The same experience of everything and nothing washes over me. I feel infinitely wise and still brain-numblingly empty. Worlds seem to fly by, as big as flecks of sand and as small as a galaxy. All of time and space is condensed into my eyes and pours out like tears.
When I’m thrown back out into the world—a world—the first thing I see is Holly lying on her back. I go tumbling into her, and land directly on her chest. She wheezes on impact, a flash of pain filling her face. Last, Aurora zips out of the portal, connecting with a cement wall.
We take our time to collect ourselves. Holly landed on a sidewalk adjacent to what looks like a one-car asphalt road, in the alley between two cement buildings two and three stories tall. There’s nothing immediately offputting. Are we back on Earth? Back in our time? In our universe?
“Did we do it?” Holly asks, echoing my thoughts. She dusts off her clothes and picks Aurora up, who, on top of being drained of energy, now also seems wobbly from impacting with a cement wall. “It seems weird to say, but I feel different. Maybe we are home.”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
I shrug. Maybe. Hopefully.
We look around for a moment. It doesn’t look like Sola made it. We lost them.
It’s not lost on Holly, either, whose shoulders slump. I can feel my heart breaking a little.
Together, we step out of the alley and emerge into what looks like a town square. Once again, there’s nothing that stands out to us, other than the square is jarringly empty for it being daytime. Please don’t be on Alpha Centauri still.
No, we can’t be on Alpha Centauri. The sky is blue, and the sun looks like the one back home.
We are home. We’re on Earth.
Suddenly, two men crash through the side of a building, one with his hands wrapped around the others’ neck. Anger fills the air as they scream.
“Die, Cados!” the one with his hands around the others’ neck shouts.
“Never!” his victim yells, sending some sort of shockwave out of his hands, launching the perpetrator off of him and into the air.
“Did you see that?” Holly asks.
The launched man recovers his footing as he lands in the square and raises his arm. Out from the ground sprouts countless ink-black tentacles, which whip out at the sound-wave man. Sound-wave man bounces himself into the air with a bass boost, and the tentacles barely miss, swiping pointlessly at the spot he used to be in.
Something tells me we’re not back home.