HERE MARKS THE WINNING CHAPTER. I will probably never write more of this story after this point, though. I hope you have enjoyed the ride! I know I have!
“I’ll tell you the story. There was a beautiful but incredibly lonely woman named Valerie Skins. This is, of course, yours truly. She went to the bar once, hoping to meet someone whom she could learn to love, because her aching heart just couldn’t bear the loneliness for too much longer. She soon grew depressed, and when she went to the bar one day… she felt that all that sadness would simply lift away when she met the amazingly handsome and seemingly sweet Lucas Francium, the man whom she thought would be her lover.
“So she took him to her place, treated him right, and just wanted him to love her. Was that too much to ask? For another person in life? For someone to love, and to be loved by someone? Our beautiful heroine Valerie Skins did not. So she opened herself up to this one seemingly equally perfect man Lucas Francium, only to wake up the next morning to find her bed completely empty, and Lucas Francium gone without any trace.
“The beautiful and perfect Valerie Skins no longer made sadness her main emotion, but turned that sadness into anger. No, not sadness into anger. Her depression into rage. Absolutely angry and burning rage. She wanted revenge, and she wanted it badly. She wanted to cause Lucas Francium the most pain she could possibly cause him.
“But how was that possible? For Valerie Skins, our beautiful and perfect heroine of this story, knew that loneliness was the most painful thing. That getting the perfect revenge on her beloved Luke was not to go straight out and kill him, or torture him, or capture him. No, she would do nothing to kill her beloved. She could not dare to harm her beloved. She could do nothing of the sort, because truthfully, she loved him too bloody much. And she thought that the best revenge would be to kill off or severely hurt the ones he loved, the ones that if they were gone, would cause him the most pain. But he worked alone, and so there was no one of the sort to harm like that.
“And it just so happened that these beautiful creatures here wanted something, too. They wanted complete rule over all the universes, all the dimensions. Their race is superior to the human race—well, most of the human race, anyway—and I agreed. There are just some horrible people out there in the world. And I couldn’t bear to see these poor creatures not get what they deserve—which is to say, the entire enslavement of all other living creatures with moderate intelligence—because they reminded me of me, the beautiful and perfect Valerie Skins, who also did not get what she deserved.
“So our beautiful and perfect heroine, Valerie Skins, thought of a perfect deal to make with these lovely and almost as perfect as her unicorns. She said that she knew the man who took care of it all, who was the Keeper of Dimensions, and that if they helped me get my revenge on him, then they could keep you and do whatever they like with you, and by using you, get total rule over all dimensions. It really is a brilliant plan if you think about it.
“So they gave me their dimension hopping technology, and I promised them I would bring you to their home dimension, which, let’s face it, darling, was not very difficult considering you just had to follow Maurice through that forest and into our garden. You see, I decided to put my plan into action now because I noticed that you had gotten someone you didn’t just want to shag and toss aside like you did with me. You were no longer alone, and you had become vulnerable to the exact type of revenge I wanted to inflict on you.”
“How did you know about her?” Luke asked. “How did you know about Caitlin being with me?”
“My love, I saw her with you with my own eyes.”
“What?”
“In the Desert of Naharah. I was there, you see. I saved her life, I gave you the water.”
“Wait, that was you?” I exclaimed. “Luke!”
“Yes, that was me, you insufferable twit,” she said. “And then I saw you again as my band of unicorns stampeded into the floating city that reached to the skies.”
“So that’s what made the shaking so violent,” Luke thought out loud. “The whole lot of them were dimension hopping.”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “And now that I have my way, and now that I have got you right where I want you, there is no way that I will not get the revenge I have been seeking for oh, so long.”
“Wow, Valerie,” Luke said. “That is quite some story. I’m sorry, but I have to find it a little pathetic that you turned to unicorns to get your revenge on me. Also, I’ve slept with a lot of girls and left them, and none of them are as psychotic as you are to actually be hunting me down after all this time. They’ve all moved on with their lives, probably found someone else, someone better for them. Me? I would have made the worst boyfriend ever. I would have to keep going through dimensions, and I would never be around to do whatever it is boyfriends do. Say ‘I love you’ and hold you and all of that sentimental stuff. Honestly, Valerie, all you need to do is let go, move on, and I’m sure you will find someone else in your life. Someone better. Someone who would have actually taken care of your loneliness, and helped you grow as a person.”
“I am plenty grown as a person!” Valerie said.
“Yes, but there is plenty left in the world for you to learn!” Luke said. “There are so many places and people!”
“I have learned much from these beautiful creatures, Lucas. I am sure you know of their high skill in their combative ways.”
“I am familiar, yes,” Luke said.
“Well, then,” Valerie said. She reached behind the head unicorn, and pulled out a long and silver sword. “Let us reminisce about old times, shall we, love?”
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Chapter Twenty-Four
After a little while of just sitting there letting whatever little sunlight that could escape through the leaves hit our skin, making our skin feel nice, and warm, and tingly, and all together, just perfect, we decided that we should probably get on with trying to find the horse, because that is what we came here to do anyway.
Once we stood up, though, there was a pair of unsettling black eyes staring us right in the face. The little odd and funny detective hat stood on its head without falling, and its dazzling white coat made everything else around it seem dull.
We didn’t dare move. We stayed perfectly still, as to not scare it away.
And just as suddenly as this one appeared, a whole gang of perfectly beautiful white horses came from the surrounding foliage and bushes, all wearing their own silly little hat. One of them, for example, was wearing a beanie, and the other one was wearing a red hunting hat. There was one that wore a paper bag on its head, and there was even one that had a cardboard box.
“All right… what the bloody hell is going on?” Luke asked.
The horse right in the front, the one we were chasing for so long, the one with the silly and odd and funny little detective has opened its mouth, and to the giant shock of both me and Luke… it spoke.
“We have finally found you, Lucas Francium,” it said.
I looked up at look in horror, who seemed to have an expression of equal shock on his face.
“It took you long enough to come to our home dimension,” the horse spoke again.
“Okay… in all my years of research, I have never heard of a talking horse before,” Luke said.
The horse then whinnied and stuck its front legs up in the air, shaking its head back and forth to cause the silly and funny and odd little detective hat on its head to fall over.
If possible, I was even more stunned. I swore every loudly at the sight.
A cone shaped, spiraled horn stuck up perfectly from the white horse’s head.
“Ah,” Luke said. “I am so stupid. I see now.”
“Um… Luke?” I said very quietly.
“Yes, Caitlin?”
“Are those… unicorns?”
Luke nodded. “Yeah. Those are unicorns.”
“And, um… unicorns exist?”
“Yeah. They are just more intelligent and more, how do I say this?, genetically different from the average horses you see in your own dimension. But whenever I have ever come to this specific dimension, I have never seen a single unicorn around here.”
“We hide in secret, Lucas Francium,” the unicorn said again. “We are not seen until we want to be seen.”
“Oh, yeah?” Luke said. He seemd to be pretty confident, but then I realized that his voice was trembling just a little bit. “And why have you decided to show yourselves this time, huh?”
The band of unicorns began to laugh.
“You will find out soon enough, Lucas Francium.”
“Um… Luke?” I asked quietly.
“Yes, Caitlin?”
“Why are we afraid of unicorns?” I asked.
“Because, Caitlin,” Lucas said to me so quietly to make sure I was the only one who could hear him, “unicorns… are not friendly like everyone in your dimension thinks they are.”
“They aren’t? How come?”
“They just aren’t. I hate to beak all your little childhood dreams and all, but unicorns are actually very evil. They love violence, and they kill for fun.”
“They kill people?”
“Yeah. They stab them in the heart with their horn.”
“And they kill people like this for fun?” I asked.
“Yeah, pretty much. I mean, that’s what unicorns like to do. That’s how they get their food, you see. They stab their prey, and then eat the flesh.”
“I thought unicorns were vegetarian?”
“It seems like your unicorn stereotypes were wrong.”
“Well, well, isn’t this nice,” said a female voice.
A woman with long, curly dark brown hair came in front of the head unicorn. She was wearing a long, flowing red gown, and her make up seemed heavy but not over done, she seemed slender but not too skinny, her eyes were very round, but not too large. She looked like the perfect woman, which fit in perfectly in this perfect dimension. She was so perfect, that she made the perfectly perfect white unicorns look blase next to her.
Luke’s eyes widened again.
“What’s going on?”
“Well,” Luke said in a whisper again. “It seems like we’ve found our culprit.”
“Who is she?”
Lucas continued like he didn’t hear my question. “She’s been ordering the unicorns to kill. Remember we went to your brother’s funeral in that one dimension with the church?”
I nodded.
“Do you remember how he died?”
“Stabbed… in the heart… with something cone-shaped and spiral-y,” I said, only understanding the full meaning of it after I had completed the sentence.
“That is correct,” he said. “It seems… like she’s been after us for a while now.”
“Yes, but who is she?” I repeated.
“It’s so nice to see you again, Luke,” she said. “Is ignoring me and talking to your new girl any way to treat a former lover?”
“You are not my former lover,” Luke said sternly.
“Yeah, and I am not his new girl,” I said.
The woman turned to look at me. “She is absolutely lovely, Luke. Where are you taking her? Dumping her off in a river or something? Does your leaving of a woman get progressively worse the more you sleep with?”
“I have not slept with him!” I snapped.
“And quite charming, too,” the perfect woman said, turning back to Luke. “Now, baby, why don’t you just come back into my arms, and you can come back to my place. I’ll make you some of that chocolate cake that you loved. The one I made for my birthday, the one I know you still think is the best. Maybe that, a cup of tea, and we can catch up. You tell me how your… dimension thing is going, and I’ll tell you all about…” she lifted her hand up, and with two fingers, stroked the maine of the unicorn she was leaning against. “…I’ll tell you all about my new pets.”
“Oh, that is so likely, Valerie,” Luke said, the sarcasm in his voice being plainly apparent. “You have set these beasts to kill people, people I know that you hand picked to murder, and you are going to tell me why right now.”
“Now, now, love,” Valerie said, taking a few steps forward. “I wouldn’t be too hasty about matters like this. Especially since I am the one with the power right now. Honestly, dear, it’s amazing that I am still letting you talk. I should be the ones asking the questions, you see.”
“What is going on?” I asked Luke.
“Oh, your new slut wants to know what’s going on?” Valerie asked. “Well, dearie, let me tell you the story. The story of Lucas Francium: Keeper of Dimensions.”
Once we stood up, though, there was a pair of unsettling black eyes staring us right in the face. The little odd and funny detective hat stood on its head without falling, and its dazzling white coat made everything else around it seem dull.
We didn’t dare move. We stayed perfectly still, as to not scare it away.
And just as suddenly as this one appeared, a whole gang of perfectly beautiful white horses came from the surrounding foliage and bushes, all wearing their own silly little hat. One of them, for example, was wearing a beanie, and the other one was wearing a red hunting hat. There was one that wore a paper bag on its head, and there was even one that had a cardboard box.
“All right… what the bloody hell is going on?” Luke asked.
The horse right in the front, the one we were chasing for so long, the one with the silly and odd and funny little detective has opened its mouth, and to the giant shock of both me and Luke… it spoke.
“We have finally found you, Lucas Francium,” it said.
I looked up at look in horror, who seemed to have an expression of equal shock on his face.
“It took you long enough to come to our home dimension,” the horse spoke again.
“Okay… in all my years of research, I have never heard of a talking horse before,” Luke said.
The horse then whinnied and stuck its front legs up in the air, shaking its head back and forth to cause the silly and funny and odd little detective hat on its head to fall over.
If possible, I was even more stunned. I swore every loudly at the sight.
A cone shaped, spiraled horn stuck up perfectly from the white horse’s head.
“Ah,” Luke said. “I am so stupid. I see now.”
“Um… Luke?” I said very quietly.
“Yes, Caitlin?”
“Are those… unicorns?”
Luke nodded. “Yeah. Those are unicorns.”
“And, um… unicorns exist?”
“Yeah. They are just more intelligent and more, how do I say this?, genetically different from the average horses you see in your own dimension. But whenever I have ever come to this specific dimension, I have never seen a single unicorn around here.”
“We hide in secret, Lucas Francium,” the unicorn said again. “We are not seen until we want to be seen.”
“Oh, yeah?” Luke said. He seemd to be pretty confident, but then I realized that his voice was trembling just a little bit. “And why have you decided to show yourselves this time, huh?”
The band of unicorns began to laugh.
“You will find out soon enough, Lucas Francium.”
“Um… Luke?” I asked quietly.
“Yes, Caitlin?”
“Why are we afraid of unicorns?” I asked.
“Because, Caitlin,” Lucas said to me so quietly to make sure I was the only one who could hear him, “unicorns… are not friendly like everyone in your dimension thinks they are.”
“They aren’t? How come?”
“They just aren’t. I hate to beak all your little childhood dreams and all, but unicorns are actually very evil. They love violence, and they kill for fun.”
“They kill people?”
“Yeah. They stab them in the heart with their horn.”
“And they kill people like this for fun?” I asked.
“Yeah, pretty much. I mean, that’s what unicorns like to do. That’s how they get their food, you see. They stab their prey, and then eat the flesh.”
“I thought unicorns were vegetarian?”
“It seems like your unicorn stereotypes were wrong.”
“Well, well, isn’t this nice,” said a female voice.
A woman with long, curly dark brown hair came in front of the head unicorn. She was wearing a long, flowing red gown, and her make up seemed heavy but not over done, she seemed slender but not too skinny, her eyes were very round, but not too large. She looked like the perfect woman, which fit in perfectly in this perfect dimension. She was so perfect, that she made the perfectly perfect white unicorns look blase next to her.
Luke’s eyes widened again.
“What’s going on?”
“Well,” Luke said in a whisper again. “It seems like we’ve found our culprit.”
“Who is she?”
Lucas continued like he didn’t hear my question. “She’s been ordering the unicorns to kill. Remember we went to your brother’s funeral in that one dimension with the church?”
I nodded.
“Do you remember how he died?”
“Stabbed… in the heart… with something cone-shaped and spiral-y,” I said, only understanding the full meaning of it after I had completed the sentence.
“That is correct,” he said. “It seems… like she’s been after us for a while now.”
“Yes, but who is she?” I repeated.
“It’s so nice to see you again, Luke,” she said. “Is ignoring me and talking to your new girl any way to treat a former lover?”
“You are not my former lover,” Luke said sternly.
“Yeah, and I am not his new girl,” I said.
The woman turned to look at me. “She is absolutely lovely, Luke. Where are you taking her? Dumping her off in a river or something? Does your leaving of a woman get progressively worse the more you sleep with?”
“I have not slept with him!” I snapped.
“And quite charming, too,” the perfect woman said, turning back to Luke. “Now, baby, why don’t you just come back into my arms, and you can come back to my place. I’ll make you some of that chocolate cake that you loved. The one I made for my birthday, the one I know you still think is the best. Maybe that, a cup of tea, and we can catch up. You tell me how your… dimension thing is going, and I’ll tell you all about…” she lifted her hand up, and with two fingers, stroked the maine of the unicorn she was leaning against. “…I’ll tell you all about my new pets.”
“Oh, that is so likely, Valerie,” Luke said, the sarcasm in his voice being plainly apparent. “You have set these beasts to kill people, people I know that you hand picked to murder, and you are going to tell me why right now.”
“Now, now, love,” Valerie said, taking a few steps forward. “I wouldn’t be too hasty about matters like this. Especially since I am the one with the power right now. Honestly, dear, it’s amazing that I am still letting you talk. I should be the ones asking the questions, you see.”
“What is going on?” I asked Luke.
“Oh, your new slut wants to know what’s going on?” Valerie asked. “Well, dearie, let me tell you the story. The story of Lucas Francium: Keeper of Dimensions.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
It didn't take us too long to find the next door. It was relitively close by, and still within the un-green green ish trees of this oddly green forest. Did I mention how weird the green was? Like, it wasn't normal green. Normal green is, like, the color of normal leaves. These leaves were not normal. Because they were a weird green. They were like if you took the leaves of a normal tree, and made them exceptionally bright, and then you ate peas for lunch and then threw up on them. That's what the leaves looked like. Anyway, I never had to look at those leaves after that, because we found the door and decided to go through it.
The green here was so much more beautiful. It was sa soft green, and the light, yet comfortably warm sunlight just barely hit my face through all the foliage and festoons. It felt like we were in some sort of forbidden garden. And I don't know my christianity too well, but it almost felt like we were in the Garden of Eden. Every single leaf, every single plant, and every single petal on every single flower seemed to be perfect in every single way: they were the perfect shape, the perfect texture, the perfect size, the perfect color, the perfect scent. Just absolutely perfect.
So as we went around searching for the majestic white and weirdly perfect horse that wore an odd and funny detective hat on its head, I couldn't help but just be completely awe struck at the beauty of the pure nature of this place. I mean, sure, I had loved seeing the sky scrapers, and being in towns with aactual people was great, but there was just something about this place that made me just want to lie in the grass, lie down, and let the sun hit me as the perfection of this place went around me like some sort of thhing that goes around people.
And so when we went under a tree, I requested Luke if we could stop.
"Luke... can we take a short break?" I asked. "I'm absolutely exhausted... and this place is so nice and perfect... come on, let's just go under this tree here." And before he could answer, I had sat down and leaned against the giant tree that cast a shadow over the perfectly green grass.
"We have to find that horse, Caity-cakes," Luke said. "Come on, we don't have time for this."
I took a deep breath. "Just for a little while. I mean, we can always catch that horse. If your motorcycle is going faster just to catch it, I'm sure that out running it will never be a problem. And the fact that we can tell when and where it dimension hops... that horse has no chance against us if we're planning to hunt it down. So just relax a bit. Sit next to me. Please?"
Luke rolled his eyes, but did what I told him to. He crossed his legs and sat right next to me so that his shoulder was touching mine. He looked at me and smiled. "This place is kind of nice. I wouldn't mind having a wedding or something here."
I raised my eyebrows. "A wedding? You? Getting married? Why, it's more likely to see... well, honestly, I don't really know what's likely to see and what isn't. I suppose everything is possible now that we can go into alternate dimensions."
Luke looked down at his hands and smiled again. "Yeah. Me, getting married. That's just such a stupid idea, isnt it? I think it is. I mean, the job was meant for me to do alone, anyway."
"No, don't say that," I said. "I mean, sure, the job is more convenient for you to do alone. But you know my dad? He got married. And he had children. And he had a family, and a life, and I knew all about his social life and his friends and all of the family friends we had who would com over for dinner. I mean, the only thing I didn't know was where he worked, and why he kept leaving for business meetings for such long periods of time and so often. I guess he just wanted to keep us all safe. But it didn't really work, did it?"
Luke put his hand on my leg. "If we get up, we can go find the person who did that to your family," he said. "And it could help you feel better. You know, the whole vengence thing."
"Doesn't revenge not solve anything?"
Luke shrugged. "It depends on how you look at it. And whether it solves anything or not, it feels damn good. In fact, vengance has to be my favorite thing right after sex and chocolate cake."
"Really? That's jut a bit sad."
"Why is that sad? It feels good, getting revenge on someone."
"Yeah, but my favorite emotion is love. I love my family. And my life. And I think that is so much better than revenge. Really."
Luke rolled his eyes. "You're a sentimental fool, that's what you are."
I shrugged. "Maybe, but I still think love is a bit stronger than hate. Hey, maybe I'll be the one to get married here."
"Yeah," Luke said. "Maybe we both will."
The green here was so much more beautiful. It was sa soft green, and the light, yet comfortably warm sunlight just barely hit my face through all the foliage and festoons. It felt like we were in some sort of forbidden garden. And I don't know my christianity too well, but it almost felt like we were in the Garden of Eden. Every single leaf, every single plant, and every single petal on every single flower seemed to be perfect in every single way: they were the perfect shape, the perfect texture, the perfect size, the perfect color, the perfect scent. Just absolutely perfect.
So as we went around searching for the majestic white and weirdly perfect horse that wore an odd and funny detective hat on its head, I couldn't help but just be completely awe struck at the beauty of the pure nature of this place. I mean, sure, I had loved seeing the sky scrapers, and being in towns with aactual people was great, but there was just something about this place that made me just want to lie in the grass, lie down, and let the sun hit me as the perfection of this place went around me like some sort of thhing that goes around people.
