Saving the Future Part Whatever - Locks     Sometimes a person is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s simply a matter of plain bad luck. The only reason the human race has survived this fact is because at other times someone can by chance find themselves in the right place at the right time. I’m not entirely sure whether I was in the right place or the wrong place in the story I’m about to tell.     I was in the Realm of Spring.     If you were to imagine a field so full of daffodils that there’s barely enough ground left to stand on then you have a fairly good idea of what the Realm of Spring looks like. It’s basically this little bit of universe which is at an odd angle so isn’t really part of this world at all. I should know as I Awoke the Potential that let it get at that angle in the first place.     There was no particular reason for me being there except that I’d locked myself out of the house and it was raining. I did have my umbrella with me but was getting tired of walking.     The umbrella is not a normal umbrella. It was when I bought it, a perfectly normal umbrella that was dark blue and of the type that folds up small enough to fit in a glasses case, but my gift of Awakening changed that.     It was during break that I Awoke the umbrella. The rain was coming down in bucketfuls and I was standing behind one of the overgrown planters trying not to be noticed. When it is raining and if you have an umbrella you will suddenly find yourself with a great number of extra friends who will wander off the moment the weather clears, I’m not too keen on ‘bad weather friends’ hence hiding behind the planter.     When I felt the tingling I almost smiled. There is something depressingly boring about standing outside in the cold waiting for the bell to sound and announce it is time for maths, but I could always rely on the effects of my strange almost-power to be interesting at least. Before anything else though, I had to know what I’d done; I looked around to see just what had changed.     Only after half a minute of confused searching did I realise that I was actually holding the object of my search already. A millimetre away from the surface of the umbrella each raindrop suddenly started falling upwards with complete disregard to the law of gravity.     Before I could investigate further the bell sounded for maths.     I tested the umbrella later. If anything tries to hit it while I’m holding it and it is open then that anything will find itself heading in the opposite direction at the same speed it approached until it hits something. This means that I have never since had to worry about drying the umbrella out.     Unfortunately this doesn’t work if I hit anything with the umbrella.     On the downside, raindrops heading straight upwards will eventually hit clouds, then when gravity has reasserted itself they will fall again. Should the umbrella still be underneath them then after some time they’ll end up heading upwards again, and so on. This on top of new raindrops falling all the time means that if I stand in the same place long enough the rain above me will be considerably thicker than the rain anywhere else. In short: if I wish to use the umbrella without drawing awkward questions from anyone nearby I have to keep moving.     So instead of walking up and down outside the house – an activity which while very good exercise can get very tiring after so long and does look a little odd – I slipped into the garden via the crack in the wall and used the daffodil there to visit the Realm of Spring where it wasn’t raining.     Anyway, I was in the Realm of Spring. And little did I realise it but big things were happening while I was away.     Mum comes home from work at 4pm, so at about that time I slipped back into the real world and banged on a window until she heard and let me in. Or I thought it was her at least.     Over tea I was disturbed by the nagging suspicion that something was wrong, I opened my ‘other eyes’ but the Potential that was worrying me was blurred and unclear, it would take some time and concentration for me to ‘see’ it’s mysterious meaning.     Claiming to be full I hurried upstairs.     As soon as I was in my room I looked again for the strange wisps of Potential that surrounded my family, in fact that Potential seemed to surround everyone on the street too. The Potential was strange, grey and wraithlike, yet not one of the sinister Twistings I had recently been troubled by.     What I found was unlike anything I’d ever seen. There are these things called Space Fandoms that replace people somehow and don’t even realise they’re doing it until they do something like attack someone, I don’t even pretend to understand how this works, now they had replaced more or less the entire population of the planet. Only some few people in ‘protected places’ were left. I was one of them.     What I saw next scared me even more. The Potential around the Fandoms posing as my family was becoming active.     I rushed back down the stairs again two at a time, in a few moments I was in the hallway and racing for the front door. It was locked, the spare key was missing. Looking around franticly I saw the Fandoms impersonating my family approaching.     The one pretending to be Millie was the first to attack, rushing towards me with a kitchen knife in her hand. I always said that girl was deadly.     The experience that can only come from years of facing impossible situations kicked in. At the last moment I grabbed my umbrella from the floor where I’d abandoned it and raised it as a shield. The attacker was propelled in the opposite direction.     Desperately I reached out for one of the most commonplace Potentials of all. As the false family was temporarily distracted by the unexpected umbrella defence I called upon the Potential in the door hinges, the Potential for them to be open.     And I Awoke.     The door shook as it strained to open before the lock gave up the fight.     Outside in the rain with the whole world against me, I ran.     I am blaming this on the umbrella. More stories by me can be found at Rhiannon’s Stories. Concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2006 reserved by Rhiannon Rose Watson. The right of Rhiannon Rose Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

Umbrellas are way too much trouble.

A charming story, from the inventive magic of the altered umbrella to the explanation of how she was not switched out with everyone else on Earth. I'm curious to see where she goes from here, and if she should end up connecting with any of the other non-Fandom denizens of the Parodvyerse.

I like this one. I could feel the tension, especially in that last paragraph.

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Which going by the latest UT - it seems doomed is the option.

I particularly liked that you thought through the practicalities of having such an umbrella. The need to keep moving so as to avoid awkward questions was a fun detail.

Aside: even if your stories weren't in purple text, that's how I'd imagine them to be. Is that weird?