“What do we do now boss man?” Noobie asked, as they walked outside.

“He’s not the boss,” Nerdy said from behind them.

“Wow,” Patricia exclaimed as she witnessed the beautiful view outside. It was a beautiful stretch of tall brown grass, and it stretch as far as the eyes could see. A well-kept barn stood across the yard, parallel to the house.

“We split up and look for the kids,” Richie said while looking around the terrain.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Nerdy asked. “We don’t know what we might encounter here.”

“We don’t have a choice, we probably don’t have much time until Victor’s parents start checking up on us,” Richie said, then he adjusted Victor to set him properly on his back. “They might shut the water and that might shut the portal.” After speaking, he walked away from Victor and stepped off of the porch. “I’ll go check out the barn, so you guys should decide amongst yourself who gets the house and who gets to look around.”

They all looked at each other in response, trying to figure it out.

“I’ve got the yard,” Nerdy said.

“I’ll come with you,” Patricia said immediately after.

“I guess it’s you and me in the house,” Rodney said to Noobie, but he was still fearful of the house.

“Yey,” Noobie responded, celebrating sarcastically then he and Rodney disappeared into the darkness of the house.

A while after leaving the porch, Nerdy and Patricia reached the picket fence and went over it. They then walked towards the empty field.

“How long have you guys been going on magical adventures?” Patricia asked.

Nerdy laughed for a bit in response. “Not long, this is only the second time,” he said.

“Really, but you guys are so coordinated that one would believe that you’ve been doing this for a while now,” Patricia said, then she saw a similar farm on the other side. When she saw the farm, she looked back then forwards.

“Are these houses actually built this close to each other?” Nerdy asked.

“It’s the same house,” Patricia said, looking mortified.

On hearing Patricia’s response, Nerdy shot her a sceptical look.

“Look, the barns are the same colour, so is the house, oh and look,” Patricia said, pointing towards someone that was running outside of the barn on the other house. “That’s Richie.”

After seeing his friend running at his optimal speed from a horse, Nerdy drew in a long breath of shock. He then quickly turned to look at the house they came from, and it was the same picture, but from a different side, and the reveal that the horse had no head almost made him pass out.

“Oh my God, it doesn’t have a head,” Patricia said.

Instead of responding to Patricia, Nerdy ran towards his now screaming friend, hoping he would reach him in time before he was trampled to death by a ravenous horse.

**********

Victor woke up with a tingling feeling that he felt throughout his entire body. He was lying on a floor, and when he opened his eyes, he realised that he was the same room that Rosie had brought him to earlier, before Richie and Rodney came to save him, only now it was clean. “Oh crap, Richie!” he thought as he rushed to stand up and go find his friends.

“Oh good you’re finally up,” a girl who was standing beside him said.

Victor was startled when he heard the voice, and the girl that was standing next him had long blonde hair and thin blonde eyebrows. Her eyes were a marble-like verdant green, and she was beautifully dressed in a white sundress with patterns of indigo violets.

“Rosie?” Victor said, and his voice sounded hoarse from neglect. He then cleared his throat and swallowed a bit of saliva.

“Looking sharp, Vic,” Rosie said while looking at a bed where a blonde girl was sleeping.

“Thanks,” Victor responded, then he realised he was dressed in a tight shirt, chinos, and the Carvela shoes his father had bought him.

“That’s me,” Rosie said, pointing to the girl in the bed with a longing smile on her face. “Before I turned into a monster.”

“You’re not a monster,” Victor said, trying to hold her hand.

When Victor tried holding her hand, Rosie pulled hers back. “I almost killed your friends,” she said.

While Victor and Rosie were talking, a 10 year old blonde boy burst into the room and jumped on the bed. “Rosie, wake up!” he said, bouncing on the bed.

“And it’s his fault,” Rosie said while standing next to Victor.

On hearing Rosie’s words, Victor turned to her and saw an intense loathing in her expression. “It looks like he loves you,” he finally said with a smile.

“Love to torture me,” Rosie responded while rolling her eyes.

