Riftbound

“How’s it going, Grace Fisher?” My best friend asked sarcastically, padding closer to me. 

“You know the answer to that already, Stephanie. Why is school so hard?” I moaned for the third time. Her now heavy footsteps reached my ears as her hand rested on my shoulder.

“It’s hard because you rarely have any fun. You should get out more.”

I lifted my head from the desk and looked at her incredulously, raising a brow. Get out more? It seemed like she always forgot the kind of shut in I was. Well, we were.

“Fun? Says a girl who doesn’t even leave her room for a party. You’re more indoors than I am.”

“That may be, but I don’t have a hot boy asking me out on party dates.” Steph said with a shrug.

I frowned, disregarding her words. I didn’t need her to start thinking about it that way. I already had enough on my plate and a frat boy was at the very bottom.

“James is just a friend.” I muttered, trying to shut down any ideas she was having.

Her lips went up in a mocking smile, her hands already reaching for me. “A friend who wants to get inside those pants.”

I swatted her hand away and tried to focus my attention back on my books.

“A friend who won’t get the chance to because I have no time for men this semester. We have midterms in a week. I can’t be side-tracked by a boy.”

Stephanie let out her breath and plopped down on her bed on the right side of our college dorm room.

“Well, hurray for us. We have no love prospects in our lives. We’re like nuns and this is our second year of college. Great.”

I brought my book up to my face, trying to concentrate again. Stephanie was a die-hard romantic. She liked the notion of being swept off her feet and serenaded by a strong man or woman, while I, on the other hand, couldn’t give two shits about it. I didn’t fancy the whole love concept, especially when I’d had a horrible history with it. A past that I was not willing to recount or let happen again.

I furrowed my brow, my eyes squinting at the words, willing my brain to function when Stephanie’s hand pressed down on my textbook, causing it to fall to my desk. I hadn’t even heard her get up.

“Hey! I’m trying to read here.” I tried to argue but Stephanie just handed me a large, bound book. The cover was beautiful and whimsical but still had a touch of elegance to its black and purple background with the title, ‘Fates of Celestia’ printed on in glossy silver letters.

“What’s this?” I asked, genuinely confused but curious.

“My novel.” She said with a huge grin on her face.

My mouth opened in shock. I got to my feet and hugged her tight.

“You finally finished it? You even got it bound. Is this the finished version? Why didn’t you tell me you were done with it? When did you change the name?” I rambled on before Stephanie placed a finger on my lips to shut me up.

“I finished it two weeks ago, and I’ve had it like this for the past three days. I wasn’t sure when to show you since you were so busy for midterms. I haven’t got another copy. I wanted you to read it first before I could put it out there. If that’s okay with you?” Stephanie replied, answering all my questions.

I looked at her with a grin and bobbed my head. It may not seem like much, but writing was Stephanie’s dream, and she was damn good at it. That was sure from the first drafts I had snuck a glance at. I held her by her shoulders and smiled.

“I will read the hell out of this book, Miller. I’m sure it will be amazing just like you.”

She gave me a wonky smile and removed my hands from her shoulders.

“Don’t get cheesy with me, Fisher. You know I don’t like it.”

I chuckled and placed my hands on my hips.

“You’ll just have to deal with it because I am not going anywhere.”

“Well, I am.” Stephanie murmured as she slunk away and grabbed her bag from her desk.

“Hey.” I warned, already knowing what she was about to say.

“I have a study session.” She said, pulling up the straps of her bag and fluffing her hair in the mirror.

“With Mike, no doubt.”

Stephanie pouted as her hand hovered over the door handle.

“I know you don’t like him, but try and at least root for me.”

I rolled my eyes and argued, trying to make her see logic. “I want you to be happy. I just don’t like him for you.”

Stephanie shot me a look, like it was bad to worry when your best friend is thinking about sleeping with a complete asshole. I sighed and caved. She never did listen to me when her mind was fixed on doing something. It didn’t mean that I would stop worrying though.

“Just be careful. I don’t want to stay up all night, listening to you crying when he breaks your heart like all the other girls.” I said as I settled back down into my seat.

“And that is why I love you. Later alligator.”

With that, she blew me a kiss and left our dorm room.

I heard the door click shut before I eyed the book she had handed me. I fingered it, feeling its thick spine and soft pages. Maybe I could have a break from all the studying. I had been at it since I woke up that morning. Plus, I was sure that this was going to be an interesting read. I opened the book to the first page and, of course, I saw a dedication to her parents and me.

‘This novel is dedicated to my loving and caring parents who helped me mentally and financially. And to my best friend Grace Fisher, who told me I could do it every step of the way.’

“Off to a great start.” I whispered under my breath with a small smile as I opened up to the first chapter.

Then my smile turned into a frown.

Words. So many tiny words. Some of which were in a make-believe language I couldn’t understand. I flipped through the rest of the pages looking for a picture or something. There was nothing. I huffed. How the hell was I supposed to read all this? I knew I read textbooks but those had images or graphs or something.

I closed the book and grimaced. I glared at it, wondering what next I was going to do and as if an angel answered my question, my phone came into view. I grabbed it and scoured through my files looking for the summary of the rough draft that Stephanie had sent to me a month or two ago. I found it and sighed in relief. It may not be exactly the same as the book since she must have tweaked it a bit but it couldn’t be that far from the real thing right?

“Thank God.” I exhaled as I opened the file and began to read through. There was no way I was going to read that massive book all day when I had a forty-two page summary on hand. At least now, I would still be able to read the entire book. More or less.

I yawned and dropped my phone on my desk. Approximately three hours had gone by. Three hours that I had used to read a summary of the novel and I still wasn’t done. Between looking up some words and playing random games, I didn’t have the energy to go through the rest of it.

How did Steph come up with all this? It was an amazing book but it was a lot to take in. I got up from my desk and went over to my bed just as the sky began to go dark. I dropped unceremoniously on the mattress and soon enough, I fell asleep.

It didn’t take long for something to wake me up since I was such a light sleeper. In this case, it was light. I groaned as my hands shielded my eyes from it.

“Turn off the light Miller. I need to sleep.” I grumbled in my sleep, wanting Stephanie to show some compassion.

Normally, the lights would go off immediately and I would hear murmurs of an apology, but they stayed on for a few more minutes. Pissed off and sleep deprived, I raised my head ready to blow a gasket but there was no one standing in the room. I huffed and got off my bed, storming over to the switch but stopped midway when I noticed that the light wasn’t coming from my bulbs. It was coming from my desk.

I moved closer thinking that I must have left my phone light on and maybe someone was calling me, hence the stupid purple light I could vaguely see from the desk.

The closer I got, the more sure I was that that light was definitely not coming from my phone because the book Stephanie had handed to me was glowing in the dark. A deep but bright purple mist spilled out from its pages, enveloping it and covering my desk in the hue.

“What the hell?” I muttered at the cool but annoying party trick.

“If this is a joke stop it Miller. I really need some sleep.” I said out loud to no one in particular.

I waited a bit but since no one spoke back, I frowned. She must have set it up and run out. Typical Stephanie. Always the jokester. I guess I’ll just have to end this joke myself. I reached for the book and opened the covers, not noticing the fog wrapping around me. To my surprise there weren’t any lights within the pages of the book like I expected. The pages themselves were glowing.

“What is this?” I whispered as I stared in confusion at the intricacy of whatever I was looking at.

Like I was being entranced, my hand moved closer to touch the pages, the warmth coating my skin and the hum filling my ears as I felt the pull of whatever that light was.

I barely had any time to think when the fog around my arm tightened and pulled me in.