Mystery Of The Comet

It was a day like any other day. Charlie, a college guy, was studying hard for the mid-semester exam in geology as he wanted to become an archaeologist, traveling and discovering historical artefacts from the past. He loved solving mysteries that had been buried for thousands of years.

After hours of study, he decided to reward himself with the town’s best cup of coffee the college provided in the cafeteria. As he grabbed his coffee and headed over to the couches nearby, a familiar face walked pass. It was his classmate, Dan, who always slacked off in classes and was a real hot-tempered guy. Charlie was still a bit nervous about the exam, so he decided he needed some reassurance and Dan was the only one around at the time.

“Hey Dan, how are you going with the exam. I’m feeling nervous myself…”

“Out of my way!” shouted Dan, he almost pushed Charlie to the floor. He stormed through the cafeteria, he looked like he was in a hurry.

“I guess he hasn’t changed,” thought Charlie while he collected himself, with a heavy sigh.

He approached the comfy chairs and snuggled into one. He took a long, deep breath, slowing taking in the delicious aroma then finally exhaling out all his stress and worry. Charlie gazed up and saw a T.V quietly playing in the background, the news was currently on. A reporter was seen interviewing an astronomer about a once in a life-time occurrence.

“A comet will be visible in tonight’s sky with the potential for a spectacular display of colours never seen before,” the astronomer announced.

This somewhat piqued an interest in Charlie and wondered what the ‘spectacular display’ the comet would be. The astronomer continued.

“We believe this might be due to the chemical compounds found on this comet from past sample collections…”

Charlie immediately lost interest and went back to sipping his coffee. He hated anything to do with chemistry and barley passed the topic last year.

Later, Charlie studied some more until it started at 5:30pm. When it started, he developed a headache that made it hard to concentrate. He found himself looking out of the window while trying to figure out an answer. He caught sight of something glistening outside. what was it? He quickly snapped out of it and got back to the test.

Charlie finally finished his test and handed it in. As he walked out of the building towards the baggage area…THUD! He collapsed onto the ground and later rubbed his forehead.

“Watch where you’re going!” said a familiar voice, Charlie knew at once who it was, Dan.

Charlie apologised. Dan looked grouchy while rubbing his forehead and started to walk off, mumbling something under his breath. Charlie noticed something of Dan’s forehead right where he was rubbing it. The bruise looked like it shone with vibrant hues. Charlie was confused but soon forgot about it, he grabbed his bag and went home. He flopped into bed and closed his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief that the day was finally over. Suddenly, a heavy fog rolled around him and he was transported to another place. A dream that almost felt real but not at the same time. An old, hidden, wooden door slowly creaked open into darkness. Spine-tingling wailing called out from the shadows.

“We have to save them,” begged Charlie, to a familiar face who stood beside him.

Charlie began to wake up.

“What was that about,” Charlie said to himself, “And why was Dan in my dream?”

Charlie was confused and had a perplexed expression the whole day on campus. He saw Dan in the distance, he turned and saw Charlie, he also had a perplex face.

The day ended and Charlie laid on his bed and closed his eyes. Like before, a thick fog surrounded him, it was the exact same dream as before. Night after night, the shrills and cryptic conversations with Dan replayed in his mind. Day after day, the same confusing and awkward looks he got while he passed by Dan in classes. Until one day Charlie decided to do something about it. He intentionally bumped into him on the way out from a lecture.

“Dan, for once can we not act like nothing’s going on?”

Dan ignored him and kept walking.

“Dan! Can we just talk about it?” Charlie raised his voice and tried to get in front of Dan.

“Get away from me, there’s nothing to talk about!” Shoving Charlie aside.

“There’s clearly something going on and we can’t ignore it!” Shouted Charlie as he cupped his hands around his mouth while Dan was walking away.

Charlie sighed. He kept mulling over what just happened as well as the cryptic dreams. This distracted Charlie from paying attention in classes, which was a first for him. We can’t ignore it. We can’t ignore it. Those words kept running around his head the rest of the day and into the night. As Charlie was getting ready to sleep, he planned to dig deeper into this mystery.

“If Dan won’t do anything about it, I guess I will have to take the matter in my own hands. Let’s see…Maybe if I can force myself to realise what’s happening and talk to Dan more, or at least find out what this dream means."

And with that, Charlie went to sleep once more. Knowing that he needed to do something. Now.

The dream began like it always did. Shrieks for help could be heard behind to old, wooden door; however, this time Charlie was in control of the dream. He forced himself to look around and saw Dan, Charlie took this chance to take to him.

“Dan, can you hear me? We need to find out what’s happening or else it will keep happening again and again.”

