picked Marcy up after she met up with Sasha, what didn't go all that well ...
... tents everywhere. Like, as far as the eye could see ...
... Ben Flawrik. And I later took command over thousands of frogs as the leader of ...
... Me and Marcy figured out how to trigger our powers on command. A-and nothing else really happened that day ...
... Marcy made us fight against each other. She wanted to spare …
… Grime surrendered, but I already cut off Sasha's whole ...
… I panicked and flew her to Maddie, who managed to save …
... It was a first step. I hated Sasha soo much for what she did to ...
... Yes, I know. And I'm aware that it will take a long time until things get better again ...
… not sure if we can actually become friends again. I mean, I hurt her a lot too. …
... First Temple. The Temple of Wit, aka. Marcy's specialty ...
... easy, but me and the Plantars really went through something. You see, a few of the pieces ...
... Mount Mutu, where my temple was. That was where we met Valeriana again ...
... active volcano. And I think, that without Sasha's help, we wouldn't have been able to ...
... and we gave Andrias the box …
... but Grime has turned himself in. And Sasha blamed me …
... and- and-", Anne suddenly begins tearing up, "She promised me that she would follow me through, and… and I saw the portal closing."
Both Oum and Bee hold Anne's hands as she's struggling to speak.
"And she's still there?", Bee completes her sentence, whereupon Anne nods while rubbing her cheeks dry with her hand. Bee and Oum look at each other, seemingly communicating telepathically.
"Anne-", Bee begins, "We might have a plan."
She looks at her father with a puzzled and questioning look.
"You and I will go to a doctor tomorrow to get you a complete checkup. Three months on another planet... I can't imagine that didn't leave any physical traces on you.", Oum continues. Bee takes over again.
"And once that's all sorted out, we'll help you find a way back.", he says. Anne's jaw drops to the floor, incredulous at what she just hears.
"You... you believe me?", she asks.
"You are our daughter. Of course we believe you.", Bee replies with a smile on his face, "Even though all those videos probably did about ninety percent to convince us that the frogs in the pictures weren't just dolls.", Anne giggles at that, "From what you told, you did pretty well there, and had a lot of support. Admittedly, I would have loved to meet those Plantars to thank them for protecting my dearest gem.", he gives her a kiss on her cheek.
"However, in the long run, I insist that we be allowed to take you to get counseling. Some of what you've been through sounds extremely traumatic. Especially when you talk about it as if you were just talking about your day at school.", Oum insists. "Okay?"
Anne thinks about it for a longer moment.
"Okay.", she replies smiling before hugging them both tightly again. "You guys are the best, you know that?"
By the time Anne finished sharing with them what had happened over the past few months, it was no longer seven-, but almost ten o'clock.
Oum asked Anne if she would like something to eat, assuming that she must have missed Earth's food at least as much as anything else. It was all the more surprising when Anne declined, explaining that she had eaten a rather generous breakfast in Wartwood before leaving for Newtopia.
Instead, she said that she would prefer to take a really long and boiling hot shower before properly going to sleep. She had wished Oum and Bee a good night before disappearing into the bathroom. The two parents, however, continue to sit in the living room, still processing what they have been told.
"What's on your mind right now?" Bee asks his wife quietly, who is glancing far into the distance. She just shakes her head in response.
"I must admit that I don't know what to think... Another world? Intelligent amphibians? Anne started a war? Our little girl?"
"Don't forget the superpowers...", Bee adds. Oum sighs at that.
"It's just... I believe her, that what she told us actually happened. I just can't imagine it... I mean, if she didn't have all those pictures and videos, I would have assumed that it was probably a defensive reaction of hers that she came up with during a horrible time. Something she did to survive...", she theorizes. Bee looks at her attentively. "Admittedly, I don't know what had been worse: What Anne had actually experienced, or what we feared she might have gone through..."
Anne is feeling great right now.
It's shortly after sunrise and the first rays of sunlight peek into her room. She has been sleeping really well and is still lying in her bed with her eyes closed, wrapped up tightly under her comfortably warm weighted blanket.
With a genuine smile she rolls over on her pillow, wanting to give her girlfriend a good morning kiss. As she opens her eyes, her smile immediately disappears as she finds the space next to her empty.
'Oh... Right.'
A couple of tears well up in her eyes. Anne tries to wipe them dry again, before lifting the blanket off her and sitting down on the edge of her bed. Her hands resting on her knees, she takes a deep breath... and out again. And another breath in... and out.
