Nobody did.
Hailey found herself all alone, between Earth and someplace else, suspended in goo that reeked of ammonia.
Surprisingly, the in-between wasn’t a hole in the ground, rather a wall of thick air, which sounded and felt an awful lot like plunging head-first into a pool of clear Jell-O. Only it seemed to have reverse pressure and was sucking Hailey further from her tour group, like quicksand, only horizontal.
Even as jelly oozed into her ears and stung her eyes, she could still see her fellow freshmen on the other side of the barrier. They all looked warped, their voices muffled. It was clear from their dancing eyes and wringing hands—they couldn’t see her. Turning her back on them, Hailey searched the gelatin landscape for their orientation leader, finding her nearby, white-eyed and flinging her arms as if she were drowning.
Air inside the in-between rushed out of Hailey’s lungs just fine, but breathing it back in against the vacuum wasn’t easy. Gooshing her way through the thickness took every ounce of power Hailey could summon, and the jelly in her right ear especially began to ache.
With burning lungs and a great stretch, she finally reached the girl and grabbed a fistful of bleached hair.
Then she stopped. For the briefest instant, her mind went blank. She knew how to get out—Professor Woodfork had taught her…
A flail-beat!
Feeling around for a solid surface, she found a tiny one, and through the throb of suffocation, she tapped her foot with great difficulty in a slow then fast treble. Twice she did this and on the third treble, a long foghorn bellowed out, the gelatin twisted, and the in-between heaved Hailey onto the sidewalk. She was still clutching a fistful of tour guide hair, which was pulling her back in. Hailey stood up, feet slipping on the goo as she braced against the cement, and with a mighty yank, she pulled a bleach-blonde, gelatin-covered, gasping, and choking orientation leader from the in-between.
As Hailey spit out chunk after bitter chunk of jellied ick, the girl faltered briefly, looking at Hailey with a mix of sheer terror and brief gratitude. Then she scrambled closer, grabbed Hailey by the head like Tomas and wrenched a foot-long, shrieking worm out of Hailey’s right ear. Flinging it to the ground, she stomped on it with both feet while Hailey choked and sputtered.
“What was that?” Hailey managed between coughs.
“That was a tunneling earworm, those bastards…” the girl said in a thick southern drawl. She stamped on it again.
“A what?”
“A tunneling earworm,” she said louder as Hailey pulled on her ear lobe.
It felt like she had water in her ear. “What? Are they dangerous?”
“Yes. Lethal.” The girl’s foot once again came down on the grease spot that used to be a tunneling earworm. “Painfully lethal,” she qualified with another stamp, and Hailey was pretty sure that one was for good measure. “They dig through your ear, and as they chew into your brain, they hum an annoying jingle that resonates inside your head until you die.”
Hailey stared at her blank-faced. The girl extended her hand to Hailey with a megawatt smile.
“Hi, I’m Jaycen Mae, and you’re Hailey Hartley, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” Hailey said, shaking the girl’s hand. “There was no mention of earworms in the handbook.”
“Ha! There’s no mention of a lot of things in the handbook.” Her smile faded but only a bit. “You know,” she said quietly, “for a second, I thought you wouldn’t come in after me.”
Hailey blinked.
“I’m really sorry about the earworm,” she added in an anxious voice, turning away and raising her Bear Towne flag.
Still dripping gobs of in-between jelly onto the pavement as she moved, Jaycen launched into her campus introduction with a slightly shaky southern charm, and Hailey had the strange sensation she’d just been pulled on someone’s string.
“Welcome, freshmen ParaScience students, to Bear Towne University—proud home of the snarling Yetis,” Jaycen said excitedly, her composure now completely restored.
Hailey was not as refined and continued coughing, wiping her nose, and flinging globs of goo off her hands even as the southern belle sang the Bear Towne alma mater with several highly motivated freshmen joining in:
Break down the Barrier
Build up the Ferrier
Breathe in the eerie air
Pierce the veil
Pierce the veil
