The Great Mistake

            Jess was worried.  Upon waking up this morning, no one had really noticed her.  They each had told their stories and then Fillip had left.  Jess didn’t even get a chance to tell them what had happened to her last night, her dream.  In her dream there was a fire, and a boy stepped out of the flames.  Fillip ran away from the boy but then suddenly stopped.  The boy said that his name was Jace.  The next moment Martin and Dan disappeared and Jess saw Jace and Fillip walking towards a house.  There was a holographic timepiece floating outside the house and it had a face that was laughing.  Jess saw the boy talking to Fillip, who was lying on the floor of a room, crying.  There were others in the room, and they were all screaming, “Help!”  Then Jess saw Mathonog.  He was walking toward her with a horrible smile on his face.  In his hand was an electronic screwdriver, identical to the one that had almost destroyed her one year ago.

            Jess had awakened before Mathonog had reached her.  She was thinking so hard about her dream that she hadn’t said anything to the others.  Dreams were new things for her; she had never had them until the previous week.  Martin said that the more Jess stayed with them the more she started taking on the characteristics of human beings.  Jess believed that this was much better than anything Mathonog and Soseph had planned for her when they had created her in their laboratory.  She didn’t care how much more advanced the Xalpons were than humans; she still found them much crueler, all of them.  Whatever had gotten better for them while evolving in the sixth dimension, other things had surely gotten worse.

            Jess hated them.  They had given her a brain, and yet made her for experimentation.  They had tried to destroy her in order to find a substance in her that might help them do whatever they felt like doing.  Apparently right now they felt like killing Martin.  Jess personally didn’t think anyone or anything stood a chance against those two, but she planned to do everything in her power to help Martin.

            Jess had then followed Martin, Fillip, and Dan through the forest silently, thinking about her dream and what it could mean, if it meant anything at all.  But, considering recent events, she wouldn’t be at all surprised if it meant something. She was suddenly jolted out of her trance when she flew right into the branches of a tree.  She spun around, and realized that Martin, Fillip and Dan were nowhere in sight. 

            Then Jess heard the voice of a boy off in the distance.  She still couldn’t see anyone, so she followed the voice.  As Jess flew closer she heard other noises.  First, she heard a loud noise that sounded like a tree falling over.  Then there was the sound of someone going through a warp, and all the noises stopped.  The quiet was so great it was ringing in Jess’ ears, and she strained hard to hear any of the sounds that were so loud and clear a few seconds ago.  She heard nothing.

            “Martin?  Dan?  Fillip!” she said in the loudest voice she could muster.  She was never programmed to yell because obviously no one saw any need in teaching her.  Jess struggled with her rising panic.  She was alone.