"I don't want toooooo..."
"You'll just be right here in the yard, playing. We can watch you the whole time."
"Nooooooooooo..." Kevin stamped his feet up and down.
"Brian, don't make him go out if he doesn't want to," said Kevin's mother, Glenda. "Just leave the boy alone."
Brian ran a hand over his head. "I'm trying to..." He stopped and breathed in and out. "Can we talk in the other room for a moment, please?"
"Oh lord Jesus help me." Glenda followed him into the kitchen.
Kevin followed a few steps to hear their whispered voices.
"You know what Dr. Keating said. We should try to get him outside a bit at a time, get him over this fear of being out of the house!"
"He didn't say to MAKE the boy go outside, I read you're not supposed to make children do things they're afraid of, it's bad for them."
"It's only for a few minutes, Glenda! It can't be worse than letting him be afraid forever!"
"You act like he's afraid for no reason. He had a trauma..."
They were silent for a bit, then Brian spoke again, softly: "I know it, I know it. But I'm afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
Very quiet now: "I'm afraid if we don't do something about this, he'll be afraid to leave home for the rest of his life!"
Thunder boomed in the night sky, waking Kevin just in time to feel the first drops of rain on his face. He looked up at what remained of the roof: charred, broken timbers and torn shreds of insulation hanging with pieces of drywall. One wall was entirely gone, the others were broken remnants.
This had been his parents' bedroom.
Kevin stood and stepped back into the hallway, watching as rain began to patter down where his parents had once slept. His parents, not mine, he reminded himself. Not mine.
The bus driver had told him so before Kevin had left him alone on a barren mountaintop on some alien world, in an alternate version of reality.
"You're from another world, another place. In your world, the crash happened ten years ago. The Kevin from our world, the one who was on the bus with the others...he disappeared. He vanished and never came back."
Kevin had taken him to another world and left him there to die. Then he had returned to find other refugees from another reality, like him, and taken them back to their world. He had taken them home, but their home was not his. There had already been a Kevin there, living happily with his parents, having never been a part of the school bus crash. Kevin was lost, alone, and the one place he had known as home was not only destroyed, it had never been his home to begin with.
It all seemed so surreal, to stand in the place where his parents had died and know they were never his parents at all.
Kevin knew he had to find his own home, had to go back to the world from whence he came, but he had no idea where it was or how to find it among the infinite alternate realities out there.
There was something else, too. It had started the first time he opened a portal of his own, carrying bus driver Carl Macklin to the world which would become his tomb. He had felt it first then, on his return trip home through the void: eyes, boring into him, watching him from the shadowy paths between worlds. Then had come the rooftop, where he had confronted the red woman. He was certain she had watched him as he returned the others home, and she would be watching him again, as he made his way between the worlds to find his home.
She can't kill me, Kevin reminded himself. Nothing can even touch me.
Steeling himself against the fear, Kevin vanished, leaving one home forever to begin his search for another.
KEVIN
"Is this really happening?"
"What's going on?" Kevin asked. Carl had been quiet a long time, too long, and he and Becca were looking at each other curiously. "Are you talking in your heads? What is he saying, Becca?"
Becca looked to him and back to Carl. "I don't know. I mean...I'm not sure."
"Hey, I never got to ask my questions," Brandon interjected.
"Shut up, Dork!" Becca said.
Brandon threw up his hands. "What did I do?"
"Like we don't have more important things to do than answer the question about the aliens one more damn time!"
"What's more important?" asked Kevin. "What was he saying?"
"It's all right." Carl nodded to Brandon. "Go ahead, Brandon."
"I asked you a question!" Kevin strode up to Becca. "What was he saying just now?"
"I was trying to show her what Zachary showed me," Carl said, "but it's like a dream, you know, they fade once you wake--"
Kevin turned quickly, driving his fist into Carl's face. "QUIET."
______________________
When Kevin returned from the world where he'd abandoned Carl, he sensed something was terribly wrong. The military base was in chaos, the others from school bus 313 were nowhere to be found, and stepping outside, he saw something else.
Above the top of one of the tallest buildings downtown, the sky had darkened and a wide funnel cloud had formed.
Kevin opened a portal and stepped through it, landing on the rooftop.
Wind was screaming around the rooftop, and many of the others were already there, joined by newcomers, other kids their age who seemed to have powers also. There was something strange about them. Kevin could see it inside them, like they were just out of synch with everything and everyone around.
Sparks were jumping between them, faster and faster, and when Kevin arrived they sped up, forming arcs of energy that leapt into the sky. Where they came together, the sky darkened. A shimmering hole began to form in the air. A sound rose, like the sound of cracks opening in ice, only a million times louder.
______________________
"Hi."
Kevin opened the door a little farther. It was a little girl, close to his age (Kevin was ten and a half as he was proud to point out to his parents), perhaps a bit younger.
"I saw you looking out of your window," the girl said. She was shorter than Kevin, with lustrous red hair that spilled down the back of her little red dress.
"Oh."
"Can you come out and play?"