And so when we went under a tree, I requested Luke if we could stop.
"Luke... can we take a short break?" I asked. "I'm absolutely exhausted... and this place is so nice and perfect... come on, let's just go under this tree here." And before he could answer, I had sat down and leaned against the giant tree that cast a shadow over the perfectly green grass.
"We have to find that horse, Caity-cakes," Luke said. "Come on, we don't have time for this."
I took a deep breath. "Just for a little while. I mean, we can always catch that horse. If your motorcycle is going faster just to catch it, I'm sure that out running it will never be a problem. And the fact that we can tell when and where it dimension hops... that horse has no chance against us if we're planning to hunt it down. So just relax a bit. Sit next to me. Please?"
Luke rolled his eyes, but did what I told him to. He crossed his legs and sat right next to me so that his shoulder was touching mine. He looked at me and smiled. "This place is kind of nice. I wouldn't mind having a wedding or something here."
I raised my eyebrows. "A wedding? You? Getting married? Why, it's more likely to see... well, honestly, I don't really know what's likely to see and what isn't. I suppose everything is possible now that we can go into alternate dimensions."
Luke looked down at his hands and smiled again. "Yeah. Me, getting married. That's just such a stupid idea, isnt it? I think it is. I mean, the job was meant for me to do alone, anyway."
"No, don't say that," I said. "I mean, sure, the job is more convenient for you to do alone. But you know my dad? He got married. And he had children. And he had a family, and a life, and I knew all about his social life and his friends and all of the family friends we had who would com over for dinner. I mean, the only thing I didn't know was where he worked, and why he kept leaving for business meetings for such long periods of time and so often. I guess he just wanted to keep us all safe. But it didn't really work, did it?"
Luke put his hand on my leg. "If we get up, we can go find the person who did that to your family," he said. "And it could help you feel better. You know, the whole vengence thing."
"Doesn't revenge not solve anything?"
Luke shrugged. "It depends on how you look at it. And whether it solves anything or not, it feels damn good. In fact, vengance has to be my favorite thing right after sex and chocolate cake."
"Really? That's jut a bit sad."
"Why is that sad? It feels good, getting revenge on someone."
"Yeah, but my favorite emotion is love. I love my family. And my life. And I think that is so much better than revenge. Really."
Luke rolled his eyes. "You're a sentimental fool, that's what you are."
I shrugged. "Maybe, but I still think love is a bit stronger than hate. Hey, maybe I'll be the one to get married here."
"Yeah," Luke said. "Maybe we both will."
Chapter Twent-Two
I had the strangest dream. I was walking through this oddly colored town, the sky was turning red, and everything seemed to be covered in heat waves, making the curvy lines of the buildings move like snakes. In the distance there was a brilliant, white horse. As white as the newest snow fall, and as pure as an innocent child. Except for one odd thing about it was the fact that it was wearing a detective hat on its head.
“Hello there, little horse,” I said, but my voice echoed the moment it left my throat, which made it sound like I was either very high or very insane. “Do you want to give me a lift?”
The horse did not look my way. It had its eyes fixed on something. Something it could not keep its eyes off of, even if it tried.
“Little horse!” I called again. “I need to find my friend. His name is Lucas. He is the Keeper of the Dimensions or… well, something like that. I need help finding him. Could you give me a lift?”
The horse turned and looked at me, its black eyes fixed and un blinking.
“Come over here, little horse!” my voice echoed. “I need a lift! Could you give me a lift?”
The horse turned around, and walked away. It did not bother to look at me again. It had something else to look for.
“Hey! Hey, where are you going? You’re not just going to leave me here? All by myself? I need your help, and you’re leaving me? Hey, where do you think you’re going? Come back here!”
“Caitlin?”
“Don’t leave me…”
“Calm down, Caity-kins, I was never planning to leave you.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You are not alone, Caity-kins. Wake up.”
My eyes opened. The sky was not red, it was blue. And the person talking to me was not a white horse, it was a white guy. Lucas was directly above me, holding me gently in his arms.
I sat up straight instantly. The pain shot into my head. “Ah! Oh, God. What… what the hell happened?”
“I really have no idea,” Luke said. “Is your head okay? Should I find you an ice pack or something?”
“No, my head is fine,” I said. “But really, what’s going on? Where’s that horse?”
“Horse?”
“Yeah. There was a horse… with a hat on…”
Luke raised one eyebrow. “You were dreaming, Caity-kins.”
“No! There was a horse… that didn’t feel like a dream.”
“Trust me. I haven’t seen any white horses wearing any caps.”
I paused for a moment. “I never said the horse was white.”
“What? Oh. I. Um. You mentioned it. While you were muttering.”
I gave him a skeptical look. “You did see a horse somewhere around, didn’t you?”
Luke sighed. “Yes, I saw a horse. It just looked at me holding you and then galloped off. I didn’t give it any importance.”
“Was it wearing a hat?”
“Why is that important?”
“Luke, just answer me.”
Lucas frowned. “Yeah, it was wearing a hat.”
“We have to go after it,” I said. “We have to find it. That horse has answers.”
“Answers? Slow down, Caity-kins, you’ve got a serious bruise on your head, and I don’t think you’re talking completely straight.”
“Of course, because a white horse with a hat on having answers is completely unlikely said the Keeper of the Dimensions.”
Luke sighed. “Just rest for a little bit. Do you have any idea what knocked you out?”
“No, I didn’t get to see. I wasn’t looking up, I was looking down, I think.”
“And you didn’t see who did this to you?”
I shook my head, which made it hurt even more. “No,” I answered.
“All right. Well, when you feel up to it, you can stand up, and we’ll go track down that horse with the funny hat.”
I stood up immediately, but felt incredibly dizzy and almost fell over again. Luke caught me before I completely toppled over, though.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, standing up straight. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
“Well, I don’t want to have you walking,” he said. “We’re going on the motorcycle.”
So Luke carefully led me to the motorcycle and I got on by myself as my brain continued to pound against the side of my head.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” I assured him. “Just drive.”
So he revved up the motorcycle, and took off in the direction the white horse with the funny detective hat went off to.
Before too long, we were at the strange colorful city’s edge, and we were going into a forest where the leaves seemed a bit too green to be natural. And soon after that, I noticed the perfectly white horse just a good number’s yards ahead of us.
“There!” I said, pointing at it. “There it is!”
The horse looked back at us, and even though horses don’t have expressions, it seemed incredibly shocked to see us following it. It soon broke out into a run, and went incredibly fast. Faster than I’ve ever seen a horse go.
“Come on, step it up!” I said. I watched the little needle indicating Luke’s speed on the dashboard slowly go more and more towards the right as the motorcycle gained speed and was gaining on the white horse.
As the horse realized that we were after it, it started to go faster as well, and soon, it was a race to see who could go the fastest. At time we would be right on the horse’s tail (literally) and at other times the horse seemed so much faster than we were.
Luke was in incredible concentration because of the high speeds he was now going at. He leaned against the dashboard, his knuckles turned completely pale white, almost as white as the horse itself, as he held onto the handle bars of his motorcycle.
And just like that, the stunningly white horse with the funny and oddly placed detective’s hat had vanished.
Luke came to a screeching halt. The two of us looked around to see where it could have possibly gone.
“Um… did you see where it went?” I said, now completely oblivious to the pain in my head.
“It seemed to just vanish,” Luke answered. “But I have never seen my motorcycle go that fast before, nor have I seen any living thing on its own feet go that fast before.”
“Well, why do you think your motorcycle went faster than usual? Do you think that horse had anything to do with the inter dimensional forces of all the universes?”
Luke smiled. “You’re finally starting to catch on, Caity-cakes, because that’s exactly why I think the motorcycle went faster than usual.” Luke pressed some buttons on the dashboard, and the light all turned green.
“Are you trying to locate a door?”
“If that horse is from a different dimension, this function will be able to tell us.”
“Honestly, it seems like this dimension is deserted,” I said. “All the houses were empty, and there was absolutely nobody. I don’t blame them, for having houses like that.”
“You tried to go into the houses?” Luke asked in a disapproving tone.
I shrugged. “I was thirsty, and not really in the mood to come crawling back to you.”
“And yet, I was still the one to find you unconscious on the street,” Luke said with a slight smile.
I rolled my eyes at him, but he was too focused on the lights of his motorcycle to notice.
“It… it’s just gone,” he said.
“Gone? What d’you mean gone?”
“It’s not here. Not in this dimension.”
“What do you mean? Where could it have gone? How could it have gone?”
But that last question was answered when look gave me a serious and unsettling expression.
My eyes widened. “You think that horse is the dimension hopper?”
“Well, you’re the one who said that that horse had answers,” Luke said slowly.
“So you think that’s the one that’s been causing the quakes? That’s the thing that killed my father and my brother?”
“I didn’t say that,” Luke said. “It’s a possibility. And the motorcycle even says it… the horse isn’t even in this dimension anymore. It is probably the dimension hopper we’ve been looking for.”
“I find that incredibly hard to believe,” I said.
“There’s only one way to find out for sure.”
“Oh, really? And what exactly is that?”
“We find out which dimension it went to and we follow it.”
Luke hit some more buttons on the dashboard. “Ah. Good. It went to the dimension directly adjacent to this one. So if we can find the door, we’ll be able to make it there. And this dimension I am actually familiar with. So we should be safe there. Well, safer there than here, anyway.” He hit the locator buttons on the dashboard again, and all the lights flashed green.
“And what if that horse wasn’t the dimension hopper? What if it doesn’t lead us to the person who killed my father and brother?”
“Well,” Luke said as the lights turned from green to purple. “Right now, that horse is the best lead we’ve got, and following it is our best bet. If we’re lucky, then that horse is the dimension hopper, and we will be able to stop it. If not, maybe it will lead us to the actual dimension hopper, and we will be able to stop whoever that person is.”
I nodded. “All right. Let’s go, then.”
So Luke kicked the motorcycle to life again, and we drove off in search of the door.
“Hello there, little horse,” I said, but my voice echoed the moment it left my throat, which made it sound like I was either very high or very insane. “Do you want to give me a lift?”
The horse did not look my way. It had its eyes fixed on something. Something it could not keep its eyes off of, even if it tried.
“Little horse!” I called again. “I need to find my friend. His name is Lucas. He is the Keeper of the Dimensions or… well, something like that. I need help finding him. Could you give me a lift?”
The horse turned and looked at me, its black eyes fixed and un blinking.
“Come over here, little horse!” my voice echoed. “I need a lift! Could you give me a lift?”
The horse turned around, and walked away. It did not bother to look at me again. It had something else to look for.
“Hey! Hey, where are you going? You’re not just going to leave me here? All by myself? I need your help, and you’re leaving me? Hey, where do you think you’re going? Come back here!”
“Caitlin?”
“Don’t leave me…”
“Calm down, Caity-kins, I was never planning to leave you.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You are not alone, Caity-kins. Wake up.”
My eyes opened. The sky was not red, it was blue. And the person talking to me was not a white horse, it was a white guy. Lucas was directly above me, holding me gently in his arms.
I sat up straight instantly. The pain shot into my head. “Ah! Oh, God. What… what the hell happened?”
“I really have no idea,” Luke said. “Is your head okay? Should I find you an ice pack or something?”
“No, my head is fine,” I said. “But really, what’s going on? Where’s that horse?”
“Horse?”
“Yeah. There was a horse… with a hat on…”
Luke raised one eyebrow. “You were dreaming, Caity-kins.”
“No! There was a horse… that didn’t feel like a dream.”
“Trust me. I haven’t seen any white horses wearing any caps.”
I paused for a moment. “I never said the horse was white.”
“What? Oh. I. Um. You mentioned it. While you were muttering.”
I gave him a skeptical look. “You did see a horse somewhere around, didn’t you?”
Luke sighed. “Yes, I saw a horse. It just looked at me holding you and then galloped off. I didn’t give it any importance.”
“Was it wearing a hat?”
“Why is that important?”
“Luke, just answer me.”
Lucas frowned. “Yeah, it was wearing a hat.”
“We have to go after it,” I said. “We have to find it. That horse has answers.”
“Answers? Slow down, Caity-kins, you’ve got a serious bruise on your head, and I don’t think you’re talking completely straight.”
“Of course, because a white horse with a hat on having answers is completely unlikely said the Keeper of the Dimensions.”
Luke sighed. “Just rest for a little bit. Do you have any idea what knocked you out?”
“No, I didn’t get to see. I wasn’t looking up, I was looking down, I think.”
“And you didn’t see who did this to you?”
I shook my head, which made it hurt even more. “No,” I answered.
“All right. Well, when you feel up to it, you can stand up, and we’ll go track down that horse with the funny hat.”
I stood up immediately, but felt incredibly dizzy and almost fell over again. Luke caught me before I completely toppled over, though.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, standing up straight. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
“Well, I don’t want to have you walking,” he said. “We’re going on the motorcycle.”
So Luke carefully led me to the motorcycle and I got on by myself as my brain continued to pound against the side of my head.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” I assured him. “Just drive.”
So he revved up the motorcycle, and took off in the direction the white horse with the funny detective hat went off to.
Before too long, we were at the strange colorful city’s edge, and we were going into a forest where the leaves seemed a bit too green to be natural. And soon after that, I noticed the perfectly white horse just a good number’s yards ahead of us.
“There!” I said, pointing at it. “There it is!”
The horse looked back at us, and even though horses don’t have expressions, it seemed incredibly shocked to see us following it. It soon broke out into a run, and went incredibly fast. Faster than I’ve ever seen a horse go.
“Come on, step it up!” I said. I watched the little needle indicating Luke’s speed on the dashboard slowly go more and more towards the right as the motorcycle gained speed and was gaining on the white horse.
As the horse realized that we were after it, it started to go faster as well, and soon, it was a race to see who could go the fastest. At time we would be right on the horse’s tail (literally) and at other times the horse seemed so much faster than we were.
Luke was in incredible concentration because of the high speeds he was now going at. He leaned against the dashboard, his knuckles turned completely pale white, almost as white as the horse itself, as he held onto the handle bars of his motorcycle.
And just like that, the stunningly white horse with the funny and oddly placed detective’s hat had vanished.
Luke came to a screeching halt. The two of us looked around to see where it could have possibly gone.
“Um… did you see where it went?” I said, now completely oblivious to the pain in my head.
“It seemed to just vanish,” Luke answered. “But I have never seen my motorcycle go that fast before, nor have I seen any living thing on its own feet go that fast before.”
“Well, why do you think your motorcycle went faster than usual? Do you think that horse had anything to do with the inter dimensional forces of all the universes?”
Luke smiled. “You’re finally starting to catch on, Caity-cakes, because that’s exactly why I think the motorcycle went faster than usual.” Luke pressed some buttons on the dashboard, and the light all turned green.
“Are you trying to locate a door?”
“If that horse is from a different dimension, this function will be able to tell us.”
“Honestly, it seems like this dimension is deserted,” I said. “All the houses were empty, and there was absolutely nobody. I don’t blame them, for having houses like that.”
“You tried to go into the houses?” Luke asked in a disapproving tone.
I shrugged. “I was thirsty, and not really in the mood to come crawling back to you.”
“And yet, I was still the one to find you unconscious on the street,” Luke said with a slight smile.
I rolled my eyes at him, but he was too focused on the lights of his motorcycle to notice.
“It… it’s just gone,” he said.
“Gone? What d’you mean gone?”
“It’s not here. Not in this dimension.”
“What do you mean? Where could it have gone? How could it have gone?”
But that last question was answered when look gave me a serious and unsettling expression.
My eyes widened. “You think that horse is the dimension hopper?”
“Well, you’re the one who said that that horse had answers,” Luke said slowly.
“So you think that’s the one that’s been causing the quakes? That’s the thing that killed my father and my brother?”
“I didn’t say that,” Luke said. “It’s a possibility. And the motorcycle even says it… the horse isn’t even in this dimension anymore. It is probably the dimension hopper we’ve been looking for.”
“I find that incredibly hard to believe,” I said.
“There’s only one way to find out for sure.”
“Oh, really? And what exactly is that?”
“We find out which dimension it went to and we follow it.”
Luke hit some more buttons on the dashboard. “Ah. Good. It went to the dimension directly adjacent to this one. So if we can find the door, we’ll be able to make it there. And this dimension I am actually familiar with. So we should be safe there. Well, safer there than here, anyway.” He hit the locator buttons on the dashboard again, and all the lights flashed green.
“And what if that horse wasn’t the dimension hopper? What if it doesn’t lead us to the person who killed my father and brother?”
“Well,” Luke said as the lights turned from green to purple. “Right now, that horse is the best lead we’ve got, and following it is our best bet. If we’re lucky, then that horse is the dimension hopper, and we will be able to stop it. If not, maybe it will lead us to the actual dimension hopper, and we will be able to stop whoever that person is.”
I nodded. “All right. Let’s go, then.”
So Luke kicked the motorcycle to life again, and we drove off in search of the door.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Are you okay?” Luke asked. “You seem a bit off. A little huffy if you ask me.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not asking you,” I said as I walked ahead of Luke on the streets of this odd little town. It looked normal when you took a good, close look around it. But something felt weird, something felt off.
“Jeez, what’s wrong with you? See, this is why I don’t make emotional connections with women.”
I turned around to face him. “No, Lucas, this is why you don’t BREAK emotional connections with woman.” I turned back around and stomped off away from him.
“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Honestly, Luke, just leave me alone for right now. I need some time to think to myself.”
“Oh, so first you don’t want me to be alone, and now you want to go be alone? Fine, then, go ahead! Be alone! What do I care?”
I took a deep breath to prevent myself from screaming, and then walked away in a giant huff, not looking back at him.
“But be careful! Remember, I’ve never ben here before, so I have no idea what could possibly be around! It’s not safe to wander an unknown dimension by yourself!”
I turned around again and screamed a few swear words at him. “I will go wherever I damn please, and you don’t have to worry about my safety, Lucas, because I can take care of myself plenty, I don’t need you to trail me all the time! Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be back, but for God’s sake, Lucas, you have to learn when to shut the fuck up!”
I went back to my huffed exit, and turned a corner so Luke was no longer in sight of me nor was I in sight of him.
As I continued on in my angry huff, I noticed that the roads and total empty: that was probably what was causing this really weird, empty feeling that the whole town seemed to have. Was this a ghost town? How come there weren’t any people? I looked around to observe my surroundings even more and only just realized that the houses weren’t built straight up. In fact, it almost felt like I was taking drugs or something because the houses seemed as if the straight lines that made up their edges were all squigly and weird, like some little four year old attempted to draw a straight line. And not only were they all weirdly shaped, but they were also huge. And on top of that, every brick that made the house was a different color, a bright, neon like color, that made the houses almost painful to look at. I began to wonder what sort of people could possibly be living in these houses. Some extremely weird people who were on drugs when they decided to make this? I came to the conclusion that the architect was definitely on something when he came up with these building plans, and that once the town realized what these houses looked like, they decided to just leave because they were so horrifyingly ugly and bright and disgusting.
I also only realized that I was incredibly thirsty. That chocolate cake I had eaten really didn’t do much for wetting my mouth. I also came to the conclusion that if anone were possibly living in one of these houses, they would be kind enough to give a thirsty girl a drink of water. I just hoped that this was not a ghost town like I thought it was. And I most definitely did not want to go back to Luke and beg him for water.
I knocked on the door of the nearest house. No one answered, and I heard nothing. “Hello?” I called. “Is anyone there?” Silence.
I felt a bit ashamed at this failed attempt, that I really didn’t want to be around this house anymore. I went to the next house and tried the same thing. I knocked. “Is anyone at home? I’m not a robber or anything. I’d just like some water, that’s all. And I’m not homeless, I swear, I’m just alone and thirsty.” Still no response.
“Maybe there really isn’t anyone around.”
I decided to try one more house before giving up and going back to Luke. So I went to the third house, and though it looked identical, I expected different results.
