Now it's Time

Terry is shocked when he realizes where he is and starts crying, wanting to go home. The cell door opens. A guard comes into the room and tells Terry "You're free to go."

"What?" Terry, confused by what the guard said.

"No no no this can't be happening. I want to go home." Terry cries out as his mind starts to fall apart.

"Okay, terry you're free to go" Terry looks at him with unsettling emotions, shock, fear, confusion, nausea.

The guard elaborates "Yeah, your parents decided to take you home under their care." Terry's parents then come through the door, his mom saying to him "Come on sweetie. It's time to go home."

Unable to believe this becomes hysteric & yelling out loud that I want to wake up. Just then the world around him turns black as his body starts to feel strange. Terry opens his eyes and finds himself in his bed in his room not knowing what's real anymore.

"No, no, no, no, no. This is not happening, this isn't real. This is just a dream, a really really bad dream." Terry screams to the top of his lungs shattering everything causing Terry to be surrounded in total darkness.

Now being in a black void with no noise, no distractions, Terry finally had a moment to rest. Terry takes a deep sleep slowly building back his sanity.

Once awake, Terry finds himself still in the darkness. Now with a clear mind, Terry can think about the situation. "Okay is this reality?"

"No, I think we removed our self reality. We are outside of space and time."

"Are we even real?"

"I don't know, does this hurt?"

*SLAP* Terry slap's himself

"Ow! yeah."

"Then we're real."

"Maybe we're just characters in a larger story?"

"If that was true then we shouldn't have a past to remember. Can you remember anything that happens before your birthday?"

"Okay let me think."

"Think about another birthday you had."

Terry thinks back to a birthday party he had when he was 5 years old. Looking back at his 5-year-old self, he sees how happy he was surrounded by his family and relatives playing games and having fun.

Seeing the young innocent child's joy and excitement Terry asks himself "Man, what happened to us?"

"I don't know life?" he answers.

Now living through a happy memory Terry now has to think of a bad memory since life is not just happiness.

"Okay, this one of our more favorable memories how we focus on one that was not as pleasurable."

"Well, that's kinda hard. I don't spend days thinking about bad mem- oh wait I got one."

Terry gets transported back to his memory of his 8-year-old self on a school field trip at the museum of natural history.

"Why are you talking back!" the teacher yells at terry.

Terry quietly responds, voice cracking as he tries to get the words out "I'm not."

But the teacher just says in a stern judgmental voice "Just do what I ask. It's not that hard!" and leaves continuing with the museum tour.

"Aw man, I don't want to go back here." Terry says to himself, cringing and tensing up at what awaits him.

Terry sees his 8-year-old self being yelled at by a teacher for misunderstanding a situation in front of his classmate. As tears swell in the 8-year-old Terry's eyes, 10-year-old Terry gets angry, clenching his fist feeling sorrow for his 8-year-old self. 8-year-old Terry fights back the tears, keeping his feelings deep inside as his classmates laugh at his misfortune.

"I want to leave." Terry says with deep resentment to this day.

The world fades to black again and Terry tells himself "Just one more. Something not that special. Something mundane."

Terry thinks for a couple of seconds and asks "What happened before we turned 10."

Terry thinks back to the day before his birthday. Terry is just living his life, having conversations with his friends that he's barely in, staring at his crush during class, walking home, and watching tv.

"Well, this is nice. I think we're ready to go back."

Before leaving, Terry sees himself laying on his bed watching the ending of The Shake-Up episode where at the end of the girls are given their announcement about the Q&A Livestream that they'll be having tomorrow.

As Terry calms down and feels confident about his life, the black void slowly fades away, turning back into the night sky. Terry is back outside of his house where he had his temporary mental break. Terry walks back into his house now an abandoned mess. Terry looks around the house, looking at the cluttered mess and looking back at the last week of his life and realizing what he has to do.

"We have to leave"

Jane walks into her room about to get ready for bed when Terry appears in her room ready to say goodbye to her.

"Ahhh! Terrence, what are you doing here?" scared by his sudden appearance.

"I'm here to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?"

"Yeah, something today. I almost lost control, I need to leave to learn how to control this."

Understanding his situation she asks him "Oh. How long will you be gone?"

"I don't know." Terry tells her, also adding with a sweet half-smile, "I just came here to say thanks for being my friend."

Jane smiles back at him saying back "It wasn't that hard. You made a memorable first impression."

Terry steps back and looks at Jane one last time before fading away.

Back at home, Terry cleans his house not with his powers but by hand staying up all night until it was clean, then waits for his parents to come home. Once they do, Terry goes over to them and hugs them.

The mother, happily surprised by this, asked Terry "Oh, what's this for?"

"I just want to savor this moment for as long as I can." Terry responds.

After a few more minutes of his warm embrace, Terry disappears along with all the images of him around his house, every item that belongs to him & also his parents' memory of him.

Terry is now out there in the world learning about this unbelievable power he has gained, not knowing what he will find or if he is able to return home but ready to face any situation head-on.