I woke up feeling tired the next morning. When I opened my eyes, I could see both Frederica and Vera in their sleeping bags, but Chloe seemed to have vanished again.
"What is with her?" I said.
"What?" said Vera, opening her eyes, "D-Did Chloe leave again?"
"Looks like it." I answered.
"I guess we're going home today." said Frederica, who was rubbing her eyes.
"Yeah, and then it's back to normal school stuff." I complained.
"Do you think the teachers will be sober enough to teach?" asked Frederica.
"Who knows?" I responded.
Everyone got out of their tents and after eating breakfast, we were all packing up. Except Cloe. She ran off again. I tried not to worry about it, but it was clear everyone in the group was concerned. A couple hours later, Mr. Smith got everyone together.
"Okay," he said, "we're going to be heading back to school."
Everyone went silent after that. Then, Mr. Smith scratched his head and looked around.
"Um… it's a little quiet." he said.
"So…?" a random student replied.
"Tch." responded Mr. Smith, "And everyone else drank too much last night."
"Is that why you're the only one out here?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, scratching the back of his head, "the others had more drinks than me."
"Were you drinking because you knew you were never getting married?" that same random student asked.
"Do you want detention when we get back to school!?" asked Mr. Smith, while clenching his fist.
"H-He's getting worked up again." commented Vera.
"Heh," said Frederica, "the sooner we get back the sooner I can get back to my computer."
"To research other worlds?" I said.
"Research?" she said, scratching her head.
"Um, what were you going to do?" I asked.
"Oh, that's right." she said, "I can do work on those things."
"Please don't tell me you were gonna do what I'd expect Justin-" I started.
"Don't even put the two of us in the same sentence." complained Frederica.
"Right." I said, "Sorry."
"Whatever you're doing," said Sheldon, "I don't really care."
"Honestly, I'm not really happy with being insulted like this." complained Justin.
"Deal with it." I said.
"Hey, guys." said Chloe, who just came up behind us.
"Where were you?" I asked.
"She wasn't here this whole time?" asked Vera.
"Sorry," responded Chloe, "I had something to take care of."
"What exactly were you taking care of?" asked Sheldon.
"That… is none of your business." answered Chloe.
"You're only going to make us worry about it that way," said Justin, "but at least that will give me another story to write about."
He started drooling.
"Can you not?" I asked.
"Sorry." replied Justin, wiping his mouth with his arm.
"Okay," said Mr. Smith, "Let's head for the busses. If you're late, we'll leave you behind."
All of us made our way to the busses. There weren't any problems getting on and nobody was left behind. Each class was put on a different bus, so that meant we wouldn't be seeing Matt or Theodore on the way back. I ended up taking a seat near the back next to Vera, while Justin and Sheldon sat across the aisle and Frederica sat in the seat in front of us.
"Well, now that all that's over," said Frederica, once the bus started moving, "we need to worry about what we'll be doing next."
"What even can we do?" I asked, "I feel like all we have done is walk around in circles and fight monsters."
"Yes," said Sheldon, "no matter how many monsters come from my world, we can't seem to find a way there."
"Isn't it odd that the monsters can come over here but we can't get over there?" asked Justin, "It's like these are one way portals."
"But that's impossible." I responded.
"Why not?" asked Vera.
"That wouldn't explain the one Ken went through." I answered.
"That's right," responded Sheldon, "both of us went through at the same time, each going in opposite directions."
"These portals don't even stay open for that long." I said, "Who is causing all of these and why?"
"We can sit here thinking about it all we want," said Justin, "but without any confirmation, we can't accept it as truth."
"It's pretty weird to hear you say something reasonable." commented Frederica.
"Hey!" exclaimed Justin, "I'm an honest journalist! I prefer to write about stuff that's been verified!"
We changed the topic and chatted about various things as the bus took us back to our school. After getting off the bus, we all went back to our classroom and each of us got ready to go home. Most of my friends went home on their own, so I walked home with Vera. The two of us walked all the way to her house and we saw something we never expected to see. Her house was completely destroyed. When Vera saw that, she was frozen with fear. Her eyes were opened wide and she didn't say a word.
"Vera?" I said.
I got no response. I looked around, and found blood. After some more scanning, I saw the bodies of both of her parents and quickly ran up to them. It was pretty clear to me that they were dead.
"Crap." was the only word that left my mouth after that.