Kevin shook his head reflexively, closing the door a bit. "No...no. I don't like to go outside."
"Oh..." Her bottom lip pooched out a bit as her lips curled downward. "How come?"
Kevin looked down at his feet. "I like to stay home. It's safer."
"Oh."
Silence fell between them for a moment, in which both studied the ground. Finally the little girl looked up, eyes widening. "I know! I'll come in and we'll play inside!"
"Ummm..." Kevin let go of the door and looked around behind himself. His parents were out, and he wasn't supposed to let strangers come into the house.
She was past him and through the door before he realized what had happened. "Come on!" She ran up the stairs and was almost out of sight before Kevin had gotten the door closed and locked and followed.
"Wait!" he called after her. "What's your name?"
______________________
His key fit the lock as if it were meant to do so. Kevin entered the front hallway to find the house dark and cold.
"Mom?" he called into the darkness. "Dad?"
No answer.
He walked into the living room, where by the light streaming in from the back yard he could see the framed photographs lining the shelves. Kevin looked at pictures of his parents and himself, at various ages, smiling. At least I exist in this world, he thought. How many had he visited so far where there was no child in the family photos, or some other child in his place? It felt like a hundred. This looked right, though.
It looked like home.
Kevin no longer trusted his feelings, however. The irony was not lost on him. Carl Macklin had spent a good bit of time and effort trying to make Kevin believe none of what had happened to him was real, and had failed. If he had only known how Kevin's own quest to find home would affect him, he might not have bothered. His parents were dead, but wer
e never really his parents. A home lost, which had never truly been home. Now, world after world so much like home yet so different, one after another after another, so close and yet so far. Had he ever really had a home? Did his family ever truly exist at all? Kevin no longer knew.
He picked up the photo in his hand and brushed the dust away, turning it in the light to look closer into his parents' eyes. Would he even recognize his real parents, if they were right in front of him?
"Weird, isn't it?"
Kevin turned. A hand flicked the light switch, and the room was illuminated, revealing the man standing in the arch to the hallway, a young man with a bald head and smooth, dark brown skin, wearing a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans.
The man was the spitting image of Kevin himself.
"I'm sorry," Kevin said, putting the picture down. He must be the Kevin who belongs to this house, this world. "I didn't mean to intrude. I'm looking for my home."
"This is your home, Kevin. Mine was destroyed...but you know that."
"What?"
"Home gone, parents killed. You know the drill." The other Kevin grinned.
Kevin felt a sick sensation in the pit of his stomach. "Who are you?"
"Umm...who does it look like, dummy?" The other Kevin laughed, held his hands out and looked down at his chest and out to each hand, then back to Kevin. "I'm Kevin Lloyd."
______________________
"Hey hey!" Brandon tried to grab Kevin's arm but his hands slipped away. "Calm down!"
Kevin turned on Becca, ignoring Brandon completely. "You think you can put one over on me? What was he saying?"
Brandon tried to move between Kevin and Becca but something held him back. Simon pointed a finger at him. "Let him talk. She's up to something, I'm telling you. I saw her in my vision."
"And I told you to fucking drop it, didn't I?" Becca asked with a raised eyebrow.
"He may be afraid of you," Kevin said, moving closer to her. "But your little mind tricks don't work on me...do they, bitch?"
______________________
The hole widened, and the others beheld strange things that emerged through the rift to surround and bind them. They were transfixed, amazed, and terrified.
Except...Kevin beheld nothing at all.
The wind hammered at him, the rooftop shook, and a sound howled out of the void like a million voices calling for redemption, revenge. The sound took many forms, and all the others heard it and responded.
Except...there was no sound.
Kevin peered into the void and knew that somewhere, beyond that portal, was his home. And he wanted to go home, oh yes, he wanted that most of all.
______________________
The red haired girl had already found Kevin's room and was looking around when he ran in after her. "Hey..."
"Is this your room?"
"Yeah."
"It's pretty small." She looked out through the window onto the Lloyds front lawn. "No wonder you always look so sad looking out of your window."
"I'm not sad."
"It's sad to not go outside, silly." She sat on the edge of his bed. "I was stuck inside for a long time. A long LONG time. Like so long you wouldn't even know."
Kevin's mouth twisted to the side. He wasn't sure what to say. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she said with a smile that brightened her face. "I'm out now!"
Kevin nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. Like I said, it's just safer is all."
She cocked her head to the side and peered at him from under hooded lashes.
"Is it? Are you SURE?"
______________________
"You're him," Kevin said, his pulse quickening. "You're the other Kevin, the one who disappeared..."
"I wouldn't say disappeared so much as got displaced. Did you enjoy stealing my life?"
"Wha...Wait, no..." Kevin stammered, "I didn't steal anything."
"Oh? So...my parents weren't blown to bits? Hm?" The other Kevin put a finger to his lips. "Seems like I heard otherwise."
"I didn't kill them," protested Kevin.
"They were your PARENTS!" The other Kevin scooped the picture off the shelf. "You were supposed to, oh I don't know, PROTECT THEM?" He tore the frame apart and flapped the photograph at him. "Maybe NOT let them get MURDERED?"
