And We Bring You A Christmas Interruption

Theo woke up inside of a room that looked rather like her room, except that outside, it was snowing. She had to rub her eyes and clean her glasses to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. The last thing she remembered was that she was in a helicopter…in the middle of summer. She flopped down on her bed, and sighed. “Hey author, or authors…you dragged me out of the story again, didn’t you?” she asked out loud to whoever was in control. No otherworldly voice spoke, but a knock did sound at her door.

She got up and opened the door, where she saw a familiar face. “Hi there…Theo, was it?” asked a boy with shockingly grey eyes. It was those eyes that helped Theo identify the mystery person.

“And you’re Dennis,” affirmed Theo. “You look slightly different.”

“Really?” he cocked his head to the side in thought. “I guess I do. My author never really defined my appearance the first few times he or she wrote the story. Now they started anew, so I guess I have a slightly different look.” He combed his black hair with his fingers absentmindedly and fixed the large magnifying glasses on his face. “It appears we’ve been whisked off to an alternate universe again. I wonder what for this time.”

“Do you know the date?” asked Theo. “I was in the middle of summer, and I don’t think it snows in the middle of 20-plus degrees weather.”

Dennis shook his head. “No idea.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to go find out for ourselves,” she replied, after a brief search around the room for a calendar. She and Dennis walked down the stairs where they found themselves in a large living room that didn’t belong to either of them.

“Hey, it’s you again!” said a voice, and they turned around to see a familiar girl with glasses and a boy accompanying her. “Do you remember me?”

Alt+Control+Delete Chapter 4

I sit back down at my desk, and fiddle with my hair. Mr. Kane is droning on and on, about plate tectonics and earthquakes and all sorts of things I read about already. I try listening to him, but I am rapidly bored out of my mind. I open up my tablet and start dragging my stylus on the screen. I doodle some random hearts and stars, but my mind is suddenly pulled back to the conversation I overheard in the office.

I opened a new window and as force of habit, started writing notes. I wrote down what I could remember. I first put down Javert and circled his name. I did the same for Mr. Valero. I put an equal sign between the two with “experiment?” above it. From Javert, I drew several lines and wrote down “two mystery men in black,” “owns company?” and “threatening.” From Mr. Valero, I drew a line and wrote “Manchurian Candidate—movie.” I set my stylus down and thought. What is the connection between all of these? If only I could find out…