As Alice rode the car being driven by Taylor, staring out the window where everything was a blur, she thought back to when it all began. It's only been a couple of weeks, but with the way she felt, those weeks may as well have been months or even years.
Jackie was right about pretty much ever. Alice had willingly joined the Gathering and became one of the Wizard's top apprentices. But she was also secretly working against them and resolved to foil their Ritual at all costs.
But how did Alice end up with this self-imposed mission? Well, to understand that, let us turn back the clock to when it all started, the moment when Alice first laid eyes on that flyer.
"So you named a gathering, 'The Gathering'?" Jackie had asked Taylor.
"Yes," Taylor said, sounding a bit on guard.
"Smart!"
Oh, that goofball, thought Alice as she rolled her eyes before turning her attention to the paper in her hand. After reading through it once, her brain got an electric jumpstart. She had to read it again and again just to make sure it wasn't her eyes playing tricks on her.
Then again, she thought, I see monsters that are invisible to everyone else all the time, so who knows?
Printed in ginormous font resembling lightning bolts were the words, "Come to the Gathering" in one line and, "where destiny awaits" in another. But within the generous amount of space between those two lines was another message:
"If you can read this message, then you are like me, someone who can see more than others can. You can see THEM. The monsters, living beings shaped in ways that don't make a lick of sense.
"Brother or sister, know this. You are not alone. This message is proof of that. Show it to someone who cannot see, and you will know this message is true.
"And if you are like me, plagued with loneliness and suffering for being born with something no one else has, then come to the address in the square on the bottom corner. There, you will finally find someone you can truly connect with, who can truly under you and where you can learn to free yourself from the torment of the monsters around you."
"Say," Alice heard Jackie went, "where and when is this Gathering supposed to take place? I don't see that anywhere."
Alice nearly turned with a start. She wondered if he was joking around, but she could see that was not the case as she subtly watched out of the corner of her eye the way Jackie strained his as he gave the flyer a look himself.
An amused Taylor explained the Gathering's selection process for new members to Jackie, who accepted with boatloads of confidence. But Alice could not understand how something could be called a puzzle or a test with the answer out in the open like that, plain as day.
Jackie mulled over his copy of the Gathering flyer as they headed towards Chinatown, with Alice observing him outside his notice. His "Hmm," and "Mmmmh," and "Hm?" while making that goofy look he always had when in deep thought made it all the more clear to her that her friend, practically the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, could not see the answer right in front of her face. It convinced Alice that the message she read on the flyer was legit, which excited her to no end.
How could she not be excited? She thought that she was the only one in the world, but here was proof she was not alone. Not only that, she had a chance to meet people without the fear of being judged as weird or crazy. And it was not a chance she was going to let slip through her fingers.
Once Saturday came around, Alice packed a few things in her backpack and headed to the address printed in the white square at the bottom corner of the flyer. She inputted the address on her phone's map app and let GPS guide her way. A few bus transfers and a walk down a street later, she came upon a building with glass doors guarded by two of the biggest monsters she had ever seen. And they were pretty ugly ones too.
One appeared to be a man, but he was ten feet tall. His skin was like tree bark and both his eye lids and his mouth were sewn shut. His right ear rested on his shoulder as his neck was permanently bent.
The other monster was a dog standing on its hind legs. One bloodshot eye was bigger than the other. And its torso was translucent yellow jelly.
If not for the fact that both wore Gathering t-shirts like Taylor does, Alice would have immediately turned around and walked away. But once she noticed the shirts, she took a deep breath, mustered some courage and approached them.
She looked up at the monsters, gave them a weak wave and a soft, scratchy, "Hi."
They both looked at her, making her jump. But then each grabbed hold of one of a pair of glass doors and pushed them open, clearing the way for her to go inside.
The monsters dipped their heads down in deep bows with their free arms lined across their stomachs, sort of like how butlers bowed to their masters in big, fancy mansions.
Seeing it for what it was, an invitation, Alice walked through the opening with forced boldness. She was greeted right away by a human, a guy around her age and wearing (no surprise) a Gathering t-shirt. The young man introduced himself as Zak and led the way up the stairs to a party room with a stage.
Alice was surprised to see so many people in the room. Are they all people like her? Could they also see monsters like she could? She wanted to find out. But at the same time, she was afraid of possibly being disappointed.
That fear was what kept her words in her throat even as her mouth hung open. And with how she froze like that, she probably looked like a cardboard cutout or a weird statue to everyone around her. Two twelve-year-olds even gave her weirded-out, sideways glances as they passed by. That was painful. Really painful.
Alice soon gave up trying to strike up a conversation and like in any other day at any other place, she hung back, away from the crowd.
Pretty soon, Zak got up on stage to get things started. No need to go into detail what happened next since they do the same thing every week and even say the same thing every week. After Zake got the crowd riled up, the Wizard made his appearance and his sales pitch. It was a word for word match for the speech Jackie would hear some time later.
