The duo sat side by side on a metallic bench, shaded by a series of trimmed foliage kept neat and proper that was nothing like the forests they were rapidly growing used to. They greedily enjoyed their food with gusto, not managing to maintain much of a conversation as they sated their starving stomachs. The two had managed to purchase two massive kebab-looking things from a random street vendor. They weren’t entirely sure how much money they had; however, they did know they’d only spent a single of their newly acquired coins getting their meal.

  The kebabs, massive in size stretching over a foot long, had attracted the two with its enticing aroma that managed to stand out amongst the mixing pot of aromas that spread throughout the air. The kebabs themselves were composes of various chunks of meat and vegetables that melted in the duos mouth combining into a variety of spice and flavor.

  For Alice, it was the single best meal she’d ever had in her life very nearly bringing a tear to her eye as she hungrily ripped bite after bite free from the kebab, savoring each juice-filled bite that sent flavor cascading over her tongue. For Jake, the kebab sent his mouth on a nostalgia-driven journey into the past as memories of similar tasting dinners shared with friends and family leaped out at him. Certainly, it was the most flavorful meal he’d had in a while. Finishing the last of the meal greedily, he set the stick of the kebab to his side, turning toward Alice who was still busying herself savoring the taste of their meal.

  “You really can’t understand anything they say?” He asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands.

  “I told you no!” Alice said, talking with her mouth full and sending a small cascade of semi-chewed food falling out to the ground. Embarrassed, she covered her mouth before glaring over at Jake and swallowing. “See what you made me do! That probably would have tasted good! And anyway, you think I’ve just been lying to you for no reason?”

  “Well…” Jake said, glancing away from her a small smile on his face as he paused theatrically as if considering the idea. He only stopped to continue the conversation when Alice punched his side hard, sending him sprawling across the bench. “Sorry, sorry. It's just that I didn’t expect to have to translate for you is all. You’ve understood everyone else we talked to so far.”

  “Oh joy,” she said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes, “I got to talk to the voice in the death corridor…” She let the thought trail off, catching herself and suddenly feeling uncomfortable about the very topic she’d brought up. “Anyway, why can you understand them?”

  “I don’t know, I was never very good with languages in school. Pretty sure my teacher passed me through Spanish 'cause I annoyed her too much.”

  “Spanish?”

  “Doesn’t matter. The point is I was never good at languages before. I think it has to do with a spell Lana cast on me.”

  “Jake…” Alice said, leaning forward her lunch finished and her patience waning “If you’re going to offer an explanation it has to be less confusing than what you’re trying to explain. Who the hell is Lana?”

  “Right sorry. She was…” Jake paused, unsure how to describe his relationship with Lana. In truth, they’d barely known each other, and in the short time they had known each other, their interactions had become more than just awkward. But still, she had saved his life numerous times…

  “She was a friend.” Jake decided with a nod before continuing, “Met her after I started falling between worlds. She’s why I had the book on magic…”

  “Oh!” Alice interrupted unintentionally, quickly covering her mouth as Jake stared at her with a baffled expression.

  In truth, she found that fact far more interesting than why he could understand the locals around here. She only had a passing interest in that, and wrote it off as just a side effect of why he kept falling between worlds or something. But this was something she’d wondered about for a while. She’d long wondered where Jake had gotten the book on magic, he'd already made it clear magic was unknown to him, so she guessed it wasn’t from his original world. So, learning this fact was of far more interest to her than their original discussion.

  “You good there?” Jake asked, raising an eyebrow as he watched her.

  “I’m fine, fine, go ahead please.”

  “Uh huh, sure. Anyway, she cast something on me when we met that let me understand them, let me read their language. I thought that was the extent of it, but I’m guessing it’s still translating. What exactly it does, I’m not sure, but…”

  “Wait, you just let some stranger cast…something… on you and you didn’t think to ask what it was?”

  “Well, it’s not like I could understand her!” Jake said defensively as Alice stared at him, a look of incredulous surprise on her face.

