Gregor the Overlander

The summer was supposed to be different. Eleven-year-old Gregor had been looking forward to camp—three months away from his cramped New York City apartment, away from the responsibility of watching his baby sister, away from the weight that had settled on his family ever since his father vanished. But plans changed. His older sister got to go to camp instead, and Gregor was stuck at home.

So there he was, bored out of his mind in the basement laundry room of his apartment building, trying to entertain his two-year-old sister, Boots. She was chasing a small ball between the washing machines, giggling, her chubby legs pumping. Gregor tossed the ball between a washer and dryer. Boots ran after it. Then she stopped.

There was an old air duct in the wall, its grate hanging open. Blackness poured from the opening. And a wisp of something—not steam, not smoke, but something strange—drifted out and curled around Boots like a living thing. Before Gregor could shout, she squirmed into the hole and disappeared.

Gregor lunged after her. He fell headfirst into an endless empty space.

The fall seemed to last forever. Boots laughed the whole way down. Gregor was too terrified to make a sound. He tried to convince himself it was a dream—some vivid nightmare he'd wake from in his own bed. But the wind rushing past his face felt real. The darkness swallowing them felt real. And when they finally landed with a thud on something soft and dusty, the pain was real too.

Then Boots squeaked: "Bug! Bug!"

Gregor crawled toward a shaft of light. And found himself staring into the face of the largest cockroach he had ever seen. It stood four feet tall. Its antennae twitched. Its multiple eyes reflected the dim glow. Gregor wrapped his arms around Boots, certain they were about to be eaten alive.

Then the cockroach spoke.

"Smells what so good, smells what?"

Gregor froze. The sound had come from the insect. It took him a moment to process: this giant bug could talk. And it wasn't alone. More cockroaches emerged from the shadows, surrounding them. They pressed forward, clicking and hissing, drawn to something about the children.

Boots, who had never met a stranger in her life, stretched out her arms to the insects. They gave an appreciative hiss. One of them asked if she was a Queen or a Princess. Gregor laughed at the absurdity of it. The roaches were offended.

"No Underlander are you," they said. "You look much like but smell not like."

This was the first clue that the world Gregor had fallen into was more complex than he could imagine. The roaches could tell he wasn't from here—not by his clothes or his words, but by his scent. They debated what to do with him and Boots. Some suggested taking them to the rats. Others argued for bringing them to the human settlement. Ultimately, they chose the humans.

One of the roaches offered them a ride. Gregor declined. Boots accepted happily.

She climbed onto the giant insect's back, and Gregor grabbed her hand as the roaches scurried through a passageway. They emerged into a massive cavern lit by torches. A crowd had gathered. People were playing some kind of game in a stadium—except the players weren't running. They were flying.

A dozen enormous bats spiraled around the top of the arena. Their wingspans stretched fifteen feet or more. Their colors ranged from pale yellow to deep black. On their backs rode humans with pale skin and silver-tinted hair, clinging effortlessly as the bats wheeled and dove.

Boots spotted a ball sailing through the air and hopped off her roach. A huge yellow bat swooped down, skimming the top of her head. A teenage girl hung upside down from the bat's neck. She did a double backflip, landed perfectly on the ground, and caught the ball mere feet from Boots. Her expression was pure arrogance. There had been no luck involved.

This was Gregor's first meeting with Luxa, the Queen-in-waiting of the Underland.

She looked him up and down with purple eyes that held no warmth. Her skin was so pale he could see every bone. She told him he smelled of the Overland and needed to bathe. Then she began to barter with the cockroaches for him and Boots, offering baskets of grain in exchange for delivering them safely.

An old man with a beard appeared behind her. He promised the roaches more grain than Luxa had offered. "One more basket will be a small price to pay if he is expected," the man said.

Gregor didn't understand what that meant. But something in the old man's voice made the roaches agree. They handed Gregor and Boots over to the humans.

The old man—Vikus, they called him—looked at Gregor with knowing eyes. "Are you from New York City?" he asked.

Gregor's heart stopped. How could this man in an underground world know where he lived? The question brought reality crashing back. His mother was upstairs in their apartment. She had no idea where her children had gone. She would be terrified.

"I need to go home," Gregor said.

"It is simple to fall down," Vikus replied, "but the going up requires much giving."

Luxa was blunter. "You can't go home."

Gregor decided to run for it. He sprinted toward the tunnel the roaches had come through. Luxa raised her hand in a signal. Every bat in the arena dove at once, locking Gregor and Boots in a prison of wings and fur. The riders all had silver hair like Luxa. They circled him, cutting off every escape route.

Gregor was their prisoner. And he had no idea how he would ever get out.

---

This is where Gregor's story begins: a bored boy doing laundry, a curious toddler chasing a ball, and a fall into a world that shouldn't exist. But what Gregor doesn't know yet is that his arrival was predicted centuries ago by a prophecy—a prophecy that names him the "Overland Warrior" and sends him on a quest to rescue his missing father from giant rats.

The question hanging over everything is simple: How do you find your way home when the only way forward leads deeper into the dark?