Kevin backed up, holding up his hands in a futile gesture.
"Oh but I forgot, they weren't YOUR parents at all, were they?"
Kevin's mouth worked but no sound came out.
"I knew you'd come back here once you were finished ruining my life. All I had to do was wait. I knew you'd want to come back to your nice, cozy home with your nice, not-coincidentally STILL ALIVE mom and dad. But I got here first."
Kevin looked around. "Where are they? What did you do to them?"
"Brian and Glenda? They're so sweet, so concerned about the neurotic little shit they raised." The other Kevin advanced.
"WHERE ARE THEY?"
"They're fine, relax! I sent them away on a little vacation. Don't worry, though." The other Kevin drew a long, sharp knife from behind his back. "I'll get to them once I'm finished with you."
"That won't work on me," Kevin said.
"In anyone else's hands, maybe. But in mine? She thinks it will. She thinks it'll work just fine."
"She?" Kevin cocked his head. "You mean the red woman."
"Damn right. You made a big mistake, homeboy. You just FUCKED with the WRONG GOD." The other Kevin brandished the knife. "But if I were you, I wouldn't worry about her right now." He vanished, reappearing directly in front of Kevin. "Surprise!"
He plunged the knife toward Kevin's chest.
______________________
Yellow energy flared from Mia's fists but washed over Kevin with no effect. Tyler moved up beside Becca, turning his gaze on Kevin. His eyes dialed open, but nothing happened. Max barked from somewhere. Brandon shouted something about Cyclops and Wolverine that no one understood but him. Heather appeared lost, staring at the ceiling. Carl tried to speak, but he was dazed by Kevin's punch, his breath restricted by Simon's invisible hands. Simon's eyes darted from Kevin to Becca, a savage instinct rising in him but unsure who was its proper target.
Into this chaos, one hand, one finger reached out to touch Kevin.
Red light exploded, throwing Kevin across the room and into the opposite wall.
Kevin looked up into Zachary's blue eyes.
Zachary folded his arms across his chest and appraised Kevin with a cold stare.
"You're one of the bad people."
______________________
Kevin had created his own portals before. He held his hands up, concentrating on the lines of energy that arced around and around, creating the cracks in the sky. He imagined himself holding them, contracting them, bringing them closer together. Slowly, so slowly, he began to gain control of the portal and contract it, shrinking it.
Then, something fought back. Something bucked against his control and sent pain cascading into his mind.
Something was there, just beyond the portal. Red light coalesced, forming a shape. The shape stepped across the threshold.
A figure stepped forth.
______________________
"So...do you want to watch TV or something?"
"No...that's boring." The red-haired girl stood and twirled around the center of his room, giggling. "I just want to play with you."
"What's your name anyway? You never said." He stood and extended a hand. "I'm Kevin."
"Hi, Kevin!" She placed the tips of her fingers in his grasp, holding her hand up as if she were a lady in a fairy tale. She curtsied, lifting her dress with her other hand. Then she snatched her hand back and went back to twirling.
"Um. So what's your name?"
She stopped mid-twirl and looked intently into his eyes. "Do you ever think about time, Kevin?"
"Huh?"
"Time! Like...what it is, what it does, what it's for...stuff like that." She placed a finger against her nose. "That stuff's pretty
important."
"No..."
"Time's not what you think it is."
Kevin was silent. He wasn't sure he liked this strange red-haired girl.
"And my real name, well, you couldn't say it if you tried. Your mouth would twist all up and your tongue would flop up and down and you wouldn't ever get even a little close. You can call me Gwendolyn. I'm ever so pleased to meet you."
______________________
Kevin raised his arm and the knife sliced through his flesh, splattering him with blood.
"Ahh!" He teleported behind the other Kevin and grabbed him, one arm around his neck and the other, his right arm, now gushing blood, around the other Kevin's knife-wielding right arm.
The other Kevin twisted left, smashing him into the bookshelf. The shelves cracked and collapsed, raining framed photos and other knickknacks down on Kevin's head. Thanks to his power, the objects slid away without touching him. The other Kevin leaned forward then slammed backward, shoving Kevin into the broken wood and brick. Again, Kevin's power protected him, the broken wood sliding off his back.
The other Kevin vanished from his grip and reappeared facing him. "Guess I'll have to do the damage myself!" He plunged the knife toward Kevin again, but this time Kevin disappeared, cracking open a portal between worlds.
He landed in another alternate world, very close to the one he had left. He was in the Lloyds' house, only this time there was a different woman in the pictures with Brian Lloyd, and no child at all.
"Who are you?" a voice said.
Brian Lloyd stood from the couch, facing him. Kevin placed a hand over the gash in his right arm, trying to stanch the flow of blood. It stung badly.
"What are you doing in my house?"
"Sorry," Kevin said. "Just passing through."
Another portal cracked open and the other Kevin stepped through. "Where do you think you're going?"
"What the hell is going on?" Brian backed away from the two of them.
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