Max hurried back up the hill with two overweight middle-aged men in tow. From how they were panting for breath and wheezing their way up the hill, it didn't inspire much confidence.

By the time they arrived at the ring of trees, both were beat red and doubled over. One of them had even thrown up shortly after arriving at the top of the hill.

"Are you okay?" Max asked, breathing heavily. He was tired as well, just not to such a ridiculous extent.

The older policeman held up his hand, waving it in an abstract gesture that meant something along the lines of 'Give me a second, you young bastard!' But Max was just guessing.

He waited nervously with the two policemen, constantly glancing over at the ring of trees, praying Matthew would be okay.

His prayers seemed answered when his four friends emerged over the top of the rise. Matthew had his arms over Kashyap and Vincent's shoulders while his face looked deathly pale. His steps were shaky and unsteady, as though each might be his last.

"Matthew!" Max shouted, a wave of relief washing over him.

Matthew glanced at him weakly and smiled, giving Max a brief wave.

Max ran up to them and hugged Matthew, grinning madly. He took a step back and placed his hands on Matthew's shoulders, "You're alright, right?" he asked sincerely.

Matthew nodded weakly.

"Damnit!" Max cursed melodramatically, shaking his fist at the sky.

"What the fuck?" Matthew spat, his voice shaky and quiet, "Did you want me dead?"

Max didn't meet his eyes, doing his best to look serious. "No, well… It's just," But despite his best efforts, he couldn't hide his mischievous grin, "I heard that if someone dies, we all get A's... and Maths is really hard, so…."

"Fuck off," Matthew kicked Max in the shins, laughing weakly, while the rest of them released their built-up nerves and tension in a bout of uncontrollable laughter. It wasn't that the joke was particularly funny, but rather the fact that they shouldn't be laughing made it impossible not to.

While this was happening, the policemen had collected themselves and walked over to the group of boys.

"Is this him?" The older man asked, pointing at Matthew.

His uniform was navy, with a bulletproof vest that didn't completely cover his bulging midriff. Around his waist was an overladen utility belt with a pistol, pepper spray and torch about the same size as his forearm. He was almost six feet tall, with a wispy combover and square glasses that had fogged up during the run.

"Yeah, didn't you say he was kidnapped?" His partner pointed out, glaring at Max. This man was equally out of shape but lacked his superior's hair. He was bald with a beard that outlined where his chin and jawline might have been thirty kilograms ago.

Matthew looked at the two policemen, finding that his energy was quickly returning, "No, I wasn't kidnapped. I came here with a girl… Em- I mean Clare. She… I don't know where she went, but she's been missing for a few days now,"

"Clare!" Jason exclaimed, "You were with her?"

"Yeah, but she was acting strange… Not like herself," Matthew considered explaining what had happened to him and Clare's erratic behaviour but decided to tell his friends the truth in private. He didn't want the police to take him in as some crazy person.

"And where is this, Clare, now?" The older man asked, pulling a miniature notebook from his utility belt.

"Um…" Matthew glanced at his friends, noticing that Jason seemed particularly eager to find out more about Clare, "She-"

"Yeah, c'mon," The younger policeman urged.

"She knocked me out last night and dragged me here…."

The reactions were somewhat predictable.

Max snorted, caught between laughter and disbelief.

Jason gawked, finding it impossible that Clare would be capable of such a thing.

Vincent stared wide-eyed at Matthew, remembering the two tracks of mud he had followed up the hill. It had certainly looked like someone was dragged.

And Kashyap scowled furiously, gripping Matthew's hand that was around his shoulder.

As for the policemen, they expressed a beautiful mixture of incredulity and suspicion as their eyebrows shot up.

"And where is Clare now?" The Bald man asked pointedly.

"Well, she wasn't there when I woke up," Matthew was still trying to process this himself. He had no idea how she had managed to completely disappear without any of his friends noticing her.

"Huh?" The older man stopped writing in his notebook and frowned. "What are you on about?"

"I know it doesn't sound believable, but-"

"Doesn't sound believable, my ass. You've just said a girl dragged you up a mountain and disappeared. How does that make any sort of sense?"

Matthew shrugged, "Stranger things have happened,"

"No. They haven't." The bald officer cut in bluntly.

