The morning light, usually a cheerful harbinger of a new school day, felt different to Katy. It filtered through her bedroom window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air, but her gaze was fixed on the wall she shared with Jake's room. She could hear him stirring, the faint sounds of him getting ready, the usual dorky shuffling. But beneath that mundane surface, she knew, lay something profoundly unsettling. The goddess portrait in his sketchbook, the strange names he mumbled, his sudden bursts of impossible wisdom – it all pointed to one thing: Jake was hiding something. And Katy, with her investigative journalist instincts already tingling, was determined to find out what.
"Ugh, Mom," Katy groaned dramatically from her bed, pulling the covers up to her chin as her mom poked her head in. "I don't feel so good. My head's all fuzzy, and I think I might have a fever." She put on her best 'ailing teenager' voice, a slight tremor in it for added effect. She hated missing school, especially with her new alliance with Sarah and her burgeoning role on the newspaper, but this felt more important. This felt like a scoop of cosmic proportions.
Her mom, ever the worrier, immediately rushed to her side, pressing a hand to her forehead. "Oh, sweetie, you do feel a little warm. Maybe it's that bug going around. Alright, stay home today. I'll call the school. Just rest."
Katy offered a weak, grateful smile. "Thanks, Mom. You're the best."
A few minutes later, Jake knocked on her door. "Hey, you okay? Mom said you're sick." His voice was muffled, tinged with genuine concern.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Katy called back, forcing a cough. "Just a little under the weather. Don't worry about it. Go to school, dork. Don't want you missing any more important math lessons." She heard his footsteps retreat, then the front door open and close as he and their dad left for school and work.
The house fell silent, a deep, echoing quiet that felt both liberating and unnerving. Katy waited. Five minutes. Ten. She heard her mom moving around downstairs, then the distinct sound of her car pulling out of the driveway. Finally. Alone.
She threw off the covers, her 'sickness' vanishing instantly. Her heart hammered with a mix of adrenaline and trepidation. This was it. The moment of truth. She padded silently across the hall to Jake's room. His door was slightly ajar, a sliver of darkness beckoning her in.
She pushed it open slowly, cautiously, as if entering a sacred, forbidden space. The room was exactly as Jake had left it – a typical teenage boy's room, a scattering of clothes, books, and the faint scent of old socks. But Katy's eyes immediately went to the corner where his old, clunky desktop used to sit.
Instead, there it was. A sleek, futuristic gaming PC, humming softly with an internal glow, its massive curved monitor a dark, reflective eye. It looked like something ripped from a sci-fi movie, utterly out of place in their modest house.
"Whoa," Katy breathed, stepping fully into the room. She walked towards it, running a hand over its smooth, cool casing. It was undeniably real, undeniably expensive. "No way. There's no way Mom and Dad bought this. They'd never." She knew their budget, their priorities. This was a luxury, a fantasy. Her mind, ever the rationalizer, tried to conjure explanations. Had Jake saved up for years? Won a lottery? No. This was too sudden. Too perfect.
Her gaze then drifted to his bedside table. Or rather, what used to be his bedside table. Now, it was just a stack of books, and on top of them, a brightly colored, impossible pile of candy. Chocolate bars, gummy bears, lollipops – enough to stock a small convenience store. And Jake wasn't even that big on candy. This was beyond odd.
She looked around the room, her eyes widening. The bed. It was definitely bigger. Not just a trick of the light, not just her imagination. It filled the space more completely, its mattress seeming to stretch to impossible dimensions.
A prickle of unease, a shiver of genuine fear, ran down her spine. This wasn't just a secret. This was… impossible.
Then, her eyes landed on it. On the floor, in front of his bookshelf, sat a small, ordinary metal bucket. And spilling over its brim, catching the morning light in a thousand glittering facets, were hundreds, no, thousands, of sparkling, perfectly cut diamonds. They gleamed with an impossible brilliance, spilling onto his carpet like scattered starlight.
Katy gasped, a sharp, involuntary sound. Her hand flew to her mouth. "No," she whispered, her voice trembling. "No, no, no way."
She knelt, her knees hitting the carpet with a soft thud. She reached out a trembling hand, picking up one of the gems. It was cool, hard, undeniably real. It sparkled, throwing tiny rainbows onto the wall. She dropped it back into the bucket, the sound of it clinking against the others like tiny bells.
Diamonds. A bucket of real, actual diamonds. In Jake's room. Her brother, the dork who couldn't remember where he put his socks, had a bucket of diamonds.
Her mind raced, trying to process the impossible. This wasn't a prank. This wasn't a trick. This was… magic. Real magic. And Jake was somehow doing it. The names he mumbled in his sleep, the sudden wisdom, the fire drill prediction, the goddess portrait of her – it all slammed into place with the force of a physical blow.
She grabbed a handful of the glittering gems, their weight substantial in her palm. Her heart pounded, a frantic drumbeat against her ribs. She had to show someone. She had to show Mom, Dad. This was unbelievable!
Driven by an instinct to confirm, to share this impossible truth, she clutched the diamonds tightly and rushed towards the door, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and disbelief. She took a deep breath, pushed the door open, and stepped out into the hallway.
The moment her foot crossed the threshold, a strange sensation washed over her. It wasn't a sound, or a flash of light, but a sudden, profound emptiness. The weight in her hands vanished. The cool, hard edges of the diamonds disappeared.
Katy looked down. Her hands were empty. The diamonds, the glittering, impossible diamonds, had simply… vanished.
She stumbled back, her eyes darting wildly. She looked into the hallway – empty. She looked back into Jake's room.
There, on the carpet, exactly where it had been moments before, sat the small metal bucket, still overflowing with diamonds, sparkling as if nothing had happened. The gaming PC hummed in the corner, the candy pile remained untouched. Everything she had seen inside the room was still there, perfectly real, perfectly solid.
She stepped back into the hallway, extending her empty hands, a gasp catching in her throat. Nothing. She stepped back into the room, and poof, the bucket of diamonds was back in her hands, heavy and real, their facets catching the light. She tried it again, stepping in and out, a frantic, desperate experiment. Each time, the same result. Inside his room, everything was real. Outside, it dissolved into nothingness.
Katy sank onto Jake's bed, the bucket of diamonds now resting on the carpet, their brilliance mocking her. Her initial excitement had drained away, replaced by a chilling understanding. This wasn't just magic. It was confined magic. Anything Jake created, anything he wished into existence, was bound to this room. The moment it or he crossed the threshold, the magic dissolved. The calculator vanishing at school, only for their mom to say it was back in his room – it all made terrifying, impossible sense now.
Her brother, the dork, was a god. But a god trapped in his own bedroom. The realization was heavy, profound. He had this incredible power, but it was useless in the world that mattered – the world of school, of friends, of family. He couldn't conjure a perfect answer for Mr. Henderson's pop quiz outside his room, or make Tiffany disappear. He couldn't even show her, his own sister, the incredible things he could do, because they would vanish the moment he tried to share them.
A complex mix of emotions swirled within her: awe at the sheer impossibility, a touch of fear at the unknown, but overriding it all, a deep, protective concern for Jake. He had this immense secret, this incredible burden, and he was carrying it alone. He was a god, yes, but a very lonely one. And now, she knew. The game had just changed for both of them. And Katy, the master of social dynamics, the budding investigative journalist, knew she had a new, far more important story to uncover and protect.