by Joseph Calev
Deep within Jason’s stomach, his waffles seemed to come to life and proceeded to tear at every one of his organs. He looked directly at Raynee and attempted to utter something, but was incapable. This was far different from any previous ache. His entire intestines felt like they were tightening, while every piece of food he’d ever eaten now wanted its way out.
“You’re a great turnip,” said Raynee with sad eyes. “I wish it didn’t have to end this way.”
Jason took one step forward and stooped over. The water was nipping at his feet, but there was something coming up in its midst. The shape was difficult to decipher, and even after a prolonged stare was nothing more than an amorphous white patch.
“Can you hear me?” she shouted, but he was no longer paying attention.
Something jolted through his body and Jason glanced down in expectation of a direct laser hit, but his body was intact. His insides, though, most definitely weren’t. His body went limp, then he collapsed into the rising tide.
The last thing he saw was Raynee’s blurred silhouette through the water. Her dark hair flowed like a painting and her light skin looked perfect. Something about the fading vision made her appear even more beautiful.
“Oh, shit,” she shouted.
6
Now, in retrospect some may think that this was when everything turned to color for me and there was a glittering yellow brick road complete with singing Munchkins. That would’ve been true, had the road been the I-5 Interstate and every Munchkin was prodding me with cattle irons.
One moment I was watching a menacing robot army devour the only city I’d ever known, the next I was cast into this vortex of confusion. Before Raynee, I’d never been beyond Tacoma, but here I was. Did I even exist? Had I died?
A moment later I was back in the fire and the chaos and a bunch of huge robots with a perplexed Raynee in the middle. I puked right onto one of their visors and that was enough to know that I was still alive, at least until I felt like a pancake held between irons. The world went blurry again.
I’m not sure what concerned me more at the time. On the one hand, my eyes were going completely buggy as if the optometrist went crazy with that puffy air thing. On the other, I suddenly couldn’t breathe, though not for lack of air. My lungs simply forgot how to do it, and my nose and mouth had also called it quits.
My ears buzzed like a heavy rock concert, jackhammer, and the 1812 Overture all played simultaneously. Yet the weird thing was I could hear a caterpillar munching on a newly sprouted leaf and a feather landing on the floor at the same time. My nose probably couldn’t breathe because it was being overwhelmed with every scent unknown to mankind. I smelled something like a banana that was put in the blender, dashed with cinnamon, next day aired to Vanuatu, then slowly roasted over a volcano. Yet my sense of smell was so strong that I felt able to predict which island and side of the volcano.
I felt like a revolving door had closed in on me, then spun off its bearing like a gyroscope on a tabletop. Every bit of my stomach was ready to reappear as I was slammed from side to side. Then I was falling.
I was above some field. At least I think it was. My eyes still couldn’t focus, so I barely made out some distant grass and lots of clumps in the dirt. Of greater concern, though, was that my body was hurtling toward it.
The ground was approaching so quickly that I barely had time to close my eyes. Only nothing happened. There was no thud, nor even a whiff of fresh dirt. I opened my eyes to see the thick earth moving by. I was now deep underground, but somehow, I was passing straight through it. I wanted to scream but was worried that my mouth would be stuffed with fresh dirt, though my skin felt nothing but coldness.
A force pulled me in one direction, and then I heard her voice. It was Raynee, screaming for me. I tried to will myself over to her, but I had no idea either how to move or where she was. I didn’t even know where I was, but her voice was louder, so she was closer. At last I felt her soft grip on my arms. Her touch felt strange, so smooth and gentle that I swore I’d never felt anyone before. Yet this wasn’t the calm and controlling Raynee I knew. She was panicking.
“I’m so so sorry!” she kept yelling, but I was in no position to respond.
Then a light breeze hit my face and I was lying down, with hard dirt underneath me. My vision was still fuzzy, but I sensed some bright white light above. Everything else was black. She was shaking me, but that only made things worse. My body began to convulse. Electric shocks rippled through my toes up to my nostrils.
“Somebody! Help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
There was some mucous on my eyes preventing me from seeing her clearly, but her warm hands tried to stop my convulsions without success. She seemed to reach down and take out some device.
“This is an emergency,” she stated through quick breaths. “I’ve no idea what happened, but I have a turnip. He’s here. I have no clue how.”
She leaned her face inches from mine. Had my arms not been shaking faster than a rock tumbler, I might have held her.
“Hang in there, Turnip. That reverse decombulator must’ve messed with you somehow. We’ll get you somewhere safe.”
She lowered her head to listen for my heartbeat. Suddenly my head felt like it had landed in a pile of defibrillators and then I shot up so fast that I nearly knocked her over. Every sandwich, breakfast cereal, and burger that I’d ever eaten wanted out at that very moment. I leaned over and threw up. Though I felt everything spew up my throat, nothing came out.
Four white lights were hovering over us now, accompanied by the steady hum of some vehicle. It was landing near us, with the pitch of a large aircraft. Dust particles hit me for the first time and my tongue lapped them up like it had never tasted anything before.