I knocked on the door for the first time. “Hello? Is anyone there?” And as I hit my knuckle against the door for the fifth time, the door simply opened. I assumed it was unlocked or something. “Oh, I’m sorry for opening your door.” I stepped into the doorway. “Is anyone here?”
Inside the house, all the furniture seemed really large. And oddly colorful. Each piece of furniture was a different brightly colored color, and looked as odd and abstract as something you would find in a modern arts museum.
I then assumed that the whole town was deserted. And if this town was deserted for the amount of time proportional to the amount of dust that had collected on the furniture, I figured it would be all right to go inside this house just for a cup of water.
The whole house was completely empty of life. Not even bugs or mice or anything, really. As I went into the deserted kitchen, I was reminded of that one time where I had a rat in my kitchen. It would always run around and steal food. I rememeber how upset and angry my mum was about that. Boy, she really let it all out on the exterminator for not being able to get rid of it. I thought it was kind of cute, though, and I would secretly leave pieces of food on the floors of the kitchens so that the rat would always have something to eat if my mum decided to lock up our pantry. And then, standing there in that deserted kitchen, it sort of reminded me of home. Not really the psychedelic furniture or the abstract design, choices, but the emptiness. The loneliness. The fact that even though there was a world of colors and beautiful things around me, I was stuck there, sipping water
And then I remembered what Luke wrote in his journal. Abut being alone. About not making emotional connections with people.
I put the rainbow cup down near the sink that could have been large enough to be my bath tub. “I should really get back to him.”
I left the house and closed the door behind me.
And then I blacked out.
“Yeah? Well, I’m not asking you,” I said as I walked ahead of Luke on the streets of this odd little town. It looked normal when you took a good, close look around it. But something felt weird, something felt off.
“Jeez, what’s wrong with you? See, this is why I don’t make emotional connections with women.”
I turned around to face him. “No, Lucas, this is why you don’t BREAK emotional connections with woman.” I turned back around and stomped off away from him.
“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Honestly, Luke, just leave me alone for right now. I need some time to think to myself.”
“Oh, so first you don’t want me to be alone, and now you want to go be alone? Fine, then, go ahead! Be alone! What do I care?”
I took a deep breath to prevent myself from screaming, and then walked away in a giant huff, not looking back at him.
“But be careful! Remember, I’ve never ben here before, so I have no idea what could possibly be around! It’s not safe to wander an unknown dimension by yourself!”
I turned around again and screamed a few swear words at him. “I will go wherever I damn please, and you don’t have to worry about my safety, Lucas, because I can take care of myself plenty, I don’t need you to trail me all the time! Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be back, but for God’s sake, Lucas, you have to learn when to shut the fuck up!”
I went back to my huffed exit, and turned a corner so Luke was no longer in sight of me nor was I in sight of him.
As I continued on in my angry huff, I noticed that the roads and total empty: that was probably what was causing this really weird, empty feeling that the whole town seemed to have. Was this a ghost town? How come there weren’t any people? I looked around to observe my surroundings even more and only just realized that the houses weren’t built straight up. In fact, it almost felt like I was taking drugs or something because the houses seemed as if the straight lines that made up their edges were all squigly and weird, like some little four year old attempted to draw a straight line. And not only were they all weirdly shaped, but they were also huge. And on top of that, every brick that made the house was a different color, a bright, neon like color, that made the houses almost painful to look at. I began to wonder what sort of people could possibly be living in these houses. Some extremely weird people who were on drugs when they decided to make this? I came to the conclusion that the architect was definitely on something when he came up with these building plans, and that once the town realized what these houses looked like, they decided to just leave because they were so horrifyingly ugly and bright and disgusting.
I also only realized that I was incredibly thirsty. That chocolate cake I had eaten really didn’t do much for wetting my mouth. I also came to the conclusion that if anone were possibly living in one of these houses, they would be kind enough to give a thirsty girl a drink of water. I just hoped that this was not a ghost town like I thought it was. And I most definitely did not want to go back to Luke and beg him for water.
I knocked on the door of the nearest house. No one answered, and I heard nothing. “Hello?” I called. “Is anyone there?” Silence.
I felt a bit ashamed at this failed attempt, that I really didn’t want to be around this house anymore. I went to the next house and tried the same thing. I knocked. “Is anyone at home? I’m not a robber or anything. I’d just like some water, that’s all. And I’m not homeless, I swear, I’m just alone and thirsty.” Still no response.
“Maybe there really isn’t anyone around.”
I decided to try one more house before giving up and going back to Luke. So I went to the third house, and though it looked identical, I expected different results.
I knocked on the door for the first time. “Hello? Is anyone there?” And as I hit my knuckle against the door for the fifth time, the door simply opened. I assumed it was unlocked or something. “Oh, I’m sorry for opening your door.” I stepped into the doorway. “Is anyone here?”
Inside the house, all the furniture seemed really large. And oddly colorful. Each piece of furniture was a different brightly colored color, and looked as odd and abstract as something you would find in a modern arts museum.
I then assumed that the whole town was deserted. And if this town was deserted for the amount of time proportional to the amount of dust that had collected on the furniture, I figured it would be all right to go inside this house just for a cup of water.
The whole house was completely empty of life. Not even bugs or mice or anything, really. As I went into the deserted kitchen, I was reminded of that one time where I had a rat in my kitchen. It would always run around and steal food. I rememeber how upset and angry my mum was about that. Boy, she really let it all out on the exterminator for not being able to get rid of it. I thought it was kind of cute, though, and I would secretly leave pieces of food on the floors of the kitchens so that the rat would always have something to eat if my mum decided to lock up our pantry. And then, standing there in that deserted kitchen, it sort of reminded me of home. Not really the psychedelic furniture or the abstract design, choices, but the emptiness. The loneliness. The fact that even though there was a world of colors and beautiful things around me, I was stuck there, sipping water
And then I remembered what Luke wrote in his journal. Abut being alone. About not making emotional connections with people.
I put the rainbow cup down near the sink that could have been large enough to be my bath tub. “I should really get back to him.”
I left the house and closed the door behind me.
And then I blacked out.
Chapter Twenty
Luke opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but was interrupted by the flashing purple lights on the dashboard of the motorcycle. He squinted his eyes, and gave a confounded look at the odd little lights. “What the bloody hell…?”
“What? What happened? Did the door get destroyed or something?” I asked, slightly nervous.
“No… that door… the one we came in through is fine…”
“So shouldn’t we go to it soon? I mean, I think the city is done… burning and being destroyed.”
“No, that’s not the odd thing,” he said. “The door just looks like a door, but it’s actually an inter dimensional portal between two alternate dimensions, it can’t be destroyed by fire or toppling buildings or things like that.”
“Than shouldn’t we go?”
“No,” he said. “No, you see, there’s… well, according to this… but there can’t be…”
“Are you just going to go on like this mumbling to yourself, or are you going to tell me what the hell you are talking about?”
“There’s another door.”
“What?”
“Yeah. There is some other door.”
“What are you talking about? Didn’t you just tell me that there was only one door in this dimension?”
“Yes, that’s what I said, but apparently now there’s another door.”
“What d’you mean? Who builds these doors, and how can there just suddenly be another one?”
“They’re not built by anyone, they’re just there. But how come this one has never showed up on my radar or in my research before?”
“Maybe the universes knew you were in trouble and decided to just pop! Create a new one or something.”
“Highly unlikely,” he said. “But… what other explanation is there? As far as I know, there is no way to manually create this doors… I mean, if I gathered the energy of the motorcycle, I could probably. But I haven’t ever done that. It’s much too difficult. It’s just a whole lot easier to go to the pre existing doors than to just randomly break the walls between barriers and create a new one.”
“So where did this one come from?” I asked.
“I really have no idea.”
“Well… is it closer to us than the island? Because we could use that door instead. And we’ll be moving forward instead of moving backwards.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “I mean… for all we know, we could be walking into a dimension with no oxygen. Or a dimension that will lead us right into outer space. Or a dimension that could be located at the center of a star, causing us to burn to a crisp before we even have a chance to close the door before it blinds us.”
“Whoa. We have this risk with every single door that we open?”
“No, because I know the doors that we’ve opened. I know which dimensions they lead to, and I’ve been through all of them before. But if there is just some random new door, how am I supposed to know what’s behind it?”
I frowned. “So are we not going to go through this door?”
“I’ve got to see if it’s safe first. If it’s not, then we have to go back into the island.”
“Well, where is it located?”
“Believe it or not,” Luke turned around, “it’s inside the light house.”
And before we could look at each other to verify that we were both thinking the same thing, we ran towards the light house door and opened it.
“See? The stairs go lower than the ground floor,” Luke said. He looked back at me. “Are you sure you want to come? I don’t want to see you get hurt. And we could always go back.”
“Yeah…” I said. “I want to come.”
“All right. It’s your choice.” He smiled again. And then he looked down at his watch and began fiddling with one of the little knobs.
“What are you doing?”
A light sprung from it, and it hit the door.
“Doing a scan,” he said. “It’ll give me an analysis summary on what’s actually behind that door. It’ll let me know if there’s anything dangerous, or nothing at all.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It is. But since it’s so small, it takes forever to analyze things. And then report to me a summary. Bloody hell, this thing needs to be fixed or something.”
“Um, Luke?”
“Yeah, Caity-cakes?”
“I just have a question.”
“Go ahead. I’m free until this stupid thing starts working.”
“Well… just out of curiosity… what do you plan to do after this?”
“Plan? I don’t usually plan anything. And what do you mean after this?”
“I mean, once we stop this bad guy. What do you thing you’re going to do?”
“You mean, like, life plan, or immediately after this?”
I shrugged.
“Well, my life won’t change much. I’ll still be the keeper of dimensions, and if anything like this happens again, I know I’ll be strong enough to handle it.”
“And then immediately after this?”
He looked up at me and raised one eyebrow. “Honestly, I’m thinking of getting you back home and hooking up with that one cute blonde girl that was in the pub a couple of days before I met you.”
I looked down at the ground and only just realized how dusty it was. “Oh,” I managed to spit out.
“But I did promise to take you to that one dimension you wanted to go to,” he said. “The one that was unseemingly like your home one, and you wanted to figure out what the difference was?”
“Oh, right,” I said. I had almost completely forgotten about that at this point. I was surprised Luke had remembered. “It’s not that important, I guess. Since now that I know that all the difference is just that I’m dead there, and alive here.”
“Yeah, and also the fact that the chocolate cake in that dimension is phenomenal. You know what? We probably should stop by there, jut to grab a slice. I think it’d be worth it. And you can poke around as you’d like. Do you agree?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
Luke’s watch started beeping. “Aha! Hm. Okay. Well, honestly, it just looks like there’s a regular town on the other side of that door. It doesn’t seem like anything is too dangerous. Shall we go through?”
I didn’t say anything, and walked in front of Luke, and pushed the door open myself. I almost felt like slamming it behind Luke as I walked through it.
“What? What happened? Did the door get destroyed or something?” I asked, slightly nervous.
“No… that door… the one we came in through is fine…”
“So shouldn’t we go to it soon? I mean, I think the city is done… burning and being destroyed.”
“No, that’s not the odd thing,” he said. “The door just looks like a door, but it’s actually an inter dimensional portal between two alternate dimensions, it can’t be destroyed by fire or toppling buildings or things like that.”
“Than shouldn’t we go?”
“No,” he said. “No, you see, there’s… well, according to this… but there can’t be…”
“Are you just going to go on like this mumbling to yourself, or are you going to tell me what the hell you are talking about?”
“There’s another door.”
“What?”
“Yeah. There is some other door.”
“What are you talking about? Didn’t you just tell me that there was only one door in this dimension?”
“Yes, that’s what I said, but apparently now there’s another door.”
“What d’you mean? Who builds these doors, and how can there just suddenly be another one?”
“They’re not built by anyone, they’re just there. But how come this one has never showed up on my radar or in my research before?”
“Maybe the universes knew you were in trouble and decided to just pop! Create a new one or something.”
“Highly unlikely,” he said. “But… what other explanation is there? As far as I know, there is no way to manually create this doors… I mean, if I gathered the energy of the motorcycle, I could probably. But I haven’t ever done that. It’s much too difficult. It’s just a whole lot easier to go to the pre existing doors than to just randomly break the walls between barriers and create a new one.”
“So where did this one come from?” I asked.
“I really have no idea.”
“Well… is it closer to us than the island? Because we could use that door instead. And we’ll be moving forward instead of moving backwards.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “I mean… for all we know, we could be walking into a dimension with no oxygen. Or a dimension that will lead us right into outer space. Or a dimension that could be located at the center of a star, causing us to burn to a crisp before we even have a chance to close the door before it blinds us.”
“Whoa. We have this risk with every single door that we open?”
“No, because I know the doors that we’ve opened. I know which dimensions they lead to, and I’ve been through all of them before. But if there is just some random new door, how am I supposed to know what’s behind it?”
I frowned. “So are we not going to go through this door?”
“I’ve got to see if it’s safe first. If it’s not, then we have to go back into the island.”
“Well, where is it located?”
“Believe it or not,” Luke turned around, “it’s inside the light house.”
And before we could look at each other to verify that we were both thinking the same thing, we ran towards the light house door and opened it.
“See? The stairs go lower than the ground floor,” Luke said. He looked back at me. “Are you sure you want to come? I don’t want to see you get hurt. And we could always go back.”
“Yeah…” I said. “I want to come.”
“All right. It’s your choice.” He smiled again. And then he looked down at his watch and began fiddling with one of the little knobs.
“What are you doing?”
A light sprung from it, and it hit the door.
“Doing a scan,” he said. “It’ll give me an analysis summary on what’s actually behind that door. It’ll let me know if there’s anything dangerous, or nothing at all.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It is. But since it’s so small, it takes forever to analyze things. And then report to me a summary. Bloody hell, this thing needs to be fixed or something.”
“Um, Luke?”
“Yeah, Caity-cakes?”
“I just have a question.”
“Go ahead. I’m free until this stupid thing starts working.”
“Well… just out of curiosity… what do you plan to do after this?”
“Plan? I don’t usually plan anything. And what do you mean after this?”
“I mean, once we stop this bad guy. What do you thing you’re going to do?”
“You mean, like, life plan, or immediately after this?”
I shrugged.
“Well, my life won’t change much. I’ll still be the keeper of dimensions, and if anything like this happens again, I know I’ll be strong enough to handle it.”
“And then immediately after this?”
He looked up at me and raised one eyebrow. “Honestly, I’m thinking of getting you back home and hooking up with that one cute blonde girl that was in the pub a couple of days before I met you.”
I looked down at the ground and only just realized how dusty it was. “Oh,” I managed to spit out.
“But I did promise to take you to that one dimension you wanted to go to,” he said. “The one that was unseemingly like your home one, and you wanted to figure out what the difference was?”
“Oh, right,” I said. I had almost completely forgotten about that at this point. I was surprised Luke had remembered. “It’s not that important, I guess. Since now that I know that all the difference is just that I’m dead there, and alive here.”
“Yeah, and also the fact that the chocolate cake in that dimension is phenomenal. You know what? We probably should stop by there, jut to grab a slice. I think it’d be worth it. And you can poke around as you’d like. Do you agree?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
Luke’s watch started beeping. “Aha! Hm. Okay. Well, honestly, it just looks like there’s a regular town on the other side of that door. It doesn’t seem like anything is too dangerous. Shall we go through?”
I didn’t say anything, and walked in front of Luke, and pushed the door open myself. I almost felt like slamming it behind Luke as I walked through it.
Chapter Nineteen
There was a lot written in it by some other people I had never heard of, so I kept flipping through it until I found Luke’s name.
So today I found out something extremely weird. Like, it was unbelievable at first. But I figure it must be true, because how can anyone make up something like this? I mean, this random dude in a brown suit just walks up to me and says, “Hey. There are alternate dimensions. Here’s a motorcycle. Take care of them.” He gives me little to know and practically no explanation at all. What the bloody hell is going on? He told me to keep this journal, because all of the previous dimension care takers or whatever you’re supposed to call them people kept it before me. I mean, I’m just some kid. I asked him what some of the perks were, and he said, “Seeing new places, meeting new people, and only aging when you want to.” Like that was possible. I’ve got enough here in my world to see, there’s seven billion people, I’ve got enough to meet. And as for aging… well, staying young forever would be nice. But Do I really want to mess up the natural order of myself? Well… I guess I’m fairly curious about that last one. I am rather dashing, if I do say so myself. I would like to keep this face for as long as possible. What the hell, maybe I’ll give it a shot. If I don’t like the job, I can always give it to someone else… right? Right?
I went on the job for the first time today. I took the motorcycle the man in the brown suit gave me, and drove it around. It rides really nice. And it can go through dimensions. How awesome is that? Well, I found out what alternate dimensions really are. They’re a bit like the parallel universes in Doctor Who. Man, I love that show. I feel like the Doctor. Except I can’t travel through time. Or space, really. I mean, dimensions, but I can’t go from here to there in a flash of a Police Box. Anyway, I guess I’m not the Doctor. But it all does feel very science fiction. It’s very interesting, though, because I’ve met a couple versions of myself in these dimensions. Well, not actually met. I didn’t want to approach them and have them ask me why the hell I look exactly like them. But I did see them! Damn, they were good looking. Ha ha. Well, I’m not exactly sure what it is that I should be looking for that could possibly mess up these inter dimensional whatever they’re supposed to be thingies, but we’ll just see how this goes. So far, I am not hating this job.
I know it’s been a while since I wrote in this journal, but that whole deal where I am supposed to be meeting a ton of people… my God, it’s actually amazing! So far, I’ve met a ton of awesome girls. Like, it has been excellent. This one girl I met at a bar, her name was Valerie Skins. My God, she was the sexiest thing I have ever seen in my life. (“Hmph!” I said as I continued to read Luke’s diary.) She was wearing this one dress, you know? And her hair… long, curly, and auburn ish brown. She was something, I’m telling you. She invited me over to her place, and said that she had some chocolate cake left over from her birthday party which was a couple of days ago. She said she had made it herself with some of her friends. It was literally the most amazing thing I have ever tasted in my life. Chocolate cake is excellent. Well, the cake wasn’t nearly as sweet as the desert I got after desert. I won’t go too much into detail, (“Thank God!” I said.) but I will tell you a little something about that night… (I skipped the rest of this entry because I was not interested in the least about Luke’s sex adventures.)
Honestly, I haven’t been doing much other than researching more about inter dimensional stuff, having sex with lots of women, and I frankly can’t remember the last meal I ate that wasn’t chocolate cake. I guess you can say life is pretty good. But I feel bad for some of the women I had sex with (“You deserve to feel bad!” I said.) because of the work that I constantly need to do and the research that I have to finish, the stuff I have to learn about what I need to do to protect the dimensions and all that stuff… well, it’s tough. And I don’t have time for girls or a relationship. But I like the sex. I guess it makes me feel less alone. I feel very alone. I guess that’s the only down side to this job… I can’t do it with another person. After all the research I’ve been doing, it seems very dangerous if something bad was to happen, and it is my job to fix it, and it would be all my fault if someone I knew or cared about got into danger because of me. I kind of do miss that old Valerie Skins, though. She was something. But every since I left her that morning before she woke up… yeah… it’s been kind of lonely. The whole of all the universes left out for me, and yet there is no other person there for me. I guess I am doomed to be forever alone.
So I was on the train yesterday, in my home dimension, going up to London. That girl that usually rides the train… I guess we sort of talked for the first time. Her name is Caitlin Whitewood, and…
“Caitlin!” I heard Luke call my name from inside the light house tower. “Are you getting the cake?”
“Yeah!” I said, closing the diary and chucking it back into the compartment.
Luke opened the door and came outside. “What’s taking you so long?”
“I, uh, couldn’t get the compartment open until just now. One of the little thingies was stuck.”
“Well, at least you’ve got the cake now.” He opened the box, picked up a piece with his hand, and handed it to me. I accepted it and started to eat as he picked up a piece for himself.
“I think the island is finally starting to quiet down,” Luke said.