  “What are you talking about? You just said the magic let you understand her, why didn’t you ask her what it was after she cast it!” Alice replied, leaning forward her head resting on her hand as she further prodded Jake.

  “Hey, it was my first time seeing magic, ok? Plus, I was bleeding a lot, I wasn’t really thinking about…”

  “ALL THE MORE REASON TO ASK!” Alice interrupted exploding upward, arms raised high, a smug smirk on her face as she leaned forward pressing her finger into Jakes chest, “Honestly, how have you survived this long on your own?”

  “Lately…” Jake replied, an annoyed edge to his voice as he swatted Alice's hand away from him, “I’ve been asking how I’ve survived so long dealing with you.” She leaned back, laughing at him while Jake sunk into the bench with a defeated sigh, gaze locking upon the flying cars buzzing above just barely visible through the trimmed foliage overhead. His visage perked up at this, gazing up at swarming vehicles with a longing look. Seeing this as she lounged back, Alice sprang upright, grabbing hold of him.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Let’s move, Greenie!”

  “What now?” Jake asked, mocked annoyance in his voice as he offered no resistance to being pulled forward.

  “Well… now we’ve eaten, let's do some proper sightseeing, what do you say?”

  Lab 458 was one of hundreds of government-funded labs special for only one key reason. It was considered an absolute failure by all who knew of its existence, and these days that number was dwindling. The reason for this dwindling number was not because the lab was cloaked in secrecy or red tape but rather because no one cared enough to visit it, fund it, or even talk about it. It was a failure. A governmental in-joke.

  The lab's founder, Dr. Theadore Lewis, had once been considered a pillar of the scientific community, carrying enough clout around the public and private sectors to carve out governmental funding for his dream project. “Project Breach” as it would come to be known was designed to help Lewis fulfill his life’s dream, a dream he claimed came to him when he was a small boy. A dream of leaving the confines of this reality, of breaching through the laws of time and space themselves and crossing into a different dimension altogether.

  What exactly sparked this dream in Lewis, no one was quite sure. Most came to agree it was a form of madness, maybe an oddly displayed symptom of unforeseen trauma. But in the end, he was brilliant enough and respected enough to get his project running fully staffed, and while the rest of the scientific community pressed forward focused on advancing robotic, aeronautic, and biological advancements he focused solely on breaching the confines of reality itself.

  This was forty-five years ago. Since that time, the scientific community has made massive leaps and strides, and already Dr. Lewis was considered forgotten as his project stretched on and on achieving virtually nothing. Still, though, his earlier work and the little success his project did have commanded some respect. So his passion project was kept alive, its budget shrinking smaller and smaller every year. Now no longer did the lab always remain open, fully staffed. It had dwindled down to only two staff members, Dr. Lewis himself and an unpaid intern.

  That unpaid intern, Simon Park burst into the lab, red faced. He’d been halfway across the planet when he received the urgent call and it was only through taking three emergency hyperloop transfers, overpaying for a cab, and sprinting, that he managed to make it before the hour deadline given over the phone. In truth, he was fifteen minutes early, but he was to frantic to care about that right now, too excited to care about that now. His internship might finally bear fruit.

  Turning around to face him, Dr. Lewis smiled but did not stop moving. He was frantically dashing about the oversized lab, struggling to read monitors and man machines on his own. With a sigh, Simon rushed to help, prepared to earn his nonexistent paycheck.

  “This is insane,” Jake said, standing across from Alice as she leaned against a flying car left unlocked in an empty car park. Only a few other cars sat parked, well away from them.

  “Oh, come one! I saw you watching these things, you’re itching to try one, right? It’ll only be for a few minutes, we can just fly it around here…” She said gesturing around the mostly empty lot of the suspended car park “and then we can put it back, good as new! No harm no foul!”

  “First of all…” Jake began, pinching the brim of his nose, “We don’t have the keys for this thing! How do you expect to start it!” Alice blinked at him, looking confused before bending over and reaching into the inside of the unlocked car. “Look, Alice, let's just get out of here before…”

  “These the keys you were talking about?” Alice asked, tossing Jake a small key fob. It had no actual key on it, but Jake recognized the distinct shape of it.