Her breathing is still quite shaky, but nonetheless she feels a little less shaken up.
She reaches for her phone, which is lying on her nightstand, still with several hundred percent battery charge. Turning it on, her eyes linger on her lock screen, showing the picture of her and Marcy. The two of them had taken this picture on the day when they had not only managed to consciously activate their powers for the first time, but also shared their first kiss together. The latter was obviously the bigger highlight.
Gently, she slid her finger over Marcy's face.
'What happened, Marcy? Why didn't you follow me?'
Again, tears start to gather in her eyes, but she shakes her head strongly, trying to get those thoughts out of her mind.
Anne gets up and puts on her clothes, the same ones she wore yesterday, and leaves her room, heading down the stairs and to the kitchen for breakfast.
Two surprised pairs of eyes look at her as she enters the kitchen.
"Good morning.", Anne greets her parents lightheartedly, who themselves, however, are standing in the kitchen making coffee in their sleeping clothes and looking utterly sleepy still. Anne holds her arms open for a hug.
"Morning...", Oum says as she hugs her daughter. "You-you're awake already? It's just about seven o'clock..."
Anne continues further to hug her father.
"Yeah, where's the Anne who preferred to sleep until noon, or even longer, every day?", Bee jokes, though with a confused undertone. Anne, on the other hand, has grabbed a bowl and a started carton of milk and is currently looking for cornflakes.
"Well, with the Plantars, I usually got up at this time. Not always voluntarily, but still.", Anne opens the bag of cornflakes, looking at it, "Ohhh... I completely forgot that not everything edible here is full of bugs and insects...", she casually tells them. Bee speaks up.
"Do you want... to eat bugs and insects?"
Anne thinks about it for a longer moment while pouring milk over her cornflakes.
"Admittedly, I was very much against eating bugs when the Plantars took me in... But at some point, I didn't even pay attention to it anymore. Now it's just weird to see food that doesn't have bugs in it... You don't have to go out of your way for me, Dad."
"Speaking of that-", Oum speaks up, "Before you came down I called a doctor who is willing to give you a complete check up on short notice."
"When?", Anne asks with her mouth full.
"Oh, don't worry.", Oum dismisses, "We have more than enough time. We don't need to rush."
"When?", Anne repeats her question.
"Um, a little before ten.", she replies before Anne walks to the table, sits down, and begins updating about twenty apps on her phone as she continues to eat.
Although she hasn't yet developed or even discussed a plan with her parents yet on how to get back to Amphibia, she may already have a person in mind who could help her, even if only under certain conditions.
A couple of minutes later, Oum and Bee also sit down at the table with Anne, who also made themselves breakfast. Bee notices that Anne has Instagram open.
"Heh, at least something hasn't changed.", he jokes.
"Huh?", Anne looks up from her phone. "Oh, um, I'm searching for Luz. I need to know if she made it home. The only problem right now is that I don't know if she has any social media presence."
"Do you have her phone number?", he asks.
"Yes."
"Why don't you give her a call?", he further suggests.
"Because I have her phone too.", Anne replies, to which Bee feels mildly dumb, "So now I'm searching all sorts of social media sites, seeing if I can find her that way. All I have is her name, her interest in 'The Good Witch Azura', and I know she's from a town called Gravesfield. So, it's just a matter of time before I can find her."
The three of them continue eating until Oum suddenly speaks up.
"You know, maybe calling her might work anyway.", Oum suggests, a questioning look on Anne's part in response, "If she made it back, it's possible she got a new SIM card and her number is active."
"That might actually work...", Anne mumbles, "But I wouldn't want to try that until later. I don't want to wake her up in case she's still asleep."
"Alternatively, you could see if you can find her in the phone book somewhere.", Bee suggests, "I mean, you know her full name and the city she lives in..."
"Yeah... Yeah, I'll try that."
A few hours later, Anne and Oum find themselves in the car, on the way to the doctor whose clinic is right across the city. On a good day and with ideal traffic conditions, the trip would only take thirty minutes.
However, this is Los Angeles. There is no such thing as an ideal traffic situation here.
Oum is driving, Anne is sitting in the back. The two of them are stuck in traffic. Fortunately, they left early enough, since Oum had already expected it in advance.
"How is your search for this girl going?", Oum asks at one point to break the silence in the car.
