Lets read Everworld-Show me the way to go home.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Lets read Everworld-Show me the way to go home.

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Ok, welcome to our next Applegrant series....Everworld. 12 books in this one, and you know the drill, I"m going to try to post either a chapter or two a day, unless for whatever reason unless i'm too busy or not feeling well. Feel free to participate. We read two chapters a day of Animorphs, but we'll stick with one chapter for now until we all find out footing. Thanks to nine-world crow for his copies of the Everworld books.

Book 1-The Search for Senna
Chapter 1

quote:

The fight started at the Taco Bell where a lot of seniors and some juniors went for lunch. I�m a junior. I fit in there as well as anywhere. Which is not very well.

I�m new, in a school where almost no one is new. Not just �a� new kid. I was �the� new kid.

Worse yet, I was the new kid who�d been seen with Senna Wales in his car on Sunday. Down by the lake. Lake Michigan.

It was stupid of me. I shouldn�t have rubbed Christopher�s nose in it. I didn�t know for a fact that he�d be down at the lake. I didn�t know for a fact that he�d seen us. But when you have an unusually warm, sunny Sunday right in the middle of a rainy late September, well, it doesn�t take a genius to figure out that kids will be hanging out down at the water.

I drove Senna down there. Top down on my big old Buick. Senna on the cracked, white leather seat beside me. Long blond hair whipping in the wind. Pale face with Julia Roberts lips. Eyes the color of rain clouds that had stayed for weeks and would return the next day.

I drove down there knowing that people would see. I don�t know what the point was. Probably just some lame �look at me!� thing. I was with Senna. I wanted people to know it. I wanted them to say, �Whoa, that new guy David Levin is going with Senna.�

Like that really meant something.

Maybe I just wanted Christopher to see. Christopher, who�d been with Senna ever since the last week of sophomore year. Christopher, the wit, the comedian. He�d left half my English Lit class peeing themselves from laughing so hard. At me, as I read aloud a poem I�d written as a class assignment.

Christopher is a funny guy. I mean, he has a real talent that way. You know a guy is funny when a week later you can still feel the little knives he stuck in you.

Senna wasn�t the most popular girl in school. Not even the most beautiful. A lot of guys were scared of her. Truth. There was always something about her that seemed remote, cool. Like she lived behind a veil. Like she could see you but you couldn�t quite see her, not really her, just a shadow.

So she scared some guys. But me? First time I saw her I knew that everything that had ever mattered to me just didn�t anymore. I could feel the course of my future suddenly swerve. I was like a planet drawn into the gravity well of a black hole. No escape. No desire to escape.

Surrender, David.

I didn�t walk the three blocks to the Taco Bell that Monday lunch, I drove. So did lots of kids, so they could roll down their windows and crank their stereos. Or sneak a smoke. Or sneak whatever.

My old Buick�s stereo was just an AM radio. The FM was broken, and I only got three stations on the AM: some political talk station, some religious talk station, and a classic rock station. Hard to tell which I wanted to listen to least.

The car�s a beast, but I wanted a convertible, had to have one. I hate the feeling of being all cramped in. And this was all the convertible I could afford.
I drove the few blocks with the top down and elbow stuck out, driving with one hand, praying I wouldn�t stall out at the stoplight and have to get out and push the old beast over to the curb.

By some miracle, there was a parking space. I slid in and jumped out. It didn�t take long for Christopher to spot me.

People figure a guy who�s class clown is probably a wimp. Maybe Christopher is. But he had a lot of friends. So when the door of the Taco Bell blew open and Christopher came out, bristling and scowling, he had three other guys helping him hold up that bad-rear end act.

I didn�t pretend not to see him. I stopped walking and waited. He came right up to me. I gave him credit for that. I have a rep as a fairly tough guy. Maybe I deserve it, I don�t know.

Would he have confronted me without his crew along? Don�t know. He looked mad enough to.

�We have a problem,� he snapped.

�Do we?� I asked.

Then, wham!

I never saw the blow coming. It wasn�t Christopher. It was one of his boys. Just loaded up on me and nailed me with a left hook that connected with my right cheek. I staggered. I went down on one knee. My knee crunched a soda cup someone had dropped. Pepsi or whatever soaked into my jeans.

Then, wham!

The punk�s knee came up and caught me in the nose. It was like someone exploded a hand grenade in my face. It was stars and Tweety birds, just like some old Looney Tunes cartoon.

I heard a lot of shouting. A lot of it was Christopher. He was dragging the guy off me and yelling, �I didn�t say hit him, you moron! Get out of here or I�ll kick your butt.�

Someone, or several someones, dragged and frog-walked me away around to the back of the Taco Bell. Back to the greasy Dumpster.

�Leave me alone!� I yelled, trying to stand up. I stood up for about three seconds before I tottered back into the wood fence that surrounded the Dumpster.

The rain decided this would be a good time to start pouring. So down it came. It was a blessing. It helped me straighten out my whirling, loopy head.

It was Christopher himself holding me upright. And beside him, this girl named April. She�s Senna�s half sister. Three months and a universe of difference separate them. Senna is cool, blond, and remote. April is all green eyes and auburn hair and big, mocking smiles. Be with Senna for a million years and you won�t know her. Be with April ten minutes and it�s like you grew up together.

Jalil was there. I knew Jalil from school. The poem I�d had to read that Christopher ridiculed? Jalil came up afterward and told me exactly, precisely why it sucked. But with no rancor and no ridicule, just because he knew.

Jalil doesn�t believe the truth should piss anyone off. Or maybe he doesn�t care if it does. He just cares that it�s true. That�s giving him the benefit of the doubt. Take away that grace and maybe he�s just a condescending know-it-all.

He was one of the first kids I got to sort of know at school. Not friends, exactly. More like two off-center loners who recognized a bit of themselves in the other person. We were guys who nodded at each other. Once he stepped over and just sort of made his presence known when I was getting hassled by some black kids. Once I did the same for him when he was getting some grief from some white guys.

Jalil has this habit of not turning his head much, just moving his eyes, skeptical, appraising, not impressed by much. It takes him a while to talk and you might think he�s slow. But you get to know him you realize he�s slow to talk because his brain�s already jumped ahead three spaces and he has to back up to deal with you.

Me, I�m not that smart. Not schoolbook smart, anyway. I don�t have the focus for that. When I was a kid I had that attention deficit disorder thing. I was always jumping around, looking at all the wrong things, missing what I was supposed to get, and getting the things no one else thought were important.

Here�s my entire childhood: �David, settle down!�

By the time I was thirteen I was a confirmed skateboard freak. Pants so big I could have had another couple of people in there with me. My board was, like, surgically attached to me. Could not be without it.

Here�s my entire junior high existence: �Hey, kid, get offa there!�

Now I was older. A year away from college or a job or the military. Now I didn�t know what I was.

Oh, wait. Yes, I did. I was a chump with a piece of raw burger where my nose used to be.

�What are you all staring at?� I raged.

