Chapter 1
A thing attacks and Oliver falls in love
Shut up Echo.

{Echo}

I tried not to think about it.

«Echo, it's just a coincidence.» Oliver told me.

«Is it? Whenever I say I have a hunch bad things happen.»

«This is getting out of hand... Give me the necklace.» he said.

«No.»

«Echo, if you think something is wrong with it, get rid of it.»

"It's not the necklace I'm worried about. You never sleep on your stomach.»

«Stop being stupid.» he frowned.

«I am not being stupid.» I yelled and he got up.

«Take that necklace off.» he said carefully.

«It is not the necklace! What is this, Harry Potter?» I yelled and backed away.

«Then take it off! Give it to me!» he yelled back and grabbed my arm. His eyes turned red for a second, then back to their normal gray colour. That wasn't my brother.

I kicked that guy where it hurts and ran to the door.

I tried to open it but it was locked.

«Where's Oliver?» I asked.

«Not here.» the other guy said.

«I can see that, but that's not what I asked! Where is he?» I hissed. No reply. I grabbed a knife from my back pocket. I told you I am suspicious and insecure, don't judge me. You may carry pepper-spray, I carry a knife.

«You won't kill me.» he said.

«I have killed before.»

«You mean your dad? Maybe. But look at you now... Crying in the middle of the night because of the guilt.» well, that caught me off guard.

«I don't cry.» I replied. «What do you want?»

«The necklace.»

«Why?» I asked and he hissed.

«Echo? Who are you talking to?» Oliver asked from behind the door. At least he is not dead or anything.

«Oliver where's Alfred?» I asked him.

«He went to talk to Shelby.»

«Shelby is on her day off.» I replied.

«Echo what are you talking about? Open the door!» he tried the door.

«Break it!» I yelled and Oliver's copy-cat turned into mom.

«Put the knife down, Echo. It is rude.» the thing said and walked towards me.

«Echo who is in there?» Oliver asked and kept trying to open the door.

«Just break it!» I yelled again and backed away to the wall. "Mom" turned into dad.

«You killed me.» "dad" said.

«Oliver hurry up!» I shrieked.

«What's going on in there?» my brother shouted.

«Please hurry up!» I gulped and raised the knife. That thing had assumed dad's form on purpose. The door broke open.

«Echo what were y-» Oliver started, but stopped dead. «Dad?»

«It's not dad! That's Alfred!» I told Oliver, but "Alfred" slapped the knife away from my hand. It stuck on the floor a few inches away from my brother. I kicked him where it hurts and ran to get the knife, but it was stuck.

«Echo what are you doing?» Oliver shouted.

«Trust me and run!» I yelled.

«That's dad!»

«No it's not! For once in your life, trust me and so as I say!» I yelled at Oliver, but the door slammed behind us.

«You should have listened to your sister.» "dad" laughed and turned into Alfred again.

«Someone finally gets me and it's a murderous shapeshifter!» I said. Oliver was frozen. «Why do you want the necklace?» I asked again.

«If you give it to me I will tell you.»

«First you tell me, then I give it to you.»

«I could just kill you.» he said.

«Same goes for you.» Oliver replied.

«You finally moved. Great improvement.» I muttered.

«Give me the necklace!»

«You could have taken it last night, when I gave it to you, but you didn't. So that means you are not Alfred either. Who are you?» Do I look like I was brave? Well I wasn't. That homicidal thing scared the hell out of me. I was shaking and I barely held myself from stuttering.

«If I show you what I really look like you will be even more afraid than you are now.»

«Fine, stay that way. And I guess, we will have to find out what the compass does by ourselves. Maybe break it in the progress...» I said in a threatening way and started tampering with it.

«Echo, what are you doing?» Oliver asked.

«Okay! I'll talk! Don't break it!» the shapeshifter replied panicking.

«Go ahead then.» I said.

«It is a teleporter.»

"And we're supposed to believe that?" Oliver asked.

«Shut up. You have a shapeshifter in front of you and you don't believe a compass can be a teleporter?» I told my brother. «Where to? Is it anywhere in specific or..?» I asked the shapeshifter.

«You've read the back of the compass, haven't you? That's where it takes you.»

«How does it work?» I asked him.

«I explained what it is! Now give it to me!»

«Tell me how it works!»

«What are you doing?» Oliver yelled.

«Oliver, shut up! How does it work?»

«You press your finger on the glass until it clicks! Now give it to me!»

«You, my friend, are a special kind of idiot.» I said and pushed the glass.

Am I a special kind of idiot too? Yeah, I am.

[Oliver]

I blinked and we were no longer in the attic, but in a small town.

«Echo what did you do?» I asked my sister.

«Saved our lives. You think that guy would let us go after he got the compass?» she reasoned. Well, she had a point, but as far as I knew we were no longer home. «A simple thanks could do. Now, we go look around and we will meet back here in an hour.» she said.

«No! We need to get back home.» I replied.

«For now, I am your way home, so do as I say and have some fun. Or can't you live without mommy bossing you around?» she said mockingly and walked away.

