Some folks resonate with the age-old adage, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans." Some cling to Murphy's law of, remembering that anything that can go wrong likely will. However, wind, rain, thunder, and flashes of lighting sending May and Phoebe looking for cover likely wasn't any of those things rather than simple igorance. After all, they had battled the wind sweeping away pages of Phoebe's story, so it would stand to reason that a storm might be on the horizon.

Screaming and hollering along the way, the two doubled back to their tent to take shelter. Phoebe unleashed a horrified shriek when a particularly strong gust of wind stole just one of the stakes of the tent on one corner.

May, in contrast, couldn't help but giggle just slightly at how the usually over-brave Phoebe had screamed like that.

"Are you scared of thunderstorms?" May had asked.

But Phoebe had wrapped herself up into a ball, her eyes wide. She flinched every time that a boom of thunder or crack of lightning let loose. "Me? Afraid? Actually, hell yes. And a lot, too."

Theirs wasn't the type of friendship where May wondered if the right thing to do was to go over and put an arm around Phoebe, or offer to hold her hand or whatever. Yet after some time of enduring the storm together, May gently said, from across the tent, "I bet they don't have thunderstorms in other worlds like they do on this one."

"Actually—" It was like Phoebe suddenly recognized what was happening. Therefore, a frightened little grin appeared on her face. "Yeah. No storms. How about that?" Her voice became light and dream-like.

It took all of two minutes of them exchanging warm smiles for Phoebe to say, "I really enjoy this lesbo-erotic vibe we've got going."

"Nope."

"What?"

"You ruined it."

"Huh."

"Yep. Now I'm going to go out and stand in the storm."

But they both laughed. Listening to the rumble of the thunder outside, May wondered what her mother was able to do—could she fly, too? Had she ever been to another world?

Soon enough, there were longer gaps of time between bursts of lighting. There was less thunder that felt as thought it rumbled the entire Earth around them. Less rain pounded down onto their tent. Both young women had just been discussing that if they gave it a few more hours and things weren't so incredibly wet, they might go back to the portal and give it another try. Possibly, it could wait until morning.

Out of nowhere, Phoebe's eyes went wide. She blinked several times and muttered, "What are you talking about?"

The peculiar thing was that May had said nothing first.

Phoebe put a hand to her head. "This isn't about my car's extended warranty, is it?" she said.

"You good?" May asked. "Or are you losing it over there?"

"One second, let me put you on hold, she's asking me something." Phoebe looked toward May. "Do you ever get any calls that skip your phone and go right into your brain? I recently downloaded some update to my phone and I didn't know it included that, yet. But! I'm not surprised."

"I. . . don't think that exists." Then, May sat up, her heart thumping harder than any thunder. "Wait a second! You're not hearing the sound of someone speaking to you, are you?"

"Yeah, some guy. Sounds familiar."

"Phoebe!"

"Wait a minute, I've got someone on the other line."

"Phoebe, that's the guy from—"

Hearing a rustling noise outside the tent, May twisted around to look behind her. A moving shadow was visible outside. Her heartbeat quickened so much that it could have run track in the Olympics. Crouching down closer to the ground, May whispered, "The guy from the diner can get inside your mind! He was talking to me inside my head, before! That's probably who it is!"

"What?"

May shushed her. Phoebe brought her body closer to the ground.

Then, his voice rang out clear in May's head: "Sorry about the wrong call, May; your room-mate is a real weirdo. Anyway, I'm going to find you, I swear."

She tried not to think about her location; honestly, she didn't know if it was a one-way call or if he could extract things from her mind.

Phoebe started to say, "But outside—"

"Be quiet!"

Two sets of voices from outside the tent became aparent. May could see a flashlight shining.

While getting her body even lower, Phoebe added, "I was just going to say, that doesn't sound like Diner Knife Guy, it sounds like. . ."

May gulped the moment she knew who's voices she heard. "My dad and father. . ."