�I can�t speak for any of the others,� Christopher said, �but personally, I�m looking at a guy who got sucker-punched and looks like he needs a new nose. I mean, drat, what are you going to breathe with?�

I felt my nose. Gingerly. It didn�t hurt. Not yet, but it would.

�You let that punk do your fighting for you?� I demanded.

Christopher shook his head. �Uh-uh, don�t lay that on me. What you and me have going on, you and me can deal with. That wasn�t my idea, what happened back there.�

�What the hell is the matter with you two?� April demanded, but in a tone that was at least half amusement. �Let me guess. This had to involve Senna.�

I glared at Christopher. He glared back at me. Some of my blood was on his shirt. He�d helped me stand up.

�We should move on,� Jalil said. �Someone may have called the cops.�

�I didn�t do anything wrong,� I said, intensifying my glare at Christopher.

�Who cares about you?� Jalil asked blandly. �I�m a young black male. The cops show up, they�ll bust me on general principle. So come on, let�s take this show down the road before I end up playing Rodney King over your problems.�

That was how we all came together the first time. Me wobbling along holding my face, Christopher propping me up and showing no sign of guilt as he made jokes at my expense, April thinking the whole thing was amusing and touching and idiotic, and Jalil looking out for himself even while he helped me out.

That�s where it all began: around a girl named Senna who wasn�t even there.

Ok, it' looks like we've been introduced to our protagonists.

David-Who isn't particularly suave, sophisticated or popular.
Christopher,-Who is.
Jalil-Who isn't afraid to tell you when your poem sucks.
Aptil: Senna's little sister, who's friendly, and whem she says hi, you think you've known her forever
and
Senna: Who we haven't met yet, but seems omnipresent.

And, unlike our Animorph protagonists, these kids all are in high school, driving, getting really angsty anout relationship drama, anf thinking about their futures.

# ? Apr 20, 2023 03:22

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# ? May 3, 2024 10:58

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Our protagonists (so far)

David-Who isn't particularly suave, sophisticated or popular.
Christopher,-Who is.
Jalil-Who isn't afraid to tell you when your poem sucks.
Aptil: Senna's little sister, who's friendly, and whem she says hi, you think you've known her forever
and
Senna: Who we haven't met yet, but seems omnipresent.

# ? Apr 20, 2023 03:22

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Hell yes, ground floor for more patented Kathrine Applegate and Michael Grant Grade-A Child Trauma! :buddy:

# ? Apr 20, 2023 03:38

someone awful.: Sep 7, 2007

I know literally nothing about this series, but I'm sure everything will go amazingly for these kids and nothing bad will happen :kiddo:

# ? Apr 20, 2023 04:48

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

quote:

He came right up to me. I gave him credit for that. I have a rep as a fairly tough guy. Maybe I deserve it, I don�t know.

David's such a jackass and I love him for it

# ? Apr 20, 2023 10:13

Malpais Legate: Oct 1, 2014

The Everworld that I read was like a compilation copy of the first three or so books but I don't think I ever got any farther than that. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

You can definitely tell they're trying to skew older than the Animorphs audience here, but I don't remember it being all that more violent than the cut-in-half-as-a-bear chapters from Animorphs.

# ? Apr 20, 2023 15:50

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Yeah, the series definitely leans harder on dealing with things like sex, racism and mental illness than Animorphs did though the violence is overall toned down.

And reading them as a kid I always felt like David, Christopher and April specifically were updated takes on versions of Jake, Marco and Cassie with different backgrounds who didn't go through the Yeerk stuff. And deliberately more alienated and flawed than their counterparts.

# ? Apr 20, 2023 16:13

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Here for the ground floor, baby!

# ? Apr 21, 2023 00:23

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 2

quote:

�You look terrible,� Senna said.

�Thanks. So do you.� A lie.

It was later that night, after the Taco Bell Incident. We were in my car. The top was down. We were driving. Driving nowhere. Just driving.

We stopped at a light. She slid across the seat. Her bare knee pressed against my jeans. She reached with long, sensitive fingers to touch my swollen, smashed-plum nose.

Her eyes were glittery in the neon of city night. She looked at my messed-up face. She looked a little too long, maybe. Her expression was�I don�t know what it was. It made me look away.

I guess she spaced, because suddenly her fingers were pressing too hard. Pain shot through my nose.

�Hey!�

�Sorry,� she said. She pulled her fingers away. There was blood on her fingertips. She looked at it and did not wipe it away.

�It�s okay,� I said.

�You were fighting over me,� she said.

Green light. I pulled away slowly. Too slowly for the cab behind me. He gave me three seconds of horn.

�I would have been. Fighting for you, I mean. If I�d given Christopher half a chance. But instead I decided to grab that punk�s knee and use it to beat the hell out of my face.�

She smiled, teeth blue and gold from a Blockbuster sign we were passing.

She slid closer still. �Christopher wouldn�t have fought you. He�s not that way.�

�You don�t have a very high opinion of him. Why�d you go out with him?�

�I liked him. I still like him. He�s smart and funny.�

That stung. �Yeah? So why aren�t you still seeing him? Why are you with me?�

�Don�t tell me where I am or who I�m with, David,� she said.

I shot a look at her. Red light. She considered me, her eyes roaming over my face. Not at the injured nose anymore, but at my own face. My chin, like she was judging it. My eyes, but without making contact.

Then she kissed me.

Green light. This time I took off a little faster.

We drove to a place where we could watch the moon come up over the lake. I parked the car. I looked at her. I knew nothing about her. I knew her face, her eyes, her hair. Nothing. What I knew about Senna Wales was really about me, not her. I knew that if only I could have her, if only she could somehow be with me, be a part of me, if only I could get up each day knowing she�d look at me, see me, smile at me, then she would be a wall to block out everything, a chasm between past and future.

But that was about me. That was all about the twists in my head. About her, I knew nothing.

�Sorry the radio sucks,� I apologized.

�I like it quiet.�

So we sat there, side by side in silence, and listened to the breeze and the not-so-distant sound of traffic and the mellow lapping of water at the shore.

I was trying to work up my nerve to kiss her again. But there was a wall around her.

Untouchable.

�Something is going to happen,� she said, gazing out at the water.

For a moment I didn�t know if she was done talking or not. And then I didn�t know if I should say anything.

�What do you mean? What�s going to happen?�

Slowly, very slowly, she shook her head. �I don�t know. I only know something will happen. Soon. Something�terrible.�

I shivered. I don�t shiver. I don�t scare that easily. I shivered.

She turned and smiled at me. �Sometimes I know things before they happen. Sometimes I can see a scene in my head. Like watching a movie. And then it will happen. I think, did I make it happen? Or did I just see it somehow?�

I shrugged, helplessly confused. Not wanting to make her turn away, wanting to keep her eyes looking at me. �I don�t know. Maybe a little of both.�

I had no idea what she was talking about. But she acted like I did.

�Yes. Maybe,� she said. Then, almost shyly, she asked the question that would enslave me.

