Prologue
Tick...Tock...Tick...Tock...
"Dad, D-Dad...what just..what just happened? Who were those people?" The scientist's daughter whimpered.
Her father, Henry, grunted as he pushed a bookcase in front of the door. "We...We don't have time...It'll...It'll be okay...I-I promise."
He pulled away a string of dark brown hair from his sweaty forehead, matting it with the rest of his salt-and-pepper locks. His daughter choked on a sob when her eyes lingered towards his shoulder.
"They shot you...But their guns..."
"Don't worry about me...Stay away...from the door..."
"Dad, we have to alert the constable!"
"We can't!" Henry winced at the shock of pain that scattered across his insides, gripping his left shoulder as he gnashed his teeth together.
Tick...Tock...Tick...Tock...
His shaken daughter jumped at his voice. The other exhaled, a deep, gruff noise that erupted from his throat.
"I'm sorry...Just...stay calm...It'll be okay."
To their dismay, more shots cracked behind the steel door of their basement. Men shouted and barked orders, making the young girl cower behind her father.
"Get away from the door!" her father ordered.
Both of them pulled away with skiddish steps. The father grunted at the last, slipping onto his knees as he tried to distract himself from his wound. The girl failed to lift him up onto his feet so she kneeled down beside him. She held onto his hand with sweaty palms. Her eyes zipped from the door and back to her father.
"Up-Up on the desk...there should be...a-a panel. Inside the book," he told her.
"What?"
"Flip the switch..."
Tick...Tock...Tick...Tock...
She hesitated before getting back onto her feet. The barricade her father braced in front of the door faltered as the home invaders tried to force the it open. In a matter of minutes they would break in. In a matter of minutes she and her father would be dead.
"Quickly!"
The tiny figure darted towards the desk at the far end of the room. His desk was littered with old files and a wide, blank computer monitor mounted to the wall. The book she found was a hardcover encyclopedia that she couldn't pry off of the workplace desk. Her long, strawberry-blond hair whipped madly into her face while she dug her nails into the edge of the book, trying to rip it open. Its first half flipped open, revealing a cut-out square holding a touchscreen pad in its center. With no time to think she pressed her pointer finger into the upper half labeled "on" and hoped for a miracle to appear.
Tick...Tock...
"Dad, what is that?!"
"It's our escape...It's...Project W.O.N.D.E.R.L.A.N.D."
Tick...
"Father!"
"Go. Now!"
KA-POW!
"NOOO! DAD!"
Tock...
"Run...Ali-"