Chapter Four
Contact.
I don’t get much sleep and what little I do is riddled with nightmares. It’s still dark out. It must have only been a few hours since I laid down, but I’ve got a little more energy not much, but it’s enough. Still sore I find my way to my feet. I need to recover before I try anything so I eat a protein bar and drink some water. I stretch trying to ease out some soreness when I hear a vehicle stop in front of the church. “No rest for the wicked.” I whisper before heading toward the back door only to hear a thump next to it from the other side. I quietly head towards the bell tower intending to use my rope to get down onto the roof. I’m just a few steps up the tower when they break through both front and back doors. I rush up the stairs as quietly as I can getting my rope ready along the way. Thank god, my mom taught me how to tie knots. I tie one end around one of the pillars holding up the little roof above the bell in a way that allows me to retrieve it. I make it down to the roof and from what I can hear it sounds like I just missed them. It’s a bit too far to the ground for my comfort, but I have nothing to tie my rope to. I look for a relatively safe place to jump down and thankfully the shrubs up front are overgrown making decent padding. I brace myself and jump. I crawl my way out of the shrubs in a good deal of pain, but intact and grab my bike. I realize now how stupid it was to leave my bike out front even if it was a little out of sight it could still be seen from the right angle. Berating myself I make my way towards Trish’s house. Her doppelganger and its parents should be asleep. If they’re like my worlds Trish and her parents, they should have camping gear in their garage and I know where the key should be.
I get there a while later having to avoid what I can only accurately call patrols. I hide my bike well this time nobody should be able to see it unless they know where to look. As expected the key is right where it should be under the mat in front of the door. The door squeaks enough to make me wince hopefully it’s not enough to wake anyone up. Luckily for me they keep things as neatly packed as the real ones do. I should just assume these things behave similarly to the real ones, but I’m not convinced they’re not dangerous. I grab a tent, a sleeping bag, and an electric lamp making sure to grab a couple extra batteries. The light comes on in the next room and I hurry out the door grabbing a hatchet on the way. There’s a cave in the woods I remember from when me and Lucius played out there as kids. I figure it’s as good a place as I can find, but I have to make one more stop for some food and water. I head over to the fake Lucius’s house. His fake should live there alone save for a maid, but they should also be asleep and I know they never lock the kitchen window. That raid goes by without incident as I grab a lot of nonperishables, a can opener, and a spoon. I’m a bit weighed down but I can make it to the cave. It’s about half a mile from the crypt and I’m fairly sure no one besides me and Lucius should know about it. I pick up my bike and make my way into the woods. I know these woods well so it wasn’t too hard to find the cave despite how long it’s been. The entrance is small and I a barely fit both myself and the camping gear through. I turn on the lamp thinking I’ll have to gather some firewood in the morning. Looking around I see the old wall paintings we did like a couple of little cavemen. Memories come flooding back of playing here with Lucius before I remember this isn’t my world. These paintings shouldn’t be here. Wait is there another me to with no eyes and introverted colors. I can’t I…. I really hope I don’t run into that. I see no reason to use the tent so I set it by the rest of my stuff and get out the sleeping bag. I turn off the lamp and try to sleep.
A few days pass as I recover and do some recon on what appears to be a military field base constructed just outside the clearing. It’s set directly across from the entrance although they build a fence all the way around the clearing. The gates of the base appear to be the only way in. Judging from the leaves I threw on the fence it’s electrified. The survival and hunting tactics my mom taught on our trips sure have payed off. I’ve managed to evade the patrols that guard their base and the clearing. My hope is that if I go back through the crypt I can get home. The generator powering the fence is on the far side of the base. The guards are heavily armed and they have to store their gear somewhere. If I can get my hands on one of their grenades I can throw it over the fence and blow up the generator. Afterwards I’ll crawl under the fence a good distance away and run for the crypt. A supply truck is coming in tomorrow and I should be able to use it to sneak in. If there’s no grenades on the truck I’m going to have to find one before it leaves so I can sneak back out. Well I have a plan now all I got to do is wait.
The truck comes a bit late, but on the bright side the darkness gives me more cover. After it stops I quickly jump in the back which is only closed by a flap. It’s like a standard military supply truck. Unfortunately, there’s no grenades on the truck, but then again, I don’t see why they’d need that many to begin with. I jump out of the truck soon after it clears the gate and duck behind a tent. There doesn’t seem to be many guards inside the base so their easy to avoid. Finding the supply cache was even easier as it’s one of the few places with a standing guard or actually it might just be a quartermaster. I silently cut a whole in the back of the tent and crawl in. I look around for a moment until I find the grenades. I take one and then I think about taking a gun, but if this goes as planned I shouldn’t need one. I make my way back to the gate and barely catch the truck before it leaves. I get in position and practice my throw with a couple rocks waiting until no one was around to hear it. When I’m confident I won’t miss, I pull the pin and throw the grenade. I’m running to the place I decided to crawl through the fence at when I hear the explosion. Deciding not to wait I test the fence for a charge seeing that there is none and crawl under breaking out into a sprint immediately after I get through. I hear alarms going off and people shouting, but I don’t look back. It’s taking far less time then last time, but the run is still longer than it should be. I don’t hesitate at the entrance this time I run down the steps and stop halfway down. I try to repeat what happened the last time, but the stairs behave normally. I decide to walk all the way down the steps. At the bottom is just an unnaturally smooth wall. I place my hand on it. It’s warm and vibrations go through it like a heartbeat. I don’t know what compels me but I speak to it like it’s sentient. “Please take me back home to my world.” The whole crypt shakes and I hear what sounds like a giant moving behind the wall. As if it were turning to me and in a voice, that sounds like mountains shifting and shakes the crypt further. I’m not sure if I even physically heard it or if the words were placed in my head. “The world has not changed……. you have.” The words were as whispers yet carried more weight than anything I’ve ever even imagined. My head spins and aches with pain akin to a migraine as I try to process what I’ve heard or even how I heard it and what was speaking to me
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