�David, when it happens�when it happens, David, will you save me?�

I don�t know what I thought. That she was crazy. That I didn�t care if she was crazy.

�Yes, Senna. I�ll save you.�

She kissed me then, and then again. And each time she opened her lips to me I felt another part of myself drained away. And I didn�t care.

So we've finally met Senna! And David's got it bad for her....really bad. Plus she's maybe psychic.

# ? Apr 21, 2023 02:57

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

here on the ground floor this time!

# ? Apr 22, 2023 01:50

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Getting some pretty bad vibes from Senna, if we're doing Animorphs comparisons she seems like a David

Piell fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Apr 22, 2023

# ? Apr 22, 2023 03:32

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 3

quote:

I dreamed about Senna that night. I almost always remember my dreams, although I always pretend not to. There are some things that pop up in my dreams I don�t want to remember. Stuff from a long-gone, faraway time, rising up to torture me.

But I dreamed of her that night. And that dream I wanted to keep forever.

She came to me. Right there in my room. She just appeared. Even before I�d opened my eyes.

She wasn�t smiling. She looked distant and distracted and wary.

But she came to stand beside my bed and took my hand in hers. I felt something like electricity, only, no, no, not electricity. Electricity would travel from her into me, and that�s not what I felt.

I felt her hand and it was cold. Not death cold, steel cold. Emptiness cold. My own hand, hot, could not affect her. My heat could not raise her temperature by one degree, and that fact, that physical fact made it seem that my own hand was burning. She looked at me but there were other eyes looking out through hers.

She scared me. I felt she could reach down and take my throat and squeeze and I would be helpless, helpless, batting at her with weak arms, unable to so much as bruise the liquid steel of her delicate body.

She waved her other hand, and all at once the walls of my room were gone, and we were outside in sunlight, in a field of wildflowers. All fake, I knew that right away. I knew it and it made my insides churn. An illusion she had created, that was it, a movie backdrop for the big scene.

She bent low then, low to me sprawled on the grass, and pressed her lips to mine. Her hair whipped my face, stinging. I flinched but she smiled and I smiled, too, a different smile as she kissed me, and now I was screaming in silent pain as the burning in my hand spread through my body.

I reached for her to pull her down, but I might have been tugging at a marble statue.

No control, David. You have no control. She said that. Or was it me? Or was it some voice from someone watching, unseen?

She laughed. David the Dragonslayer, she said. General David. David the Fool. Lord David. And more names, more titles, all mocking, but as she went on, more bitter, more angry. Like she was seeing a list reeled off, a list she liked less and less.

Then her eyes saw something that made her mouth form into a snarl.

Plans within plans, she said thoughtfully, wary again. Secrets within secrets. But you will never betray me, will you, David?

No, no, no! I cried, as if someone were ripping the words from my throat.

You will always be mine, she said.

She kissed me again and pressed her body against mine, and now at last she was warm and real.

And then she disappeared.

Yep, he's got her bad.

Epicurius fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Apr 22, 2023

# ? Apr 22, 2023 04:22

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

This seems ominous. Also did you mislabel that chapter? We should be on 3 and it doesn't read like we skipped ahead

# ? Apr 22, 2023 13:25

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Soonmot posted:

This seems ominous. Also did you mislabel that chapter? We should be on 3 and it doesn't read like we skipped ahead

You're correct. That should be 3. Corrected.

# ? Apr 22, 2023 16:42

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Epicurius posted:

Chapter 3

quote:
Plans within plans, she said thoughtfully, wary again. Secrets within secrets.

Yep, he's got her bad.

Hmm, is this where Applegrant started reading Herbert? :raise:

# ? Apr 22, 2023 18:12

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 4

quote:

t happened the next day. The terrible thing.

It was early. Gray dawn. More gray than dawn, really, because the clouds were hanging low over the lake. It was chilly, which is how I like it when I go for a run. I run maybe three times a week. I�m no athlete; it�s just that sometimes I�ll wake up way too early and be full of this dangerous energy. The kind of feeling that makes you go looking for trouble. Maybe it was some hangover from my dream. Maybe I just hadn�t slept well. All I know is I woke up tingling, teeth grinding, eyes way too clear and alert. So I got up and ran.

I rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of gray shorts, a faded Radiohead T-shirt, and a sweatshirt with the arms cut short. I dug in my drawer for clean socks and laced up my shoes.

I crept down the stairs past my mom�s room. Her door was partly open. A man�s leg was sticking out from beneath crumpled sheets. I looked away.

We have a house in a kind of old neighborhood. It�s a nice house, with a standard lawn and a fence around the backyard. The street is quiet. It�s eight, nine blocks to the lake and downhill all the way.

I headed toward the lake. No warm-up. I wasn�t planning a long run. Through the still-sleeping downtown, past the Breugger�s and the Barnes and Noble and the health food store.

I listened to the sound of my shoes hitting sidewalk. I listened to the sound of my own breathing, calm and steady for the first few blocks, getting a little harsher after that. I had to breathe through my mouth. My nose hurt less that way.

Down to Sheridan, still mostly devoid of traffic. I caught a red light, shot a look each way, and ran across. There�s park all along the lake. Grass and big trees and winding paths for runners and bikers. People take their dogs there. Kids play there. At this hour of the morning, though, there were just a few runners spaced far apart on the crushed shell path.

There�s an L-shaped pier of concrete blocks. It shelters the powerboat launching ramp. I saw someone sitting out there on the end. Past the railing, perched on a rough, white concrete boulder. I knew right away it was her.

Senna sat gazing out at the mist-shrouded lake, hands pressed down on the rock, legs drawn up to her chin, a little girl. She was wearing a jean jacket a couple of sizes too big. She looked so small. Weak. Not the creature from my dream.

My steady steps faltered. I heard the different rhythm as my feet slowed, then sped up, then slowed again.

I should have wanted to go to her. But I didn�t. I should have felt lucky. Lucky to see her alone on a morning when I expected to be alone with myself.

But that�s not what I felt.

Dread.

That�s what I felt. Dread.

There was a voice in my head, a lunatic voice screaming, Run away! Run away! A panicky voice.

�What�s the matter with you?� I asked myself, wanting to hear my own, true voice. �Getting jumpy? That knee in the face must have rattled your brain, David.�

headed toward Senna, toward the start of the pier. But my feet were listening to that other voice, that faint but insistent madman in my brain. My feet were out of rhythm, they missed steps, they dragged, they didn�t want to go any closer.

And then I saw the others. And they saw me, and I swear the chill breeze became a frozen wind that went right through my skin and iced my insides.

Jalil was just pulling up in his car. I saw him clearly. He saw me. I guess we were both trying to look normal, but we both knew there was nothing normal here.

Christopher was walking from the other direction. He looked worried and harassed. Like a guy who�s late for an appointment he doesn�t want to make.

April was sitting on a bench, looking out at Senna. I would be next to her in a dozen steps. I stopped.

�Hi, April,� I said, trying to sound normal.

