LEA

When we both get back to the house, I sit stiffly in a chair, watching Chance. He's avoiding my eyes, staring instead at the carpet.

"Don't try to say that you don't know what happened." My voice is quiet, and finally he looks up.

"Wasn't planning on it." Chance says. It takes a while for him to continue, and he sighs right before he does. "This isn't easy to explain. But... I'm connected with the dimensions."

I stare at him like he just told me that his great-grandmother was a unicorn. "What does that even mean?" I get out, wanting to understand something in this whole messed up situation.

"Several years ago, I found a strange object in my backyard. Like any normal kid, I picked it up. Not knowing what it was." He stares straight ahead, and speaks in a monotone, like he's talking about someone else's life. "That's when I started feeling-sensing-the dimensions. There are hundreds of them." His voice dropped to a pained whisper, but then steadied as he went on. "I can control the monsters. With much difficulty, but I can. They won't..." He stops himself.

A thought occurs to me. "The portal you created. That wasn't an accident."

He shakes his head. "It wasn't an accident."

Hope blossoms inside of me. "Then you could get us back to the normal world. If you created a similar portal, and we both went through it."

Chance looks like he wants to disagree. "To create something like that, I'd need power from the dimension."

"Speak English."

"I would have to take the power from a monster, and use it to create the portal."

"You did it once!" I'm insistent, holding onto the one hope I have of getting home. "We could create a trap for the monster, and then use it to get home." I smile, which Chance doesn't seem to appreciate.

"Later. Right now I need sleep." He mutters.

I want to argue, but decide against it. From Chance's tone of voice, it sounds like he won't be doing anything tonight, whatever I say.

"Fine. Then tomorrow we try it?" Chance doesn't answer. "Chance, look at me."

Reluctantly, he lifts his grey blue eyes to my brown ones.

"Tomorrow?"

He looks down at the ground. "We can try it." His eyes look like they want to add something else, but he simply stares at one specific spot on the floor.

I sigh, standing up and leaving the room. Once in the room, I plunk down on the bed, running my hands through my hair. Everything is too much to take in, and I feel overwhelmed. Chance is connected to the dimensions, and can control monsters? Create portals? While being overwhelming, at the same time it's hopeful. He can help. I can get home.

The other thing that runs through my brain is Chance's reluctance. He made it seem like being connected to the dimensions was a bad thing. Then why doesn't he want to get to the real world? The original world?

I get under the covers, pulling them up to my chin. Nothing makes sense anymore. The world I knew before the end of school seems so small, and ignorant. Now I know so much more than I'd ever thought I would know.

I shut my eyes, but it takes much longer to shut my brain off. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll be home.