Dimension 12 — The Reyen residence

19:43.

That afternoon, Kiri almost forgot about home, even if it was for only a few hours. There wasn’t much zei could say about it—no crazy robot fights, aliens emerging from people’s stomachs, or things that zei had seen in Uncle Jim’s collection of old science fiction movies. Anything zei encountered was similar to being at a friend’s house back in huir town. The delicious smell of spices wafting out from a home-cooked meal—in this instance, spices zei never smelled before but could easily believe existed on huir own planet. The sounds of a television—albeit the sounds were high-quality surround sound, and the screen was a hologram. It didn’t take much for Kiri to sink into the mundanity. Perhaps it was also because zei had become tired and resigned to huir new fate.

Zei prepared dinner with huir new acquaintance for an hour as they talked about their worlds. Well, at least the parts of them that felt right for the moment—mostly about food and what kinds of media they liked, and how much was different or the same about their worlds. When they were done, Sage convinced Kiri to play a new multiplayer adventure video game she had gotten recently. The sounds of the game eventually drew out huir sibling, Ileris. All three of them played. Kiri found it surprisingly easy to learn the controls. But zei supposed game technology made by humans or similar species couldn’t evolve that differently.

At some point, Sage and Ileris’ father, Danoko, arrived home with some delicious-smelling takeout. Sage looked perplexed that huir father didn’t remember zei was cooking tonight. They laughed about it, and Kiri couldn’t help but laugh, too.

They finished off the night with a TV dinner, which Sage suggested. They ate the meal Kiri and Sage had prepared together—plain, starchy purple roots with a potato-like consistency covered in a mild yellow creme sauce and a topping that was undoubtedly cheese. They watched a current hit comedy movie. Kiri didn’t understand most of the jokes besides some slapstick, but Sage and Danoko’s laughter was contagious at the very least. It was like Kiri’s dinners with uncle—cozy and distracting, but with three more people and just a little more awkward. Zei got the impression Sage suggested it on purpose, perhaps to make en feel like zei wasn’t some outcast at someone else’s family dinner. If that was the case, zei felt warm appreciation rise in en.

Kiri usually felt dread just after sunset. Maybe it was the fact that the light was gone, the darkness like an emerging cave in huir chest that invited all of the thoughts and feelings zei wanted to avoid. However, all of that dread was replaced with some odd, intertwining mix of anxiety and hope as zei and Sage sat under the warm lamplight of Sage’s plushie-riddled room. They discussed plans to get Kiri home in a group call with the friend Sage had mentioned so much.

Eberkerson. He was the same kind of pretty as Dadrien or Gabe from home. But there was something colder about it. Kiri didn’t pay much attention. Mostly averted huir eyes and tried to keep up with the game plan. They’d recruit another friend, Zeijien. They’d keep Kiri’s identity a secret. They might need to wait a few months for the portal device to be completed. But most importantly, zei would be getting home.

~ ~ ~

As the night fell, Kiri lay on the extra mattress that Sage had rolled out for en next to neir own bed. Zei stared at the ceiling. No one was in the room with en; Sage was supposed to be with neir mother at this time—an occasion that occurred every few months or so, and only ever for “business” related reasons. Kiri hadn’t ever had a parent, but still, what kind of parent did that? Even huir own uncle didn’t leave for that long, and even if nei did, nei at least checked in when nei could. Sage’s mother didn’t even do that, based on what Sage had pointed out earlier in the evening.

Homesick thoughts began to creep back into Kiri’s mind when zei thought about Uncle Jim. What was nei feeling? How was nei reacting since zei had disappeared? Maybe nei didn’t even know zei had disappeared since no one else in huir little town full of strangers had likely noticed, let alone spread the word. Nei probably thought Kiri was staying late at the community college campus for their pancake feast on Friday nights. 

Kiri kept wondering how soon zei would be able to get home. Sage had told Kiri that Eberkerson would help. But was that really possible?

“Home, huh?” Kiri whispered. Zei turned onto huir side and curled up like a tiny discarded seed thrown into hostile soil. 20 years, and this is what huir life had amounted to. Longing every day for a new life somewhere else, ending up in an entirely different universe, only then to desire to return to huir tiny, boring home in the middle of nowhere.

“Isn’t this what you wanted? To run away?” zei mumbled in huir home language and buried huir face into huir pillow. Huir face scrunched, and huir lips trembled from the threat of tears. “No… this isn’t how I wanted it to go.”

Muffled voices began to emerge from another room in the apartment. Zei thought nothing about them at first, and zei continued to toil in huir thoughts. Zei buried huir face in huir pillow. “But then again, would I have ever actually left without being forced out like this?”

The voices from the other room gained prominence in huir consciousness. Zei realized there was a new person besides Sage, Ileris, and their father. Distracted from huir thoughts, zei took huir head off the pillow and concentrated on the voices. The words were difficult to hear, but still distinct enough if zei made huir breathing shallow.

One high-pitched husky voice was obviously Sage’s. The other sounded similar, but it was slightly deeper and considerably more jaded. Perhaps the mother’s? The third deep voice belonged to Danoko, much softer and kinder.

“Well, isn’t that great? What else shall your servants do for you today?” Sage asked in an unmistakably sarcastic tone.

Danoko sounded distressed and worn out. “Sage, please. Why must you argue tonight? Don’t you have a guest?”

