WHEN I WOKE UP, I was back in my hospital bed.
“There he is!” said a supercheery voice that sounded like my mom, if my mom was being played by a cheesy sitcom actress. “I knew this would snap him out of it.”
“We had to smuggle these in,” she chirped, fanning her hand over an open foil container filled with a stack of piping hot pancakes. “But there’s nothing like a hearty breakfast to cure whatever ails you, I’ve always said.”
“And I’ve always said, ‘Never argue with a boy’s mother about what’s best for him,’ ” joked a man who looked like my dad would’ve looked if my dad were ever on display in a wax museum. “So eat up, Daniel, those may be the last pancakes your mom ever makes.”
“Huh?”
“Our pancake maker was stolen, syruptitiously. What a waffle experience.”
Okay. Robo-Dad even cracked corny puns like my real dad sometimes did. I had to applaud The Prayer’s script-writing skills.
Either that, or I had gone completely bonkers.
“You’re not insane, Daniel,” said another mother who had materialized in my room. “These two are not who they claim to be.”
“My puns aren’t that lame,” said a second father standing beside my mirror image mother. “Are they, Altrelda?”
“Sometimes, Graff,” said Mom #2.
“Wait a second,” said the first father. “Who the heck are Graff and Altrelda?”
“Those are Danny’s made-up names for his space parents,” said Mom #1. “But did space mom bring you your favorite food? Of course not. How could she? She’s not real, Daniel.”
The parents who called themselves Graff and Altrelda were both wearing silver elephant pendants, emblems of Alpar Nokian home-world solidarity. My real parental units received their pendants when they graduated from the Academy and accepted their first jobs in the Protectorship.
Or maybe I made all that up.
Maybe it was just another part of my imaginary, alternate reality.
“Eat these before they get cold, Daniel,” said Mom #1. “I made them with chocolate chips and then sprinkled on powdered sugar.”
“Hang on a sec,” I said, turning to the other side of the bed and my other set of parents. “How can you guys even be here?”
“Easy,” said my dad with the cocky grin I remember from our many hard-core training sessions. “Some part of your brain must have known you needed parental advice.…”
“But, wait—you can’t come back. I cast your souls to the wind. Remember, Mom? After Dad’s spirit passed over, you said, ‘None of us is immortal.’ And then your spirit moved on, too.”
My mother (or the one who seemed more like my mother than the other mother in the room) smiled. “It is true, Daniel. But those who lived their life in the light never truly die.”
I looked to my dad; the one I felt had to be my dad.
He winked. “We love you, Daniel. Always.”
Okay. That nearly clinched it.
“We love you, Daniel. Always,” had been my father’s final words to me, right before he died.
But wait a second: The Prayer killed my father. The giant praying mantis monstrosity would’ve heard those words, too. This new set of parents could be another pair of pre-programmed imposters sent by Number 1 to mess with my head.
“Zeboul does not like this planet,” said Dad #2. “Humanity, with its abundant reservoirs of goodness and light, is a constant irritant to the forces of darkness.”
“Whoa,” said Dad #1, “sounds like somebody in this room watches way too many Star Wars movies.”
The other father didn’t even react to that. “The next time Number 1 catches you, Daniel,” he said with steely determination, “the thing will most certainly destroy you.”
“And,” added my other mother, “it will attempt to crush your soul to prevent it from moving on to the next realm. It will deny you access to the light and take you with it into the darkness.”
I dropped my head into my pillow and closed my eyes tight.
Either I was an ordinary teenager named Daniel Manashil with a hyperactive imagination who had been in a bad motorcycle accident, or I was Daniel X, the earth’s final protector.
If I was Daniel the Alien Hunter, then the fate of an entire solar system (not to mention the cosmic balance between good and evil) had come crashing down on my head.
If I was Daniel Manashil, I would have to erase all of this alternate universe crap from my mind once and for all, so I could go home, fix my motorcycle, and ask the Dana I knew from school to go with me to the homecoming dance.
Either way, I was definitely going to need some backup.
Too bad neither one of my dads had mentioned where I might find some.