She turned her startling green eyes on me. �What does it mean, David?�

I shook my head. �I don�t know.�

I heard a car door close. Jalil joined us. He said nothing. He looked at me. He looked at April. Only his eyes moved. Then, as if he didn�t want to look, as if he didn�t want to have to turn his head, he looked at Senna. At Senna�s profile, because she did not turn to look at us.

�Excuse me, but does anyone else have a case of the unholy creeps?� Christopher asked.

Christopher�s a big guy, bigger than me. Blond. Looks like a surfer dude. His tan was looking a little green.

He had walked up and stopped, like me, a few feet away from April.

�I was blaming it on brain damage,� I said, pointing at my bandaged nose.

�My brain�s fine,� Jalil said. �It�s my stomach telling me to get the hell out of here.�

�Too weird,� Christopher said. �We�re all here? She�s out there? What is this?�

�I heard her leave really early this morning,� April said. �We share a wall between our rooms. She�and then, I felt like I had to follow her.� She shrugged.

�What is this?� Christopher demanded in a loud voice. Deliberately loud. Maybe loud enough for Senna to hear if she was listening.

�Ask her,� April said.

Slowly Senna climbed to her feet. She turned and looked at us. She was maybe a hundred feet away.

I could see confusion on her face.

Her mouth formed the word �no.�

And then the entire universe ripped apart.

So something just happened. Our heroes just for some reason felt a weird compulsion to go to the same place, and then the universe ripped apart. Any idea what happened?

Epicurius fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Apr 23, 2023

# ? Apr 23, 2023 04:21

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Epicurius posted:

[b]Chapter 4[/b[

So something just happened. Our heroes just for some reason felt a weird compulsion to go to the same place, and then the universe ripped apart. Any idea what happened?

Yes, but it's because I read these books back then. :yohoho:

# ? Apr 23, 2023 04:42

Mazerunner: Apr 22, 2010; Good Hunter, what... what is this post?

Epicurius posted:

[b]Chapter 4[/b[

So something just happened. Our heroes just for some reason felt a weird compulsion to go to the same place, and then the universe ripped apart. Any idea what happened?

... ellimist did it?

# ? Apr 23, 2023 05:05

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

A sairo rip? It is possible but when we learned about this in school, see, I was distracted by...

# ? Apr 23, 2023 12:03

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 5

quote:

It was like a fade. Like on a TV show when they fade from one picture to another. One minute you�re seeing one picture, then slowly another picture emerges beneath the first.

Only this was not TV. And this was happening in three dimensions.

The picture had sight, sound, smell. It had the breeze that smelled of damp. It had the soft sounds of water sighing against the shore. It had the feel of chill, and of soft grass under my soles, and of sweat cooling on my body. It had low, heavy clouds that seemed to squeeze the air out of my lungs.

It had Senna, alone, at the end of the pier, and the memory of her lips on mine.

In one sickening moment all that began to shimmer, as if it had all been a reflection in a bowl of water and someone had tapped the bowl. It shimmered and sent a way of fear-sickness through me.

The clouds twisted as if a tornado were forming. The pier seemed almost to curl, like a pig�s tail. I looked at Jalil. His face was turning inside out. Inside out! I could see the back of his eyes, the gray wrinkled brain, the heaving, gasping trachea in his throat.

I held my hands up instinctively, blocking that vision, but my own hands were twisted and deformed. The skin was flayed and spread out, as if I�d been skinned. I could see blood-soaked muscles beneath, the white bones. I saw the arteries pumping blood up through my wrists.

I cried out. But my moaning voice came from somewhere outside of myself and rang distant and false in my ears.

The ground opened, opened until I could see buried rocks pushing up beneath me. But I didn�t fall. The sky split apart, a blue-gray curtain drawn back to reveal black space and a sun burning too close. The clouds boiled madly.

I�ve gone insane, I cried, I but the thought itself was nothing but dancing electrical charges, sparks between neurons that I could see behind my eyes.

And in all this twisted chaos, all this hallucinatory madness, I still Senna, whole, complete, herself.

The gray, choppy surface of the lake swelled up, rising higher and higher, as if it would crash down on us in a tidal wave. It rose, and as it did, the chop roughened, lengthened, formed itself into a mountain of shaggy gray fur.

The mountain pulled up and back, bringing more into view. Two ears, a brow, eyes! Brown and yellow eyes the size of backyard kiddie pools. Intelligent, cold, gleeful, malicious.

Up rose the snout of the wolf�s head. Up behind Senna, who still looked at me, right at me.

Up it came and opened wide, with glittering teeth that may have been six feet long.

The wolf�s mouth opened wide and lunged.

Only then did Senna turn away from me and face the wolf. She held her thin arms up in a pathetic gesture of resistance, but the wolf snatched her up in one swift bite. It closed its jaws around her, but gently, holding her helpless, limp, unresisting now.

�Senna!� I shouted. �Senna!� And now the voice was coming from inside me, and it sounded real and raw and impotent.

The ground became the ground again. My hand was skin over muscle over bone. Jalil�s face was a face twisted by shock, but a human face.

It was ending.

It was ending with the wolf, the monstrous wolf, sinking slowly back into the water. In a few seconds it would be gone.

I had been frozen in place, but now my legs moved. Shaking, wobbling, my stomach twisted, I ran after her. Down to the pier.

�David! Don�t do it!� Jalil yelled.

It was Christopher who answered him. �Like hell,� he said. �That thing�s got her!�

Then Christopher was running, too. And April behind him, and Jalil behind her. We were all four running, our footsteps pounding.

The closer we came to the wolf, the more the universe around us became twisted and distorted again. The pier itself suddenly swooped uphill, soft and twisted as a piece of taffy. But we ran.

Courage? Panic? Rage? Some stupid, animal instinct?

I don�t know. I don�t know why we ran after that monster from another world.

We ran as it turned away. We ran, the twisted universe receding with us, racing the wave of distortion.

Suddenly, the sound of feet on damp concrete stopped. There was nothing beneath my feet. I leaped!

Probably not a Sario Rip.

# ? Apr 24, 2023 02:27

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

I dunno, they definitely popped into Z-space for a moment there

# ? Apr 24, 2023 02:52

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

There's that animorphs body horror I've been craving

# ? Apr 24, 2023 12:52

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Kazzah posted:

I dunno, they definitely popped into Z-space for a moment there

Nah, they just developed that same x-ray vision you get when you cross the Dracon ~~str~~beams. Sario rip confirmed.

# ? Apr 24, 2023 16:21

kiminewt: Feb 1, 2022

I tried reading this many years ago and stopped in the middle of the first book. I don't really remember why, let's hope it'll be better on a second look.

So far: bewildering.

# ? Apr 24, 2023 20:00

Remalle: Feb 12, 2020

I read the hell out of Animorphs but never managed to take a look at this series. So far, so promising!

# ? Apr 25, 2023 01:10

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Trying to clear something up about Book Barn etiquette. Will post the next chapter when i get the answer.