“What happened?” a gruff voice next to Raynee asked.
“I don’t know. I was in the turnip patch, then he fell through.”
“That can’t be,” replied another voice.
A bright light peered into my pupils. Someone else grabbed my hand and placed a device on my wrist. Every part of me started to convulse quicker. Then I was either on a stretcher or levitating. I couldn’t really tell with every muscle not cooperating and my eyes only showing me a fuzzy mess.
Then everything was bright and I heard the whirr of engines. Raynee sat next to me. I could recognize her bright eyes and shape anywhere. I felt the warmth from her hands, but she didn’t touch. She smelled like every fragrant flower in the world: rose, gardenia, plumeria, and a bunch of others I’d never heard of, mixed into one. It was intoxicating.
“I gave him a reverse decombulator. We have to get him back! It’ll wear off.”
They placed some heavy black device on my head. A tube slithered down my throat; I gagged and fought it. It felt like a dozen centipedes were crawling loose in my stomach, though there was nothing left. I’d puked everything else out.
“You gotta see this,” said one of them to the other.
My arms were now moving straight up and down with my legs, as if they intended to march off that gurney. They only succeeded in knocking away some equipment.
“He’s dying!” Raynee cried.
“It is a decombulator,” muttered the second technician. “But how?”
“No,” Raynee shouted. “I said a reverse decombulator! So, he could touch a higher dimension.”
“He’s not dying,” one of the technicians said.
That brought relief, though my body was no better.
“It’ a decombulator. Only I’ve never seen one like this.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“He’s one of us. Only he had one heck of a decombulator. Even allowed him to eat and drink. Covered every single system.”
Her hand grasped mine. It felt small, but more real than any grasp I ever remembered.
“So, you’re screwing with me?” she said to me.
Of course, I couldn’t reply. My teeth were chattering in between my mouth opening and cl
osing like a fish. I still have no idea how I didn’t split my tongue into two.
“I don’t think so,” one of them replied. “This is professional stuff. This kid probably had no idea.”
The engines whirred down and I felt the craft landing. Again, I was floating somehow. This time I couldn’t feel anything underneath me. My limbs were wailing in the air with nothing to harm.
Raynee’s sweet scent grew dim. She was leaving. I tried to beg her to stay, but my mouth only uttered gargles with that damn tube down my throat. I tried to move my hands to rip it away, but arms on either side caught me. Still, I was relieved that I managed to move them myself.
The last thing I remember were several needles plunging into my skin. I attempted to gargle the start to a question, but never finished. Everything went dark.
*
I awoke to a dim room. Tremendous breaths left my lungs like they’d never been exercised before. I could discern objects for the first time, though there wasn’t much to see. The walls were bare and the only things of note were the bed I was lying on and a small light from the corner, where someone sat.
There was only a silhouette, and when I tried to pull myself up to get a better look, Raynee raised her hand.
“You’re one major asshole,” she said.
I didn’t pay much attention to the words since her voice sounded so real. I paused for too long just listening to the air move in and out of my lungs.
“Nothing to say?” she demanded.
“Where am I?”
She sighed. “I’m the one asking the questions. Where do you think you are?”
“Seattle? Actually, am I still in Bellevue, just at the hospital?”
“Try again.”
Everything in my body buzzed the moment I moved. Nothing felt like this back home. My entire previous life felt like watching a 3D movie without the glasses.
“I’m where you’re from.”
“That’s better. Now where are you from?”
“But where is here?”
She groaned. “Stop screwing with me. You never were from stupid little Bellevue, on insignificant Planet Earth, in the Milky Way galaxy of an unspectacular universe. You’ve always been beyond the third dimension.”
“Dimension?”
“Yes. One of trillions. Stop playing stupid.”
I was royally confused. “So . . . there are more dimensions?”
She stood and I sensed that I was really pissing her off, though I really had no clue what had happened. “But, I still don’t know where I am.”
“You really have no clue? You’re here.”
“That’s not helping.”
She drew a deep breath. “You’re playing with me, but fine. The universe where we met was a simple three-dimensional one. We’re way more than that.”
“I have more than three dimensions?”
“Yes, you idiot.”
“Then why can’t I see my own eyeballs?” I tried to sit up again. This was becoming one extremely involved joke.
“You tricked the medics. They’re all like ‘never in history has this happened,’ but I know this was all you. The only reason I’m still here is curiosity. How did you do it?”
I so desperately wanted to reply “Do what?” but I knew that would infuriate her, and she was all I had now, so I stayed silent while she fumed.
My fingers rolled over the blanket that comfortably but firmly pinned me to the bed. Every fabric I’d ever caressed was plastic compared to the simple hospital sheets over me. Every fiber jolted me. The current of this entire place sent vibrations everywhere. I’d never felt such things before, or had I? There was that buzzing sensation when she held my hand.
“Did Mordriss do this?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Now that’s a real bullshit move on your part. You know what he did here. How dare you insert him into your little world.”