'Yes, they have.' Matthew thought he had just experienced some top-of-the-range strangeness and knew what he was talking about.

"Listen," The older man pinched his brow, "I think I'm going to have to take you back to the station and get your story straight, right now there's-"

He paused, turning to glance up at the cloudless sky. Or at least, it had been cloudless moments before. A single white cloud was racing towards them at breakneck speed.

"Is it just me or…" He didn't finish, glancing at the bald man who was nodding furiously.

"It's coming right at us,"

The cloud had suddenly dipped and was plummeting down towards them breathtakingly fast. In all his life, Matthew had never seen a cloud move with such purpose. It would have been inspiring if it wasn't so surreal.

"Should we get out of the way?" Max asked, nervously sidling away from the group.

"Good idea," Jason agreed, taking steps back himself.

As he observed the cloud, Matthew felt a strange connection to it, and as he watched it grow near, he somehow sensed that it was coming straight for him.

'Oh no,' The thought appeared in Matthew's head, but he hadn't thought of it. With the thought that wasn't his came an overwhelming instinct to get as far away from the cloud as possible.

He tried to run, but his body wasn't up to the task, so he just staggered, leaning heavily on Vincent and Kashyap for support. "Move," He hissed.

The cloud bore down on them, and the closer it got, the more obvious it became that it was targeting Matthew. Whenever he moved, the cloud altered its trajectory slightly.

"Fuck."

Kashyap and Vincent did their best to support Matthew, but they had no hope of outrunning the cloud. It whizzed through the air faster than a bullet, and in seconds it had gone from beyond the horizon to right in front of them.

Where defying the laws that clouds usually obeyed, it settled on the ground, parking itself in front of Matthew in an almost car-like manner.

"Am I dreaming?" Vincent asked quietly, gawping at the cloud, which had slowly begun to dissipate.

"Not unless we are having the same dream," Kashyap said, nervously tightening his grip on Matthew's shoulder.

They watched in dumbstruck awe as the cloud disappeared, leaving behind a young girl holding a broomstick. She wore a puffy coat with an endless layer of hand-knit seaters beneath it that made her closely resemble the marshmallow man. Her hair was pitch black and tied back in a functional ponytail she had threaded through the back of a grotty old cap with a faded New York Yankees logo on the front.

She slowly removed a pair of visored sunglasses and stuffed them in her coat pocket before glaring pointedly at Matthew.

"Oi, why the hell are you using this Layline!?" She shouted, stalking up to Matthew and jabbing him in the chest with a finger.

"It's the middle of the fucking day, not to mention this one is banned!"

"I-"Matthew stuttered.

"And who the hell are all these people?" She waved dramatically at the gathered men, "Did you bring your whole extended family to your illegal awakening so there'd be as many witnesses as possible? Was that your brilliant fucking idea?" She jabbed him in the chest again, frowning this time.

"What are you doing?" Kashyap tried to slap her hand away, but she smacked his arm with her broom dismissively.

"Hold on." She said, glaring at Matthew with intense concentration.

Matthew began to sweat, cold rivulets dripping down his back as the girl examined him intensely. He felt like he was being probed, and internally, he was screaming. 'Stop her!' Another thought that wasn't his appeared in his head.

"Listen," The older policeman had worked up the courage to intervene, wiping his foggy glasses nervously, "What exactly is going on-"

He never got to finish that question because the girl flicked her wrist, and a glowing, ethereal tentacle shot out from her ponytail, brushing against the policeman's neck. For a moment, he stood there, staring in horror as the tentacle retracted back into the ponytail.

And then he started convulsing, collapsing to the ground shortly thereafter.

"Harry!" The bald man shouted anxiously, falling to his knees by his friend's side. "What did you do!?" He wailed, glaring at the girl.

"Oh, shut up!" she yelled, "He's not dead, just paralyzed. Now be quiet; I'm concentrating,"

"Bu-"Another tentacle shot out and the bald policeman joined his partner in unconsciousness.

The five boys watched this in terror and decided the best thing they could possibly do, was stay quiet.

"Any complaints?" The girl asked, arching an eyebrow at Matthew.

"N-No," He stuttered, "Go right ahead,"