I looked over at where the burning city of skyscrapers once stood, and now all I saw was a thin line of smoke rising into the black clouds.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “All of those people…”
“We should get back as soon as possible,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”
Luke pressed the usual buttons on the dashboard of the motorcycle. “Let’s just set this up as a navigation system so we don’t get lost once we get on the island. We want to be able to find the door quickly through all the ashes and stuff. So we’ll just hone in on the nearest door, and—”
“Lucas?” I interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to go back to my home dimension,” I said.
He looked up at me. “What do you mean? You just don’t want to go back?”
“I want to help you finish this,” I said. “I want to help you stop whoever is doing this.”
He shook his head. “I appreciate the thought, Caitlin, but it’s too dangerous for you. I don’t want you to—”
“Excuse me, but the last time I checked, you are not the judge to tell me what and what is not too dangerous for me. And besides, I have a role in this, too. Whoever did this could potentially be the one who killed half of my family.”
Luke sighed.
“Also, not to mention…” I put my hand on his shoulder, and he looked at me, for the first time, directly into my eyes, “I don’t want to leave you alone.”
So today I found out something extremely weird. Like, it was unbelievable at first. But I figure it must be true, because how can anyone make up something like this? I mean, this random dude in a brown suit just walks up to me and says, “Hey. There are alternate dimensions. Here’s a motorcycle. Take care of them.” He gives me little to know and practically no explanation at all. What the bloody hell is going on? He told me to keep this journal, because all of the previous dimension care takers or whatever you’re supposed to call them people kept it before me. I mean, I’m just some kid. I asked him what some of the perks were, and he said, “Seeing new places, meeting new people, and only aging when you want to.” Like that was possible. I’ve got enough here in my world to see, there’s seven billion people, I’ve got enough to meet. And as for aging… well, staying young forever would be nice. But Do I really want to mess up the natural order of myself? Well… I guess I’m fairly curious about that last one. I am rather dashing, if I do say so myself. I would like to keep this face for as long as possible. What the hell, maybe I’ll give it a shot. If I don’t like the job, I can always give it to someone else… right? Right?
I went on the job for the first time today. I took the motorcycle the man in the brown suit gave me, and drove it around. It rides really nice. And it can go through dimensions. How awesome is that? Well, I found out what alternate dimensions really are. They’re a bit like the parallel universes in Doctor Who. Man, I love that show. I feel like the Doctor. Except I can’t travel through time. Or space, really. I mean, dimensions, but I can’t go from here to there in a flash of a Police Box. Anyway, I guess I’m not the Doctor. But it all does feel very science fiction. It’s very interesting, though, because I’ve met a couple versions of myself in these dimensions. Well, not actually met. I didn’t want to approach them and have them ask me why the hell I look exactly like them. But I did see them! Damn, they were good looking. Ha ha. Well, I’m not exactly sure what it is that I should be looking for that could possibly mess up these inter dimensional whatever they’re supposed to be thingies, but we’ll just see how this goes. So far, I am not hating this job.
I know it’s been a while since I wrote in this journal, but that whole deal where I am supposed to be meeting a ton of people… my God, it’s actually amazing! So far, I’ve met a ton of awesome girls. Like, it has been excellent. This one girl I met at a bar, her name was Valerie Skins. My God, she was the sexiest thing I have ever seen in my life. (“Hmph!” I said as I continued to read Luke’s diary.) She was wearing this one dress, you know? And her hair… long, curly, and auburn ish brown. She was something, I’m telling you. She invited me over to her place, and said that she had some chocolate cake left over from her birthday party which was a couple of days ago. She said she had made it herself with some of her friends. It was literally the most amazing thing I have ever tasted in my life. Chocolate cake is excellent. Well, the cake wasn’t nearly as sweet as the desert I got after desert. I won’t go too much into detail, (“Thank God!” I said.) but I will tell you a little something about that night… (I skipped the rest of this entry because I was not interested in the least about Luke’s sex adventures.)
Honestly, I haven’t been doing much other than researching more about inter dimensional stuff, having sex with lots of women, and I frankly can’t remember the last meal I ate that wasn’t chocolate cake. I guess you can say life is pretty good. But I feel bad for some of the women I had sex with (“You deserve to feel bad!” I said.) because of the work that I constantly need to do and the research that I have to finish, the stuff I have to learn about what I need to do to protect the dimensions and all that stuff… well, it’s tough. And I don’t have time for girls or a relationship. But I like the sex. I guess it makes me feel less alone. I feel very alone. I guess that’s the only down side to this job… I can’t do it with another person. After all the research I’ve been doing, it seems very dangerous if something bad was to happen, and it is my job to fix it, and it would be all my fault if someone I knew or cared about got into danger because of me. I kind of do miss that old Valerie Skins, though. She was something. But every since I left her that morning before she woke up… yeah… it’s been kind of lonely. The whole of all the universes left out for me, and yet there is no other person there for me. I guess I am doomed to be forever alone.
So I was on the train yesterday, in my home dimension, going up to London. That girl that usually rides the train… I guess we sort of talked for the first time. Her name is Caitlin Whitewood, and…
“Caitlin!” I heard Luke call my name from inside the light house tower. “Are you getting the cake?”
“Yeah!” I said, closing the diary and chucking it back into the compartment.
Luke opened the door and came outside. “What’s taking you so long?”
“I, uh, couldn’t get the compartment open until just now. One of the little thingies was stuck.”
“Well, at least you’ve got the cake now.” He opened the box, picked up a piece with his hand, and handed it to me. I accepted it and started to eat as he picked up a piece for himself.
“I think the island is finally starting to quiet down,” Luke said.
I looked over at where the burning city of skyscrapers once stood, and now all I saw was a thin line of smoke rising into the black clouds.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “All of those people…”
“We should get back as soon as possible,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”
Luke pressed the usual buttons on the dashboard of the motorcycle. “Let’s just set this up as a navigation system so we don’t get lost once we get on the island. We want to be able to find the door quickly through all the ashes and stuff. So we’ll just hone in on the nearest door, and—”
“Lucas?” I interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to go back to my home dimension,” I said.
He looked up at me. “What do you mean? You just don’t want to go back?”
“I want to help you finish this,” I said. “I want to help you stop whoever is doing this.”
He shook his head. “I appreciate the thought, Caitlin, but it’s too dangerous for you. I don’t want you to—”
“Excuse me, but the last time I checked, you are not the judge to tell me what and what is not too dangerous for me. And besides, I have a role in this, too. Whoever did this could potentially be the one who killed half of my family.”
Luke sighed.
“Also, not to mention…” I put my hand on his shoulder, and he looked at me, for the first time, directly into my eyes, “I don’t want to leave you alone.”
Chapter Eighteen
And before I could process was was actually going on around me--because there was actually so much going on at once: the buildings falling, the ground shaking, the sea lurching, the fires burning--I noticed that I was on the motorcycle, and driving away from the city which was now falling into ashes. I looked around and noticed that we were riding the motorcycle on the water, away from the toppling skyscrapers.
"Where are we going?" I asked Luke.
"Somewhere away from here," he said. "There isn't another door in this dimension to go to another dimension, so we'll have to wait for the island to calm down before we can go back and go from where we came."
"There aren't any more dimensions?"
"There are plenty more," he said. "There's just only one door in this one. Some dimensions have three. Some have four. Some have one."
So we continued on on the motorcycle which seemed to be able to ride on water, and I noticed a piece of land with one building on it in the distance. A blinding light hit us and then turned away, so I intuitively realized that that building that was on that island was a lighthouse.
"Let's go over there," Luke said, as he turned his motorcycle in that direction.
It took us a little while to actually reach the island, but we eventually made it, and went up into the light house.
"It's dark," I said as Luke closed the door behind us.
"Yeah, but it's safe," he said.
We climbed the tower and reached the spinning beacon.
"There usually aren't that many ships that come across these seas," Luke thought out loud. "Why would there be some random light house here?"
The two of us stood together next to the light of the light house and looked out towards the burning city. The smoke was rising from the distance and the clouds around there now, instead of pierced with the incredibly tall buildings, were smoky black and a disgusting, repulsive color.
"What about all the people there?" I asked. "What happened to them?"
"I'm sure they have some plan of evacuation," he said. "I mean, when you live on an island like that, how can you not?"
"They didn't expect it. They wouldn't have had such a stupid escape system. I mean, the only way we could get out of the shortest building there was to jump out the window."
Luke didn't say anything.
"They're all dead, aren't they?" I asked.
"I guess that sort of ruins your plans with Philip."
I actually smiled. "I guess it does. And I guess this means that I'm actually worse than sick now, aren't I?"
"You have to stop refering to these alternate dimension versions of yourself as yourself. They're different people, even though they look like you and have the same name as you. I mean, they grew up in almost completely different environments. Things like that change a person."
Now I didn't say anything.
"I hope you realize that we're going to be okay," Luke said. "It pains me to think that some inter dimensional force killed so many people just now. And the fact that I was there and that there was nothing I could have done."
"Why didn't you do anything? You just ran away."
"I have my reasons."
"Then explain."
"Well, for one thing, I didn't know what was causing it. If I had known, maybe I would have gone to stop it. Also the fact that I probably wouldn't stand a chance fighting something that caused a quake this big. And most importantly, I had to save your life."
More silence. The silences between Luke and I have progressively gotten less awkward and more solemn.
"We'll find out what's been causing this," I said.
"Huh?"
"I said we'll find out whoever is behind all these quakes, whatever is causing this chaos, and we'll put an end to it."
"Did you see this power?" Luke said, pointing to the rising smoke. "Do you have any idea what it would take for someone to do something like this?"
“No, Luke, because remember how I’m not the all knowing expert on things like this.” I crossed my arms and groaned. And then I realized that this is really no time to argue with him. First of all, he just saved my life again. And we were still in danger, and so many people had just died. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said, still looking at the rising black smoke instead of anywhere in my general direction.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” I asked.
“I mean I don’t know, Caitlin!” he snapped, finally looking at me.
I frowned. “So what are we going to do?”
He sighed. “Like I said… I’m going to wait for that city to stop burning… and then I’m going to take you home.”
“As in… back to my home dimension?”
“Yes. It’s becoming way to dangerous for me to have you around, and even though I was supposed to give you the best day of your life… well, it’s not worth risking your life for it. I really do hope you had a good time, though.”
I sat down on the floor. “Every girl wants to go out with some guy, and they hope it’ll be special, and they hope that it’ll be different some how because he’s special and that it’ll be the greatest time they’ll ever have had because he’s so special and the experience was so different from any other experience that anyone else has ever had.”
Luke looked down at me, his arms still crossed, and his mind still focused on the city that was tumbling into the sea.
“But they’ll never have an experience as different, as unique, as amazing as mine,” I said. “They’ll never have gone with someone so special. People always want to think, ‘Oh, this person is different.’ Well… honestly you are the only one who is different.”
Luke’s lip twitched into a small smile before he looked solemn again. He followed me and sat down on the floor as well. He crossed his legs and then looked down at his shoes.
“For the first time, I’m actually stuck,” he said. “I’ve never been stuck like this before. I just… don’t know what to do. I mean, I’m so brilliant. I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve been stuck before. Well, except having sex with this one girl once and we didn’t have a condom. We took the risk anyway. It was nice.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I just… want to make sure you’re safe,” he said.
I smiled, and looked down at my feet as well. “You must be hungry,” I said, looking up. “I know I am.” I stood up and went towards the stairs. Luke did not look at me. “I think there’s still some of that chocolate cake with the motorcycle… I mean, chocolate cake is your favorite thing, right?”
Lucas finally looked up at me and smiled. “Well, yeah… one of my favorite things.”
“I’ll be right back, then.”
I climbed down the twisted stair case of the light house tower and found the motorcycle right outside. I opened the small yet secret compartment near the bottom where Luke usually stashed his things, and pulled out the box of chocolate cake.
I noticed there were some other things in there, though. For instance, a diary. At first, I didn’t give it much thought, but then I thought about it…
Who was Lucas? I mean, I get that he was the keeper of the dimensions or whatever, but I had never really known him. He likes sex, okay. And chocolate cake. But… who was he? Sometimes he seemed to be some random prick who didn’t really care about anyone or anything and would just like to fuck a lot of women. But other times he was sweet, and smart, and caring. But really, I’ve only known him for a few days if you count this whole crazy adventure to be one day. So… who was he, really?
So I picked up the diary, and flipped it open to the first page.
"Where are we going?" I asked Luke.
"Somewhere away from here," he said. "There isn't another door in this dimension to go to another dimension, so we'll have to wait for the island to calm down before we can go back and go from where we came."
"There aren't any more dimensions?"
"There are plenty more," he said. "There's just only one door in this one. Some dimensions have three. Some have four. Some have one."
So we continued on on the motorcycle which seemed to be able to ride on water, and I noticed a piece of land with one building on it in the distance. A blinding light hit us and then turned away, so I intuitively realized that that building that was on that island was a lighthouse.
"Let's go over there," Luke said, as he turned his motorcycle in that direction.
It took us a little while to actually reach the island, but we eventually made it, and went up into the light house.
"It's dark," I said as Luke closed the door behind us.
"Yeah, but it's safe," he said.
We climbed the tower and reached the spinning beacon.
"There usually aren't that many ships that come across these seas," Luke thought out loud. "Why would there be some random light house here?"
The two of us stood together next to the light of the light house and looked out towards the burning city. The smoke was rising from the distance and the clouds around there now, instead of pierced with the incredibly tall buildings, were smoky black and a disgusting, repulsive color.
"What about all the people there?" I asked. "What happened to them?"
"I'm sure they have some plan of evacuation," he said. "I mean, when you live on an island like that, how can you not?"
"They didn't expect it. They wouldn't have had such a stupid escape system. I mean, the only way we could get out of the shortest building there was to jump out the window."
Luke didn't say anything.
"They're all dead, aren't they?" I asked.
"I guess that sort of ruins your plans with Philip."
I actually smiled. "I guess it does. And I guess this means that I'm actually worse than sick now, aren't I?"
"You have to stop refering to these alternate dimension versions of yourself as yourself. They're different people, even though they look like you and have the same name as you. I mean, they grew up in almost completely different environments. Things like that change a person."
Now I didn't say anything.
"I hope you realize that we're going to be okay," Luke said. "It pains me to think that some inter dimensional force killed so many people just now. And the fact that I was there and that there was nothing I could have done."
"Why didn't you do anything? You just ran away."
"I have my reasons."
"Then explain."
"Well, for one thing, I didn't know what was causing it. If I had known, maybe I would have gone to stop it. Also the fact that I probably wouldn't stand a chance fighting something that caused a quake this big. And most importantly, I had to save your life."
More silence. The silences between Luke and I have progressively gotten less awkward and more solemn.
"We'll find out what's been causing this," I said.
"Huh?"
"I said we'll find out whoever is behind all these quakes, whatever is causing this chaos, and we'll put an end to it."
"Did you see this power?" Luke said, pointing to the rising smoke. "Do you have any idea what it would take for someone to do something like this?"
“No, Luke, because remember how I’m not the all knowing expert on things like this.” I crossed my arms and groaned. And then I realized that this is really no time to argue with him. First of all, he just saved my life again. And we were still in danger, and so many people had just died. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said, still looking at the rising black smoke instead of anywhere in my general direction.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” I asked.
“I mean I don’t know, Caitlin!” he snapped, finally looking at me.
I frowned. “So what are we going to do?”
He sighed. “Like I said… I’m going to wait for that city to stop burning… and then I’m going to take you home.”
“As in… back to my home dimension?”
“Yes. It’s becoming way to dangerous for me to have you around, and even though I was supposed to give you the best day of your life… well, it’s not worth risking your life for it. I really do hope you had a good time, though.”
I sat down on the floor. “Every girl wants to go out with some guy, and they hope it’ll be special, and they hope that it’ll be different some how because he’s special and that it’ll be the greatest time they’ll ever have had because he’s so special and the experience was so different from any other experience that anyone else has ever had.”
Luke looked down at me, his arms still crossed, and his mind still focused on the city that was tumbling into the sea.
“But they’ll never have an experience as different, as unique, as amazing as mine,” I said. “They’ll never have gone with someone so special. People always want to think, ‘Oh, this person is different.’ Well… honestly you are the only one who is different.”
Luke’s lip twitched into a small smile before he looked solemn again. He followed me and sat down on the floor as well. He crossed his legs and then looked down at his shoes.
“For the first time, I’m actually stuck,” he said. “I’ve never been stuck like this before. I just… don’t know what to do. I mean, I’m so brilliant. I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve been stuck before. Well, except having sex with this one girl once and we didn’t have a condom. We took the risk anyway. It was nice.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I just… want to make sure you’re safe,” he said.
I smiled, and looked down at my feet as well. “You must be hungry,” I said, looking up. “I know I am.” I stood up and went towards the stairs. Luke did not look at me. “I think there’s still some of that chocolate cake with the motorcycle… I mean, chocolate cake is your favorite thing, right?”
Lucas finally looked up at me and smiled. “Well, yeah… one of my favorite things.”
“I’ll be right back, then.”
I climbed down the twisted stair case of the light house tower and found the motorcycle right outside. I opened the small yet secret compartment near the bottom where Luke usually stashed his things, and pulled out the box of chocolate cake.
I noticed there were some other things in there, though. For instance, a diary. At first, I didn’t give it much thought, but then I thought about it…
Who was Lucas? I mean, I get that he was the keeper of the dimensions or whatever, but I had never really known him. He likes sex, okay. And chocolate cake. But… who was he? Sometimes he seemed to be some random prick who didn’t really care about anyone or anything and would just like to fuck a lot of women. But other times he was sweet, and smart, and caring. But really, I’ve only known him for a few days if you count this whole crazy adventure to be one day. So… who was he, really?
So I picked up the diary, and flipped it open to the first page.
Chapter Seventeen
“I wonder what that guy’s name was,” I thought out loud. I enjoyed seeing the scorn come across Luke’s face. “What do you think, Mr. Lucas?”
“Really? What’s his name?” I asked.
“Why should I tell you?” he snapped
“Well, why shouldn’t you tell me?”
Luke groaned, rolled his eyes, and turned away. “His name is Philip.”
“Ah. Philip! Sounds classy. Oh, I’m excited now.”
“For what?”
“For dinner tonight with Philip, of course. I mean, the real me is sick, and can’t go out with him, and he is an extremely attractive man. Plus, he makes you grind your teeth, and I have no idea why. But I find it amusing. So, there you have it. I am going to dinner with Philip tonight.”
“Fine,” Luke said, and without another word, he turned away from me and faced the empty hall that was the top floor of the shortest building in the city.
“Very fine,” I replied. And then I giggled silently to myself.
“What the bloody hell are you laughing about?” Luke snapped again.
“Oh, I was just thinking about Philip. Damn, I must be so much more attractive in this dimension than I am usually. I mean, if I am to score a guy like Philip. Did you see how that wavy hair falls in his eyes?”
“He was wearing glasses,” Luke said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, his glasses. I’ve never seen a man pull off glasses like that.” I sighed loudly. “Hey, do you think I should wear something a little more slutty or classy for when I go out to dinner with Philip tonight?”
Luke groaned, so I figured that annoying him with thoughts of Philip would have to pause for a while.
So the two of us walked to the edge of the building and looked out the wall, which was actually a giant window. You know how walls can be made out of glass sometimes. We were watching the sun slowly go down as the sky turned more and mor epink.
“This is nice,” I said.
“Huh?” Luke asked.
“I mean, just sorta chillin’ here. On the top of a building. Gazing at the blazing sunset. I mean, you know, the two of us. Watching the sunset.”
“Yeah,” Luke said, actually smiling. “It is nice.”
We were quiet for some time. It was actually hard to tell how much time exactly we were quiet. As far as I knew, they had probably built almost three hundred more floors to the building before Luke spoke again.
“Shouldn’t you get ready for your date with Philip?”
I smiled to myself. “Possibly.”
Again, the silence lingered between us.
But it didn’t last for long, because suddenly, the ground began to shake again, and this time it was more violent than ever.
“Luke!” I screamed so that he could hear me. “What the bloody hell is going on?!”
“Caitlin!” I could barely hear him scream back.
“Luke!”
“Caitlin, we have to get out of here right now!” he screamed again. “Come on!”
