Before We Dreamed of Two: Atma

The sky-ocean pulsated a bright tint of black, and speckled the unending terrain around Lucy and Lisa with nothingness. Lucy was terrified, but she didn't show it, or recognize it as terror. "By the hair of Einstein, I never expected this." Lucy breathed. "This," some odd echo responded. A shady ball like a firefly passed close to Lisa's nose, before darting away. "This. This. This." it repeated. "What do you think it is? It keeps saying the same thing over and over again." Lucy said. "Saying. This. Is." the odd little ball responded. "It seems to want something, and yet the unit has no way of expressing it." Lucy remarked. "Want. Expressing. You." The little ball closed in on the two. "You. You. You. Want."

"So tell me more about this place, where Lucy and Lisa went to." Lincoln was dead-set, and all emotion seemed to have left his voice. "The Outside. It's the place where I come from, and you too." Liberty said. Lincoln paused. "I don't come from the Outside. I was born here, and so was everyone else in this family." Liberty decided not to say anything else on that subject. "Well, it's where Lucy and Lisa are right now, I assume, if they're not in one of the other Terr-I mean, worlds by now." Lincoln began to tap his pencil. "Right, the first thing we should figure out is if they're safe or not, and go from there. How do we do that?" "This Almirathite stone." Liberty brought the little purplish stone out from somewhere inconspicuous. "If we can get it to vibrate a certain way, we can figure out where they are and how to get to them, but that's only as a last resort." "Why only as a last resort?" "Because  every single piece of Almirathite is connected to each other. That's how it can take people between the Inside and the Outside. If we do that, we become visible to every other being in possession of a piece of Almirathite." Lincoln started to erase his idea, but then took a look at it, then at his phone. "Wait, couldn't someone know if someone passed in and out of the worlds? Would someone be able to keep track of the vibrations, or where people would have been?", he asked. "There is, but we gotta go into the Outside for that. DO you have a type three around here?" "A what?" Liberty looked more confused than Lincoln. "You know, a type three phase aligner." Lincoln's face was blank, prompting Liberty to palm her face. "That's right, this place is only partially initiated. Do you have a blender anywhere?"

Leni was smiling to herself and humming a tuneless melody. Today she got the first A she'd had in over a decade, thanks to hours of hard work studying and working and doing homework. She also got paid, which was nice. This necessitated a smoothie, a special smoothie; the Awesome Report Card on a Payday smoothie. But when she entered the house, the blender was already running. "Is someone using my blender? Like, Luna, you totes have to clean it before you use it." Then a sound like a vacuum sucking up a landmine knocked Leni on her feet. "Lunaaaa! You are totally replacing my blender if it's broken!" Leni peered into the space where the kitchen once was, her blender perfectly fine. "Oh, thanks Luna! You cleaned it out for me! Now, where's an outlet..."