Cover Image:
https://imgur.com/8pcPWzS
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Comrades
Summary link:
https://imgur.com/Ohj3jMB
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Author's Note: Since most of it is redundant in the webnovel version, I elected to simply leave out the three pages of descriptions re-introducing the Eight, People of Note, and Colin's Comrades. As you can see, all that remained of the Brief is the cover and Colin's summary as this volume starts.
***
Prologue
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Something was wrong. Way wrong.
All Colin did was ask Mom, "Where's Dad?"
And Mom fled. She literally turned around and ran out the door.
Colin sat there in his bed for a moment, completely confused. {What? Why…?}
Sudden panic pounced on him, and he leapt to his feet. "MOM!"
Colin ran after her. From the room across the corridor from his, Gracie poked out a sleepy head to blink at her elder brother as he charged through their house after their mother. She had gone back to her room; Colin dashed in before she could close the door behind her, lock him out to hide whatever it was that made her so nervous.
But there was nothing there that shouldn't be there. Just the normal room and their stuff… and Dad, still asleep.
"Colin!" Mom gasped. "You shouldn't…"
"What's wrong?" Colin asked, desperate to know.
Mom didn't answer, but her gaze turned to the bed.
Colin gulped, spun to look at Dad again, and realized something else.
Dad wasn't waking up. After all the noise, he didn't even stir.
Colin poked him. Shook him. "Dad? Hello?"
Not even a twitch. Dad just started snoring softly. {Well, I guess that's why mom is so worried. But then I was like this too, a few minutes ago. I was dreaming in… a different place. Maybe Dad went after me and he's still there looking… I wish there was a way to tell him I'm back.}
"Hey, Dad, I Woke Up already." Colin told him to his face. "I hope you can hear me. I'm okay. You can wake up too."
But he didn't. Dad didn't wake up.
"Mom? Colin?" Gracie was at the door.
Mom must have locked it, because Gracie couldn't get in. She kept trying the door, then knocking, but Mom wasn't opening it. "Not now, Gracie. I need to talk to your brother for a while. Get ready for school."
"No fair!" Gracie fumed, but she did as Mom said.
Colin stood there, glancing from Mom to Dad, completely baffled. "What…"
"Colin." Mom looked at him seriously now, still worried, but growing steadily more determined. "You mustn't tell your sister about this."
"About what? Dad's just sleeping." Colin said.
"Exactly. He's just… sleeping." Mom straightened. "I've called some friends over. We'll take care of him."
"Is he sick?" Colin asked. "I think he's still in Dreamworlds. I think he's just… too busy to come back yet."
"That's it. That's it exactly." Mom said, breathing more easily now. "We're going to move him to a place that will take care of him while he's like that."
"A hospital?" Colin guessed.
"No, nothing like that." Mom said quickly. "There's nothing wrong with him. He's just busy."
"Then where?" Colin wanted to know.
"We're taking him to… a center. A DayDreaming Center." Mom said. "Kids aren't usually allowed to go in."
"Oh." Colin said. He paused. "This is bad, isn't it? Were you… were you going to send me, too?"
Mom hesitated.
He looked her straight in the eye, seriously but steadily. "It's okay, Mom. I know you were worried about me. I couldn't wake up either, right? That's why you're scared, right? But since I woke up… I'm sure Dad would too. I don't know what DayDreaming is about… but I think Dad is going to be okay. He's probably still looking for me in that place where I was. That's why he's not waking up yet."
"Where were you?" Mom asked then.
"I… I don't know." Colin admitted. "It was… weird. It was like the Dreamworld we were on suddenly fell away and there was another place underneath…"
"But you got back?" Mom asked, intently.
"There was a Gate. A Green Gate." Colin said, though he wondered whether Mom could make any sense at all of what he was saying.
Yet she seemed to. "I see." Having been reassured, she laid the law down on him. "Colin, get breakfast and go to school. If you don't hurry, you're going to be late."
"Okay." Colin said, and hurried off.
***
They didn't make it to school in time.
"You're late." Principal Trent marked Colin's and Gracie's names down in his palmtop holopad. Short graying hair matched a silver frame clear visor.
"My fault." Colin admitted. "Gracie would have made it in time."
"Litter duty." He said. Dark brown eyes observed him sternly under that visor.