# ? Apr 25, 2023 03:04

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

(Note: Slur related to sexual orientation in this chapter. Have spoilered it, but please take that into account when reading. Also, remember, statements in a book aren't necessarily the opinion of the writers of the book)

Chapter 6

quote:

I leaped and was frozen.

Still, utterly still, unable to move, unable to do more than slowly, slowly aim my eyes. I shifted my slow-motion gaze from nothing to nothing to nothing more.

I was buried in cotton, cloud, whiteness all around me. It didn�t touch me. Nothing touched me. I floated, naked. Exposed.

Watched?

Yes, maybe. I felt something. Yes, watched.

�Play your story for me, David. Show me your secrets.�

I was in summer camp. I didn�t want to go to summer camp. My parents made me. Good for me, you see. But I knew things were wrong at home, I knew there was trouble between my parents; I had felt the hard, sure edges of my life beginning to crumble.

I said, �But I don�t want to go.�

�Once you get there, you�ll like it.�

Awake, pretending to be asleep in my bunk. Listening to the snores and farts and crying and sleep-mumbling of a dozen kids around me.

Pretending not to hear Donny�s footsteps. White nylon camp windbreaker bright in reflected moonlight, moving confidently, arrogantly. He had the power. The counselor. We were just kids. Why was he doing it? Why didn�t he just go away?

He stopped beside the same cot as before. It was wrong, what he was doing. It was bad. Why didn�t the kid cry out? Why didn�t he yell?

Save him, David. Don�t pretend to sleep, don�t inch the blanket higher around your head. Don�t press your hands over your ears. Don�t�

�Will you save me, David?�

Later, older, last year. Last year?

Walking out of the gym, sweaty from some after-school one-on-one. Walking past the coach�s office. It was none of my business.

A loud, berating voice.

�What�s the matter with you!�

I slow my walk and look through the glass door. Some kid from the junior varsity football team, in jersey and shoulder pads, sitting there, head hung.

�You disgust me, you make me sick, your attitude out there on the field. You make me want to throw up. You might as well be a little girl. Are you a man, or are you some kind of human being?�

I open the door. Some part of me, some part of my brain has taken over my body in a flash, no thought, no hesitation. The switch has been thrown. The rage adrenaline is flooding my arms and legs, stiff with repressed energy.

The kid is crying. Crying in his cot.

�Leave him alone.�

�What are you doing in here, Levin? Get the hell out of my office!�

�I can take care of myself,� the kid yells, nearly hysterical, face streaked with mud and tears, turning his anger on me.

I�m two feet away from the coach. He�s my size. Older, though, fat in the middle, slow.

�Leave the kid alone.�

�I ought to kick your rear end!� the coach roars.

�Screw you! Screw you!� the kid yells, at me. �You think you�re so tough.�

I walk away.

�Ah,� a voice says. �I see.�

So some not pleasant memories from David's past there. David sees himself as a coward, and these memories of him standing by and doing nothing supports that.

Epicurius fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Apr 25, 2023

# ? Apr 25, 2023 03:19

TheGreatEvilKing: Mar 28, 2016

I uh dont remember sexual assault being a thing in Animorphs.

# ? Apr 25, 2023 14:02

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

I uh dont remember sexual assault being a thing in Animorphs.

i don't know what to say, but this isn't Animorphs.

# ? Apr 25, 2023 14:08

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Yeah, Everworld deals with a lot of explicit racism, homophobia, sexual assault and child abuse in a way Animorphs never really tries to. It definitely feels like they were writing for an older audience who 'graduated' from Animorphs.

# ? Apr 25, 2023 14:59

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

Yeah that's really the first indication that this isn't animorphs. Sure our kids were older, but they were still kids. Poor David, I'm really feeling for him.

# ? Apr 26, 2023 02:26

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 7

quote:

I woke in agony.

Pain in every muscle fiber, every joint. I tried to move but something was wrong. My arms were pinned, my legs seemed to be dangling, my chest was stretched, my spine�

My eyes snapped open.

I couldn�t make sense of what I saw. It was like that moment when you wake from a dream and look around your room, unable to figure out where you are or what things mean.

I was hanging by my arms. My back was against a stone wall. Stones as big as cars. Chains were attached to my wrists with shackles. The chains and shackles could have held King Kong.

A dream! Had to be. Wake up!

Come on, David, wake up!

I slammed my head back against wet, mildewed stone. The pain was real. I closed my eyes tight and opened them again.

I was still hanging by my wrists. My clothes were shredded. I could feel my partly bare butt scraping against the stone. My heels kicked back and hit rock.

I was hanging like a piece of meat, dangling stretched, helpless.

�Hey! Is anyone there?� I yelled. Not a brilliant thing to say. But what do you say when you wake up to find yourself hanging against a wall?

�We�re all here,� a harsh, strained voice said.

�April?� I pushed my head out and twisted it to look around my own armpits.

She was hanging about ten feet away on the same wall. I could see her wrists. They were scraped raw. Blood had run down her arm and dried. We�d been hanging for a while. I was cold. Very cold.

�Yes, it�s me,� she said. Her voice came out in ragged gasps. I guess mine did, too.

�Where are we?� I asked.

�I don�t really know, David,� she said with surprising gentleness, despite her strained breathing. She even managed just a hint of mockery. �I don�t think I�m familiar with this place. But I can tell you one thing. Don�t look down.�

I looked down. Down was a long, long way. My running shoes were hundreds of feet above jumbled, jagged rocks that formed a shoreline. If I fell, I�d have plenty of time to scream before I was sliced and smashed.

I looked up. This was harder to do, but more reassuring. There was an end to the wall. A parapet, I guess you�d have to call it. The wall rose only six or eight feet above my head, topped by tall, stone teeth. My chains went up between two of the teeth.

�Are you okay?� I asked April.

�I�m alive,� she said. �I think Jalil�s breathing, but he�s still unconscious. I can�t see Christopher very well. He�s on the other side of you.�

I twisted my head to the left and saw Christopher. He must have just awakened. He was looking around, wild-eyed, till he spotted me.

�Well, this isn�t good,� Christopher said. �Where are we?�

I sighed. Then, a thought. �Senna? Is she here?�

�No,� April said. �At least not that I can see. Maybe on the far side of Jalil. I can�t tell.�

�Jalil!� I yelled. �Jalil, wake up!�

�What? What?� he said. �Oh, man!�

�Got that right,� Christopher muttered.

�Jalil, is anyone hanging to your right?� I asked.

�No. No one else.�

�This is one bitch of a dream,� Christopher said.

�Not a dream,� Jalil said. �Doesn�t feel right for a dream.�

�Of course it�s a dream,� Christopher said scornfully. �What, we�re actually hanging by our wrists on some castle wall? I don�t think so.�

�Maybe he�s right,� I said to April. �Maybe I�m dreaming.�

�Then dream me up a parka. It�s cold,� April said.

I looked away from her and out across the landscape. It was a gray day, just like it had been. But nothing else was the same.