I looked back for a brief moment and saw that the tallest buildings were the first to start to topple over into the sea. The few that didn’t fall into the sea fell onto the tiny land mass that was the island, and almost immediately started fires.
“LUKE!” I bellowed.
“COME ON, CAITLIN!”
He grabbed my wrist, and pulled me towards the elevator. He hit the button feverishly at least twenty times. He swore loudly under his breath.
“We are not going to make it with the elevator!” he screamed. “Everyone in the building is trying to get out!”
The ground continued to shake more and more, and it became nearly impossible for me to stand on my two feet without toppling over.
“WE HAVE TO GO THIS WAY!” he grabbed my hand again, and pulled me towards the stairs. We were on the top floor, how the hell were we supposed to get down onto the ground in time before the building completely collapsed.
I decided not to ask considering that I needed to save my breath for the running and panting down the stairs than asking questions: running was more important at the moment.
We went down just a few floors before the whole building jerked. I could tell it was ready to crumple down to the ground next.
“LUKE WE WON’T MAKE IT!” I screamed. “I have to tell you something before we die! Luke I—”
The building jerked again, and we were both flung to the other side of the room.
“Aha!” Luke said. “A dining table!”
“A dining table?” I repeated. “Listen, I understand we’re about to—” another jerk of the building— “but this is no time to get excited about a bloody—” one more jerk “—dining table!”
“NO no no no no!” he said. “Not like that! Because where there’s a dining table…” he pulled off the large piece of fabric that was on top of it “there is a dining cloth!”
My eyes widened. “You cannot POSSIBLY be thinking what I think you are thinking!”
“HOLD ONTO ME!”
I wrapped my hands around his neck and held on for dear life.
“LUCAS, DON’T DO THIS!”
He ran towards one of the smashed wall windows and flung himself off of it. I held on even tighter than before, if possible, and then Luke opened up the dining cloth like a parachute, and before I even realized it, we were slowly decellerating and going down slower. It was almost the speed of the elevator again. I opened my eyes and looked around as I saw the buildings continue to topple over and crash and burn and fall into the sea.”
“This is horrible…” I said quietly. The whole world was completely falling apart, and yet it all seemed completely silent.
“I don’t know who could have done this,” Luke said, just as quietly as me. “I mean… dimension hopping can cause small quakes… but nothing that would last this long or be this violent. None of the other quakes have destroyed cities… or killed so many people…”
My eyes were filled with tears, and I sobbed into Luke’s shoulder. Thankful for being alive and for being with someone as resourceful as he was, we finally hit the ground after what felt like a year of simply drifting downward.
Luke grabbed my hand and pulled me away just as another building toppled near by and burst into flames. And so the silence ended.
“COME ON! We’ve got to get out of here! We need to go to our motorcycle! LET’S GO, LET’S GO!”
Again, I didn’t ask questions, nor did I say a word, because all of my breath was gone while we were running towards the shore, where Luke’s motorcycle was waiting for us at the edge of the sea.
We hopped on it, and he revved the motor.
“WHERE ARE WE GOING TO GO?” I screamed. “We’re on an island!”
“Across the sea!” he said, revving his motorcycle one more time.
“Really? What’s his name?” I asked.
“Why should I tell you?” he snapped
“Well, why shouldn’t you tell me?”
Luke groaned, rolled his eyes, and turned away. “His name is Philip.”
“Ah. Philip! Sounds classy. Oh, I’m excited now.”
“For what?”
“For dinner tonight with Philip, of course. I mean, the real me is sick, and can’t go out with him, and he is an extremely attractive man. Plus, he makes you grind your teeth, and I have no idea why. But I find it amusing. So, there you have it. I am going to dinner with Philip tonight.”
“Fine,” Luke said, and without another word, he turned away from me and faced the empty hall that was the top floor of the shortest building in the city.
“Very fine,” I replied. And then I giggled silently to myself.
“What the bloody hell are you laughing about?” Luke snapped again.
“Oh, I was just thinking about Philip. Damn, I must be so much more attractive in this dimension than I am usually. I mean, if I am to score a guy like Philip. Did you see how that wavy hair falls in his eyes?”
“He was wearing glasses,” Luke said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, his glasses. I’ve never seen a man pull off glasses like that.” I sighed loudly. “Hey, do you think I should wear something a little more slutty or classy for when I go out to dinner with Philip tonight?”
Luke groaned, so I figured that annoying him with thoughts of Philip would have to pause for a while.
So the two of us walked to the edge of the building and looked out the wall, which was actually a giant window. You know how walls can be made out of glass sometimes. We were watching the sun slowly go down as the sky turned more and mor epink.
“This is nice,” I said.
“Huh?” Luke asked.
“I mean, just sorta chillin’ here. On the top of a building. Gazing at the blazing sunset. I mean, you know, the two of us. Watching the sunset.”
“Yeah,” Luke said, actually smiling. “It is nice.”
We were quiet for some time. It was actually hard to tell how much time exactly we were quiet. As far as I knew, they had probably built almost three hundred more floors to the building before Luke spoke again.
“Shouldn’t you get ready for your date with Philip?”
I smiled to myself. “Possibly.”
Again, the silence lingered between us.
But it didn’t last for long, because suddenly, the ground began to shake again, and this time it was more violent than ever.
“Luke!” I screamed so that he could hear me. “What the bloody hell is going on?!”
“Caitlin!” I could barely hear him scream back.
“Luke!”
“Caitlin, we have to get out of here right now!” he screamed again. “Come on!”
I looked back for a brief moment and saw that the tallest buildings were the first to start to topple over into the sea. The few that didn’t fall into the sea fell onto the tiny land mass that was the island, and almost immediately started fires.
“LUKE!” I bellowed.
“COME ON, CAITLIN!”
He grabbed my wrist, and pulled me towards the elevator. He hit the button feverishly at least twenty times. He swore loudly under his breath.
“We are not going to make it with the elevator!” he screamed. “Everyone in the building is trying to get out!”
The ground continued to shake more and more, and it became nearly impossible for me to stand on my two feet without toppling over.
“WE HAVE TO GO THIS WAY!” he grabbed my hand again, and pulled me towards the stairs. We were on the top floor, how the hell were we supposed to get down onto the ground in time before the building completely collapsed.
I decided not to ask considering that I needed to save my breath for the running and panting down the stairs than asking questions: running was more important at the moment.
We went down just a few floors before the whole building jerked. I could tell it was ready to crumple down to the ground next.
“LUKE WE WON’T MAKE IT!” I screamed. “I have to tell you something before we die! Luke I—”
The building jerked again, and we were both flung to the other side of the room.
“Aha!” Luke said. “A dining table!”
“A dining table?” I repeated. “Listen, I understand we’re about to—” another jerk of the building— “but this is no time to get excited about a bloody—” one more jerk “—dining table!”
“NO no no no no!” he said. “Not like that! Because where there’s a dining table…” he pulled off the large piece of fabric that was on top of it “there is a dining cloth!”
My eyes widened. “You cannot POSSIBLY be thinking what I think you are thinking!”
“HOLD ONTO ME!”
I wrapped my hands around his neck and held on for dear life.
“LUCAS, DON’T DO THIS!”
He ran towards one of the smashed wall windows and flung himself off of it. I held on even tighter than before, if possible, and then Luke opened up the dining cloth like a parachute, and before I even realized it, we were slowly decellerating and going down slower. It was almost the speed of the elevator again. I opened my eyes and looked around as I saw the buildings continue to topple over and crash and burn and fall into the sea.”
“This is horrible…” I said quietly. The whole world was completely falling apart, and yet it all seemed completely silent.
“I don’t know who could have done this,” Luke said, just as quietly as me. “I mean… dimension hopping can cause small quakes… but nothing that would last this long or be this violent. None of the other quakes have destroyed cities… or killed so many people…”
My eyes were filled with tears, and I sobbed into Luke’s shoulder. Thankful for being alive and for being with someone as resourceful as he was, we finally hit the ground after what felt like a year of simply drifting downward.
Luke grabbed my hand and pulled me away just as another building toppled near by and burst into flames. And so the silence ended.
“COME ON! We’ve got to get out of here! We need to go to our motorcycle! LET’S GO, LET’S GO!”
Again, I didn’t ask questions, nor did I say a word, because all of my breath was gone while we were running towards the shore, where Luke’s motorcycle was waiting for us at the edge of the sea.
We hopped on it, and he revved the motor.
“WHERE ARE WE GOING TO GO?” I screamed. “We’re on an island!”
“Across the sea!” he said, revving his motorcycle one more time.
Chapter Sixteen
At first I was blinded by the bright lights of this new dimension, when I realized that the blazing ball of fire that was the Sun here almost blinded me instantly. My right foot felt like it had been dunked in ice, and then pulled out of it. I looked down and realized why. I was on the shore of a beach, and the tide was slowly coming in and out as the small waves of the turqoise ocean fell one by one onto the shore of the thin strip of sand that was this beach. I took a few steps forward, and turned off to the side to see the gigantic city that was above me.
“Holy crap,” I muttered under my breath.
The buildings here were quite a site, if I could see them. The tops of them were no where to be seen as they climbed as high as into the clouds. I didn’t know how tall they could possibly be, and I didn’t know how it could have been possibly that there could be buildings this tall without toppling over.
“How do they stay up like that?” I asked.
“Well, they had to build them high, you see,” he said.
“Why is that?”
“Because this is a tiny island,” he explained. “And if this many people are going t live and work and socialize on an insland this tiny, then they can’t very well go out into the sea, now can they? No, instead of going outwards into the sea, they decided it would be smarter of them to move upward into the sky. Sometimes the human race is quite smart. Then again, other times they can be quite stupid. But we’ll just marvel at their genius and architectual beauty for now, shall we?”
“You are absolutely insane,” I said. “So people built upwards? I guess that’s pretty cool. Are we going to check out some of the buildings? Oh, and am I in this dimension, and am I still alive, along with my family?”
“Honestly, I have no idea,” Luke said. “I haven’t been here in a very long time. A VERY long time. In fact, the last time I was here, the buildings were all as tall as normal sky scrapers. Now, if you could see how tall they are now, you will know that that hasn’t been for a very, very, very long time.”
I Looked back up and the ponit where the buildings met with the clouds and gape din awe at how magnificent it really was. I really wanted to go up into one of the top floors and look down at the clouds. But I was a bit afraid that the sun would be more prominent there, and that it would try to burn my eye balls into a crisp, so I figured staying on the ground for as long as possible was a good plan.
“So, where to?” I asked. “Not up in the buildings, right? Wait, didn’t you say we were going to find out some information here?”
“Yes. Like I said, I try to avoid this dimension. It’s because there’s something shifty here, something I don’t like, and something that just seems to annoy me when I get here.”
“Like what?”
“Well, it could just be the water,” he said. “But I really hav eno idea. For all I know our little dimension hopping friend could be here, making a mess of things. Or maybe there is a whole new villain we must face, and that we need to come up with some new strategy to do all of this stuff. Or maybe… yeah, most likely it’s just the water. I’m not a fan of the sea, exactly. Much prefer the city. So, shall we go into the city?”
I followed him into the city. It was quite easy to get into considering how small the beach really was. We decided to go up into one of the smaller buildings, which, incidentally, was about three times the height of the Empire State Building in my home dimension located in New York, New York in America. I thought that that was absolutely absurd, and just had to see it for myself, and I ran to the building and pushed the highest button on the elevator. Luke had to literally sprint in after me to make sure that the elevator didn’t close before he got in. With a building this high, it takes a long time for the elevators to come back down. I figured it would’ve been faster to try to climb up the stairs and catch it somewhere in the middle.
And so the tall buildings slowly became normal sized and right now this doesn't even make any sense because I was just so awe struck and oh my god wow cock fuck amazing shit mother fucking ass fuck yeah it was so amazing. The elevator was made of glass, you see, so as Luke and I rode upwards, I was able to gaze down upon all the buildings and people that were down below us. It was like riding in an airplane, except a whole lot slower, and not really going anywhere but up. But you know how like when you're in an airplaine or something and you jsut want to wave down to the people below you but you know they can't see you but you would think it would be really cool if one of them waved back up at you but they just look like tiny ants, so there is no possible way that they could see you because they are so far down below you and then not just the people start to look like ants, but so do the cars, and the roads start look like the little lines that you draw in the dirt with a twig or something and the little ants are just movin galong that line and you want to dump water on them or something and watch them squirm but then you remember that you're in an airplane and that those are not ants or anything those are cars and people, so you can't actually dump water on them and watch them squirm because that would be very horrible indead if you had enough water to drown a bunch of people... well, yeah, that's basically how I felt at the moment going up in that elevator.
as we continued upward, I thought how long this was actually going to take. it would have been so much more tiring if we had gone up the stairs, but when i thought aout it, it probably would have been faster.
we reached around floor 145, and as that happened, the elevator door opened again.
a very attractive man walked in and raised on eyebrow at me. "Well, hello there," he said. "I haven't seen you in a while, Caitlin. Who is this that you're with?"
My eyes widened. Okay, so there was another Caitlin in this dimension. Shit, was I going to run into her here in this building? Why did we have to choose this building of all places to come and go to the top floor."
"Um. This? Oh, this is no one," I answered. Luke jabbed his elbow into my arm. "Ow! Fine! This... this is my friend Luke. Lucas. I don't really know anymore."
"Luke Lucas, huh?" the man said. He grabbed Luke's hand. "Nice to meet you Mr. Lucas. Say, Caitlin, if this is your friend, I suppose we're not having dinner tonight?"
Luke scoffed. "What? Dinner? I um... no, of course... wait, you think me and Luke?" I started laughing. "No. I would never. Of course not. Wait, what just happened?"
"Okay, good," the man said. "Because I thought that because you called in and said you were sick, that the only reason for that was not only because you didn't want to work today, but because you were avoiding me or something, and trying to sneak out of dinner with me. And go off with Mr. Lucas here. You see, because that's what I thought. I'm sorry if I come off a little paranoid."
"Sick!" I exclaimed. "I'm sick!" I said to Luke. "That's why I'm not at work today! Haha. Good. Because if I were at work today, then--"
"What on earth are you talking about?" the man asked. "You... aren't sick because you're here. And because you're here... you're at work."
"Oh! Right. Of course."
"So dinner tonight at eight?"
"Um."
"Perfect! I'll see you there."
We were at around floor 200 now, and he decided to get off. "I'll see you tonight!"
"Yeah... see you!"
The elevator door closed again.
"Wow, that was incredibly weird!" I said. "I'm dating such a hot guy?"
"He isn't that hot," Luke said a little two quickly.
'Are you kidding me? I mean, I hope that I'm sleeping with that guy, because then after we go out for 'dinner' tonight, maybe we could."
"Oh, look! We're at the top floor," Luke said as the elevator door opened.
"Okay, then. Whatever you say, Mister Lucas!"
“Holy crap,” I muttered under my breath.
The buildings here were quite a site, if I could see them. The tops of them were no where to be seen as they climbed as high as into the clouds. I didn’t know how tall they could possibly be, and I didn’t know how it could have been possibly that there could be buildings this tall without toppling over.
“How do they stay up like that?” I asked.
“Well, they had to build them high, you see,” he said.
“Why is that?”
“Because this is a tiny island,” he explained. “And if this many people are going t live and work and socialize on an insland this tiny, then they can’t very well go out into the sea, now can they? No, instead of going outwards into the sea, they decided it would be smarter of them to move upward into the sky. Sometimes the human race is quite smart. Then again, other times they can be quite stupid. But we’ll just marvel at their genius and architectual beauty for now, shall we?”
“You are absolutely insane,” I said. “So people built upwards? I guess that’s pretty cool. Are we going to check out some of the buildings? Oh, and am I in this dimension, and am I still alive, along with my family?”
“Honestly, I have no idea,” Luke said. “I haven’t been here in a very long time. A VERY long time. In fact, the last time I was here, the buildings were all as tall as normal sky scrapers. Now, if you could see how tall they are now, you will know that that hasn’t been for a very, very, very long time.”
I Looked back up and the ponit where the buildings met with the clouds and gape din awe at how magnificent it really was. I really wanted to go up into one of the top floors and look down at the clouds. But I was a bit afraid that the sun would be more prominent there, and that it would try to burn my eye balls into a crisp, so I figured staying on the ground for as long as possible was a good plan.
“So, where to?” I asked. “Not up in the buildings, right? Wait, didn’t you say we were going to find out some information here?”
“Yes. Like I said, I try to avoid this dimension. It’s because there’s something shifty here, something I don’t like, and something that just seems to annoy me when I get here.”
“Like what?”
“Well, it could just be the water,” he said. “But I really hav eno idea. For all I know our little dimension hopping friend could be here, making a mess of things. Or maybe there is a whole new villain we must face, and that we need to come up with some new strategy to do all of this stuff. Or maybe… yeah, most likely it’s just the water. I’m not a fan of the sea, exactly. Much prefer the city. So, shall we go into the city?”
I followed him into the city. It was quite easy to get into considering how small the beach really was. We decided to go up into one of the smaller buildings, which, incidentally, was about three times the height of the Empire State Building in my home dimension located in New York, New York in America. I thought that that was absolutely absurd, and just had to see it for myself, and I ran to the building and pushed the highest button on the elevator. Luke had to literally sprint in after me to make sure that the elevator didn’t close before he got in. With a building this high, it takes a long time for the elevators to come back down. I figured it would’ve been faster to try to climb up the stairs and catch it somewhere in the middle.
And so the tall buildings slowly became normal sized and right now this doesn't even make any sense because I was just so awe struck and oh my god wow cock fuck amazing shit mother fucking ass fuck yeah it was so amazing. The elevator was made of glass, you see, so as Luke and I rode upwards, I was able to gaze down upon all the buildings and people that were down below us. It was like riding in an airplane, except a whole lot slower, and not really going anywhere but up. But you know how like when you're in an airplaine or something and you jsut want to wave down to the people below you but you know they can't see you but you would think it would be really cool if one of them waved back up at you but they just look like tiny ants, so there is no possible way that they could see you because they are so far down below you and then not just the people start to look like ants, but so do the cars, and the roads start look like the little lines that you draw in the dirt with a twig or something and the little ants are just movin galong that line and you want to dump water on them or something and watch them squirm but then you remember that you're in an airplane and that those are not ants or anything those are cars and people, so you can't actually dump water on them and watch them squirm because that would be very horrible indead if you had enough water to drown a bunch of people... well, yeah, that's basically how I felt at the moment going up in that elevator.
as we continued upward, I thought how long this was actually going to take. it would have been so much more tiring if we had gone up the stairs, but when i thought aout it, it probably would have been faster.
we reached around floor 145, and as that happened, the elevator door opened again.
a very attractive man walked in and raised on eyebrow at me. "Well, hello there," he said. "I haven't seen you in a while, Caitlin. Who is this that you're with?"
My eyes widened. Okay, so there was another Caitlin in this dimension. Shit, was I going to run into her here in this building? Why did we have to choose this building of all places to come and go to the top floor."
"Um. This? Oh, this is no one," I answered. Luke jabbed his elbow into my arm. "Ow! Fine! This... this is my friend Luke. Lucas. I don't really know anymore."
"Luke Lucas, huh?" the man said. He grabbed Luke's hand. "Nice to meet you Mr. Lucas. Say, Caitlin, if this is your friend, I suppose we're not having dinner tonight?"
Luke scoffed. "What? Dinner? I um... no, of course... wait, you think me and Luke?" I started laughing. "No. I would never. Of course not. Wait, what just happened?"
"Okay, good," the man said. "Because I thought that because you called in and said you were sick, that the only reason for that was not only because you didn't want to work today, but because you were avoiding me or something, and trying to sneak out of dinner with me. And go off with Mr. Lucas here. You see, because that's what I thought. I'm sorry if I come off a little paranoid."
"Sick!" I exclaimed. "I'm sick!" I said to Luke. "That's why I'm not at work today! Haha. Good. Because if I were at work today, then--"
"What on earth are you talking about?" the man asked. "You... aren't sick because you're here. And because you're here... you're at work."
"Oh! Right. Of course."
"So dinner tonight at eight?"
"Um."
"Perfect! I'll see you there."