A prefect handed Colin a garbage bag, regarding him with cold blue eyes under straight gold hair. She waved Gracie onward without handing her one.
Colin heaved a sigh, took up the garbage bag and got to work.
There seemed to be quite a few people late today. Among others, Colin recognized spiky-haired Dante, who was no stranger to litter duty, but there was Daryl, the student council president, also late, and also going around picking up trash. There were two librarian girls and believe it not, even the prefect herself ended up picking litter.
{Guess I wasn't the only one who had an eventful night. I doubt any of them had as tough a night as I did, though.} Colin didn't really pay much attention to the others, very much preoccupied with Dad and DayDreaming and that weird place that wouldn't let them wake up from Dreamworlds.
Principal Trent, on the other hand, looked at all of them picking up rubbish for being late and let out a biggest, heaviest sigh Colin had ever heard.
"Okay, that's it. Dump the bags in the main bin, wash your hands and get to class." Trent ordered after a few minutes. "I'm going easy on you guys today, but next time… well, there better not be a next time, got it?"
{Yeah.} Colin thought to himself as he went without saying a word. {There really, really had better not be a next time.}
***
Things only got worse when they got home.
"What are you guys doing here?" Colin asked, when he saw them.
Jonah, Alicia, and Larry were in his living room.
"They've come over to stay." Mom told him. She called. "You guys ready?"
"Ready!" Uncle Blake's voice sounded from above. Colin blinked when he saw him and Uncle Nelson coming down. Jonah's dad and Alicia's dad were carrying Colin's dad down the stairs in a sort of stretcher. They hauled him out to Uncle Nelson's gravcar.
"Take care of him, guys." Mom requested, as they were leaving.
"Take care of our kids." Uncle Blake requested in reply.
"And you kids, behave yourselves, all right?" Uncle Nelson added.
Then the three dads were gone, probably to that DayDreaming center, and Colin was left to deal as reality slowly sank in.
{Jonah, Alicia and Larry are going to be staying here…?!}
They acted like his friends in front of their dads but were openly his enemies everywhere else. Those three had been Colin's long-time tormentors since they were introduced to each other in their kindergarten days. Just because their dads were friends, it didn't mean they got along well. At all.
Mom confirmed his worst fears. "Colin, Jonah and Larry will be sharing your room."
"WHAT?!" Colin burst out.
"No 'buts'!" Mom said, and started ordering them around to prepare his and Gracie's rooms for their guests.
"This isn't fair." Colin fumed. Now he had to share his room with the two boys he'd really rather not see, ever.
The water balloon hit the fan an hour later.
It started when Colin was asked forcefully to help his 'friends' put together a bunk bed from newly bought parts. Mom was adamant that he help out his 'guests'.
His guests weren't so helpful. Jonah poked him in the lower ribs just as he was about to make a tight twist on the screwkey. The thing went flying exactly when Alicia and Gracie came in the room to check on the boys.
"NO!" Colin blurted. He made a desperate lunge for the screwkey.
It was a noble effort, one born more of instinct than deliberation, considering the distance he had to cover, the effort he had to make to cover it and most especially considering who it was he attempted to save.
Colin tried anyway. He gave it his very best shot.
But his best failed.
The screwkey bonked Alicia smack dab in the center of her forehead. Alicia's head tilted back; he could see her open mouth and upper teeth. She went "Ack!*"
(*Author's note: This was pronounced like 'ark')
And then Colin crashed headlong into her and they went down. "OOF!"
Gracie let out a short scream of laughter while Mom yelled for him saying, "Colin, some girl's clothes arrived with your name on the purchase receipt… Colin?!"
"MOMMY!" Gracie shrieked in mirth. "Alicia is… Colin is…!"
"Shut up!" Colin pounced on her.
Mom came up to see him struggling to cover her mouth and Alicia on the floor behind her. "You kids! Stop fighting! Colin, get over here! What's all these clothes and when did you buy them?!"
Colin stared at the box as she opened it. He recognized that white silky blouse, the black skirts+tights, the red hoodie jacket, the cord belts. "That's… last night…"
Alicia sat up in a daze and recognized them too. "Those are the clothes you bought for me last night."
Gracie exploded with delight. "Colin's got a girlfriend! Colin's got a {girlfriend}! And it's ALICIA!!!"