«Dammit!» I whispered. We were at a town center by the looks of it. There were lot's of people around, all of them wearing weird clothes. «I'm gonna kill her.» I muttered and started walking around.

It had been half an hour. So far, I had seen weird looking guys selling weird looking things in jars at the market. And did I mention the weird looking people that bought the weird looking things? I swear I saw a jar with human fingers inside.

Then it was weird, now... well, not so much.

The people had weird hair and eye colors. A woman had pink hair and lava red eyes, a guy had blue hair and rainbow looking eyes, while an old lady had green hair and white eyes.

As I was staring (yes, of course I was staring, I was probably in another dimension with weird people), I missed a girl my age and bumped into her.

«Uh, sorry...» she said. Her eyes were bright yellow and her hair were light blue.

«No, I'm  sorry, it was my fault.» and that's when I met the love of my life. Literally. Uh... Spoiler alert? «I'm Oliver.» I extended my arm.

«Celine.» she shook it. She was wearing a white t-shirt, a jean skirt and suspenders. Her clothes didn't really match, but that must have been that year's fashion. I don't really know. «So, what are you doing here? You don't look like you're from around the place.» Celine asked.

«Em... I'm actually not. How did you figure?»

«Just did. How did you get here again?»

«My sister did something stupid, it's a long story.»

«Wait, did it have to do with a necklace?» she asked curiously. Okay, even now that I am thinking about it, it still freaks me out.

«Uh... how did you know?»

«Dammit! We we need to find your sister; you will be in great trouble once the Queen figures out you're here.» Celine said again.

«What kind of trouble?»

«Great. Now walk, we need to find her and you both need to get out of here.»

Yeah, things were weird like that, but if it wasn't for Celine, both Echo and I would have been long dead.

Speaking of my sister, we found her at a water fountain with a guy. He had black hair and dark purple eyes, but I was getting used to the weirdness by that time.

«Echo! What the hell are you doing?» I asked her.

«Socializing.» she replied in a bored kind of way and went back to talking with the guy.

«Since when?» I asked shocked. Echo, my sister, a person that only spoke to me when we were at school because she didn't trust anyone, was socializing. It still surprises me.

«Shut up, I'm talking!» she shouted.

«Felix! What are you doing again?» Celine yelled at the guy.

«You know him?» I asked her.

«He is my cousin.» she grumbled.

«Small world.» Echo muttered.

«You two have to go. If Queen Deidre realizes you're here you are going to be in huge trouble.» Celine said.

«What if we don't want to?» my sister asked.

«Echo, what the hell are you talking about? We need to go home, mom will be worried!» I told her.

«Worried about you ! If she realizes I 'm gone she will be thrilled!»

«What are they talking about?» the guy named Felix asked Celine.

«Did you not notice her necklace or were you too busy flirting? They are not from around here.» Celine told him.

«Well, it's too late for that now. Here they come...» Felix said and pointed at the guards.

«We could just use the necklace to go.» I suggested.

«I don't want to leave this place.» Echo argued.

«I suggest we run.» Felix said and we all started heading towards the woods.

«She will find them, you know. She always finds them. Remember that old guy that came a few weeks ago?» Celine asked him.

«He was old, he couldn't run.» Felix replied.

«I'm going to kill you.» she grumbled.

«We can help them hide.» he told her.

«We don't want to hide, we want to get out of here.» I said.

«Speak for yourself.» Echo panted.

«Echo, you were the one that got us in this situation in the first place, so shut up!» I told her.

«It was the shapeshifter! All I did was save your life!» she yelled.

«Both of you shut up and get in that cave!» Celine shouted and pointed at a cave a few yards away.

We all went in the cave and sat there. It was kind of an obvious hiding place, but the guards had lost us in the woods.

«Why would the Queen be after us?» I asked.

«You are from Earth, aren't you? She hunts down everyone that's from there. We never hear from these guys again.» Celine said.

«So they came here with the necklace.» Felix asked.

«You're slower than usual.» she muttered.

«How do you know so much about the necklace?» Echo asked Celine.

«Before you there was an old guy who had a necklace just like yours. He told us most things about it right before they caught him. He said we should send away everyone else that comes here.» she replied.

«Well, I won't do what a stranger told me to do.» Echo said.

«Even if he wasn't a stranger, you still wouldn't do as he told.» I replied.

«I think we should stay and help the people the Queen caught.» Echo said.

«Mom is right, you are nuts.»

«You can go back, I am not going to make you stay!»

«Mom will be worried about you!»

«We both know she won't.»

«Stop accusing her like that! She does love you!» I told her and she stared at me blankly.

«Sorry I am getting between you two, but you are being noisy. If any guards come this way, they will hear us.» Celine said and Echo glared at her.

«Echo we need to go home.» I whispered.

«No, you want  us both to go home, but I don't. You are free to go whenever you want, just stop pushing me!» Echo replied.

One is for sure; we weren't leaving that place for a long time.