“Get out,” the Rosie on the bed said, still covered by the blankets.

“Come on, Dad said you’re going to teach me how to ride today,” the boy said, still bouncing on the bed.

“Get out!” the Rosie on the bed screamed, then she got up and hit the boy with a pillow. The boy giggled and ran out of the room, and Rosie got off of the bed and smiled, already reminiscing fondly on what just happened.

After a while, the Rosie on the bed started disintegrating and blowing away, and so did their whole surroundings. Victor freaked out when that happened, but Rosie held his hand and he became calm again. Their surroundings then formed up again, but they were now outside, by the barn. They saw the boy run towards them with palpable mirth. He was excited to show Rosie something, and he was yelling out her name as he approached the barn.

“Oh, how I hate this part,” Rosie said, sighing and pressing her eyes with her fingers.

The other Rosie bolted out of the barn while riding a beautiful white mare. She was a magnificent rider with a chemistry shared between her and her horse.

“Get out of the way!” Victor yelled at the boy, but it was already too late.

Before hitting the boy, the reflexes of the Rosie on the horse took control and she yanked the ropes. The horse then jumped and skipped over the boy. It landed horribly on a large stone, and its hoof buckled. Rosie was flung into the air and landed on her arm and face on the grass. The mare took a nasty fall as well, and when it hit the ground hard, its neck snapped.

Rosie’s father reached the scene in time to find her up and hugging the horse, begging it to get up. Her face was wet, drenched in tears, and her brother stood by, frozen. The father then held the horse’s chest, and he had a dreadful look in his eyes. His eyes segued to the horse’s hoofs, and he spotted the broken hoof. He then squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out her daughter’s sobs. After a while, he looked up and saw his wife standing worried at the porch.

“Bring my gun!” Rosie’s father yelled to his wife.

“No! No!” Rosie screamed, covering the horse with arm and tucking the other under her belly while shielding the horse with her body.

“It’s in the shop getting reconfigured, remember?” Rosie’s mother yelled back.

On hearing his wife’s response, Rosie’s father’s face grew darker, and he looked at the machete in his hand.

“Can’t he help it?” Victor asked Rosie, who was looking with teary eyes at the other Rosie crying her eyes out for her white mare.

“Its lungs collapsed, and the leg would ail all week even if she was fine, then she wouldn’t be much use with three hooves,” Rosie responded, then she turned to look at Victor’s dark beady eyes. “So you see, he’s helping her.”

While they were talking, Rosie’s father pulled back the sharpened machete and poked the sky.

“No!” Rosie’s scream, and her shout engulfed the whole yard as her father brought down the machete with a strong blow, and the horse writhed in pain for a while before lying still. The boy then ran away, and their surroundings broke away again.

“I’m sorry,” Victor said while brushing Rosie’s back in an effort to comfort her.

“It’s not your fault,” Rosie said.

“It’s not your brother’s either,” Victor said, quickly like ripping off the band aid.

On hearing Victor’s response, a dense anger took over Rosie’s face, and she looked at him with a piercing look. “Not his fault?” she asked rhetorically. “If he hadn’t been there, Gretta would be alive, I …” she choked back a word. “I’d be alive.”

“He didn’t mean it,” Victor said.

Rosie was about to rebut, but they were interrupted by someone’s sobs. They looked at the person, and it was Rosie, and she was standing by a tree while crying. Her arm was now supported by a towel that was tied around her, and she had a band aid on her face. While standing there, her brother came from behind her, then jumped out with a playful growl, trying to startled her. But it backfired, because something he saw scared him instead. When that happened, Victor and Rosie rushed over to find the other Rosie writhing in pain as she clutched her chest. She was having a heart attack, and her brother dropped the bat he was holding and cried out to her.

“Stop Rosie, I’m sorry!” the brother cried.

“He didn’t scare you to death, you died of a heart attack all by yourself,” Victor said, kneeling down next to them while the other Rosie clutched her chest, speechless.

***

Tell us: Do you think Rosie was right to blame her brother for both the death of her horse,, and her own death?