  “Where did you find this?” he asked, mouth agape.

  “Just sitting in the door,” Alice said, pointing toward a small pocket carved into the door. Jake face palmed, internally wondering if the car's owner was asking them to steal it.

  “Come on!” Alice said, hopping into the car and sliding over to the passenger seat, “Let's go before it's too late!”

  “Alice stop, get out! I’ve only ever driven a regular car, I can't drive one that flies!”

  “Oh come on,” Alice said with a laugh as she leaned back enjoying the feel of the car's pushed interior. “How hard can it be? They left us the keys, they must want us to try it!”

  "That is true…" Jake thought to himself, realizing he’d been having the same thought just moments earlier. Taking a look at the outside of the car, it didn’t look too different to the ones he drove back home. Sure, they had actual wheels, but like Alice had said how different could it be?

  Jake had loved driving, it had been one of his favorite pastimes back home. As soon as he got his license, he’d often volunteer to run errands around the house or drive to pick his friends up. There was something about the control a car gave him, the freedom to blast music as he tore down the freeway at speeds he’d never imagined possible before. He loved that feeling. He missed it. He’d been fighting with himself to stop from jumping behind the steering wheel as soon as Alice had tossed the keys to him, but now that fight was over. It ended in utter defeat as Jake climbed behind the wheel of the car.

  “Just around the garage, it can’t hurt, right?”

  “Sure, sure! Whatever you say greeniEEEEEE” The end of Alice’s remark came out as a scream. As soon as Jake started the car it roared forward without any input on his end. Barreling forward, he tried desperately to regain some control but everything he tried failed miserably, only sending the car bouncing up and down like a pinball between the roof above and the floor below. High-pitched screams escaped both Jake and Alice as they scraped against one of the only other cars present in the parking deck before blasting into the deck’s walls. Yet the flying car didn’t stop. Dented and sputtering it took off, barreling into the city carrying its screaming passengers forward.

  “Nothing?” Dr. Lewis asked, sinking back into one of the many chairs that littered the lab floor.

  “I’m sorry sir, but no. We know where the breach happened, but whoever breached here has already disappeared. I checked recordings at the time of the breach and found a recording of these two, but they moved so erratically through the city I lost all sign of them.”

  Dr. Lewis took the pad offered to him by Simon, studying the magnified image in front of him. A girl and a boy dressed in blood-soaked rags and carrying luggage between them. They marveled at the city around them, moving to a railing to gawk. He saw the girl say something, something he couldn’t quite make out before the two were gone. They’d move out of the camera's line of sight toward the deck’s elevators. A sigh escaped him as he set the pad down, a sense of dread crawling up his spine.

  “I checked already, there's no residual tear. No residual breach. No residual energy. The only evidence anything crossed dimensions is these two…” He paused pocking the pad's screen as he looked up toward Simon, his young intern having a most confusing expression on his face. “We need to find them, wherever they are. I doubt I can get any help on this but I can try to contact the council and for them…”

  “I found them,” Simon said, tone trying to hide his surprised excitement.

  “What?” Dr. Lewis said, springing to his feet. Simon said nothing in response, only pointing behind the doctor toward one of the many monitors in the lab. Turning, Dr. Lewis saw an emergency news broadcast had forced itself onto every monitor in his lab. A second later he could hear the pad on the table beep as the broadcast appeared on its surface. Yet he didn’t care, didn’t need to check it anymore.

  WARNING: OUT OF CONTROL VEHICLE; PLEASE BE ADVISED TO CLEAR THE FOLLOWING AIRWAYS:

  A list of airways followed the warning, yet Dr. Lewis paid the warning itself no mind, focusing solely on what lay behind it. An image was attached, a still shot of the crashing vehicle as it barreled through the sky. Its passengers were clearly on display, a boy and girl screaming in panic, both cloaked in bloodstained rags.