Page 46 of The Last Special Thing

He pulled out a spoon-shaped pipe and packed it with the moss colored plant. With a flick of the lighter, the bowl glowed. He inhaled deeply. A few hits reduced the contents to ash.

Everyone waited.

Then it hit him.

Art balanced on his fists and knees like a gorilla. He bounded across the apartment, knocking his shoulder into the side of the couch.

“Ohmygod.” Reyna giggled. Her almond-shaped eyes focused on him.

Art picked up the Xbox controller and tilted his head sideways at it, as if he had forgotten what it was.

He pointed insistently to various inanimate objects: the ashtray Madisson made, the television remote, Amelia’s shoe. The rest of the group eyed each other with giggles, and Art’s face pulled back in frustration.

He never spoke a word.

Art was right. It didn’t last long. Like a roller coaster, he was up, twisted, and the world turned strange. Then, he returned to Earth as if nothing had happened.

“You ready, Princess?” Art asked with far more amusement than she had.

“You looked crazy,” she said.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to do it. She certainly didn’t want to be bounding around the apartment ape-like. Fear flickered in her chest.

“It was crazy. Then it was over. And I’m alright now, aren’t I?”

She glanced at Madisson, who had done this with Max before. Madisson reached a hand out to her.

“We’re right here,” Madisson ran a thumb over Amelia’s fingers.

“Right here,” Reyna echoed with a nod.

Amelia looked sideways. She certainly didn’t need comfort from Reyna. She shifted her attention to Art, who was already repacking the pipe with another dose of salvia. He extended the pipe out for her turn. She sighed, extinguishing the fear inside her. She would do this, and it would be fine.

With her lips to the pipe, she inhaled deeply. She held it in her chest and counted to three, as Art had taught her about the weed.

When she exhaled, she entered another dimension.

Even after watching the strangeness of Art’s trip, Amelia didn’t expect it to hit her as it did. She had been staring at Madisson when it took over. Hard.

The room shifted, and things were no longer as they had been. A cold darkness enveloped the room. A red light pulsed from the television, stretching out of the screen and toward her. A red so deep it had to be the flames from every bad, ugly thing in the world blasting toward her.

She gripped Art’s hand for protection. The light vanished, panic taking over. Sweat prickled at the base of her neck. Her mind dizzied trying to keep focus, like a child on a spinny disc at a park.

Please. Someone. Help me.

Instead of help, she was met with a melting gaze from the group, pushing her through the floor and into the ugly red flames.

She shouted for help, then pulled back at the noise.

It wasn’t her voice. The words were foreign. Not English, Spanish, or Italian. Not a language she had ever heard.

She was in a foreign drama, another country’s telenovela of sorts. No one blinked. Were they filming her? Watching her unravel?

Amelia wanted to run, but her legs were anchored to the carpet that threatened to swallow her.

Max reached over and gently patted her leg.

Panic scurried up her body like a baby mouse. Its claws scratched against her as it raced up her jeans and then into her chest.