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.