“What the heck is going on?! This part isn’t supposed to happen. It’s never happened like this before, so why now?” Dan said, quite angrily.

“Wait, so it’s really you talking to me, not just my subconscious?” Said Charlie, while touching Dan’s shoulder to test if he’s real.

“Get off me!” Shouted Dan, shaking off Charlie’s hand, “Also, why is your head glowing?”

Charlie gasped.

“So are you! What is going on? Wait…I’ve seen this mix of colours before, but where?” He paused, then he gasped again.

“Stop gasping and get on with it!” Shouted Dan, impatiently.

“I saw these same colours reflecting from the comet that went passed last night and when he smacked our heads after the test. I saw you had those same colours on your face. Maybe the comet is magic or something? Well, whatever it is, it’s showing us something that only us can fix.”

“I don’t care what it is. Let’s just get this nightmare of a dream over with,” sighed Dan, as he walked towards the door and opened it.

The door began to creek as it was slowly pushed open. It was pitch dark, but oddly enough both started glowing which lit up some of the room. Charlie and Dan were astonished. They saw that the room was an old, abandoned mine that led deep underground. As they preceded further and further down into the mine, the cries of help became louder and louder. Both guys started to get freaked out about this but kept moving. The mine opened into a bigger room, Charlie was thankful that their glowing ability gave them light to see where they were going. Suddenly, faces started to immerge into view, pale as could be. Soon more faces were seen all around, chained up to nearby stations. Charlie was heartbroken.

“This is so sad. Is this actually happening in real life?”

Charlie looked around more. He could see massive machines that appeared to be creating legitimate money.

“Whoever’s doing this, they are making money and they chained innocent people up to do their dirty work.” Said Charlie, still shocked.

“Beasts!” Shouted Dan, with a snarl.

“Wait, what’s this?”

At the corner of his eye, Charlie saw a black book on the ground covered in dirt. He dusted it off and opened the book. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was documentation of the shipments of money that were made with names signed after each deal.

Just then, they heard a group of burley men open the old, creaky door and were on their way down.

“Quick, hide!” Whispered Dan, as he grabbed Charlie and ran to the darkest corner, although they were glowing.

The men came into the room. They grinned and laughed at how much money they were making; however, they didn’t see Charlie and Dan at all for some reason.

“Wait, how have they not seen us? Surely they would have heard us,” questioned Charlie, in a low voice.

“Weird. Maybe we are invisible? We do have some glowing ability so I guess we can’t be seen or heard too?”

Charlie agreed. He then spotted a shiny, silver key in the back pocket of one of the men and decided to grab it.

“If we are invisible, I guess I will have no problem in grabbing it,” he thought.

Like a skilled thief, he sneaked up to the man and in a blink of an eye snatched it out of his pocket and went back to Dan.

“I think we should find our way back home and put it in my room to take the book and key to the police station when we wake up. That’s If this dream has any implications to the real world,” Charlie said to Dan and he nodded.

They slinked pass the men who were still laughing. They carefully opened the door. It creaked, but none of the men took any notice. It took some time to find their way back to Charlie’s house and he placed the items in his bedside drawer. A mysterious fog appeared again, and they collapsed on the ground. Charlie woke up. His eyes opened and instantly knew what just happened. He jumped out of bed and quickly opened the drawer and there to his amazement was the black book and key.

“So, this really did happen!” He said, still amazed.

He decided to not waste time and rushed outside to the police station. As he got there Dan was waiting and both went inside the same time. It was hard to convince the police what just happened. Both decided to not mention being invisible, glowing, or being in a dream as that would make them look crazy. The police saw the black book and key and agreed to go with the two to the old mine which was hard to find at first. As they were approaching the door, they could hear the men inside and the police swarmed and handcuffed them. One of the policemen grabbed the key and started to free the chained people.

“You thought you could get away, didn’t you? Ha, you were wrong.” Said one of the policemen.

“How could this be?!” Yelled one of the burley men.

“You see this book? It has all your names signed neatly in it. These boys managed to steal it from you, well done boys!”

“I can’t believe they were dumb enough to sign their names in it!” said Dan, with a laugh.

“There’s at least $20,000 dollars already printed in here. Boys, as a reward for you brave and tremendous work, I think you should take the money.” Announced the policeman.

Charlie and Dan could not believe what they heard.

“Thank you so much, but we can’t take that. It’s too much,” said Charlie.

“Keep it. You both deserve a big reward for what happened today,” said the policeman, a warm smile appeared on his face.

Charlie’s face lit up.

“And I couldn’t have done it without you. You’ve changed since this mess started,” Charlie said to Dan, smiling.

“Yeah, I guess you’re not as annoying as I thought you were.” Said Dan, also smiling.