Everywhere

Okay, because my friend just asked me to put up part two, here you go, even if you haven't read part 1 yet! :)

The darkness had dissolved slightly, enough to see within a foot on all sides, but that’s it. No one knew where they were. As far as they could see, which wasn’t far, it was either black or gray. There were no sounds, not unless someone wanted to stress themselves greatly, not unless they wanted to put themselves at great risk. They all knew what happened to little Keisha. After screaming for her mother, she had disappeared further into the darkness. One elderly man tested it out, and spoke in a voice just above a whisper. “Miss you, Keisha.” He didn’t disappear, but he almost fainted from the stress of it. Luckily, a doctor had been in the crowd that day, and had led the man in some deep breathing exercises.

            How long had it been, exactly, since the “magician” had made them disappear? It felt like years, but since they didn’t know where they were, they didn’t know how to calculate time.

            Where were they? One of them, a college student named Anna, had a theory. She claimed that they, in body, had dissolved, yet their souls and brains had stayed with each other and ended up in a place Anna calls Everywhere. That certainly explains why it hurt and caused them so much stress to talk or move about- in essence, they had no bodies! But where is everywhere? Anna believed that Everywhere really is everywhere in the universe, and beyond. They weren’t ghosts, but they certainly weren’t material and solid either.

            Lanicqua Travers, however, hadn’t even made the effort to try to talk or in some way communicate with anyone else. Losing Keisha had been a huge blow to her, and the doctor speculated that she had gone into shock. “We can’t do anything to help her now, She’s going to stay like this, I reckon, until we find her baby girl.”

            Meanwhile, Keisha looked down upon all of them, all one hundred and three people. She saw them as if through a window screen- blurred, distorted, out of focus. She didn’t know where she was, how to contact the others, how to rejoin them. Even being with them in Everywhere would have been better than being alone here, separated from her mother as though by a veil. Seeing her mother so desolate, so miserable, was almost too much for Keisha to bear.

            Luckily, there was a clown-in-training in the audience at “Rocco’s” show, and he saw his opportunity. “Come on people, buck up, cheer up! We’ll get out of here soon enough!”

            While the clown tried (and failed), to cheer everyone up, Keisha watched them and wish with all her heart (or soul, whatever it was), that she could join them, She was cold, so, so cold, and lonely! She hated watching her mother so depressed and alone. “Mama, Mama! Mama, help me!” She beat the screen with her little fists and kicked it with her size 11 feet. “Mama! Help me!” Screaming until she went hoarse, Keisha believed her efforts were futile. However, her mother certainly responded. Bolting upright for the first time since Keisha disappeared further, she screamed. “Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” Everyone looked quizzically at her. “THAT’S KEISHA! THAT’S MY DAUGHTER!” Anne and Dr. Robert exchanged furtive glances. Dr. Robert stood up. “Ma’am,” he whispered. “Keisha is missing. She can’t talk to us.” Lanicqua turned to him, slowly, eyes ablaze. ‘How dare you? How dare you say those things about my daughter? Find her! You think you can’t find her? FIND HER!” she thundered.

            Back on earth, John Townstone, or “Rocco the Magnificent”, as the unfortunate crowd knew him, fretted and agonized over what he had done. “Oh, my God! It’s been three weeks! What have I done? I have no clue where they are! I must have killed them! Those poor little kids! I have to find them!”

            Meanwhile, Keisha had succeeded in kicking a small hole in whatever it was that covered her. She pushed and pushed and pushed at it, and finally, she fell. She fell for what felt like forever, through nothingness. Blacker and blacker it seemed, colder and colder it got. She fell and fell, senseless to the world. She fell and fell but finally landed on something so hard that when she hit, it knocked her out.

            Lanicqua was pacing back and forth, along the black expanse of Everywhere. “I heard her, I know I heard her! Where can she be? Why is she quiet now? Can’t she hear us?” The clown, Anna, and the others backed away from her, lest they be verbally attacked like Dr. Robert.

            Bright. Why was it bright? It shouldn’t be, not where she was. But there was light! It surrounded Keisha, warmed her, comforted her. Was she…? Keisha didn’t dare to hope, but she opened her eyes slowly. Very slowly. She was back! Hardly daring to believe her eyes, she stood up and looked down. She had a real body again! “Keisha, Keisha! I am Keisha!” She was overjoyed. She could walk and talk, really walk and talk again! As she looked around, she saw chairs. A stage. She was back at the fairgrounds. And there was her mother’s purse! But where was her cell phone? Lanicqua must have had it in her pocket! Keisha knew what she had to try to do. She dug thought purse after purse until she found a cell phone. She flipped it open and typed in her mother’s number. And waited.

            In Everywhere, a ringing startled everyone. Hardly daring to believe her ears, Lanicqua pulled out her buzzing cellular. “Hello?” she asked tentatively. “Mama!” It was Keisha.