I was completely lost now. How could I insert whoever he was anywhere? What was she accusing me of? And then I knew. “The waffles,” I blurted out. Their syrupy remains were now the only thing remaining in my stomach. Everything else had been hurled. “I think they did something to me.”
“Congratulations, genius.”
I pulled myself up, but then felt immediately dizzy and collapsed back down.
Raynee stood and waltzed over to me. “You have them fooled, but not me,” she whispered, and a sudden force began to constrict my neck. “Now I don’t know if you’re just a joker, or someone more serious, but I’ll find out.”
My arms tried to reach for my neck as my throat shut. Raynee only glared at me with knowing eyes. “And if you do have anything to do with Mordriss,” she said in a seething voice, “you’ll wish I’d never found you.”
7
Raynee was gone by the time air resumed circulating through my lungs. In her place was an orderly, who calmly injected me with something that knocked me straight out. Before that, Raynee’s comments about the medics echoed through my brain. Even they didn’t know what happened.
Wherever I was, this was new for all of us.
I awoke in a white room this time, complete with an old woman. She had the wrinkled skin and long grayish hair, but wasn’t so old that I couldn’t fear that she’d beat the daylights out of me if need be.
“You must have a lot of questions,” she said, in the understatement of the year.
I lifted my arm, and after my previous travails with bodily control, thought that was pretty neat. I smiled.
“I’m sure you want to know where you are,” she said with a sweet voice.
I nodded. It was about time someone explained this.
“Before I tell you, we need a basic physics lesson.”
I tried desperately not to roll my eyes. Physics certainly wasn’t one of my stronger subjects. Ever since that professor had booted me from his class when my mother, rest her soul, had left me there, it had stained me with a black mark. The police had spent the entire day figuring out where I lived, until my mother arrived to pick me up and they had a little talk with her.
“There are five fundamental forces,” she began.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Gravity, electromagnetic, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear.” Please don’t ask me how I remembered that, though I couldn’t recall the fifth one.
“Not really. Those are from your old world. Here, they are different. I won’t bother you with their names now, but those forces you mention only exist within the three dimensions, or four if you include time, where you previously existed. They don’t apply here, or in any other dimension set.”
“So, I’m in another dimension set?”
“Yes,” she said with a smile.
I felt like a genius, though later I realized she was treating me like a moron. This was baby stuff to them.
“Because objects in a dimension set exist from their basic forces, objects from one cannot interact with another. That’s why we have decombulators and reverse decombulators. They’re kind of like shields that prevent one set of forces from completely annihilating others.”
“So, I had one of those decombobulator things in me this whole time?”
“Decombulator. Yes.”
“But now I don’t.”
“That’s correct.” She forced a smile, but I knew it was the damned waffles.
“So why was I there?”
“We simply don’t know.” There was sadness in her eyes, and something told me she wasn’t lying.
“Where’s Raynee?”
She shook her head. “She seemed most unhappy when I saw her.”
That kind of burned me a bit. Here she’d popped up in my life, ruined my preconceptions of the entire world, sliced off some stranger’s hand, invited lizards and giant robots to destroy my world, and then blamed me for it. My life right now, compared to hers, was pretty fucked up. Still, she was hot, so I forgave her.
“So, what about my parents?”
“I assume you’ve figured out by now that they never w
ere your parents. They weren’t even from the same dimension set. If you were on one, and are now in three, then they were in two.”
I nodded, though felt a bit sad about it. They weren’t bad guardians. They were just incredibly weird. The thought, however, that my real parents were still out there, occurred just then. Maybe they would even pick me up, and for the first time I’d be part of a real family. Yet, based on how serious these people were, I doubted that.
She stood and looked down at me in my hospital bed. “And about your real parents . . . no. We have no idea. You’re quite a mystery to us.”
I pulled my neck up and scanned the room. It was completely white. There wasn’t even a door. Just this bed and white walls, and a chair. The ceiling was white too, but contained no light fixtures. There was no indication how the room was lit, but it was.
“This world looks kind of boring.” I laughed a little.
“I’m sure you think that, given what we’ve showed you so far.” She smiled. “We felt that full exposure to this world would be a bit of a shock to you, so we designed this room to bring you along gradually.”
“When will I see it?” I asked politely, though underneath felt that all this caution was ridiculous.
“Your lungs have never been used before. Every part of your body has to relearn. There are great medics who will help speed that along, but it’ll still be a couple of days. When the time comes, I’ll be back here to pick you up. You’ll be living with me. My name’s Annie.”
Annie said her farewell, then left me alone in that empty white place. My stomach gave a terrible thunder, and it occurred that the easiest way to both see more and obtain some grub, was to find a way out of this room.
As practice, I kicked my legs up and down. They worked. I did the same with my hands, and was delighted to see they were fully functioning. My toes wiggled just fine, and my fingers felt ready for a piano concert. This was easy! I tried to sit up, but other than tilting my neck, I was stuck there. This was only a slight setback. Since everything else worked, all I had to do was slide from the bed and push myself up. I grasped both bed rails and threw myself off.