The Remarkables (The Remarkable Owen Johnson, part 1) by A. D. Elliott Page B

with the stone wall.
    Blackness swiftly followed.

Pillow
     
     
     
    Owen was floating through the clouds at what seemed like a gentle pace. Cumulonimbus, he identified the clouds as being, recalling one of his geography lessons. Or were they stratocumulus? It didn’t matter; whatever they were they looked very pretty against the bright blue sky.
    Owen wondered what it would feel like to fly through a cloud. Only one way to find out! He angled his body and reached towards them, dragging himself effortlessly into their fluffy embrace.
    Surprisingly, the inside of a cloud looked very much like the countryside near his house. In fact it was the outskirts of his very home town! There was the reservoir that he used to walk around with Mrs Argyle and feed bread to the geese and swans; much like the lady kneeling beside the water below him was doing now. He glided down, doing his best impression of a swan.
    It was Mrs Argyle! Owen went in for a closer peak, moving his arms using the butterfly stroke he was so fond of in the swimming pool. She was kneeling on the stony sides of the reservoir, just below the waterline that showed how full it was after the wet April they’d just experienced.
    “Mrs Argyle!” Owen called out. She didn’t seem to hear him, as she appeared to be concentrating on pulling something out of the water. As he got closer though Owen saw that she wasn’t actually dragging something out of the water but was holding something below the surface.
    Owen landed silently behind her and peered over his shoulder. It was a girl!  Why was she doing such a thing? Owen went to grab Mrs Argyle to stop her, but he couldn’t get hold of her, a cold wind pushing his arms away. He ran at her to try and knock her over but he instead was knocked off his feet, landing beside the water’s edge. He looked at the girl and recognised the face.
    “Katie!” Why was Mrs Argyle doing this to his friend, his beloved?
    Owen thrust his arms into the water but his hands went through his friend’s arms, as if she was just a reflection. He splashed into the water trying to get hold of her torso.  Before he had a chance he was pulled deeper into the reservoir, the water gushing past him along with some very startled looking fish.
    He turned around so that he was facing in the direction of the current. There was a light directly ahead of him, a figure silhouetted in the brightness, just like Trilby. But this person wore no hat, and his face was clearly visible, as were his arms which here held in front of him and from which disturbances in the water were appearing. A pair of spectacles and a trimmed beard came into focus.
    “Ken?” Owen bubbled. Ken smiled and moved his arms to the side, moving Owen along with the change in the direction of the current. Ken said something to Owen as he passed, but all that he could hear was a series of gurgles. Owen was now heading at some speed towards the surface of the water.
    Skywards he erupted, but the picturesque blue sky had been replaced with heavy and brooding dark grey clouds as far as the eye could see. In the distance Owen saw lightning illuminating the clouds from within. He moved his arms and reached out, changing his direction towards the clouds. Below them he could see a cluster of grey buildings. The power station where his father worked!
    Owen angled for his descent, hoping that his father was at work and hadn’t been abducted after all.
    The five cooling towers of the power station below were arranged as if they were on the face of a die, and as usual the outer four were billowing steam whereas the centre one was standing idle, as it always did (for “future capacity”, his dad had explained to him).
    The ground around the plant was different though, with the car parks and other buildings replaced with strange black tiles with v icious looking spikes on them. From the spikes shot up large tendrils that headed straight towards Owen. One of the tendrils was about to grasp