Gary Brandt takes a devastating turn in his tale from The Dimension Of Mind Dot Com, trading supernatural adventures for the raw reality of teenage tragedy when a special assembly announces that three students—Shelly Boyd (cheerleader and honor student), James Reagan (star athlete and glee club captain), and Ronald Jackson (senior and exceptional scholar)—have died from counterfeit opioid pills at an unauthorized party.
The familiar names hit like physical blows because these were kids from the girls' own street, and Ella realizes the sirens she heard around 2 a.m.
were racing to save lives that couldn't be saved.
The chapter brilliantly captures the disorienting nature of sudden loss: one moment these students were living their teenage lives, the next they're gone, leaving an entire school community reeling.
Principal Martinez's heartbreaking announcement reveals how quickly a dental prescription mixed with alcohol became a death sentence when counterfeit pills 'over a thousand times more potent' entered the mix, with five more students hospitalized and facing criminal charges.
Brandt shifts into deeply philosophical territory as the girls seek comfort from Helana about what happens after death, leading to the most spiritually complex conversation in the series.
Helana explains her world's beliefs about spirits being temporal while souls are eternal, about the automatic connection to the 'One Infinite Creator' unless you're truly evil, and how spirits might migrate to domains that match their nature—creating their own heaven or hell based on their beliefs and actions.
The interdimensional being admits that even after billions of years, higher beings don't understand the 'Mystery of Existence,' making anyone claiming absolute knowledge either mistaken or lying.
But these metaphysical theories bring no comfort to Ella, who cuts through the spiritual speculation with heartbreaking honesty: 'I miss them.
I want to see them, yell at them for being so stupid.
I don't want them gone.' The chapter ends with Ella writing in her diary as a fundamentally changed person—'not the Ella from yesterday'—feeling empty and angry, while their mothers gather in the kitchen with cornbread and quiet support.
Brandt masterfully shows how supernatural powers mean nothing when faced with the most human experience of all: grief over senseless loss.