The Annihilation of Foreverland

next round a lot easier.”
    Zin reached under Danny and propped him against a wall so that he was looking across a green field. He blinked and thought he was dreaming. He was sitting against the dormitory looking at the Yard and it didn’t look a whole lot different.
    “You see that, Danny Boy? We’re inside the needle, somewhere between your mind and the Haystack’s network. The needle is sunk inside your brain right now, boy. It’s realigning your synapses so the computers can link directly with your frontal lobe. You’re about as useful as a bowl of pudding, but you can see, Danny Boy. You can see, and the next time you’ll be moving around. Next time, you’ll be able to do this.”
    Zin lifted a boulder above his head. He tossed it over the distant trees.
    “Peter Pan went to Neverland, but this is Foreverland, Danny Boy! We can do anything here. ANYTHING! There are no rules, no laws. Where gravity doesn’t exist if we don’t want it to. Where magic is limited only by our imagination.”
    Zin opened his hand and a long-stemmed rose grew from his palm. He took a knee in front of Sandy and kissed her hand. She rolled her eyes. She pointed over her shoulder and a truck squeezed out of her finger like a cartoon, but bounced on the ground like a ton of steel.
    “It’s not magic if everyone can do it,” she said.
    “Magic is not defined by the number of people that can perform it, but by the manner in which it is done.”
    “Okay, Socrates.” She wrapped her arm around his neck and whispered. “Can we go?”
    She whispered something else. Zin smiled wide.
    He twirled his arm in front of his stomach and half-bowed. “I must bid you adieu, Danny Boy. There’s only so much time and we work so hard to get here.” He began to backpedal while Sandy pulled at him. “But don’t give up hope. The first round sucks because you suffer without a payoff, but you’ll see, Danny Boy. The next one will be better, you’ll see!”
    And they were off, running across the field, gleefully trotting like long lost lovers.
    Danny didn’t stay awake long. He managed to keep his eyes open to see the magic Zin was talking about. What seemed so ordinary when he first opened his eyes quickly turned into Foreverland. People were shapeshifting into lions and tigers and eagles. A mastodon thundered past with a horde of spear-chucking warriors that jumped off and floated away with their arms spread out.
    It was everything that made dreams. But it was so real.

    A long blink and the sun was lower. The field was nearly empty. There was half a spaceship buried a hundred yards away, its back half was on fire. It looked like the Millennium Falcon. There were distant explosions and gunfire. Someone shouted orders nearby. Another person went flying past on the back of a dinosaur.

    Another long blink and it was night.
    The ship was gone, replaced by an empty crater. Two moons were high, one full and the other half-crescent. There were several campfires in the field. Some people were singing, others laughed loudly while chasing each other. Girls squealed. It looked a lot like summer camp. Except for the people flying past the moon.

    Dawn arrived.
    The Yard was empty, except for the crater and dead campfires.
    The sun was rising somewhere behind him. The shadows were long and dusky and the sunlight turned the trees a weird shimmery magenta. The quiet was disturbed by an occasional frog. Danny closed his eyes again. He was going to sleep when he felt someone very close. It was a girl.
    She was inches from his face. Her eyes were green and her hair red, like candy. Her nostrils flared and her eyes searched his face. There was desperation in them, the eyes wide enough to expose the whites around her irises. She leaned in and pressed her cheek to his. She smelled like a beautiful flower.
    “Find him,” she said. “Tell him we found you.”
    And then she was off.
    Danny hadn’t even blinked. She moved so fast, it was like she hadn’t been there. Maybe he would’ve believed he imagined it if not for the lingering scent.
    He went to sleep for the last time. The next time he would wake, it would be in his bed, back in his body. But he would wake with her smell upon him and her words.
    Tell him we found you.

ROUND

One-Car Accident; One Dead, One Missing

    HOBART , Oklahoma . – A blue Ford F-150 hit a tree off route 55 and caught fire. Both occupants were ejected from the vehicle. One was a female in her late teens and pronounced