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"What isn't going according to plan?!" Zoe blurted out.
She realized what Tia said implied that she had something to do with the disappearance of the people.
She had to have answers to this...


Tia sighed.
"Well. I must explain now, I suppose..."
Time passed with silence, and Zoe was ready to speak but Tia blinked hardly and cleared her throat.


"It all started when I wanted to do a small... Experiment." She eventually said.
"Which resulted in families disappearing. Right." Zoe remarked.
"Just listen! Please try to understand, this is important!" Tia shouted.
Zoe rolled her eyes and listened.
"So... I wanted to do an experiment . I had no intention to dissipate anyone! It was an accident."
Again. More silence followed...


"Uhm, and the experiment was..." Dan started.
Tia cleared her throat and stared into the void for a second.
"I was trying to cook chicken. And. Well. I left the oven on for a bit too long."


"...A fire started. And I thought that this was a chance to practice my spells. So... I tried to cast a spell which dispels fire, however... It backfired."
No one laughed.
"Alright then. Anyways, I said the wrong spell. Instead of the fire extinguishing spell, I said the human vanishing spell."


"Sure... How did that exactly work on only our city?" Ruby asked.
"Yeah, here's the thing... It worked on all cities. And, not only cities. I thought it affected only people that live near me, however when you said "everyone", I doubted my thoughts..."
Dan's jaw dropped.
Ruby stared at Tia.
Zoe's eyes widened.


Dan shook his head.
"Sorry, what?! You just banished everyone from this world except a few people?!" He screamed.
"Calm down! Nothing's going to happen if we're quick..." Tia muttered nervously.
"If we're quick? And what is going to happen if we waste time?!" Zoe yelled.


"Nothing, nothing, nothing! Just calm down everyone! Tsk, see, this is the issue! You're not controlling your emotions! Stop panicking!"
Tia's rant seemed to silence them and she continued.


She slumped and her expression turned tense.
"Dan, you said "except a few people". Well, not exactly except. The only reason you're here is because you were affected last before all." Tia said with a hint of guilt in her voice.
Ruby, Zoe and Dan stared at Tia, trying to understand.
"I managed to quickly cast a teleporting spell without any particular target in order to save some of you so I have the time to fix this. That's why you got teleported here." She explained.


Zoe's gaze shifted to the floor as she thought about this.
Then she realized something.
"What about my parents?" She asked. "What happened to them, why were they still there?"
Tia's nervous frown faded as it got replaced with a strange smile.
"They were the last as I said. They very well might have disappeared since some hours ago. Anyways- I need to fix this. You-"


"And the newsperson and everything? How were people hosting TV shows and such?" Zoe almost whispered, suspicious of what Tia had explained.
Tia closed her eyes and sighed. "Did the TV close suddenly?" She said with a slightly annoyed tone.
"Well, yeah. Zoe, don't you remember? There wasn't any noise after a bit." Dan recalled, staring at a cauldron that Zoe could swear was not there before..
That did make sense, now that Zoe thought of it.


"Anyways! We have to stop chattering, we're losing time! We need to start reversing the spell." Tia suddenly exclaimed.
"How do you... Reverse a disappearing spell?" Ruby asked.
"In magic, disappearing is different for each human. They each vanish in different speeds. Some diminish instantly, others slowly. You all got lucky with me managing to teleport you here, since teleporting slows this down. My initial plan was to just pretend this isn't what I'm trying to do and just secretly reverse the vanishing spell on you all then teleport you back home, but you demanded answers, of course. For all spells, there's a reversing one for it. We have to get to work." Tia explained.


She shuffled a bit far from them and conjured a wand, pointing it to Zoe, then started waving it while whispering a strange phrase.


Sparkles begun to shine from the wand, and Dan, Ruby and Zoe all gasped.


Although Zoe felt afraid, she remembered that this would stop her from vanishing and stood still.
More lights and sparkles begun to flare...


Until Tia raised her wand and an almost blinding light suddenly emitted from it.


She pointed it to Zoe again as the sparkles scattered around, glittering.


A blue aura surrounded Zoe and the sparkles returned, this time shimmering around her.


Ruby and Dan looked at her worried.
"Umm... Did this... Reverse the spell now?" Zoe managed to say quietly, slightly shielding herself in fear of Tia casting more spells.
"Of course it did!" Tia said, a little too confidently, because the next second she tried to say something, her speech faltered as her expression turned to a more concerned than proud one.
"...What happened?" Zoe anxiously asked.
"No- that was the wrong spell!" Tia stuttered frustrated. I... I can't remember the one we need! Just a moment..."
Tia ran to a grimoire.


Dan, Ruby and Zoe ran after her. Tia started frantically flipping through the pages, a panicked fake smile plastered on her face.
At least 10 minutes had passed with Tia still searching.
Definitely not just "a moment".
"How long is this going to take? You told us we didn't have time!" Dan eventually snapped.
Tia didn't answer. She continued on with looking at all the pages, skim-reading through them.


"...Maybe it doesn't exist! Maybe it was the right spell..." Zoe tried to reassure Tia.
"No!" Tia screamed, stomping her foot on the floor.
Zoe tried to understand why Tia was so horrified by the fact that the spell was wrong. It only took a few seconds to cast it, it wasn't like they had lost so much time. They were, however, losing more with her constant furious reading.
Zoe then realized a terrifying possibility.
"I hope you didn't cast a dangerous spell on me!" Zoe shouted over the page-flipping and Tia's worried muttering.
"It was a good spell, don't worry! Now just be patient!"


"How in the world are you taking so long?!" Ruby yelled, exasperated.
"Don't worry..." Tia sighed.
"You're making it difficult not to worry!" Ruby answered.


Zoe was already starting to worry even more, thinking that they will eventually run out of time when Tia pointed to some text.
"Finally!" Tia roared as she let out a sigh of relief.


Dan walked closer to the grimoire to satisfy his curiosity. He leaned to read the text Tia was pointing at.
"Okay! I just need to make some preparations... Then once I reversed your spells, I can reverse the others' too." Tia started explaining.
As Ruby and Zoe were discussing how they thought the spell would be, Dan noticed something.


The text didn't say "reverse disappearing".
Instead it said "revive".


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