The castle, if that�s what it was, seemed to be at the end of an unbelievably steep chasm. Rugged, bare, black stone walls rose sheer on both sides. In the bottom of this canyon was a lake, or maybe an inlet. One way or the other, there was dark, glass-smooth water. It reflected the harsh cliffs so that they seemed to go down forever.

It was a picture in shades of gray, from near black to near white, but with never a splash of color. Until a dot of red appeared. I squinted and focused. Down along the left-side cliff wall, maybe a half mile away, there was a boat. It was bow-on to us, so I couldn�t see how big it was. But it was flashing out a sail as it rounded a point of land. A square sail with some sort of logo or symbol in red.

Were there people on that boat? I couldn�t see that far.

�There�s a boat,� I said.

�Maybe they�ll help us,� Christopher said. �I can�t take this, man. My arms�my wrists are all bloody. I think maybe one of my shoulders is dislocated.�

�I have Advil in my backpack,� April said. �I think I still have it on. But it�s going to be hard to get anything out.�

I glanced over. She was wearing a backpack. It pushed her out from the wall. It must have been painful.

This was ridiculous. We were hanging by our wrists! Where was the lake? Where was the city?

There�s no castle in the Chicago area. Where were we?

I took a couple of deep breaths, fighting down the urge to start yelling. If I started acting scared I�d start being even more scared. I was scared plenty. I was good and scared. But being scared was one thing. That was normal. How you acted once you were scared�that�s what mattered.

My dad told me that. He has two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star that prove he has a right to talk about fear.

�Has to be a nightmare,� Christopher grunted, trying to reassure himself. �Has to be. The whole thing. Senna, the wolf, this, all of it.

�I don�t think so,� Jalil said. �It�s going on too long. It doesn�t have the feel of a dream. It�s bizarre, but I think it�s real. I push my legs back, my body goes away from the wall: cause and effect. In dreams you lose normal cause and effect. You jump around in time. This is reality.�

�Dammit, someone help us! Help! Help!� Christopher yelled. �Help us! Help!� I guess he was tired of hearing Jalil analyze things.

I kept my attention on the boat. It was something to focus on. Something better than focusing on pain and fear.

I like to sail. My dad had a forty-two-footer, back in Annapolis, where we used to live. A wooden boat, practically an antique. When I was younger we�d take it out on the bay on Saturdays. Him and my mom and me.

Then my dad retired from the navy and we ended up in Chicago. We brought the boat with us, but since then my folks got divorced. My dad remarried a woman with her own kids. So I don�t see my dad as much. Anyway, you can�t compare sailing on Lake Michigan with sailing on the Chesapeake Bay.

The boat with the red-emblazoned sail was turning slowly as the wind caught the canvas. I could see that it was bigger than I�d expected. Longer. Riding low in the water.

Oars? Were those oars I saw? And�yes, there were figures moving about on deck. I caught faint suggestions of blond hair, flashes of polished metal.

Then I saw the figurehead. The graceful prow that rose high till it ended in an ornate carving of a dragon�s head.

I barked out a laugh. �No way.�

But it was true. There was no mistaking the unique lines, the very sight of which had once sent brave men running.

�It�s a longboat,� I said.

�Yeah, really long, who gives a rat�s rear end how long it is?� Christopher demanded. �Help! Help!�

�No. it�s a longboat,� I said, not believing my own words. �A Viking longboat.�

There's actually a good lesson there. it's how you act when you're scared that matters.

# ? Apr 26, 2023 04:30

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 8

quote:

The fitful breeze was in our faces, and the longboat swiftly closed the distance to the castle. It was easy to see the rows of shields arrayed along the sides, each painted with the identical red emblem: a snake, mouth open, fangs out, dripping venom onto an agonized, upturned face. It was the same emblem on the big, rectangular sail.

�Nice logo,� Christopher said darkly. �That�s right up there with the Pillsbury Doughboy and Betty Crocker. Those boys need a new sponsor.�

On deck, some sitting at oars, others standing around in conversation, were forty, maybe fifty men. They were big men, most of them. Big in size and in body language. Most were bearded. Not trimmed, Lincoln Park yuppie beards, but big, bristling, red or gold or brown beards, glistening with grease. Their hair was long and wild.

They wore a motley array of garments: baggy trousers, long chain-mail shirts, and what might have been bearskins and goatskins draped down from their massive shoulders and cinched at the waist with wide leather belts. Some had crude high-top sandals laced over rag socks. Others had knee-high, buff leather boots.

At their sides most wore long, heavy swords. Others carried crude axes, some like tomahawks, others with handles maybe four feet long.

From time to time a few would look up at us, hanging a hundred feet or so above them. They pointed and guffawed loudly. But the laughter died quickly, followed by a cautious hush.

They were burly, rough-looking men. Fighters. Killers. But they were nervous. Afraid.

As they came within a few dozen yards of the rocks below, they struck the sail. They worked their oars till someone yelled a signal, at which point all the oars rose clear of the water. The helmsman leaned into the one long steering oar and guided the craft into a slow turn that brought the longboat kissing up against what I could now see was a dock.

Fore and aft, the men holding ropes jumped ashore and tied the ship off. But though they looked as if they�d done this many times before, there were frequent nervous glances up at the castle.

Baaa! Baaaa!

I heard the bleating of sheep. Three of the animals were being dragged up from the hold of the longboat. They were manhandled over the side onto the rock slab shore. Half a dozen of the Norsemen jumped out after the sheep and wrestled the first one up onto a flat obsidian stone.

An altar, I realized.

I glanced at April. She was staring down, transfixed. Her hair kept blowing in her face. Even Christopher was silent.

�You may not want to see this,� Jalil warned in a quiet voice. Talking to April? To me?

An old Norseman, big but stooped with age, climbed painfully out of the ship. No one offered him help. He looked like the kind of man who�d chop off a hand offered in help. His beard was mostly gray, but you could still tell that it had once been blond. He was mostly bald, and even from high above I could see a scar from an old wound that must have opened his skull.

The old man walked, with the cautious gait of arthritis, over to the sheep. The first sheep was bleating and squirming, stretched out on its back on the stone.

The knife flashed, coming up with surprising swiftness from the old man�s belt. Down it arced, slicing the sheep�s throat, silencing its stuttering cries.

�No!� April cried, but softly.

One after the other, the two remaining sheep met the same fate. Blood ran from the edges of the altar.

There was no ceremony. Simple slaughter, carried out hurriedly, nervously. The old Norseman glanced up at the castle, as if he were looking at us. But I knew, as a chill of premonition tingled from my tailbone up to my neck, that it was not us he saw.

I craned my head back, looking upward. I could see nothing there. But I heard the deep, rasping breathing of some huge creature. A slow, long inhalation, followed by a blast of reeking, carnivore breath.

The wolf.

The Norsemen turned and boarded their ship. The oars were extended and the longboat backed swiftly away.

From above us, a hard, unnatural, animal growling said, �Pull them up. Take them to my father.�

Suddenly I felt a sharp, excruciating jerk that made my chest and shoulders scream. My back and butt were scraping up along the stone wall. Jerk and agony, jerk and agony.

