Game World. C.J. Farley

another corner of the sky, a second shape appeared. It was smaller, darker, faster, and sped toward the first. They were about to collide in midair above the ship. Then, louder than all thunder, the atmosphere echoed with the same soul-shaking roar Dylan had first heard when he was wounded on the chest and again when Emma vanished.

      Everything went white.

      * * *

      Dylan woke up floating down a canal.

      He was soaking wet. He staggered out of the warm water, untangled himself from a length of frayed rope, and collapsed on the bank. He looked up to see the giant golden waterfall. Shards of crystal were scattered all around him. Had the Black Starr crashed?

      Something had attacked them. He didn’t quite know what it was, or why. Maybe it was some sort of guardian of the threshold, the same beast that had clawed his chest when he played the game. The doctors told him he’d had an episode. He sensed there was more to it. But he didn’t know if it would strike again.

      He felt a sharp sting against his cheek. He’d been cut by a piece of glass. All around him, he noticed that the shattered remains of the Black Starr were sliding along the ground, whizzing through the air, and colliding against one another, forming big pieces. It was as if the invisible ship was struggling to rebuild itself. A rough outline of the vessel was beginning to take shape. It was like watching a crystal form.

      It was weird, but Dylan had other stuff to worry about. Where was his sister? Where were his friends? Where was he?

      Then, at the base of a giant palm tree, he saw it: the letter D.

      Just where he had carved it when he was playing the game.

      This had to be Xamaica. There was no question that this was the forty-fourth level. He had always thought of it as a dream world, but now that he was here, it felt as if it was his old world that had been a dream. Everything seemed bigger, richer, deeper than anything he had encountered in his previous life before this place. He was beyond the golden mists of the mountain regions. His senses seemed to be working for the first time in his life. This was no video game. He could feel this world. He could smell it. He could taste it.

      Dylan began to run for joy. All those goons on the bus who called him Loopy and pushed him around and broke his stuff—he wished they could see him now. No, he was glad they couldn’t, because he wanted this world, this feeling, this moment, all to himself. He felt like the people he had seen in books, or in movies, who had gone someplace nobody had ever been, somewhere everyone had always wanted to go, and they made it there despite all the haters saying they couldn’t, like Earhart across the Atlantic, Armstrong on the moon, or Obama in the White House.

      Dylan found himself sprinting quicker than he ever had—faster than a skateboard or a bike. Soon he was leaping in the air, running, jumping, and through a break in the trees sunlight washed over him. He saw a purple river, a green lake, and a white waterfall. He noticed a school of Wata Mamas frolicking in the river below. He could glimpse, beyond the hills, a procession of mountains, their peaks tipped by a green cloud.

      The sky was a stunning shade of blue so blue it blew away his blues. Arching through the sky was something else: a huge spider web that stretched across the entire expanse, from one horizon to the other. Silvery strands sparkled in the sunlight. It both blended into the sky and stood out, depending on how the light caught it. It was tied down to the earth on the edges of the sky by four huge strands that must have been the size of ten thousand tree trunks. The web hadn’t been visible when he played the game, perhaps because the mists obscured it.

      This was a strange place. And his sister was lost and alone somewhere here. Dylan’s joy swirled away, like a bubble bath going down the drain.

      He couldn’t just enjoy being in Xamaica. He had a mission—he had to find his sister.

      A fury bubbled up in him, lava dripping over the lip of a volcano. Emma was always friggin’ messing up his life. He gets invited to the Tournament of Xamaica, and she has to tag along. He goes to Ines Mee’s mansion, and she has to butt in. She goads him about being a Game Changer, and when he finally gets on the list she tries to tell him it’s too dangerous. It was bad enough having her in the same grade as him, taking the same tests. He used to be one of the best students in school, but now what was the point in trying so hard if he was just going to finish second to his freakishly tall rocket scientist sister? Now here he was, trying to get her out of a mess she should have never been in. This was so Emma it was unbelievable.

      Then he felt mean for thinking these thoughts with his sister still MIA. But there was something cleansing about it, like when you pop a zit and all the pus squirts out. Yeah, sure, maybe he had a responsibility to rescue her, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

      Anyway, none of this was real. It wasn’t really happening. He closed his eyes. Maybe if he thought hard about his apartment, when he woke up his sister would be there.

      Suddenly, two screams sounded across paradise.

      He opened his eyes . . . Emma?