"I've actually found surprisingly a lot: Twelve possible profiles on Instagram, eight of them private, nine accounts on TikTok, one of them private, fifty-two accounts on Tumblr, twenty on Twitter, and so on and so on.", Anne sighs at that.
"Don't worry about it. I am very sure that sooner or later you will be reunited with her.", Oum tries to lighten the mood.
"Well, she is so far my only clue for a way back to Amphibia."
"And what about Sasha?", Oum wonders.
Anne doesn't answer that directly. Instead, she opens her contacts, scrolling down to the one named 'Sashy'. She looks at her profile picture, which is taken from before Amphibia. It's a selfie of herself in her cheerleading outfit on the school's tennis court.
'Sashy...', Anne reads in her mind, 'Sorry, but that doesn't fit anymore.', she decides, changing the contact's name.
"I don't think she's ever going to talk to me ever again.", Anne responds to her mother's question, "Not that I blame her..."
"Probably, but based on her reaction to her friend turning himself in, I'm guessing her interest in finding a way back is at least as strong as yours.", Oum argues.
"I... think she'd rather kill me, but if you think it can work..."
Sasha Waybright
[9:17 - Me]: Hey
[9:17 - Me]: Marcy never came though the portal
[9:17 - Me]: I wanna find a way back. R u in?
Anne turns her phone off before it starts vibrating less than a minute later.
Sasha Waybright
[9:17 - Me]: Hey
[9:17 - Me]: Marcy never came though the portal
[9:17 - Me]: I wanna find a way back. R u in?
[9:18 - Sasha Waybright]: FUCK OFF BOONCHUY
"Nope, still hating me."
"Umm, I'm sorry, but I have to change the subject for a minute: I have a few things to tell you before we get to Dr. Merwood's clinic.", Oum abruptly changes the subject as the traffic in front of her gradually starts moving again.
"Okay...", Anne says in an uncertain voice, turning off her phone. "Like?"
"I told them that you just returned from being kidnapped, and that you're still quite traumatized."
"Okay?"
"Yeah, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to get an appointment so quickly..."
"So, you want me to fake… trauma?", Anne asks skeptically.
"Yes?", Oum replies equally uncertain as Anne earlier.
Anne is anything but enthusiastic about the idea, but is willing to do absolutely anything for a way back to Amphibia.
The two of them arrived at the small clinic with about ten minutes to spare before their appointment. They were ushered into a surprisingly empty waiting area for about twenty minutes, before an assistant called Anne out and escorted her and Oum to the back of one of the examination rooms.
"Please remove all but your underwear. Doctor Merwood will be with you in a moment.", she says, closing the door behind her, leaving Anne and her mother alone.
"Would you like me to wait outside?", Oum asks quietly. Anne shakes her head.
"Thanks, but you don't have to."
Anne takes off her yellow shoes and her jean shorts. However, as she takes off her t-shirt, her back turned to her mother, Anne hears a startled gasp. She turns to her mother, her eyes wide.
"Your back...", Oum mutters, "Where did you get all those scars?"
Before Anne can respond, however, Dr. Merwood enters the room.
A younger doctor, no older than thirty-five, her hair tied in a neat braid, and she's wearing a white doctor's coat. She immediately approaches Oum with a friendly handshake.
"Mrs. Boonchuy? I'm Dr. Merwood."
"I'm glad you were able to slip us in on such short notice.", Oum accepts the handshake.
"Yes, you were quite lucky. A client canceled on short notice.", Dr. Merwood explains before turning her attention to Anne, who is sitting on the exam table, her gaze absently fixed on the floor. "And you are Anne? It's nice to meet you..."
It is not until a few moments later that Anne looks at Dr. Merwood, but does not speak up.
"So you can understand me?", she continues to ask. Anne nods slightly. Dr. Merwood turns her attention back to Oum.
"On the phone, you said that her daughter was kidnapped and just came back yesterday. Is that correct?"
"That's right.", Oum replies, to which Dr. Merwood frowns.
"I'm very sorry that you had to go through something like that. Both of you."
"Thank you, I'm also immensely glad to have my gem back. If only physically so far...", Oum notes. "Right now I just want to know if she's missing anything physically; if she's healthy."
"What I can say right now, just by looking at her, she doesn't seem to be malnourished, which is already very good... I'd still like to take some blood and have the lab check it.", Dr. Merwood picks up one of the syringes prepared earlier, as well as two empty vials, and turns back to Anne, seeking eye contact.