Alice was taken in by the Wizard's words and was in awe in his display of real magic power. She was also keenly interested in the way he and Zak controlled those monsters they brought on stage, which was no surprise since those monsters have tormented her for most of her life. But more than anything, it was the Wizard's empathy for her lifelong plight that won her over.
Alice was all ready to join the Gathering, to become one of the Wizard's apprentices and learn his magical ways. But then came the part in the Wizard's speech about revenge and his plan to do something he called "the Ritual".
All sorts of red flags were raised, and alarm bells rang in her head. The Wizard never said anything about what the Ritual would do or how it worked, but it was pretty obvious to Alice that whatever it was, was not good. Not good at all.
The eagerness to join the Gathering quickly waned and was replaced with the urgent sense to get out of the room and get away from these people, especially the Wizard. While everyone else was engrossed with the Wizard's idea, cheering their support and willingness to take part in the Ritual, Alice turned to leave.
She quietly tiptoed to the door, gently pushed it open just a bit enough and slipped through. After taking a look around and seeing no one, human or monster, she bolted down the stairs as fast as she could, nearly slipping a few times. After jumping over the last five steps (and possibly fracturing her bones in the process with that hard landing) she sprang through the doors to the lobby and raced for the exit.
Alice was just about to open the door to freedom, when suddenly-
"Alice?"
Someone called out her name and she froze.
Slowly, she turned and looked over her shoulder. Taylor sat at the greeting table, apparently in charge of it while the Wizard put on his show. Held sideways in her hand was her phone softly playing a game's battle song.
Taylor put the phone face down on the table, the game's song still playing, and stood up.
"You're leaving early? The Gathering's gathering doesn't doesn't end for another thirty minutes."
"Yeah, well," said Alice, "I just remembered I have this thing I need to take care of later, so I thought I'd better bounce a little early. So sorry about that. Would love to talk tons with you about how great you guys are, but them's the breaks. You know?"
She laughed nervously.
"Uh-huh," went Taylor. "You know, you and Jackie are really alike."
Instantly dismayed, Alice protested, "We are not!"
But Taylor just chuckled. "I'm just kidding with you. But I do know why you're really leaving early. It's because of that Ritual talk isn't it?"
Alice's blood ran cold. But slowly, she nodded.
She was afraid of what was going to happen next, but then turned confused when Taylor went, "Good."
"What?" That's when it dawned on Alice that Taylor was like her. "Wait, you know that the Ritual's bad?"
"No duh it's bad," Taylor said, her face twisting to show the disgust she felt towards the Ritual.
"I don't get it," said Alice. "Why are you still with these guys if you know how bad they are?"
Taylor let out a long sigh. "Because I have no choice. I'm in too deep. If I try leave now, the Wizard and those Acolytes of his will see that as a betrayal and take revenge. You saw what he can do. I don't care about myself, but just imagining him using those powers of his on my little brothers and sisters sends shivers down my spine. I realized too late what I got myself into. But it's not too late for you. Act fast and get out of town while you still can. And take Jackie with you too."
Alice was even more confused now. "What do you mean, get out of town? And why'd you bring up Jackie?"
"I saw the Wizard's notes while cleaning his office," Taylor explained. "It had lots of details about the Ritual. He thinks that it's a spell for revenge, but that's not what it truly is."
"What kind of spell is it, then?" asked Alice.
Taylor put her hands on Alice's shoulders, looked straight into Alice's eyes with a dark, grim look plastered on her face. And then she answered in all seriousness, "A catastrophe. City-wide. The kind that will make lots of people die."
Alice wanted to laugh it off as a joke. She really wanted Taylor to laugh it off as a joke. But the dark look on Taylor's face held on. She was being serious.
And she wasn't done.
"How the Ritual works is it creates a signal that gets broadcast into monsters' brains making them go berserk. And the more people that do the Ritual together, the stronger the signal, the more it can spread out, and the more crazy the monsters will get. The Wizard already has enough people to make every monster in the whole city go ballistic. If the Gathering pulls it off . . . Well, I don't need to tell you what happens next, do I?"
No, she did not, Alice thought. She already said lots of people will die and that's all Alice needed to know.
Alice pictured Jackie lying in the jaws of that huge wolf thing outside, and it nearly made her throw up for real.
She declared, "That Ritual has to be stopped! We need to tell everyone what the Ritual will really do. For all the hate they got for the world, they can't want something like a mini-Armageddon."
But Taylor shook her head. "They won't listen. The Wizard didn't do anything magical, but he completely brainwashed everyone. You just happened to be smarter than everyone else, and I was just lucky (or maybe unlucky) to find out what the Ritual was really going to do."
"Then we need to go to the police!" Alice said. But Taylor shot that idea down too.
"And tell them what?" she said. "That a guy calling himself a wizard plans to start the apocalypse with monsters that rarely anyone can see? You should already know how that'll go."
"Then we don't say any of that," Alice said. "Some of the people in there are kids. We can get the Wizard arrested for kidnapping!"
"Alice, the Wizard's got legit magic powers with an army of Egregors."
"Egregors?" Alice had never heard the word before.
