All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 18: Not A Palm Tree In Sight

"Just that...some pop."

"You mean, that whole reality suddenly...disappears? Destroyed?" I asked my voice tight and weary.

"Yeah well...yeah..." he drawled and I could tell he was thinking of an explanation, "Some bubbles pop. End of existence, nature correcting course. Think of it as a spontaneous abortion. Some things aren't meant to be."

I sat up and whipped my head towards him. "That's horrific. You make the universe sound so callous...and calculating," I stared at him in disbelief.

He shrugged, "Isn't it? When the world is so full of calculating heinous things...and people? God made man in his image...remember...It must bear some resemblance."

"NO!" I shouted, but my mind flashed briefly to those moments in the hallway when we had both felt a pervasive sense of being hunted by something larger than either of us. Larger than the world. I shuddered.

"So...you believe the Universe is benign? Good even," he gently chided me.

I responded by looking out the window again.

"Don't measure the Universe up to your own standards, Emma. You'll only be disappointed," David said over my shoulder. I ignored him and continued to watch the fat raindrops roll down the window pane as it fogged up with my breath. One drop at a time. Soon I could barely make out the traffic lights outside the pane which became bleary through my exhalations. I closed my eyes for just a moment.

"Emma!" I heard a hoarse whisper. "Emma," I heard again.

I opened my eyes and it was pitch dark, with little lights twinkling off far in the distance. I inhaled sharply and realized: I wasn't in the car. I was deep in the woods.

With not a palm tree in site.

"Emma!" I heard the hoarse whisper again...coming from behind me. I slowly turned but it was much too dark to make anything out. I searched for forms in the night, but everything was shadowy blurs. Suddenly, I saw a tiny white flash of light around 10 meters in front of me blink once then once again.

I started to stumble towards the direction the light was but almost cried out in pain. I looked down at my feet and realized I was only in stockings, and my mind flashed back to the car when I had set both pairs of heels on the seat between David and me.

I began to try to tread more carefully now. It was difficult walking on a threshold of brambles and thorns in the dark. I realized I was no longer in my dress but a dark worsted woolen man's shirt with breeches held up by suspenders. Suddenly, a tall lanky figure was before me, and I heard an accusatory tone in my ear, "What the hell did you do with your shoes?"

I had to crane my neck up, but even before I laid eyes on him, I knew it was David. Or...the other David, rather.

I shook my head up at him and even in the dark I could see he wore a furious expression. "I don't know," I meekly replied.

"I should have known better than to trust you," he seethed, and I thought he was being overly dramatic for someone losing their shoes. "This better not be some sort of double-cross," he said while taking off his shoes and handing them to me, "I warned Joaquim you would be our undoing."

I took his shoes into my hand, unsure what to do, but his glare made me think I better just put them on rather than protest accepting his charity. As I did so, he began to stride away from me into the night.

"Wait," I called out before I lost all visuals of him completely. "Why would I double-cross you?" Double-cross...do people even say that anymore?

He didn't slow down for me and in spite of his now sock feet, he was hard to keep up with, ducking and weaving through the maze of the dark forest like he had night vision. Granted, I was being somewhat hampered by walking in shoes several sizes too large.