We were at around floor 200 now, and he decided to get off. "I'll see you tonight!"
"Yeah... see you!"
The elevator door closed again.
"Wow, that was incredibly weird!" I said. "I'm dating such a hot guy?"
"He isn't that hot," Luke said a little two quickly.
'Are you kidding me? I mean, I hope that I'm sleeping with that guy, because then after we go out for 'dinner' tonight, maybe we could."
"Oh, look! We're at the top floor," Luke said as the elevator door opened.
"Okay, then. Whatever you say, Mister Lucas!"
Monday, November 29, 2010
Chapter Fifteen
Is my cheating chapter. A pile of all the random stuff I wrote during November to boost my word count.
I'll just say that my word count is now 37,644. Rofl.
I'll just say that my word count is now 37,644. Rofl.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Chapter Fourteen
So we walked through the door, and closed it behind us. Everything was black, and there was no light.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Is everywhere in this dimension this dark?”
Luke laughed. The sound echoed. I could tell it was a very closed off space, not a lot of room. It almost felt like a cave, but with smooth walls. “No, it’s actually pretty normal once we reach ground level.”
“Ground level?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we’re in a basement,” Luke’s voice came from far away. I followed the sound of his footsteps and tried to keep up with him. “We’re under the ground right now, of a building, and so all I have to do is try to remember where the stairs are so we can get back up.”
“A building? What, like another abandoned factory or something?”
“No, this is actually a church.”
“A church? You took me to a church?”
“Hey, I don’t choose where these doors go. Oh, hey! There those stairs are. Ruddy basement almost seems like a maze sometimes. Come on.”
I went up the stairs incredibly slowly, scared for the fact that I might trip on them and fall over and completely humiliate myself in front of Luke.
He opened the door, and a light flooded into the darkness. I expected to be blinded by it, or at least a little bit disturbed, but the light was so dim and dark, it really didn’t bother me that much. So I climbed out of the dark and ruddy basement and walked through the door after Luke. We went into this little room, and then exited that room to get into the main hall of the church, which just so happened to be full of people dressed in black at the time.
“Oh…” Luke whispered. “I think we accidentally came into the middle of something. Usually this place is empty, not a lot of people come here unless its a funeral or something. You see, there is a graveyard behind this church, so that’s all people really come here for.”
Some of the people were crying, and I figured that they were probably having a funeral considering there was a big, black coffin at the front of the church, with the giant cross looming over it.
“I am so sorry,” I said. “For intruding. We don’t belong here. Come on, Luke, we should leave.”
“And we are sorry for your loss,” Luke said. He pulled me away from the coffin. “Come on, Caity-kins.”
I looked back and got a good look at the coffin. It was closed, of course, and I didn’t blame the person who died for wanting it to be like that. There were some flowers on top, and a picture of… a picture of Cedric.
“Hold on, hold on,” I said, pulling my arm away from Luke. “Is that… is that who I think it is?”
“Caitlin, we really have no right to stay here.”
“Of course I do,” I said so only Luke could hear. “That’s my brother, my brother is dead.”
“That is not your brother, Caitlin,” he said. “Remember? Alternate universe?”
I walked slowly towards the front of the church, and recognized the sobbing woman and man in the first row of seats, dressed in black, not daring to look up, as Cecily and Charlie Whitewood: my parents.
“Where am I?” I asked under my breath. “Where’s Caitlin?”
Luke took a deep breath. “She… she doesn’t exist. She was never born here.”
I nodded slowly. “Well, at least I didn’t die or anything like that. I was just… never born. Well, that saves me the trouble for what excuse I would have if I ever ran into myself.”
I looked back at the coffin. “How did he die this time?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “I would suggest asking someone, but I don’t think they would want to tell the tale if it was that bad or anything.”
“Excuse me,” I said to a random stranger. I later recognized her as my Aunt Judy. Or, this dimension’s version of my Aunt Judy. “Um, I am very sorry for your loss. I know I don’t really belong here… but could you tell me how this young boy died at such a young age? He wasn’t sick or anything, was he?”
Aunt Judy stopped blubbering for a moment and wiped away her tears. “N-no… the boy, my nephew, you see, he was perfectly fine. He… well, he was murdered.”
“Murdered?” I repeated. My jaw dropped. “I… I don’t understand. Someone killed him?”
“Yes, I am afraid so. He was so young, and I have no idea why anyone would have any reason to hate him so.”
“Does anyone know who did it? I mean, do we know who killed him?”
Aunt Judy shook her head. “I am afraid not. All we know is that he was stabbed in the heart by some odd, round knife.”
“A round knife?”
“Yes, You know how most knives are flat, and sharp on one edge? Well, this one seemed to be pointed, and round, like a cone. And it was struck through him into his heart, and ceased all bodily functions.”
“That is just… horrible. Who would do such a thing?”
“Only God knows, my dear child. Only God knows. Pray tell, may I know who you are and what you are doing here?”
“I am… uh… one of Cedric’s friends. From school.”
“It’s so strange, you look so much like him.”
“We get that a lot. Some people thought we were twins, but I assured them we were just friends.”
“I see. Well, take care, then, and may the soul of Cedric Whitewood rest in peace.”
“Yes. May his soul rest in peace.” I turned away and went back to Luke. “He was murdered. Was that meant to happen? For the universe and what not?”
“No… no, it wasn’t meant to happen. Some inter dimensional force must have killed him.”
“But he got stabbed. In the heart. With a knife.”
“Then the murderer must have been from another dimension,” Luke explained.
“I think it’s the same guy,” I said. “The one who has been, what did you call it?, dimension hopping. The one who killed my family back in my own dimension. But why the hell is he killing Cedric here? I don’t understand, why would he be murdering my family throughout all the dimensions?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “But I intend to find out.”
Luke grabbed my wrist, and began pulling me out of the Church.
“What is going on?” I repeated.
“Just follow me,” he said. “We’re going to go to the next dimension. I intend to find out what’s going on once we’re over there.”
He got on his motorcycle, and I sat in the back.
“So tell me, then, master of all dimensions,” I said.
“Keeper,” he corrected. “Not master. Master makes me sound pretentious.”
“Oh, like you aren’t pretentious already,” I said. “Whatever. What makes you so sure that there is something in the next dimension that is going to tell us where to go and what is going on? What makes you so sure that the key to find out what the hell is going on is going to be in this next dimension?”
“Well,” he started, “like you said, I am the master. And I have a hunch. And being a master, I have learned to trust my intuition. Because if I am the master, then my intuition must almost always be right. So therefore, I am just going to go with it. I hope that doesn’t bug you too much, but you are the one who said that I am the master.”
I rolled my eyes. “Forget it. Let’s just go.”
So he started driving the motorcycle down the empty streets of this oddly dark dimension. It was quiet, and I didn’t know what to expect. I half expected an axe murderer to jump out of the darkness and attack us. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
We soon left the city entirely, and it felt like days before we entered a lone house in the middle of nowhere. No one was there, and I wondered if anyone had been in that house at all. It was small, dusty, and wooden, like someone had built it just for the purpose of hiding the purple door. Luke climbed in through the window, and I followed him. There was no thing or person stirring, so I figured it was perfectly all right to be breaking in. Luke went down to the basement, where it was impossibly more dark than the previous basement, except for the shining silver door handle on the radiant purple door. He opened, it, and went through, while I followed, close behind him.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Is everywhere in this dimension this dark?”
Luke laughed. The sound echoed. I could tell it was a very closed off space, not a lot of room. It almost felt like a cave, but with smooth walls. “No, it’s actually pretty normal once we reach ground level.”
“Ground level?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we’re in a basement,” Luke’s voice came from far away. I followed the sound of his footsteps and tried to keep up with him. “We’re under the ground right now, of a building, and so all I have to do is try to remember where the stairs are so we can get back up.”
“A building? What, like another abandoned factory or something?”
“No, this is actually a church.”
“A church? You took me to a church?”
“Hey, I don’t choose where these doors go. Oh, hey! There those stairs are. Ruddy basement almost seems like a maze sometimes. Come on.”
I went up the stairs incredibly slowly, scared for the fact that I might trip on them and fall over and completely humiliate myself in front of Luke.
He opened the door, and a light flooded into the darkness. I expected to be blinded by it, or at least a little bit disturbed, but the light was so dim and dark, it really didn’t bother me that much. So I climbed out of the dark and ruddy basement and walked through the door after Luke. We went into this little room, and then exited that room to get into the main hall of the church, which just so happened to be full of people dressed in black at the time.
“Oh…” Luke whispered. “I think we accidentally came into the middle of something. Usually this place is empty, not a lot of people come here unless its a funeral or something. You see, there is a graveyard behind this church, so that’s all people really come here for.”
Some of the people were crying, and I figured that they were probably having a funeral considering there was a big, black coffin at the front of the church, with the giant cross looming over it.
“I am so sorry,” I said. “For intruding. We don’t belong here. Come on, Luke, we should leave.”
“And we are sorry for your loss,” Luke said. He pulled me away from the coffin. “Come on, Caity-kins.”
I looked back and got a good look at the coffin. It was closed, of course, and I didn’t blame the person who died for wanting it to be like that. There were some flowers on top, and a picture of… a picture of Cedric.
“Hold on, hold on,” I said, pulling my arm away from Luke. “Is that… is that who I think it is?”
“Caitlin, we really have no right to stay here.”
“Of course I do,” I said so only Luke could hear. “That’s my brother, my brother is dead.”
“That is not your brother, Caitlin,” he said. “Remember? Alternate universe?”
I walked slowly towards the front of the church, and recognized the sobbing woman and man in the first row of seats, dressed in black, not daring to look up, as Cecily and Charlie Whitewood: my parents.
“Where am I?” I asked under my breath. “Where’s Caitlin?”
Luke took a deep breath. “She… she doesn’t exist. She was never born here.”
I nodded slowly. “Well, at least I didn’t die or anything like that. I was just… never born. Well, that saves me the trouble for what excuse I would have if I ever ran into myself.”
I looked back at the coffin. “How did he die this time?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “I would suggest asking someone, but I don’t think they would want to tell the tale if it was that bad or anything.”
“Excuse me,” I said to a random stranger. I later recognized her as my Aunt Judy. Or, this dimension’s version of my Aunt Judy. “Um, I am very sorry for your loss. I know I don’t really belong here… but could you tell me how this young boy died at such a young age? He wasn’t sick or anything, was he?”
Aunt Judy stopped blubbering for a moment and wiped away her tears. “N-no… the boy, my nephew, you see, he was perfectly fine. He… well, he was murdered.”
“Murdered?” I repeated. My jaw dropped. “I… I don’t understand. Someone killed him?”
“Yes, I am afraid so. He was so young, and I have no idea why anyone would have any reason to hate him so.”
“Does anyone know who did it? I mean, do we know who killed him?”
Aunt Judy shook her head. “I am afraid not. All we know is that he was stabbed in the heart by some odd, round knife.”
“A round knife?”
“Yes, You know how most knives are flat, and sharp on one edge? Well, this one seemed to be pointed, and round, like a cone. And it was struck through him into his heart, and ceased all bodily functions.”
“That is just… horrible. Who would do such a thing?”
“Only God knows, my dear child. Only God knows. Pray tell, may I know who you are and what you are doing here?”
“I am… uh… one of Cedric’s friends. From school.”
“It’s so strange, you look so much like him.”
“We get that a lot. Some people thought we were twins, but I assured them we were just friends.”
“I see. Well, take care, then, and may the soul of Cedric Whitewood rest in peace.”
“Yes. May his soul rest in peace.” I turned away and went back to Luke. “He was murdered. Was that meant to happen? For the universe and what not?”
“No… no, it wasn’t meant to happen. Some inter dimensional force must have killed him.”
“But he got stabbed. In the heart. With a knife.”
“Then the murderer must have been from another dimension,” Luke explained.
“I think it’s the same guy,” I said. “The one who has been, what did you call it?, dimension hopping. The one who killed my family back in my own dimension. But why the hell is he killing Cedric here? I don’t understand, why would he be murdering my family throughout all the dimensions?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “But I intend to find out.”
Luke grabbed my wrist, and began pulling me out of the Church.
“What is going on?” I repeated.
“Just follow me,” he said. “We’re going to go to the next dimension. I intend to find out what’s going on once we’re over there.”
He got on his motorcycle, and I sat in the back.
“So tell me, then, master of all dimensions,” I said.
“Keeper,” he corrected. “Not master. Master makes me sound pretentious.”
“Oh, like you aren’t pretentious already,” I said. “Whatever. What makes you so sure that there is something in the next dimension that is going to tell us where to go and what is going on? What makes you so sure that the key to find out what the hell is going on is going to be in this next dimension?”
“Well,” he started, “like you said, I am the master. And I have a hunch. And being a master, I have learned to trust my intuition. Because if I am the master, then my intuition must almost always be right. So therefore, I am just going to go with it. I hope that doesn’t bug you too much, but you are the one who said that I am the master.”
I rolled my eyes. “Forget it. Let’s just go.”
So he started driving the motorcycle down the empty streets of this oddly dark dimension. It was quiet, and I didn’t know what to expect. I half expected an axe murderer to jump out of the darkness and attack us. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
We soon left the city entirely, and it felt like days before we entered a lone house in the middle of nowhere. No one was there, and I wondered if anyone had been in that house at all. It was small, dusty, and wooden, like someone had built it just for the purpose of hiding the purple door. Luke climbed in through the window, and I followed him. There was no thing or person stirring, so I figured it was perfectly all right to be breaking in. Luke went down to the basement, where it was impossibly more dark than the previous basement, except for the shining silver door handle on the radiant purple door. He opened, it, and went through, while I followed, close behind him.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Chapter Thirteen
“Oh,” I said after a long pause. I chuckled to myself. “Well, I guess that makes sense. It explains why I feel so out of place here. Like I don’t belong. It’s only because I’m dead, that’s all.”
“Listen, YOU are not dead,” Luke said. “Just because the Caitlin in this dimension is, does not mean you are.”
“How old was she? When she died?”
“Five,” he said. “She was five years old.”
“And… the rest of my family?”
“Is still alive, and going on.”
“They’re happy?”
“As happy as they can be with the loss of a daughter.”
“Do my parents have any more kids?”
Luke shook his head. “Just your twin brother.”
“How did I die?” I asked.
“YOU did not die,” Luke repeated. “The Caitlin from this dimension died… well, she was born with a disease. It was a miracle she lasted five years. It was just done to maintain the balance between the dimensions, really. It doesn’t matter, though.”
“Doesn’t matter?” I snapped. “I died, and you’re saying it doesn’t matter?”
“For the love of God, it told you that you didn’t die!”
“Yes, but it could have been me, but it was just me from another dimension, right? Right?”
Luke sighed. “It’s just to maintain the balance—”
“Oh, yes, of course, the balance between dimensions. That is so damn important.”
“It is, actually, without this balance life would just cease to exist, there would be nothing, and—”
“So what? Dimensions kill people to maintain the balance? They take lives, destroy families, and commit murder?”
“Caitlin, it’s just nature, I—”
“And you! You’re supposed to be the one maintaining all of this! And you let people die like that?”
“I can’t control the fact that the Caitlin from this dimension got a disease when she was young, it was natural, there is nothing I could have possibly done!”
“Then what about Cedric, huh?”
“The Cedric here is perfectly alive and content. Sure, he misses his sister sometimes, dreams about her, but he’s living his life, and he’s doing fine!”
“I mean my Cedric! My twin brother, my Cedric, the one who used to tell me stories, the one who was going to be a great writer some day, the one who had so much more potential than me! Did you kill him off, too?”
“Caitlin,” Luke said. “Breathe for a moment. I don’t mind taking a minute to explain this to you, but you have to promise that the moment I’m finished, there will be no more questions about this, because we just don’t have time, we have to keep going on.”
“How dare you!” I shouted. “First you abandon me, and then you expect me to not ask you questions about the MURDER of my brother? The murder that you committed!”
“I have never committed murder!” Luke snapped. “If you would just let me explain—”
“Right, because you totally deserve to have an explanation right now! After all you have done, how you have been treating me, you dare—”
“Fine!” Lucas interrupted. “That’s perfectly fine with me! If you don’t want an explanation at all, that is just perfectly fine. I don’t care about it, and obviously you don’t care about it enough to just shut up and listen to me!”
I stopped. I only just noticed how hard Lucas was breathing, how he got terribly worked up just because I wouldn’t listen to him when he wanted me to. He was such an ass hole sometimes, and to think that he wanted to tell me what to do in a situation like this one.
“Thank you,” he said, straightening his jacket. “Now, I can explain myself. Your brother’s death was not natural, I will agree with you there, but—”
“He died in a fire,” I said.
“Are you going to keep interrupting me?”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “Continue.”
“Right. Well, it wasn’t natural, but it was not intentional. His death did have something to do with inter dimensional forces.”
“So you killed him?” I asked loudly again.
“Please just shut up!” he yelled again. “There was a tear. There was a tear in the fabric of time-space in your house, and flames from one dimension escaped through that tear, and ended up in your house.”
I had the urge to scream out more nasty statements and questions, but withheld this temptation in order to continue listening. This was the first time I had ever heard any details about my brother’s death.
“If I had any power to stop it, I would have,” Luke said. “The Cedric in your dimension… the only Cedric that ever really mattered to you… should not have died. But he did because of a mistake. But before you yell at me again, it was not my mistake. I was not Keeper of the Dimensions at the time of your brother’s death. I became Keeper of the Dimensions soon after that event occurred, but there was less than nothing I could have done to save your brother’s life. I didn’t even live in your dimension, I didn’t even know alternate dimensions existed, the motorcycle hadn’t even come close to being invented yet. I had absolutely zero ability to help your brother. And I am so sorry.”
I took a deep breath. Hearing all of what he just said was painful. I mean, now I knew about Cedric’s death, and even the death of my father. How the fire wasn’t caused by a careless accident such as leaving the stove on, or some gas explosion, or whatever it is that the media used as an excuse for that fire that day. It was because flames came from another dimension—an alternate hell dimension. I was so convinced that the flames came from the depths of hell, just bent on ruining my life and destroying my childhood and tearing my family apart. And all my anger towards Luke had disappeared, and I was now only angry at the person who originally opened that gateway to hell, whether it was an accident or not.
“Are you okay?” Luke asked.
“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. And then a thought occurred to me. “Hey, you know that person who is dimension hopping right now? Causing all of this quakes and disturbing the balance?”
Luke nodded. “What about him?”
“Well, do you think that dimension hopping also creates tears between dimensions?”
“Quite possibly, but I’m not exactly an expert on dimension hoping considering I am the Keeper of the Dimensions and I’ve got my motorcycle. I’ve got no need for dimension hopping, since I can do it the legal way.”
“Right. So what if this dimension hopper is the guy who caused that tear all those years ago? What if he’s the one who killed my brother?”
“Are you sure? What if it was a different person?”
“Oh, come on. You said yourself dimension hopping isn’t the easiest thing in all the universes. So think logically, how many dimension hoppers can there possibly be?”
Luke paused. “It’s very possible.”
“Right,” I said. “That means our only option now is to stop him.”
“Listen, YOU are not dead,” Luke said. “Just because the Caitlin in this dimension is, does not mean you are.”
“How old was she? When she died?”
“Five,” he said. “She was five years old.”
“And… the rest of my family?”
“Is still alive, and going on.”
“They’re happy?”
“As happy as they can be with the loss of a daughter.”
“Do my parents have any more kids?”
Luke shook his head. “Just your twin brother.”
“How did I die?” I asked.
“YOU did not die,” Luke repeated. “The Caitlin from this dimension died… well, she was born with a disease. It was a miracle she lasted five years. It was just done to maintain the balance between the dimensions, really. It doesn’t matter, though.”
“Doesn’t matter?” I snapped. “I died, and you’re saying it doesn’t matter?”
“For the love of God, it told you that you didn’t die!”
“Yes, but it could have been me, but it was just me from another dimension, right? Right?”
Luke sighed. “It’s just to maintain the balance—”
“Oh, yes, of course, the balance between dimensions. That is so damn important.”