I was afraid, but mad, too. I tried to prepare myself for whatever might be happening, but pain overwhelmed me. Tears came to my eyes.

Rough hands grabbed me, hauling me over the parapet. They threw me down onto stone. I cried out. My kneecaps hit hard. I was on al fours. The second time in as many days.

April landed before me, flung down just as roughly.

I tried to climb to my feet, but pushing myself up, my arms gave way. They were weak, limp. My hands were numb.

A foot, iron-booted, was before me. A hand reached and grabbed my arm. A hand so big it closed all the way around my biceps.

A hand with only three fingers, each as thick as a salami.

I jerked my face upward, still fighting the pain, trying to shut off the flow of tears. I looked up into a face that had never been human.

�Who are you? What�s happening?� I heard Christopher ask.

Instantly came the thud of a short, hard punch. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Christopher crumple.

�Silence!� a brutish voice yelled. Then, more quietly, but with seething malice, �Be silent while you can. You will speak soon. You will say all your words and pray for more words to offer when you come before Great Loki.�

They unlocked our manacles and tossed the heavy chains aside. They stood us up, supporting us as they trotted us along the stone walkway. And now I could see them clearly. They were maybe eight feet tall and almost as broad. They looked as if they�d been chiseled out of living rock, with limbs so thick they could have been live oak trees.

They had three fingers on each hand and clanking iron boots. They wore simple tunics, a rectangle of fabric with a hole for the head, a thick belt, a sword, and a knife. Their heads were low, forward-thrust. Like rhinos without the horn. From the back they looked headless.

Someone shoved me in line behind Jalil.

�Jalil,� I whispered. �Lopi. What�s Lopi?�

He spared a quick, wondering glance for me. I swear he would have smiled if he wasn�t grimacing from the pain.

�Loki,� he corrected. �The Norse god of destruction.�

So, Loki. i defer to anyone who knows more about Asatru or the ancient Norse religion that i do, but, here's what I know about Loki. Loki could be destructive, but he wasn't the god of destruction as such (The Norse gods weren't gods of certain things the way that Greek or Roman gods were). He was born a Jotunn, which usually gets translated as giant, but the Jotunn weren't usually particularly tall. They were beings of chaos and the wild and barbarism, and generally enemies to mankind. Anyway, Loki met the god Odin, and they swore oaths to each other and became blood brothers. Loki's wife was named Sigyn, and he had two sons with her, named Narfi and Vali, and three children with his mistress, a Jotunn named Angrboda, the wolf Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent, and the goddess Hela, who ruled over the dishonored dead. Each of these three have stories about them, and they each play a role in the end of the world. Loki was also the mother of Odin's horse Slepnir.

Loki stories usually go "Loki gets himself or the other Asir in trouble and then he has to find a clever way out of it." Loki is also responsible for the death of Balder, the most beloved of the gods, and is punished by being chained up and having a serpent drip poison on his face. But that's a story for another time.

Epicurius fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Apr 27, 2023

# ? Apr 27, 2023 02:53

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 9

quote:

There was only one thing keeping all four of us from falling apart: I don�t think any of us thought it was real. How could we? It was completely impossible!

Life makes sense, mostly. Maybe not people�s behavior, but for the most part, one thing follows from another. Cause and effect. But what was the cause here? What was the effect?

It had to be a nightmare. A hallucination. Something. Anything but reality.

But it did feel real. They marched us along a wide battlement. The walls of the castle must have been twenty feet thick. On our left, the tall, daggerlike teeth of the crenellated walls. In the gaps between the sharp merlons we could see the water, the valley. On our right we looked down on sharply pitched tile roofs. As we marched, the roofs gave way to reveal a large courtyard. Our guards slowed us down a little at that point so we could get a good look.

The courtyard was only vaguely rectangular. It was maybe two-thirds of a football field in size. In the courtyard were half a dozen more like our lumpish guards. Tall, wide, thick, slow-moving creatures who seemed to be drunk and working on getting drunker. They sat against a wall on the ground and on low stone benches. Most held crude wooden bowls, like something your mom would make salad in.

They dipped the bowls into a cut-down keg and drew out something with a head on it. Then they threw back their rhino heads and quaffed it down.
Christopher gave me a look. His lip was split from the guard�s punch. He looked as bad as me now. �It�s a freak show kegger,� he whispered, winking to show he hadn�t been totally intimidated.

There were humans in the courtyard, too. Over wool trousers they wore tunics with the snake and face emblem. They had helmets the color of old bathroom faucets. The helmets came down to below the ear and had a nose guard. Nothing elaborate.

These men were practicing sword fighting. The clang, clang of steel carried up to us. A hard, one-armed man swaggered around among them, slapping whoever annoyed him with the flat of his own sword, yelling, berating.

But that�s not what our guards wanted us to see. What they wanted us to see was a man, blackhaired, smooth-faced, with deep-set eyes. Not a Viking. He was dressed in rags, but rags that had once been an elaborate costume. He was being dragged across the courtyard toward a hole.

The hole was six feet across. A pair of the big rhino heads dragged the prisoner to the edge of this pit and bent him forward so he could look down into it.

I guess this was supposed to scare the prisoner. And maybe it did. But he wasn�t giving anything to the guards. Even as they were yanking him back and forth, teasing him, hoping for a few good screams, the man delivered a speech in high, fluty tones.

�I came in peace from my lord Amon-Ra as an emissary to Wise Odin. Hear me all, and witness! I came in peace carrying the words of Ra!�

The guards didn�t much like this show of spirit. They dragged the man back from the pit and took turns slamming pile-driver fists into his face. Only then did they throw the dark-haired man into the pit.

The guards laughed and slapped one another on the back. Then they stood around the lip of the hole looking down, laughing and pointing. Bloodthirsty fans at a prizefight.

I don�t know what was in the pit. But the man who had been brave was now screaming. And each scream brought fresh hilarity from the brutes.

Our own guards shoved us to get us moving again. They�d shown us what they wanted us to see. Message delivered.

Through a dark arched doorway. Then down a winding stone staircase. Down and down forever.

Finally we reached a series of dank, torchlit tunnels. It took a while for me to notice the torches. They were tarred sticks jammed into holders mounted in the walls. The holders were skulls.

We marched past a series of archways that opened into a vast kitchen. Dozens of filthy, greasespattered men and women turned spits above roaring fires. The spits were long enough to impale four or five sheep and pigs. The smell of roasting meat reminded me of how hungry I
was.

I should have had breakfast. Maybe lunch by now. Yes, I was hungry enough that I should have been getting lunch. Maybe back at the same Taco Bell. Maybe just a Coke and a premade sandwich from the machines outside the school cafeteria.

I guess your mind looks for something normal to grab on to when you�re scared enough. Familiar hunger. Familiar memories.

What was I doing here? I raged silently. What was happening?

We left the kitchen behind, with its charred meat and boiling black pots. Gradually we left the smell behind, too. Then it was up, up, up a long stairway. Three times as high as the one we�d taken down. We were going up into some sort of tower that was higher than the walls.

