"Well, that whole thing was a bust." Phoebe took napkin after napkin out of the dispenser that was on their table.

May watched her, wondering only briefly what Phoebe intended to do with all those napkins, before deciding that she really didn't need to know.

"You've said that forty times, now," May replied.

"Yeah, but, you never know when saying it is going to hit just right."

There they sat in that strange diner that Phoebe had found. The overwhelming aroma of greasy food wafed through the air. May was pretty sure that the seat she was in was sticky and that she was somehow permenantly adhered to it. Her stomach growled and she watched Phoebe apply a layer of napkins to the table to protect her papers so that she could gingerly lay them out.

"Gotta protect my babies," Phoebe said.

May's eye twitched.

"Right. . ." May took a few napkins of her own. Briefly, she looked back toward where the waitress walked out of the swinging door of the kitchen. With an empty, growling stomach, she wondered how long it would be until a meal was reality.

At first, a thought crossed her mind; it was dismay at their inability to summon any portal. A second thought didn't just cross but flooded her mind afterward: Wait, am I totally sane? Oh, crap, what does it matter?

There was a clink on the table as the waitress placed down Phoebe's fries; just fries. She had only ordered the fries. Phoebe looked to the woman to thank her and May's stomach rumbled in hungry jealousy. Phoebe ate one half of one fry, remarked, "Damn, that's hot," and then went back to thumbing through her pages. "Anyway. I'm looking for any information on portals."

"Don't you know that off-hand?" May asked.

"What am I, Einstein?" Phoebe pointed right at a ripped comics page, yellowed and torn on the side, as if someone ripped it right out of a graphic novel. "Here. They jump from the tree. Bam! Portal time. They're in a whole new world. What are we doing wrong?"

"I have way too many answers for that question."

Running her fingers through her hair, May saw a little girl enter the diner, holding her father's hand. It took everything in her to quell the thoughts of her family being torn apart. She only reassured herself internally that something would be done to fix all of this.

Then, someone unfamiliar entered her brain again: "May? Are you listening?"

She turned. Nobody. Her heart thundered. She thought, Who in the hell is the voice in my head?

"Something wrong?" Phoebe asked. She was munching on scalding fries, periodically saying "ow", but continuing to put them in her mouth, anyway.

"Hearing. . . something. . ." May gulped, because she actually wasn't sure why she had said that out loud to another person. Surely, she hoped that Phoebe would be gracious to her about it.

"Wow. That's kinda scary. Are you about to lose it?"

Remembering that nothing was absolute with Phoebe, May left out a heavy sigh. Hearing a loud clang, she looked across the diner to see an older, gray man with a Trump hat who had thrown his keys down on the table.

"Maybe she's right," the voice said. "Maybe you're losing it. Aren't you?"

She looked all around. Beads of perspiration slid down her neck.

Phoebe eyed her, then started carefully slipping her pages back into her backpack where they belonged. "Hey, so, maybe you should just try going to the bathroom?"

"It's not--" May rubbed her temples. "Something's not right."

Scanning each and every face, she wasn't sure who she expected to see. There was no face to put to this voice. Yet when she turned to hold her hand in her hands, facing the table, she felt something brush against her. It was a person. May looked to see a familiar face. Er, she didn't know his name. But the young guy with the high-and-tight haircut, baggy clothes, and poop emoji tattoo on his neck was someone who she recognized from school.

Wait a minute, how do I know him?

He stared down at her. She stared back up. Deciding that it was irrelevant how she knew him, May realized that she had started hearing that terrifying voice back when they were still on campus. He had been on campus. She had seen him coming out of a shared class with T, once, as she remembered her and her ex-partner laughing about the tattoo later on.

This boy grinned at her.

Just as he expected, his voice was the same as the one she heard when he opened his mouth to say, "Telepathy's a funny thing, isn't it? Maybe not funny ha-ha. Perhaps, actually, if you're into that sort of thing."

"Huh?" May felt her whole body tense up, the muscles practically squeezing her.

He went on: "I knew this friend with a kink who—Actually, nevermind. I'm here to kill you so I'm gonna shut up, now, and stop talking."

Phoebe lunged forward, as if she'd been counting on action for some time. "Finally," she exclaimed, grabbing the napkin dispenser. "Some action!" She hurled the metal dispenser at him, nailing him right across the side of the cheek.

All eyes in the diner were on them.