“It is, actually, without this balance life would just cease to exist, there would be nothing, and—”
“So what? Dimensions kill people to maintain the balance? They take lives, destroy families, and commit murder?”
“Caitlin, it’s just nature, I—”
“And you! You’re supposed to be the one maintaining all of this! And you let people die like that?”
“I can’t control the fact that the Caitlin from this dimension got a disease when she was young, it was natural, there is nothing I could have possibly done!”
“Then what about Cedric, huh?”
“The Cedric here is perfectly alive and content. Sure, he misses his sister sometimes, dreams about her, but he’s living his life, and he’s doing fine!”
“I mean my Cedric! My twin brother, my Cedric, the one who used to tell me stories, the one who was going to be a great writer some day, the one who had so much more potential than me! Did you kill him off, too?”
“Caitlin,” Luke said. “Breathe for a moment. I don’t mind taking a minute to explain this to you, but you have to promise that the moment I’m finished, there will be no more questions about this, because we just don’t have time, we have to keep going on.”
“How dare you!” I shouted. “First you abandon me, and then you expect me to not ask you questions about the MURDER of my brother? The murder that you committed!”
“I have never committed murder!” Luke snapped. “If you would just let me explain—”
“Right, because you totally deserve to have an explanation right now! After all you have done, how you have been treating me, you dare—”
“Fine!” Lucas interrupted. “That’s perfectly fine with me! If you don’t want an explanation at all, that is just perfectly fine. I don’t care about it, and obviously you don’t care about it enough to just shut up and listen to me!”
I stopped. I only just noticed how hard Lucas was breathing, how he got terribly worked up just because I wouldn’t listen to him when he wanted me to. He was such an ass hole sometimes, and to think that he wanted to tell me what to do in a situation like this one.
“Thank you,” he said, straightening his jacket. “Now, I can explain myself. Your brother’s death was not natural, I will agree with you there, but—”
“He died in a fire,” I said.
“Are you going to keep interrupting me?”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “Continue.”
“Right. Well, it wasn’t natural, but it was not intentional. His death did have something to do with inter dimensional forces.”
“So you killed him?” I asked loudly again.
“Please just shut up!” he yelled again. “There was a tear. There was a tear in the fabric of time-space in your house, and flames from one dimension escaped through that tear, and ended up in your house.”
I had the urge to scream out more nasty statements and questions, but withheld this temptation in order to continue listening. This was the first time I had ever heard any details about my brother’s death.
“If I had any power to stop it, I would have,” Luke said. “The Cedric in your dimension… the only Cedric that ever really mattered to you… should not have died. But he did because of a mistake. But before you yell at me again, it was not my mistake. I was not Keeper of the Dimensions at the time of your brother’s death. I became Keeper of the Dimensions soon after that event occurred, but there was less than nothing I could have done to save your brother’s life. I didn’t even live in your dimension, I didn’t even know alternate dimensions existed, the motorcycle hadn’t even come close to being invented yet. I had absolutely zero ability to help your brother. And I am so sorry.”
I took a deep breath. Hearing all of what he just said was painful. I mean, now I knew about Cedric’s death, and even the death of my father. How the fire wasn’t caused by a careless accident such as leaving the stove on, or some gas explosion, or whatever it is that the media used as an excuse for that fire that day. It was because flames came from another dimension—an alternate hell dimension. I was so convinced that the flames came from the depths of hell, just bent on ruining my life and destroying my childhood and tearing my family apart. And all my anger towards Luke had disappeared, and I was now only angry at the person who originally opened that gateway to hell, whether it was an accident or not.
“Are you okay?” Luke asked.
“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. And then a thought occurred to me. “Hey, you know that person who is dimension hopping right now? Causing all of this quakes and disturbing the balance?”
Luke nodded. “What about him?”
“Well, do you think that dimension hopping also creates tears between dimensions?”
“Quite possibly, but I’m not exactly an expert on dimension hoping considering I am the Keeper of the Dimensions and I’ve got my motorcycle. I’ve got no need for dimension hopping, since I can do it the legal way.”
“Right. So what if this dimension hopper is the guy who caused that tear all those years ago? What if he’s the one who killed my brother?”
“Are you sure? What if it was a different person?”
“Oh, come on. You said yourself dimension hopping isn’t the easiest thing in all the universes. So think logically, how many dimension hoppers can there possibly be?”
Luke paused. “It’s very possible.”
“Right,” I said. “That means our only option now is to stop him.”
Chapter Twelve
I walked through the door, and noticed the dramatic change much more quickly this time. Like how the first new dimension seemed an odd tint of red, and how the second one seemed to have a blinding yellow-ish white, this dimension seemed like a peaceful and calm blue. Everything looked normal at first. Nothing stuck out, and nothing scared me. This place looked fine. In fact, it looked exactly like home.
Uneasily like home. It was day time, and everything seemed to go perfectly. I was in my home town, I could see my house, and my street, and all of the familiar aspects of my neighborhood.
“Is this a new dimension?” I asked. “It looks the same to me.”
“Yeah, this one is probably the most similar to yours,” Luke said. “You will find a few differences, though, if you look hard enough.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I don’t know off the top of my head,” Luke said. “I suppose we’ll find something eventually if we keep wandering about.”
“But what’s so great about this place?” I asked. “I mean, if it’s exactly like home? Were you or were you not supposed to take me out on the best damn adventure of my life?”
“Oh, trust me, there is a reason we are here,” Luke said slowly.
“Like what? Shagging girls? Buying cake?”
“That,” Luke said. “And some investigating. We have to figure out what caused that quake, because that quake didn’t only happen in that dimension, that quake happened in all of the ones adjacent to it, too. Now, I have no idea what could cause something like that. Something that would only shake one dimension and the dimensions near by, but not all of them. How strange.”
“Yes, yes, it’s all very fascinating,” I said. “So let us just get on with it. You go find your girl, I’ll go get your cake, and then we’ll do whatever the hell this investigation thing is. All right?”
Lucas smiled. “You’re so strange, I hope you realize this.”
“Oh, I’m the one who is strange? Me? Really? I am not the one shagging girls every other hour, and I’m not the one whose diet consists of only chocolate cake! I’m the one who was content with her life, and perfectly fine with the way things were befor eyou showed up and started pulling me through alternate dimensions.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Anyway, I’d better be going. I’ll leave you with the motorcycle, in case you want to go around somewhere. It’s very likely that you’re safer here than you are in that other dimension. I won’t get into the details too much. Anyway, I’ll see you later.”
“So, what, you’re just going to leave? Like that?”
“Well, you insisted.”
He turned around and walked off.
“When will you be finished?”
“Just stay with the motorcycle!” he called back. “I’ll have it come back to me when I’m all done!”
“And what if I get into trouble? How will I find you?”
“Bye!” He waved, and continued on in a sprint, obviously trying to get away from me.
“God damn it,” I muttered. I got onto the motorcycle, and made it roar to life. Where would it take me? I simply let it go on its own, making sure I didn’t lose my balance, and letting it drive on its own, letting it take me to where ever it wanted to go, considering the fact that in this whole new world, I had no particular location I wanted to visit. That is sort of like me, I guess. I just go with the flow.
It felt so weird, because this neighborhood felt exactly like mine. So safe, so familiar, so exact.
I saw my house, and it looked exactly the same as it did before the fire that stole half of my families lives. I oh so badly wanted to go inside, and see what was the same and what was different, because it was interesting and I was just so curious. I held myself back, however, out of fear of running into myself, or whichever Caitlin lived here. I had no idea what she was like. She might have tried to kill me like last time, and she might have even tried to find out who I was and where I was from. If I had run into myself, and Caitlin asked me how I looked exactly like her when she had a twin brother and not a twin sister, how would I respond to that?
So I figured it was best to just not go into the house at all.
I ended up going to the ice cream store that was a few blocks away from my house. It was exactly like the one that was back in my home dimension. I began to question whether I was in an alternate dimension at all. What exactly was different about this place that made it any different? I mean, the first one was obvious. There were dark buildings, a red sky, and I was just plain evil. The second one was even more obvious, considering there wasn’t even a city or any people, and just a sea of yellow sand infinitely stretching until the desert’s edge met with the sky causing an odd yellow-ish green-ish blue-ish horizon that looked like it was on fire… however that works. But what was different here?
The motorcycle roared to life, even though I haven’t touched it. I figured that Lucas was summoning it from wherever he was. I hopped on it just in time before it took off onto the streets.
It stopped near a house, and Luke was outside. There were two girls, only wearing bathrobes to keep decent at the door of the house.
“Really?” I asked. “Two girls?”
“When are you coming back, Luke?” the blond one asked. “You are taking us out to dinner tomorrow, right?”
“Of course, ladies,” Lucas said, winking at them. “No need to worry about all that. You can count on me. I will be back, do not ever fret!”
The girls giggled, and shut the door.
“You are absolutely disgusting,” I spat.
“What?”
“That! That whole thing with those girls! You straight up lied to them, I know for a fact that you are probably never going to see them again. And sex with two women at once? My God, what is wrong with you?”
“What the bloody hell are you yelling at me for?” Lucas spat back. “I had to stop early!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry that you didn’t get to shag those girls as much as you’d like! God, you are so disgusting!”
And just then, the ground shook again. It shook so violently, that it felt like the buildings were going to fall over, and that the sky was going to tumble and fall. I was completely knocked off my feet, and found myself with on top of Lucas, my face buried into his chest. The shaking stopped, and I looked up at his face.
“See, this is what I wanted to talk to you about,” Lucas said, actually laughing.
I jumped, and got myself on my feet as quickly as possible. I dusted myself off a bit, and then scowled back at Luke.
“This is why I ended early,” he said. “I have a theory for what might be going on with the whole dimension quake things.”’
I loosened up a bit. “You know what could be causing this?”
Luke nodded. “Like I said, I’ve got a theory, but it’s the only real explanation… but I don’t see how it can be like that… because… it’s just so…”
“Are you going to talk to yourself, or tell me what you actually mean by all of this?”
“I think someone is dimension hopping,” he said.
“What, you mean us? Are you saying that we’re the ones causing all this?”
“No! Because I’m the keeper of the dimensions, things are supposed to naturally adjust to me. Also, we’re not dimension hopping, we’re dimension traveling. We’re going through dimensions in a conventional way, with the doors, and with the motorcycle. These are the only ways to travel inter dimensionally that the universes will, how do I say this?, accept, I suppose. So someone is dimension hopping, going from one dimension to the other, and I have no idea how he can be doing it, but I will tell you, it’s not an easy thing to do. So what is going on? I mean, I can’t think of any other idea that could piss of the balance between dimensions so much.”
I paused for a moment. I was still only barely getting used to the idea of alternate dimensions and traveling between them. I didn’t know how the mechanics were, I didn’t know the details. All I knew at that moment… there was something weird about this dimension. It was too similar, it was too weird, and it was just too exact. Why would there be two dimensions that are exactly the same?
“What?” Luke asked. “What are you thinking? I mean, who ever this is, I am the one who is responsible of finding him and making sure he stops.”
“Lucas?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“I want to stay here,” I said.
“What? Why? If you don’t want to come along, I would much rather you stay in your own dimension. It could be dangerous here, and you aren’t familiar with this dimension… anything could happen. Wait, why don’t you want to come along?”
“It has nothing to do with not wanting to come along,” I said. “I just want to stay here. I most definitely do not want to go home.”
“What is so appealing about this place?”
“It is almost exactly the same as my home! Except… I want to know what’s different.”
“We’ll come back, Caitlin,” he said. “But we need to go as soon as possible.”
“You can go, I want to stay.”
“I don’t want to leave you here.”
I paused. “You’ll take me back here?”
“As soon as I can,” he answered. “And once this thing is over, we can go wherever the hell you please. It’s just important that we leave soon, Caitlin.”
I nodded, and got on the motorcycle.
Lucas began to drive. He seemed to know where the door was this time, because he didn’t need to activate the homing device on the dashboard of the motorcycle.
We went into an old abandoned factory at the edge of London, just like the one that was back at home. Luke led me through a maze of dark rooms until we finally reached the purple door.
“See? This place is exactly the same,” I said quietly.
“Caitlin,” Luke sighed. “Do you really want to know what’s different about this place?”
I paused, but didn’t answer.
“In this dimension, Caitlin Whitewood is dead.”
Uneasily like home. It was day time, and everything seemed to go perfectly. I was in my home town, I could see my house, and my street, and all of the familiar aspects of my neighborhood.
“Is this a new dimension?” I asked. “It looks the same to me.”
“Yeah, this one is probably the most similar to yours,” Luke said. “You will find a few differences, though, if you look hard enough.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I don’t know off the top of my head,” Luke said. “I suppose we’ll find something eventually if we keep wandering about.”
“But what’s so great about this place?” I asked. “I mean, if it’s exactly like home? Were you or were you not supposed to take me out on the best damn adventure of my life?”
“Oh, trust me, there is a reason we are here,” Luke said slowly.
“Like what? Shagging girls? Buying cake?”
“That,” Luke said. “And some investigating. We have to figure out what caused that quake, because that quake didn’t only happen in that dimension, that quake happened in all of the ones adjacent to it, too. Now, I have no idea what could cause something like that. Something that would only shake one dimension and the dimensions near by, but not all of them. How strange.”
“Yes, yes, it’s all very fascinating,” I said. “So let us just get on with it. You go find your girl, I’ll go get your cake, and then we’ll do whatever the hell this investigation thing is. All right?”
Lucas smiled. “You’re so strange, I hope you realize this.”
“Oh, I’m the one who is strange? Me? Really? I am not the one shagging girls every other hour, and I’m not the one whose diet consists of only chocolate cake! I’m the one who was content with her life, and perfectly fine with the way things were befor eyou showed up and started pulling me through alternate dimensions.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Anyway, I’d better be going. I’ll leave you with the motorcycle, in case you want to go around somewhere. It’s very likely that you’re safer here than you are in that other dimension. I won’t get into the details too much. Anyway, I’ll see you later.”
“So, what, you’re just going to leave? Like that?”
“Well, you insisted.”
He turned around and walked off.
“When will you be finished?”
“Just stay with the motorcycle!” he called back. “I’ll have it come back to me when I’m all done!”
“And what if I get into trouble? How will I find you?”
“Bye!” He waved, and continued on in a sprint, obviously trying to get away from me.
“God damn it,” I muttered. I got onto the motorcycle, and made it roar to life. Where would it take me? I simply let it go on its own, making sure I didn’t lose my balance, and letting it drive on its own, letting it take me to where ever it wanted to go, considering the fact that in this whole new world, I had no particular location I wanted to visit. That is sort of like me, I guess. I just go with the flow.
It felt so weird, because this neighborhood felt exactly like mine. So safe, so familiar, so exact.
I saw my house, and it looked exactly the same as it did before the fire that stole half of my families lives. I oh so badly wanted to go inside, and see what was the same and what was different, because it was interesting and I was just so curious. I held myself back, however, out of fear of running into myself, or whichever Caitlin lived here. I had no idea what she was like. She might have tried to kill me like last time, and she might have even tried to find out who I was and where I was from. If I had run into myself, and Caitlin asked me how I looked exactly like her when she had a twin brother and not a twin sister, how would I respond to that?
So I figured it was best to just not go into the house at all.
I ended up going to the ice cream store that was a few blocks away from my house. It was exactly like the one that was back in my home dimension. I began to question whether I was in an alternate dimension at all. What exactly was different about this place that made it any different? I mean, the first one was obvious. There were dark buildings, a red sky, and I was just plain evil. The second one was even more obvious, considering there wasn’t even a city or any people, and just a sea of yellow sand infinitely stretching until the desert’s edge met with the sky causing an odd yellow-ish green-ish blue-ish horizon that looked like it was on fire… however that works. But what was different here?
The motorcycle roared to life, even though I haven’t touched it. I figured that Lucas was summoning it from wherever he was. I hopped on it just in time before it took off onto the streets.
It stopped near a house, and Luke was outside. There were two girls, only wearing bathrobes to keep decent at the door of the house.
“Really?” I asked. “Two girls?”
“When are you coming back, Luke?” the blond one asked. “You are taking us out to dinner tomorrow, right?”
“Of course, ladies,” Lucas said, winking at them. “No need to worry about all that. You can count on me. I will be back, do not ever fret!”
The girls giggled, and shut the door.
“You are absolutely disgusting,” I spat.
“What?”
“That! That whole thing with those girls! You straight up lied to them, I know for a fact that you are probably never going to see them again. And sex with two women at once? My God, what is wrong with you?”
“What the bloody hell are you yelling at me for?” Lucas spat back. “I had to stop early!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry that you didn’t get to shag those girls as much as you’d like! God, you are so disgusting!”
And just then, the ground shook again. It shook so violently, that it felt like the buildings were going to fall over, and that the sky was going to tumble and fall. I was completely knocked off my feet, and found myself with on top of Lucas, my face buried into his chest. The shaking stopped, and I looked up at his face.
“See, this is what I wanted to talk to you about,” Lucas said, actually laughing.
I jumped, and got myself on my feet as quickly as possible. I dusted myself off a bit, and then scowled back at Luke.
“This is why I ended early,” he said. “I have a theory for what might be going on with the whole dimension quake things.”’
I loosened up a bit. “You know what could be causing this?”
Luke nodded. “Like I said, I’ve got a theory, but it’s the only real explanation… but I don’t see how it can be like that… because… it’s just so…”
“Are you going to talk to yourself, or tell me what you actually mean by all of this?”
“I think someone is dimension hopping,” he said.
“What, you mean us? Are you saying that we’re the ones causing all this?”
“No! Because I’m the keeper of the dimensions, things are supposed to naturally adjust to me. Also, we’re not dimension hopping, we’re dimension traveling. We’re going through dimensions in a conventional way, with the doors, and with the motorcycle. These are the only ways to travel inter dimensionally that the universes will, how do I say this?, accept, I suppose. So someone is dimension hopping, going from one dimension to the other, and I have no idea how he can be doing it, but I will tell you, it’s not an easy thing to do. So what is going on? I mean, I can’t think of any other idea that could piss of the balance between dimensions so much.”
I paused for a moment. I was still only barely getting used to the idea of alternate dimensions and traveling between them. I didn’t know how the mechanics were, I didn’t know the details. All I knew at that moment… there was something weird about this dimension. It was too similar, it was too weird, and it was just too exact. Why would there be two dimensions that are exactly the same?
“What?” Luke asked. “What are you thinking? I mean, who ever this is, I am the one who is responsible of finding him and making sure he stops.”
“Lucas?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“I want to stay here,” I said.
“What? Why? If you don’t want to come along, I would much rather you stay in your own dimension. It could be dangerous here, and you aren’t familiar with this dimension… anything could happen. Wait, why don’t you want to come along?”
“It has nothing to do with not wanting to come along,” I said. “I just want to stay here. I most definitely do not want to go home.”
“What is so appealing about this place?”
“It is almost exactly the same as my home! Except… I want to know what’s different.”
“We’ll come back, Caitlin,” he said. “But we need to go as soon as possible.”
“You can go, I want to stay.”
“I don’t want to leave you here.”
I paused. “You’ll take me back here?”
“As soon as I can,” he answered. “And once this thing is over, we can go wherever the hell you please. It’s just important that we leave soon, Caitlin.”
I nodded, and got on the motorcycle.
Lucas began to drive. He seemed to know where the door was this time, because he didn’t need to activate the homing device on the dashboard of the motorcycle.
We went into an old abandoned factory at the edge of London, just like the one that was back at home. Luke led me through a maze of dark rooms until we finally reached the purple door.
“See? This place is exactly the same,” I said quietly.
“Caitlin,” Luke sighed. “Do you really want to know what’s different about this place?”
I paused, but didn’t answer.
“In this dimension, Caitlin Whitewood is dead.”
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Chapter Eleven
I felt a few cold drops on my face.
“Hey, Caity-kins,” came Luke’s voice faintly from somewhere. “Get up, now. We’ve got some water.”
I felt the cold liquid rush into my mouth, and it was the most perfect feeling ever. I drank the water, and opened my eyes.