What was it they called them? I strained my memory. Hadn�t I read Ivanhoe? Sure. Oh, no, just the Cliff Notes. Yeah, and a B minus on the paper, too. A �keep.� Yeah, that was the word. The big tower, the castle within a castle, the holdout. That must be where we were headed. I�d seen it rising impossibly high above the courtyard. But I�d been paying attention to the courtyard.

At the top of the stairs, just as my thigh muscles were screaming, we found ourselves in a hallway. We emerged suddenly up through one of several doors.

Here the d�cor improved. The ceiling arched high overhead, maybe ten stories. Huge, intricately carved timbers supported the roof. Dim tapestries hung on the walls. Along the left wall it looked as if something had disarranged the tapestries. A dozen pinched, dirty, anxious-looking women were using long-handled hooks to straighten them again.

The floor was paved in lustrous black flagstones. They echoed flatly with every footstep of our monstrous guards. Our own footsteps were slight, light, insignificant.

I saw an immense doorway ahead. It stood open, with flickering yellow light coming from beyond. And then a smell reached my nostrils. One of the guards muttered something under his breath. He jerked me rudely aside to walk around what looked like a pile of dog crap. But a pile that came up to my knees.

More of the anxious, starved-looking women in pinafores and cloth caps came rushing with shovels and mops in hand.

Suddenly we were in a room so big you could have lost a cathedral in it. It could have been a hangar for 747�s. it was more enclosed space than I had ever experienced. I felt like a bug.

Across the room, a football filed away, was a massive throne. Someone had started with a slab of stone the size of my house and then chiseled it down into a throne. In one wall, high up, were narrow arched windows that glowed dully with gray light.

A man sat on the throne, with a wolf pacing the floor before him. Only there was something wrong. Either I was confused about size and distance, or the man and the wolf were each impossibly large.

The guards lowered their already low-slung heads and formed into two more or less straight lines with us between them.

We marched at a fast trot. My legs were cramped from all the climbing. My hands had gone from numb to painful. But I could keep up.

Christopher tripped on a flagstone. He was probably still woozy from the monster�s punch. He stumbled. A guard violently yanked him to his feet.

Closer and closer we came, and still the man and the wolf refused to retreat to normal size. The man sat in his throne, gripping the arms, slumped down with his chin on his chest. He was dressed much as the Norsemen had been, but in a version more like a Ralph Lauren designer label Viking outfit. His boots were knee-high, shining supple leather trimmed in black fur. His trousers were deep green. The long, belted shirt was golden chain mail. Gathered across his collarbones with a golden chain was a fur from some huge white beast.

His hair was blond, long, and combed. His face was thin, cruel but not stupid. He was handsome in a way. Handsome like a poisonous snake can be beautiful. But he was nervous, too.

Drumming his fingers on stone. Rocking just slightly back and forth. Yeah, nervous. Afraid despite his power. Or maybe I was putting my own feelings off on him. Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see. I could feel fear bubbling up inside me. But I had it under control. I was not going to show anything. I arranged my face into a rigid mask. Indifference. That�s all I would show.

Give him nothing, I told myself. Show no fear and he�ll at least have respect for you. Show fear and you�ll feel the fear even worse. And then it might get away, might boil up out of control.
I gritted my teeth hard. I clenched my fists. You don�t scare me, I said silently. You don�t scare me. Not me.

The wolf paced back and forth. It was a huge gray beast the size of an elephant, but it moved with the easy grace that comes from tremendous strength. It watched us with yellow eyes that burned with more than canine intelligence. The same eyes that had gloated as it snatched Senna
from the end of the pier.

The wolf was so big he made the ten-foot-tall man on the throne seem small. And yet despite the teeth the wolf showed us, it was the man who held my attention.

He had not looked at us yet. Had not spoken. He didn�t need to. I could feel his power.

When I was little, my dad took me aboard his ship when it came in. it was an assault carrier. Mostly helicopters, but with a few Harriers, too. You know, jump jets. He showed me around the big belowdecks hangar where they keep the planes. I remember standing beneath a big, muscular Harrier, already loaded up with its complement of weaponry.

It�s funny about warplanes. You could live your whole life in a cave and never even see a Piper Cub, but when you see a warplane for the first time, you know it�s deadly. You can feel the power and the danger.

That was my first impression of Loki.

I had never seen a god before. Never known of such a creature, never suspected one existed, but I felt the power and the danger. I understood what I was seeing.

Then he looked at us. And I knew I was wrong. I understood nothing.

This creature was not simply dangerous. He was evil.

I felt my stomach lurch. I felt my knees buckle. To my amazement, I sank slowly to my knees.

The four of us knelt in slow motion, knees hitting flagstones.

Loki looked at us with amused contempt. He looked as if he might burst out laughing. He looked as if he might have us dragged away to the pit in the courtyard. He looked as if he might step

down off his throne and rip us apart with his bare hands like four rag dolls.

�Welcome,� Loki said in a voice that echoed around the vast hall. �Welcome to Everworld.�

Amon-Ra was the Egyptian gpd pf the sun and associated with the Pharaoh, who was seem as his incarnation on earth.

So, we're nine chapters in. What do people think of the book so far?

# ? Apr 28, 2023 03:51

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Despite having read these books I am completely blanking on this whole sequence, I forgot all about this meeting with Loki.

Pacing is interesting in comparison to Animorphs, its slower and we're getting a lot more character info packed in early about David. But we really haven't gotten anyone else's full deal yet beyond very basic sketches.

Zore fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Apr 28, 2023

# ? Apr 28, 2023 04:00

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

As with Animorphs, different books are narrated by different people. We'll probably get more of their POVs as the series continues.

# ? Apr 28, 2023 04:13

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

It's frustrating, because so much of the introduction to this book is the characters being acted upon, not acting. But I remember that changes soon enough. And yeah, everyone starts very closed-off against the other characters.

# ? Apr 28, 2023 05:16

Fritzler: Sep 5, 2007

I have never read these, big fan of animorphs so excited to follow along. Not really much to make an opinion for me yet. I assume like animorphs end of book 1 will really set up status quo for every other, so kind of waiting for that.

# ? Apr 28, 2023 21:24

Remalle: Feb 12, 2020

Yeah I haven't got enough of a hang on the characters or the world to comment on them yet, but so far the writing style has got enough of that Animorphs feel that I already feel like I'm familiar and invested.

# ? Apr 28, 2023 22:34

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# ? May 3, 2024 10:58

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Remalle posted:

Yeah I haven't got enough of a hang on the characters or the world to comment on them yet, but so far the writing style has got enough of that Animorphs feel that I already feel like I'm familiar and invested.

I feel like it's better, honestly. Not just because it's written at a higher grade level. I wonder how much of that feeling is just because the last half of Animorphs was nearly all ghostwriters, though.

# ? Apr 28, 2023 22:40

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Lets read Everworld-Show me the way to go home.

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