"It's what the invisible monsters are called," said Taylor. "But my point is the police aren't ever going to get close to him, let alone cuff him."
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Frustrated, Alice yelled before she could stop herself. She regretted raising her voice and cast a worried glance at the door. Relief was slow to come as nothing happened and the Wizard's voice continued to echo down from the floor above.
More softly, Alice repeated herself. "What are we supposed to do?"
"The only thing we can do," said Taylor. "Run. Get your friends and your family, and get out of this city before it's too late."
But Alice sadly shook her head. "That's impossible. Even if they believe me that something really bad's going to happen, they won't just up and leave. They'll go to the police or try to do something themselves."
Especially Jackie, thought Alice. The guy is too much of a hero-wannabe to leave anyone in trouble alone. The moment he hears about the Ritual, he'll definitely march up to that Wizard and try to talk him out of doing the Ritual.
Alice didn't want to think what would happen after that.
"There has to be some way to stop it," she said. "Come on, Taylor. You know this stuff better than I do. Can't you think of any ideas?"
"Well, I did think of something that could work," Taylor said hesitantly. "But it's about as impossible as all our other options, and more dangerous."
"I don't care, what is it?"
"To become an Acolyte."
Taylor reasoned being one of the Wizard's top apprentices would put someone at the best spot to sabotage the Ritual and prevent it from triggering a disaster.
"But once you do that, it's game over for you," Taylor said.
Again, Alice said, "I don't care."
The image of Jackie in a monster's jaws flashed in her imagination again.
"I'll do whatever it takes to stop it from happening."
"Then you'll have to work really hard and fast," said Taylor. "Not anyone can join the Wizard's Acolytes and there's only one spot left. You gotta be the best of the best. I'd try for the last spot myself, but it turns out magic's not really my thing. Can't even get the little monsters to listen to me. I could never pass the test to join. But maybe you can."
Alice wasn't so confident. But if joining the Gathering and becoming an Acolyte was the only way to stop the Ritual from hurting the people she loved, then that's what she was going to do.
After going through the steps of becoming an "official" member, Alice was taken to a house, a big one at the outskirts of the city, by bus. It was there she found some very familiar faces.
She did not know any of the kids there personally, but she had seen them on the news. These were the missing kids who had upped and vanished without a trace. They were like her, people with special eyes who had chosen to run away and joined the Gathering as the Wizard's apprentices.
The house was like some kind of small boarding school for magic and sorcery. Lessons were held on the first floor in the west wing sitting room by the Acolytes in the morning. Afternoon time was when the Acolytes themselves trained in the east wing room. The second and third floors held the quarters where the apprentices slept. Up in the attic was the Wizard personal dwelling.
Alice drank up whatever information she could during classes and spent all her free time practicing until very late at night. She worked hard. Harder than she had ever worked before. And she read ahead as much as she could from the books the Wizard's Acolytes were willing to provide for her. Her studies became all the more urgent when Taylor showed up with the unsurprising news that Jackie had begun snooping.
She had only been with the Gathering for a few days, but quickly decided to try the test. Taylor had said not a lot of time was left before the Wizard would initiate the Ritual so it was now or never.
To even her own surprise, however, Alice not only passed, but she was hailed for having the best score out of all the Acolytes, beating the previous record holder by a wide margin. The Wizard enthusiastically welcomed her to his own classroom, though some of those Acolytes didn't share that enthusiasm. But from then on, Alice was taught directly from the Wizard himself and continued absorbing all his lessons while exceeding his expectations. She was also quick to take on the duties of the Acolytes, which included tutoring the other members of the Gathering, working on the flyers and playing host to the Gathering's gatherings. The rest was history.
A lurch of the car as Taylor parked it in the garage awoke Alice back to present day.
As she shut the engine, Taylor asked, "Had a nice dream?"
Alice answered with, "Awful."
Together, the girls got out of the car and made their way to the dining room, which also served as the house's meeting room. The Wizard was there sitting at the head of the long, polished oak table. At either side of the table sat the Acolytes.
"Well?" asked the Wizard, hands clasped on the table in front of him.
"It's done," said Taylor. "I saw it all with my own eyes. Jackie Li won't be a problem."
"Good." The Wizard gave a satisfied nod.
"I still think we should've offed him while we had a chance," said Zak.
He threw Alice a hateful gaze, but Alice just coolly looked back, knowing it would annoy him more if she appeared apathetic. Among the Acolytes, he disliked Alice the most, likely jealous from all the attention she was getting from the Wizard.
"Now, now Zak," the Wizard cut in. "I know how you feel, but it would be cruel to make our dear Alice here end her friend. Besides, we're not monsters. If we don't need to off anyone, we shouldn't."
Zak quieted down, but would not stop throwing withering glares at Alice when he was sure no one was looking. Alice ignored him and took her seat furthest from the Wizard. Alice excused herself and left the room.
The Wizard looked around, beaming at each and every one of his top apprentices.
"Now then, let's get started. You all know why we're here today. I've got big news to announce. Here it is: the time has come. Shortly, we begin the Ritual."
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