“There she is!” Lucas said. There was someone else, there, too. A woman, who wore a yellow blouse with a long white skirt that came down to her ankles. The only parts of her skin showing were her feet through her sandals, and her stunningly piercing green eyes through a small hole in her veil. She wore gloves, and the veil wrapped around her head, so everything else was completely covered up.
“Wh-where are we?”I groaned.
“We are still in the Desert of Naharah,” Luke answered. “I managed to find a little village, though, and told them our tough situation with you being dehydrated and all. This lovely woman was gracious enough to give us a canteen of water, even though their village is suffering from drought.”
I sat up. “Thank you, so much.”
The woman nodded.
“What is your name?”
She closed her eyes, and didn’t answer.
“She doesn’t like talking much, I suppose,” Luke said. “She hasn’t been answering me, either. The whole village is rather quiet. Maybe they were brought up not to, y’know, talk to strangers.”
The woman handed me the canteen, and I accepted it. I drank more water from it, and was soon able to stand up.
“Are you all right, now?” Luke asked.
“I think so,” I said. “But maybe we’d better get going. I mean, don’t we have to figure out what that earthquake was about?”
The Naharian woman opened her eyes again. It almost hurt to look into them.
“Ah, we’ll eventually figure it out,” Luke said. “Do you want to go into the village?”
“Luke, I told you it’s not safe in this Desert,” I said. “I almost died of dehydration.”
“But you didn’t! I told you to trust me. I told you nothing would be wrong, that you wouldn’t die of dehydration, and you would be fine, and here you are! Look at you! Fully functional and fully wet. Wait, no, not wet. That’s not what I meant. I meant that you are all hydrated. Ah, good old water. Shall we go look?”
“No,” I said. “I want to leave this place.”
“First you want to leave the last one, and now you want to leave this one?” Luke asked. “Just relax and have some cake.”
I only just realized that he was eating some of his chocolate cake.
“Lucas, I do not want to stay here any longer. I’m sorry about that, but I’m not exactly used to being in deserts.”
Luke groaned. “All right. Fine. We’ll do whatever the hell you want. After all, we are here to give you the best time of your life. Let’s go travel the depths of space, the wonders of alternate worlds!” He then looked at me kind of weird. Straight into my eyes and unblinking. I raised one eyebrow. It was a bit awkward.
“Okay, then,” I said. I turned to the Naharian woman. “Thank you so much again for the water. It saved my life, and I will not forget it.”
She nodded again, turned around, and then disappeared in a gust of sand.
“Well, then,” Lucas said, putting the remaining cake away and hopping onto his motorcycle. He hit some buttons on the side of the dashboard, the some lights began to flash green.
“Are we looking for the next door?” I said, putting the canteen around my neck and getting onto the motorcycle.
“Yes, that is what we are doing,” Luke said. Before long, the lights began to flash purple. “Aw, bloody hell! Why does it have to be so far away?”
I looked at the dashboard, but didn’t understand what it meant. “What? How far away is it?”
“At least twenty kilometers,” he said.
“Eh. Not as bad as I expected. At least we have water now.”
“Yeah. I guess we’ll just have to drive.”
So we drove. The blinding white sky slowly grew darker and darker. It was odd to see time moving after time had stayed so still for such a long time. I did nothing except sit at the back of the motorcycle, sipping the water from the canteen, quickly stealing bites of Luke’s hidden chocolate cake without his knowledge, and watching the sky grow darker as Luke and I sailed across the sea of sand that was the Naharian desert.
There was another blank door, and it seemed almost blue in the pale moonlight. Thankfully, the purple door with the shiny silver door knob stood out like a sore thumb right in the center of it.
“Are you sure this is the next door?” I asked. “It looks exactly the same as the last one. And I don’t want to go back into that dimension and run into the psychotic version of me again.”
“She isn’t psychotic,” Luke said. “She is just kind of evil. And she was not brought up right the way you were.”
“But Cedric was alive,” I said. “I just… I don’t know, I guess I’m still in shock from seeing him.”
“Yeah, well, thankfully you didn’t see yourself or him in this dimension.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What, do we exist here?”
“Oh, yes,” Lucas said. “But not in the Desert, of course. You live in a village called Bridam, which is close to the northern pole of the planet. It is freezing cold up there, I will tell you. But the girls are hot, at least.”
“You are so creepy,” I said. “But am I… am I happy there? Or is Caitlin happy? Is Caitlin happy with Cedric?”
“Caitlin and Cedric Whitewood of Bridam in this dimension live average lives. Their relationship isn’t too good, however, because they are orphans and they live with two different families. They barely see each other.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. Was I ever going to be happy and sane anywhere? “Well, then I have no intention of visiting them. At least they have got fairly decent lives up in the North Pole.”
“They live in Bridam,” Lucas corrected me.
“Whatever,” I said. “Let’s just go.”
Lucas opened the door, and the two of us went in.
“Hey, Caity-kins,” came Luke’s voice faintly from somewhere. “Get up, now. We’ve got some water.”
I felt the cold liquid rush into my mouth, and it was the most perfect feeling ever. I drank the water, and opened my eyes.
“There she is!” Lucas said. There was someone else, there, too. A woman, who wore a yellow blouse with a long white skirt that came down to her ankles. The only parts of her skin showing were her feet through her sandals, and her stunningly piercing green eyes through a small hole in her veil. She wore gloves, and the veil wrapped around her head, so everything else was completely covered up.
“Wh-where are we?”I groaned.
“We are still in the Desert of Naharah,” Luke answered. “I managed to find a little village, though, and told them our tough situation with you being dehydrated and all. This lovely woman was gracious enough to give us a canteen of water, even though their village is suffering from drought.”
I sat up. “Thank you, so much.”
The woman nodded.
“What is your name?”
She closed her eyes, and didn’t answer.
“She doesn’t like talking much, I suppose,” Luke said. “She hasn’t been answering me, either. The whole village is rather quiet. Maybe they were brought up not to, y’know, talk to strangers.”
The woman handed me the canteen, and I accepted it. I drank more water from it, and was soon able to stand up.
“Are you all right, now?” Luke asked.
“I think so,” I said. “But maybe we’d better get going. I mean, don’t we have to figure out what that earthquake was about?”
The Naharian woman opened her eyes again. It almost hurt to look into them.
“Ah, we’ll eventually figure it out,” Luke said. “Do you want to go into the village?”
“Luke, I told you it’s not safe in this Desert,” I said. “I almost died of dehydration.”
“But you didn’t! I told you to trust me. I told you nothing would be wrong, that you wouldn’t die of dehydration, and you would be fine, and here you are! Look at you! Fully functional and fully wet. Wait, no, not wet. That’s not what I meant. I meant that you are all hydrated. Ah, good old water. Shall we go look?”
“No,” I said. “I want to leave this place.”
“First you want to leave the last one, and now you want to leave this one?” Luke asked. “Just relax and have some cake.”
I only just realized that he was eating some of his chocolate cake.
“Lucas, I do not want to stay here any longer. I’m sorry about that, but I’m not exactly used to being in deserts.”
Luke groaned. “All right. Fine. We’ll do whatever the hell you want. After all, we are here to give you the best time of your life. Let’s go travel the depths of space, the wonders of alternate worlds!” He then looked at me kind of weird. Straight into my eyes and unblinking. I raised one eyebrow. It was a bit awkward.
“Okay, then,” I said. I turned to the Naharian woman. “Thank you so much again for the water. It saved my life, and I will not forget it.”
She nodded again, turned around, and then disappeared in a gust of sand.
“Well, then,” Lucas said, putting the remaining cake away and hopping onto his motorcycle. He hit some buttons on the side of the dashboard, the some lights began to flash green.
“Are we looking for the next door?” I said, putting the canteen around my neck and getting onto the motorcycle.
“Yes, that is what we are doing,” Luke said. Before long, the lights began to flash purple. “Aw, bloody hell! Why does it have to be so far away?”
I looked at the dashboard, but didn’t understand what it meant. “What? How far away is it?”
“At least twenty kilometers,” he said.
“Eh. Not as bad as I expected. At least we have water now.”
“Yeah. I guess we’ll just have to drive.”
So we drove. The blinding white sky slowly grew darker and darker. It was odd to see time moving after time had stayed so still for such a long time. I did nothing except sit at the back of the motorcycle, sipping the water from the canteen, quickly stealing bites of Luke’s hidden chocolate cake without his knowledge, and watching the sky grow darker as Luke and I sailed across the sea of sand that was the Naharian desert.
There was another blank door, and it seemed almost blue in the pale moonlight. Thankfully, the purple door with the shiny silver door knob stood out like a sore thumb right in the center of it.
“Are you sure this is the next door?” I asked. “It looks exactly the same as the last one. And I don’t want to go back into that dimension and run into the psychotic version of me again.”
“She isn’t psychotic,” Luke said. “She is just kind of evil. And she was not brought up right the way you were.”
“But Cedric was alive,” I said. “I just… I don’t know, I guess I’m still in shock from seeing him.”
“Yeah, well, thankfully you didn’t see yourself or him in this dimension.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What, do we exist here?”
“Oh, yes,” Lucas said. “But not in the Desert, of course. You live in a village called Bridam, which is close to the northern pole of the planet. It is freezing cold up there, I will tell you. But the girls are hot, at least.”
“You are so creepy,” I said. “But am I… am I happy there? Or is Caitlin happy? Is Caitlin happy with Cedric?”
“Caitlin and Cedric Whitewood of Bridam in this dimension live average lives. Their relationship isn’t too good, however, because they are orphans and they live with two different families. They barely see each other.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. Was I ever going to be happy and sane anywhere? “Well, then I have no intention of visiting them. At least they have got fairly decent lives up in the North Pole.”
“They live in Bridam,” Lucas corrected me.
“Whatever,” I said. “Let’s just go.”
Lucas opened the door, and the two of us went in.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Chapter Ten
“So where are we going?” I asked.
“It’s in a building at the edge of the city,” he said. “Where the train station is in your dimension. There should be another purple door there.”
He stopped at a building, and got down off the motorcycle. “Come on, then. Let’s go, let’s go.”
I followed him into the third dark and red building, and followed him through the maze of doors until we found the purple one.
He opened it, and we went through it.
My eyes were almost completely blinded with the light. I couldn’t see anything at first, and then I looked around me. Behind us there was no building like before, but instead an empty wall with the purple door right in the center. Around us was nothing. Nothing except a white-blue sky and a completely empty and open desert.
“Wow,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
Lucas handed me a pair of sunglasses. I put them on, and everything looked normal instead of the blinding white that it was before.
“Thanks,” I said. “What sort of place is this? Are we still in London?”
“London doesn’t exist in this dimension,” he said, putting on his own sunglasses. “We’re in the Desert of Naharah.”
“Naharah?”
“Yeah.”
“Like… Sahara?”
“No. Naharah.
“I see. And what’s so special about this place, then?”
“Well… the door leads into here.”
“So there’s no one here? Just us?”
“As far as I know, yeah. Good thing I’ve got that extra chocolate cake.”
“Do you have any water?”
“What?”
“Water! You know in those movies everyone always dies of thirst when they go out into the desert. Well, what if the same thing happens to us?”
“Oh, it won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You’ve got to trust me that it won’t, Caity-cakes.”
“I hate having to trust you,” I said, crossing my arms and pouting my lips.
“Why?”
“Because you’re so mysterious, and it always seems like you’re hiding something from me, and I never know if you’re telling the truth or not!”
“Caity-cakes, if I always told you the truth, I wouldn’t need you to trust me.”
I didn’t quite get it, but I didn’t know how to respond to him, either. So he hopped on his motorbike, beckoned for me to join him, and I got on it as well.
The only good part about being in a deserted desert was the fact that there were no girls around the general vicinity for Luke to shag. It was so annoying when he went off with another girl, so stupid, really, and I hated it every time I saw him with some trampy whore who clearly did not know who he was or what he was capable of.
Suddenly, Luke’s motorcycle stopped.
“What’s the deal?” I said. “I almost fell off!”
“It wasn’t me,” he said, rapping his knuckles on the dashboard. “What’s wrong with this thing? I swear, it’s never given me problems like this.”
“Why did it stop?” I said.
The ground shook again, and the motorcycle fell over, and Luke and I both rolled off of it onto the ground.
The shaking continued for about five minutes before the ground was finally still.
“What was that?” I asked.
Luke stood up, and looked around.
“An earthquake?” I asked. “Do you think your motorcycle knew that there was going to be an earthquake, so it stopped so we wouldn’t get hurt when we fell off?”
“No,” Luke said. “The motorcycle only knows things about the secrets of inter dimensional science. It isn’t programmed to know things like earthquakes and stuff.”
“That’s stupid,” I said. “So your motorcycle can detect when something is up with the forces between dimensions, but it can’t even predict when there’s going to be an earthquake?”
“Caitlin, this wasn’t a normal earthquake,” Luke said.
“The ground shook when we were in that weird dark version of London, too,” I said. “But I suppose you were too busy shagging that whore you couldn’t even tell.”
“Seriously, Caitlin, please stop talking for a moment.”
I shut up. This was the first time I ever heard Luke sound genuinely concerned about something.
“If the motorcycle can only detect things when something is wrong with the forces between dimensions, and it stopped, then that earthquake was not the shaking of the earth, but something that’s wrong with the inter dimensional forces. I don’t know what’s wrong, though, but it’s obvious something is.”
“So what?” I asked. “Are the universes falling apart or something?”
“They could be. Like I said, there is a finite and precise balance between dimensions, and if something is messing that up, then I’m going to have to be the one to stop it.”
“Then you should go find out what it is,” I said.
“You’re coming with me, of course,” he said. “I promised you the day of your life, and even though the beginning of the day wasn’t really that great, I’m going to make sure everything ends with a bang!”
“I hope you don’t mean a literal bang.”
“Come on, then!” he said, making the motorcycle stand up straight again and hopping on, without even fully hearing what I had just said. “There is not much time to lose. Get on, get on!”
“Hey… Luke?” I said, standing up.
“Hurry, hurry!”
“Luke! Lucas!” I said.
“Yes, what is it? Tell me quickly, like I said, we haven’t got much time.”
“Lucas, I’m really thirsty,” I said. “Seriously. We’re out in the middle of the desert, there are no people to be seen, and I need some water really bad.”
Luke swore under his breath. “All right, then, come on. Get on. We’ll try to find some place where they’ll have water.”
“Can your motorcycle detect it? Like an oasis or anything?”
“Erm… no.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So it can detect when there’s a problem with the forces between dimensions… it can tell you when inter dimensional forces are out of balance… It can save your life when there are inter dimensional dangers… but it can’t even find you water?”
“Calm down, calm down!” he said. “Honestly, the more you yell like that, the faster you are going to dehydrate. We will find you water, I assure you, but first you are just going to have to calm down.”
I crossed my arms again, but did as he told me. I didn’t want to risk getting dehydrated and fainting or something. I needed to keep my eyes open to see what the hell Luke was doing.
Some lights on the dashboard of Luke’s motorcycle flashed green, and by the time they started flashing purple, my eyes were closing, and everything went black.
“It’s in a building at the edge of the city,” he said. “Where the train station is in your dimension. There should be another purple door there.”
He stopped at a building, and got down off the motorcycle. “Come on, then. Let’s go, let’s go.”
I followed him into the third dark and red building, and followed him through the maze of doors until we found the purple one.
He opened it, and we went through it.
My eyes were almost completely blinded with the light. I couldn’t see anything at first, and then I looked around me. Behind us there was no building like before, but instead an empty wall with the purple door right in the center. Around us was nothing. Nothing except a white-blue sky and a completely empty and open desert.
“Wow,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
Lucas handed me a pair of sunglasses. I put them on, and everything looked normal instead of the blinding white that it was before.
“Thanks,” I said. “What sort of place is this? Are we still in London?”
“London doesn’t exist in this dimension,” he said, putting on his own sunglasses. “We’re in the Desert of Naharah.”
“Naharah?”
“Yeah.”
“Like… Sahara?”
“No. Naharah.
“I see. And what’s so special about this place, then?”
“Well… the door leads into here.”
“So there’s no one here? Just us?”
“As far as I know, yeah. Good thing I’ve got that extra chocolate cake.”
“Do you have any water?”
“What?”
“Water! You know in those movies everyone always dies of thirst when they go out into the desert. Well, what if the same thing happens to us?”
“Oh, it won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You’ve got to trust me that it won’t, Caity-cakes.”
“I hate having to trust you,” I said, crossing my arms and pouting my lips.
“Why?”
“Because you’re so mysterious, and it always seems like you’re hiding something from me, and I never know if you’re telling the truth or not!”
“Caity-cakes, if I always told you the truth, I wouldn’t need you to trust me.”
I didn’t quite get it, but I didn’t know how to respond to him, either. So he hopped on his motorbike, beckoned for me to join him, and I got on it as well.
The only good part about being in a deserted desert was the fact that there were no girls around the general vicinity for Luke to shag. It was so annoying when he went off with another girl, so stupid, really, and I hated it every time I saw him with some trampy whore who clearly did not know who he was or what he was capable of.
Suddenly, Luke’s motorcycle stopped.
“What’s the deal?” I said. “I almost fell off!”
“It wasn’t me,” he said, rapping his knuckles on the dashboard. “What’s wrong with this thing? I swear, it’s never given me problems like this.”
“Why did it stop?” I said.
The ground shook again, and the motorcycle fell over, and Luke and I both rolled off of it onto the ground.
The shaking continued for about five minutes before the ground was finally still.
“What was that?” I asked.
Luke stood up, and looked around.
“An earthquake?” I asked. “Do you think your motorcycle knew that there was going to be an earthquake, so it stopped so we wouldn’t get hurt when we fell off?”
“No,” Luke said. “The motorcycle only knows things about the secrets of inter dimensional science. It isn’t programmed to know things like earthquakes and stuff.”
“That’s stupid,” I said. “So your motorcycle can detect when something is up with the forces between dimensions, but it can’t even predict when there’s going to be an earthquake?”
“Caitlin, this wasn’t a normal earthquake,” Luke said.
“The ground shook when we were in that weird dark version of London, too,” I said. “But I suppose you were too busy shagging that whore you couldn’t even tell.”
“Seriously, Caitlin, please stop talking for a moment.”
I shut up. This was the first time I ever heard Luke sound genuinely concerned about something.
“If the motorcycle can only detect things when something is wrong with the forces between dimensions, and it stopped, then that earthquake was not the shaking of the earth, but something that’s wrong with the inter dimensional forces. I don’t know what’s wrong, though, but it’s obvious something is.”
“So what?” I asked. “Are the universes falling apart or something?”
“They could be. Like I said, there is a finite and precise balance between dimensions, and if something is messing that up, then I’m going to have to be the one to stop it.”
“Then you should go find out what it is,” I said.
“You’re coming with me, of course,” he said. “I promised you the day of your life, and even though the beginning of the day wasn’t really that great, I’m going to make sure everything ends with a bang!”
“I hope you don’t mean a literal bang.”
“Come on, then!” he said, making the motorcycle stand up straight again and hopping on, without even fully hearing what I had just said. “There is not much time to lose. Get on, get on!”
“Hey… Luke?” I said, standing up.
“Hurry, hurry!”
“Luke! Lucas!” I said.
“Yes, what is it? Tell me quickly, like I said, we haven’t got much time.”
“Lucas, I’m really thirsty,” I said. “Seriously. We’re out in the middle of the desert, there are no people to be seen, and I need some water really bad.”
Luke swore under his breath. “All right, then, come on. Get on. We’ll try to find some place where they’ll have water.”
“Can your motorcycle detect it? Like an oasis or anything?”
“Erm… no.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So it can detect when there’s a problem with the forces between dimensions… it can tell you when inter dimensional forces are out of balance… It can save your life when there are inter dimensional dangers… but it can’t even find you water?”
“Calm down, calm down!” he said. “Honestly, the more you yell like that, the faster you are going to dehydrate. We will find you water, I assure you, but first you are just going to have to calm down.”
I crossed my arms again, but did as he told me. I didn’t want to risk getting dehydrated and fainting or something. I needed to keep my eyes open to see what the hell Luke was doing.
Some lights on the dashboard of Luke’s motorcycle flashed green, and by the time they started flashing purple, my eyes were closing, and everything went black.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)