"Anne, can you give me your arm? I'd like to draw some blood."
Hesitantly, Anne nods, holding out her left arm. Dr. Merwood watches Anne closely as she slowly takes her arm in her hand, trying not to frighten her. Anne's arm jerks back at the first contact, but she fortunately relaxes quite quickly.
On the second try, Anne does not flinch, and Dr. Merwood has the opportunity to examine her arm and hand more closely.
Immediately upon examining Anne's hand, she notices the above-average amount of calluses. On the rest of her arm, she finds several smaller scars that have already healed.
The blood draw in general is proceeding without any problems, with only minimal reactions on Anne's part.
"Okay, I'll have the lab run the blood samples as soon as possible.", Dr. Merwood tells Oum, "What I can say so far, though, is that in the time she's been gone, she has done quite a lot of physical work. She has excessive calluses on her hands and scars on her arms. Her legs look quite healthy so far. I don't know what it was like before, but she seems to have above average leg muscles for a thirteen-year-old."
"Well, before she disappeared, she used to play tennis several times a week.", Oum explains.
"Ah, I see. In that case, it just reinforces my theory that she did a lot of physical work. Otherwise, she might have lost some muscle mass over the last couple of months."
"I see. Um, one more request: Would you mind taking a look at her back?", Oum asks.
"Of course.", Dr. Merwood turns to Anne again. "Anne, could you turn to the window over there, please?"
Without words, Anne turns away from Oum and Dr. Merwood, exposing her back.
Her back is anything but healthy looking. It is full of healed scars of various sizes. What worries the two adults most, however, are the cuts, some of which run across her back. They are not deep, but still clearly visible. Dr. Merwood leans closer to her back, but makes the momentous mistake of touching one of the cuts.
In one quick turn, Anne jerks away from the doctor and turns around. Tears well up in her eyes.
"No-", Anne mutters, her whole body beginning to shake. Anne takes a few steps backwards until she has pushed herself all the way into the corner of the room, slowly sliding to the floor.
"He- he was dead.", Oum and Dr. Merwood exchange worried glances, Anne's tears intensifying, "She killed him... He was dead."
Oum's heart begins to ache to see her daughter hurt like this again. She quickly gets to-, and kneels on the floor next to Anne, her mind full of worry.
"Anne, sweetheart, it's alright."
Anne has her knees pressed very close to her chest.
"He- he was dead, and I was too late-", she mutters as tears stream down her cheeks.
Oum turns to Dr. Merwood.
"Could you give us a moment, please?", Oum asks. Dr. Merwood nods, reaches for the blood samples, and leaves the room. Oum turns back to her crying daughter, and with each passing second, she becomes more and more convinced that she is not acting.
"Anne..."
"She killed him!", she cries, "He- he died in my arms." Anne holds up her trembling hands, "There was blood everywhere..."
"And he's alive. You had told me yourself.", Oum tries to comfort Anne, though she is unresponsive right now. Oum puts her hand on her daughter's shoulder, however she jerks it away. Her body shakes uncontrollably as the traumatic memories flood back into her mind. Her hands continue trembling as she's clutching at her own arms tightly.
Cautiously, Oum inches closer to her daughter, her heart aching, until she is sitting on the floor right next to Anne. Very carefully, Oum puts her hand on Anne's shoulder, giving her the option to pull away if she wants. And while she flinches at first, she accepts it on the second try.
"He was gone, Mom.", Anne now addresses her directly for the first time, "Sasha killed him, and I was too late."
"I'm so sorry you had to go through all that, but he is safe. You are safe. You here with me, and he in Amphibia.", Anne turns her head, burying it in Oum's shoulder. "You really experienced- no, survived something truly terrible."
Anne's sobs echo in the small examination room. Oum hugs her close, the room feeling heavy filled with the heavy emotions that Anne has let bubble and boil inside her all this time.
It takes a while for her tears and sobs to subside. In the meantime, Oum has given her her T-shirt back from the examination table, so that she doesn't feel quite as exposed.
Dr. Merwood came into the room again briefly in the meantime, though Oum had quickly let her know that they would still need a while.
"Mom?"
"Yes, my little gem?", Oum replies, gently stroking Anne's hair.
"I want to go back.", she whispers, no longer crying, but still with tears in her eyes, "I wanna go home."
