"Oh no!"
Zelda said holding her head with her hands.
"Why is he coming back this early?!
What do we do?".
She started panicking and pacing about the parlour back and forth.
"Quick, follow me, she said to Usher.
"We'll hide you in my room for now.
She immediately took Usher by the hand and hurried him away through the passage opposite to where she went through to get to the kitchen.
They headed straight to her room.
"You'll have to stay in the closet".
Zelda said.
"This is crazy"
Usher resisted.
"Just tell your old man will you?
He says yes, I stay.
He says no, I move.
Simple as ABC"
"You move to where?"
Zelda asked.
Usher was silent.
"My point exactly.
So we can't take chances.
Let's hide you first".
Zelda replied as she kept on pointing to the closet, signalling for Usher to get in.
Usher entered the closet.
She closed it after him and went out of the room to put the house in order.
Now she would have to explain the hole in her door, the ruined tree and messy field, all outcomes of the little fight about an hour ago.
She tried as much as she could to fix the mess in the house to the best possible way while the sound of her father's engine became louder as the vehicle drew nearer on the driveway.
She would just have to figure out a nice lie to tell him as regards the ruined tree outside.
In a short while her father had reached the compound gate and came down to open it.
He opened the gate, went back to the car and drove in.
Zelda came out to greet him as he parked inside the compound.
"Welcome pops, how was your day?"
She asked?
"Was well Zee.
I found out that those dealers we last supplied the chicken eggs were hyping up price by about fifty percent in some parts of the city so I and some of my fellow merchants recently had a meeting to figure out how to get our goods to all the parts of the city and beyond without those middle men.
Speaking of which, did you count the number of piglets we currently have like I asked you to?"
"Yeah, 25 piglets left"
She replied.
"Okay, I'll be needing to visit my friend on the other side of the country again then.
I knew we must have been running low on the piglets".
They continued talking as they walked into the house.
Usher was still in the closet trying to breathe in the midst of Zelda's stacked up clothes.
Zelda had hung back her curtain which used to hang in front of the door outside her room in order to cover the hole on the door.
"What will you have?"
Zelda asked as they both got into the parlour and her dad threw himself on the couch.
"Anything".
Philip said lazily and started unzipping his bag to get out some paperwork.
Zelda got in to prepare a meal for her dad.
He hadn't yet noticed the mess created outside by the fight she and Usher had with the loom because he hadn't yet gone to the back of the house where the commotion ensued.
As he still continued to look through his files, he noticed something strange.
"How come the receipt of the merchandise the day before yesterday is dated twelfth?
Isn't today the seventeenth?
As Zelda walked in with a tray of food, something suddenly struck Philip.
"Zelda, pack everything you can!
We're running away!"
********************
It was a dark cave.
A large number of looms were gathered after a long failed search of Usher.
They seemed to be reporting to the leader of the squad.
"So you've discovered the location of the target?"
A terrifying voice asked.
"Yes.
I got shot by a girl trying to defend him".
The reporting loom said.
"How pathetic.
Now that we have the location, I'm sending everyone.
The objective, capture the target...
Dead...
Or dead.
In a short while, the group of looms were at high speed, running to the capture as they were led towards Philip's house.
***************
Her eyes opened slowly as she began to gain consciousness of her surroundings.
Maryann couldn't figure out where she was or how long she'd been out cold.
She tried to move her body while the fuzzy feeling was still in her head.
She felt stuck.
She then opened her eyes completely to see why she couldn't move and she realized how sticky the situation was.
There was a large gem-like green and transparent enclosure that encapsulated her as it was attached to the rocky wall of the cave.
Looking from a good distance it could be observed that the crystal cell was one out of a long line of such cells that ran across the horizontal around the lonely dark cave.
There was a suspended mystical lamp that dimly - but not too dimly, lighted the cave.
The lamp was levitating constantly at a height that was halfway across from the floor to the roof at the center of the cave.
Maryann looked around with a pale expression and antipathy.
The surroundings just had an eerie feeling she couldn't rub off.
She took a look at the crystal cell and felt it with her hands.
She tried punching it hard but it won't budge.
There were little finger-sized air pockets all around the crystal which allowed air into the cell to keep the prisoners alive.
Suddenly someone spoke.
"They got you too."
She impulsively turned her head to the right to see who it was...
****************
Back at Philip's house, Philip and his daughter Zelda had hurriedly packed every possible valuable thing they could garner from the house into Philip's mini truck.
"Can you tell me what the problem is dad, why are we running away?"
Zelda asked, extremely confused and uncomfortable about the rush.
"I'll tell you later Zee, just trust me and hurry up, we must leave and not come back here again.
Philip was almost ready and was about to leave the house with the last batch of things he was carrying.
"Dad wait..
"There's something I want to tell you.."
Usher then came out of the house and Zelda explained everything.
"WHAATT!!!"
Philip exclaimed with much confusion.
But he was too much in a hurry to process the situation and just offered them both to come along.
They eventually got outside and Philip locked the door of the house with a big lock and that of the gate with an even bigger lock.
They eventually got into the mini truck - Philip on the driver's seat and Zelda on the front passenger seat while Usher sat at the back.
Philip had driven some distance away from the house down the lonely boulevard and hilly path that led to the city when suddenly a light flashed some meters in front of them.
Someone appeared right in front and Philip had to hit the brakes real hard to slow down enough not to hit the person in front.
Unfortunately he couldn't slow down enough and was still approaching the person when suddenly a portal opened and the whole truck drove right into it and disappeared out of sight.
The standing figure then looked around for a while before following in and the portal disappeared.