Exhausted. Hot. Unamused. These were all words to describe Jesse in this boring old beach house. This was his parents' a couple years ago, though it seems like more than a couple... Maybe a couple hundred. His mom insisted that they stop and check the place out to see what shape it was in. The answer is, not that good. The place was smelly, and the floor creaked wherever you stepped. Jesse could have sworn he saw some spider webs in some of the cabinets.
"Alex, look at this." He called for his older sister who was three years older than him, Alex being 17. She set down a picture frame of a random family and walked towards him. Jesse pointed to more bunches of spider webs (including the spiders' dinners) in a corner of the room.
"Poor little guys. Their lives just got taken away from them. They look pretty gross though. Kinda like you." Alex says as she grins.
"Ha ha, very funny." Jesse rolls his eyes at her.
"I wonder why mom and dad don't come up here anymore." She said with a laugh.
"They got kicked out, remember? They can't even live in this dump if they wanted to." He chuckled.
"How did they get kicked out again?" She asked.
"Dad said he forgot to pay rent until they just weren't allowed in anymore."
"The definition of procrastination." Alex joked as she walked towards an old pool table with several mysterious stains on it.
"Wanna play?" She asked.
"Pshh," Jesse pushed one of the balls towards a hole with his hand and the ball immediately falls to the ground, due to the pockets being torn.
"Well that wasn't very fun." They laugh. This place was not very exciting. Their parents were upstairs checking out the bedrooms, so Jesse reaches in his pocket to text his mom and ask how much longer they'll stay. Right as he texts in the contact name, Alex calls him over. She had wandered into a different room of the house without him realizing.
"Check this out, Jess!" She says, clearly excited. When he reaches the room, his eyes immediately target the gigantic coin-operated arcade game.
"Dude..." Jesse says, amazed. It was clearly outdated, but fascinating. When he walked up to it, you could barely see anything on it because of the pounds of dust. He pressed the START button and nothing happened.
"It's not working." Jesse said.
"Maybe try plugging it in, stupid." Alex laughs and plugs in to the outlet on the wall. Jesse pushes the START button. Nothing happens.
"Who's stupid now, stupid?" Jesse said in a mocking tone. Right after, a colorful light show appeared on the dusty screen. Ribbons of vibrant colors streamed this way and that. Jesse and Alex were amazed; they didn't expect this from what seemed like a crappy, out dated arcade game. Their faces slowly got closer and closer to it, for they were almost hypnotized. All of a sudden, the color bursted from the screen and out came ribbons of color in 3D, right before their eyes.
"WOAH!" Jesse exclaimed. He reached out to touch the colors and his sister grabbed his hand.
"Jess, no! We don't know if it's safe to-" She stopped mid-sentence to see a yellow ribbon tie itself around Jesse's waist and pulled him into the screen.
"Oh my...God..." Alex mumbled. "Mom, dad, help!" But they didn't seem to hear. It was too late though, because a blue ribbon grabbed ahold of her. She screamed as she (literally) got sucked into the game. Jesse and Alex were no where to be seen...not in the three-dimensional world, anyway.
****
"Jess? Jesse?" Alex hollered, but there was no response. She had wound up in a dark (really, really dark) place. She couldn't see anything, except there seemed to be some sort of glow on coming from her torso. She held her hand up to the area near her rib cage and looked down.
"What the-" She mumbled. It was coming from her heart. It was then that she realized the way she could find her brother. She was going to look ridiculous doing it, but there wasn't anyone around anyway...at least she hoped.
Alex stood tall, her chest as stretched outwards as much as it could possibly be, and she ran. She moved her chest in different directions, using her heart as a flashlight.
"Jesse?!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. She started panicking. Where was her brother? If he wasn't here and no one else was either, would she be stuck in here alone for the rest of her life?
"Alex? Alex, is that you?" She heard her brother's sort of deep voice shout.
"Yes," She mumbled, at first. "YES! JESSE!"
Jesse hadn't heard his sister yell so loud in his life. He ran up to her and they hugged. Alex squeezed him so tightly, he thought he might pop.
"Ow, ow. Yeah, hey." Jesse laughed as they separated.
"Why are we here...and why is your brain glowing?"
"Why is your heart glowing?" Jesse said back.
"I wish I knew. There's gotta be a way out of here, right?"
"I presume. Do what you were doing before...you know, with your little flashlight thingy." Jesse said. Alex puffed out her chest again and pointed it in different directions, looking for something, anything. Jesse did the same with his head. They saw nothing.
"Hey wait," Jesse paused and moved his head back to where it was before. His light shown on a figure in the distance. It was very large, shadowy, and not human at all. That last part probably scared the siblings the most.
"Hello? Uh, may we ask...where are we?" Jesse said.
No response.
"Why is my heart glowing?" Alex blurted. Jesse coughed, letting her know that that probably wasn't the best thing to say.
"Do you speak English?" Jesse asked, in case it was a human.
The figure nodded.
"Oh, great! Uh, Alex, don't you have that notebook in your bag?"
"Oh yeah," Alex says as she slings the bag over her shoulder and searches for the pad of paper. She finds it and a pencil and slowly but surely walks over to the figure. She was so frightened that she set it down about three feet away from it and sprints back to her brother as fast as she could.
The figure looks almost like gas or air, floating towards the notebook. It's body separates into two at the torso, one section smaller than the other, creating what was almost like an arm. It brings the notebook and pencil closer to it's body and awkwardly scribbles something down. It sets it down on the ground and points to Alex.
"M-Me?" She stammers and slowly makes her way towards the figure. She reads the words on the page.
'heart is glowing because love; you are caring'
Alex doesn't know what to do. She simply nods and walks back to Jesse. The figure picks up the notebook again and more scribbling happens. This time, of course, it points to Jesse. Jesse was a little hesitant because the creature was unlike anything he's ever seen or heard of, but he slowly makes his way towards it. The words on the page read:
'brain is glowing because wise; you know the world better than most people'
Jesse does the same thing as Alex did and nods, but right when he started to nod, bright light blinded his vision. He couldn't see anything but white for about ten seconds until he slowly came to and realized that he was back at the beach house.
"Jesse, Alex, ready to go?" He heard his parents say. Their footsteps got closer and closer to him.
"Aw, look at that. They fell asleep!" His mother said.
"I'm awake...barely." Alex managed.
"Mmmme too." Jesse mumbled.
"Alright guys, let's get moving. We still need to drive some more!"
Groans came out of the siblings.
Jesse turned around to see his sister. They looked at each other for a while, for they knew something their parents didn't. They knew their meanings of life. They both grinned at each other as they slowly sat up and stood.
"That arcade game seems pretty cool! Can I try it out a little before we go?" Their dad asked.
"NO!" The siblings yelled, synchronized.
"Uh, it doesn't work. We tried." Jesse said quickly.
"Ah, darn." Their dad sighed. Alex and Jesse glanced at each other and winked as they headed out the door of the boring old beach house.
*****