"Okay.", Oum agrees. She stands up again, handing Anne her shorts, which she immediately puts back on while Oum leaves the room and exchanges a few words with Dr. Merwood.
"I'm going to take Anne back home.", she explains.
"Yes, I already thought so.", Dr. Merwood replies sympathetically, "Basically, though, I can already tell you that Anne is physically in surprisingly good shape. We're still going to wait for her blood results, but for that I will call you in the next few days."
"Thank you.", Oum expresses her gratitude. Dr. Merwood, however, is not finished yet.
"This is just my assessment of her physical condition. However, she has suffered a great amount of psychological damage that should be looked at and examined by a psychiatrist as soon as possible. If you'd wait a moment, I would be able to write down a few psychiatrists for you, especially ones with a focus on trauma."
"Oh, that would be wonderful.", Oum thanks her profusely. Dr. Merwood turns around and leaves Oum's field of vision. Just moments later, Anne emerges from the examination room, quietly reaching for Oum's hand.
"Let's go home.", she says in a voice as small as that of a small child.
"Just a moment. Dr. Merwood is preparing something else for you right now for later."
Mere minutes later, Dr. Merwood returns, an envelope in her hand, which she hands to Oum before turning to Anne one last time.
"I would really like for you to get better as soon as possible. You strike me as a really strong and brave girl.", she says, causing a small smile to appear on Anne's face.
"Thank you very much for your time.", Oum says goodbye and she and Anne leave her clinic again.
The two of them spent the ride back home mostly in silence. Anne merely gazed silently out the window the entire ride, while Oum had to concentrate on driving, occasionally glancing at Anne in the rearview mirror. The atmosphere in the car, however, was anything but tense. It was a surprisingly enjoyable silence.
It took a while for them to arrive back home. However, just as they pull back into the driveway and come to a halt, Oum speaks up.
"Anne, I'm sorry. I should have known you weren't ready..."
"It was okay, Mom. There was nothing you could have done.", Anne quietly huffs out, "I mean, how could you have known something like that was going to happen? After all, I had no idea either."
"Do you want to... talk about it?", Oum asks. Anne thinks about it for a while.
"No.", Anne replies, unbuckling her seatbelt, "I think I've had enough breakdowns for a while."
"I can understand that.", Oum says.
"I'll go try to find a way to contact Luz.", Anne says, opening the van's sliding door, and walking into the house with Oum behind her.
After greeting her father and asking if she can use his laptop, she retreats to her room with it and tosses herself on her bed with it.
Before booting it up, however, she pulls out her own phone, but also Luz's, which she grabbed from her desk.
Anne unlocks her own phone and stares at her homescreen for a while, unable to decide what to try first: Calling her first or contacting her via social media. When she directly weighs up whether she should rather make one call or write to several dozens of social media accounts, the answer is still quite obvious.
She opens Luz' contact. Her profile picture is a photo Anne took in Amphibia of Luz with her cute little owl sitting on her shoulder.
As she holds her finger over her call button, she notices doubting thoughts flooding her mind.
'What if she doesn't want to talk to me anymore? What if she thinks we left her behind, and abandoned her after the sleepover? What if she hates me too?', she thinks to herself, referring to her last interaction with Sasha.
Anne withdraws her finger, but her gaze remains fixed on the call button. She feels dread rising in her mind.
'Okay, best-case scenario: She knows exactly how to travel between worlds. Worst case scenario... She hates me. Not that I could blame her... ... Fuck it!'
She presses the call button, closely watching if the screen of Luz' phone lights up while she lets it ring. The screen stays off, however...
"Good morning. You've reached Luz Noceda. I can't answer my phone right now. If you want me to call you back, leave me a lovely message after the beep. Byeeeee"
Anne quickly hangs up before the beep, taking a breath.
'Okay, option one didn't work.', she thinks to herself. At that, Anne boots up her father's laptop, opening his browser, looking for phone books online. The first search result: The white pages.
'Okay... Search for people, reverse phone number search, or reverse address search...', she reads what she sees in front of her, 'People search... Last name 'Noceda', city 'Gravesfield'... Hmm, six results. I can work with that.'
'Okay, only three of them are actually named 'Noceda', and only one of them actually lives in Gravesfield. The rest, however, tend to live in the surrounding area...'
Anne enters the displayed phone number into her phone, and after some hesitation, she actually gets up the nerve to press the call button. And it rings.
"You have reached the Nocedas. Camila here, hello."