“No. You tell me why zei decided to come home tonight, of all nights, just to say that zei is moving us to a new house suddenly! Not to mention, on a whole other fucking planet?!”

“I’ve only ever made decisions for your best interest, ungrateful little girl,” the jaded voice seethed. “If you hate the idea, then you can move out. Go ahead, find a little apartment by your naive little liberal arts school and see what happens in the first line of fire. Regardless, your dad has already agreed to moving.”

Sage scoffed. “Hah! As if that was an issue for me. My problem is that you want to uproot Ileris—and for what? Because of a war you endorsed?”

“You think a war wouldn’t happen, regardless of what I vote for? What an assumption. The new house is far safer than this one in the case of a Risenen attack.”

“Oh, sure. I’m sure it will be totally not our fault in any way if Risenen attacks.” Zei mocked.

“Sage, please,” Danoko said exhaustedly. “Sorion, please, just stop.”

“Ungrateful prick!” Sorion’s voice boomed. “I have done more than you will EVER do to work for better causes.” Zei scoffed. “You can thank me when Rokon subdues Risenen, and we will be fully protected. When that happens, you will realize you and Ileris will have a home to return to in the first place.”

“You, working for better causes?” Sage laughed sharply. “You’ll start a war. A FUCKING WAR. I’m not so stupid as not to see that the harm is literally worse in the long term. You want me to get into the history? I’ll get into the history—”

“Oh, you think your little bit of history 101 amounts to real-life experience and uncovering the real atrocities going on? Those senergians would turn us exergians back to slavery if given even a sliver of a chance. Don’t you even know they still have monarchies based on their senergie levels? For fuck’s sake. You know absolutely NOTHING about their nature. I should’ve never let you study abroad in Risenen if I’d known you’d be like this.”

Sage sighed loudly. “Excuse you, there’ve been entire democratic countries with senergians and exergians living together relatively peacefully, yet Rokon sure loves fucking them over the moment they see some success with their shit lobbying tactics. So no, you don’t work for SHIT,” Sage hissed.

There was a sudden crash of dishes. A tumbling chair. Ileris could be heard yelping.

“Sage, Ileris, just go. Go to Zeiji’s tonight,” Danoko said sternly but remained at a volume wavering just above audible. “Why do arguments always have to happen between you two?”

There were sounds of footsteps.

“Sorion, let’s take a walk. You need to cool off,” the deep voice continued.

Sorion mumbled something.

Sage yelled back. It was closer to the room where Kiri lay. “And there you go, always taking mom’s side!”

The deep voice let out an exasperated breath and yelled back, “That’s not what I’m trying to do! I have a job abroad tomorrow, you know that. I’m just suggesting you go to Zeiji’s now instead of tomorrow morning. And Illy, you can go there now, too, if you want.”

Kiri quickly lay back down and closed huir eyes. Attempted to stay still. Didn’t even breathe. Something about listening to their argument gave en a brief respite from the downward spiral of huir thoughts, but now zei was flooded with a new kind of anxiety.

The light flooded into the room when Sage opened the bedroom door and stood there, silently silhouetted. Kiri kept huir eyes closed as if it would all just pass quietly, but it seemed that Sage already knew zei was awake.

“Sorry,” came sier hoarse whisper. “We have to go now instead of tomorrow.”

Zei propped enself onto huir elbows and watched nem as nei went to some drawers and began to pull out various clothes. Zei said nothing as zei watched nem. Carefully got out of bed and began to fold the sheets.

“You can leave it,” nei said, looking nowhere but down at the clothes. Nei sloppily filled up a backpack with clothes, books, and a small plastic bag of toiletries that seemed conveniently placed, like it was taken to travel often. “I am bringing some clothes for you to borrow, by the way.”

“Ah, I thankful am to y—I mean, I thank you,” zei barely managed to say.

Sage paused for a moment, huir hand lingering over huir bag. “I—I’m sorry that you heard all that. I just get so worked up, but when zei mentioned moving, I just—” Zei curled into enself like a turtle retreating into its shell. Kiri could’ve sworn zei heard Sage attempting to breathe back tears. After a while, nei said, “I know moving is probably no big deal. It’s just—I don’t even know anymore.”

~ ~ ~

Sage and Kiri, with Ileris trailing behind them, headed to the roof where the car was parked. It was drizzling and a bit cold. The air smelled salty, and it was hard for Kiri to believe zei was in the same grassy plains as Goldtown.

The drive was nothing more than rain pattering on the car and the bass-like thudding of the windshield wipers. Sage sat in the driver’s seat with huir arms crossed over huir chest while letting the automatic functions do their thing. The train traffic was few, and the cars were fewer, so Kiri could easily see the road’s glowing, holographic neon lines passing by. The buildings had a space-like quality to them at night. The windows were like little worlds. The bridges crossing everywhere were like starry trails. Like universes connected.

Zei looked at Sage next to en. Then zei looked through the wing mirror briefly at Ileris, who looked intent on staring as opposite from Sage as nei could.

Something about the situation made Kiri’s chest tighten. Was it because of the awkwardness? No…

For some reason, zei felt more—at home here? Like the people here in this car with en right now were more human and not just some vague concept in a vast universe zei didn’t know or understand.

Zei looked back out the passenger’s window, merely enjoying the sound of the rain and the windshield wipers. Began to doze off from exhaustion.