"Uh, hello. Um, my name is Anne- Anne Boonchuy.", she introduces herself, stuttering slightly with nervousness, "is Luz home?"
"Are you one of her friends?", Camila asks curiously.
"Um, yeah. I had met her a few months ago," Anne tells.
"Ah yes. I'm glad to meet more of Luz's camp friends. She never told me about a girl named Anne, though."
'Camp?', Anne wonders inwardly. "Um, yeah. Can I talk to her?"
"But of course. One second.", at that, Anne hears Camila call out to Luz in a muffled tone. "Mija, tengo una llamada para ti. Es una chica del campamento de verano."
A few moments later, her ears are filled with a familiar voice.
"Hi, this is Luz."
"Oh my frog, I'm so glad to hear your voice again.", Anne states full of joy.
"... Um, excuse me, but... who is this?", she hears Luz ask seemingly genuinely confused.
"Anne? Anne Boonchuy?", she replies without an immediate reaction from the other side. "We met a few months ago in Amphibia. ... We slept in the same basement."
"... I'm sorry, but you must be mistaking me for someone else.", Luz says, causing Anne's heart to ache.
'Did she forget who I am?', Anne thinks to herself, "You're Luz Noceda. You ended up in Amphibia after fighting some guy named Belos-"
"Wait!", Luz says, her voice no longer confused but... terrified. "Repeat that name!"
"Which one? Belos?", Anne replies. From the other side of the call, she suddenly hears another voice speaking to Luz in the background.
"Hey, birthday girl. Are you coming back? The bottle doesn't spin by itself.", the unknown background voice says. "I- I- I'll be right back, Masha.", Luz answers her. Anne continues.
"You know who I'm talking about, right? You know who this Belos is?", Anne asks, however Luz doesn't answer. "Do you remember me too?"
"I- I don't know you. I don't know what you're talking about.", Luz speaks in a panic filled voice, "I've never been to the Demon Realm. Don't ever call here again!"
The call ends.
'What?', Anne asks, her voice tiny.
She is frozen in place, the beeping of the ended call continuing to beep.
Her phone falls out of her hand on the floor, not noticing the sound of her screen cracking.
'She... She... d-doesn't...', her breathing becomes difficult, her chest feeling increasingly heavy. A sense of abandonment fills her hearts and tears fill her eyes, blurring her vision.
She now has lost everyone.
Marcy, her girlfriend, who stayed behind in Amphibia.
She will never be able to see her second family, the Plantars, ever again.
Sasha hates her and never wants to talk to her again.
And Luz... She's pretending she doesn't know who she is anymore.
Everyone has left her.
Tears are streaming down Anne's cheeks. This time, however, they are not borne by sadness. They are borne by an inner emptiness and numbness that's spreading through her body.
Anne sits motionless on the edge of her bed, Luz' words still echoing in her ears. She, as well as her entire world, have now completely collapsed, lying in ruins in front of her and having lost all color.
The desire of giving up is beginning to grow in her mind. In her heart a pain she has never experienced in her life.
She lets herself fall backwards onto her bed, tears flowing in floods like never before. Tears of loneliness, of loss... of resignation. All of which is beginning to consume her.
Hours upon hours pass unnoticed, which Anne has spent locked up crying in her room. Her pillow is soaked with her tears, her eyes are red and swollen. Of the several packs of tissues she has used, only a fraction has actually made it into a trash can.
By now, Anne had cried all the tears, and as much as she wants to keep crying, nothing happens anymore. Her heart aches, gradually realizing that her tears no longer able to release her of her pain. Instead, a gaping, crushing emptiness has begun to form deep within her heart as she realized that her entire world has collapsed.
Her mind is empty, her heart in shambles, and her vision feels gray and empty.
After an eternity of lying motionless on her bed and staring at her ceiling, Anne sits up on the edge of her bed. Standing up with a struggle, she makes her way out of her room and into the bathroom, where she locks the door behind her.
She purposefully opens one of the drawers under the sink, looking for something specific.
'Where are they?', she thinks to herself, rummaging through the drawer, 'There!'
Anne pulls out a small pack of spare razor blades, takes one out, and sits down with it on the edge of her bathtub, staring at the razor blade for a while. Her mind is still blank, but a feeling of safety and warmth spreads through her, just from having the razor blade lying in her open palm. She takes a deep breath, as she's beginning to tremble slightly.
Anne closes her fist tightly.