How Many Men Does It Take To Get To Yemen?

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I needed to talk to Kore. With all the craziness in my life keeping me distracted and how our last talk went, I could not let thing stand as they were, especially after all this time.

I parked the moped out front, like last time. Except I had no pizza or anything to deliver. Just a bag with cheeseburgers, fries, and a couple milkshakes with napkins and a few utensils that always came along with these sorts of things.

I carried the bag with me, leaving my backpack and my bike behind, both discreetly webbed to stay still so no one could take either of them. That should hold for a couple hours.

Or for even less, if Kore decided to kick me out.

I really hoped this went well.

I knocked on the door a few times, as customary, before reaching for the door handle.

I placed a few fingers on it.

Then my skull began tap dancing on my brain. Sixth sense! Worse than ever before!

I needed to move! Now!

Too late. Reality distorted as everything began changing colors, colors I never knew, never saw before began appearing in front of me. Places, people, sounds, all foreign. Languages I never heard before other than in my languages classes. Faces, streets, buildings. Shifting and changing.

So much stimuli captured in a a fraction of a second. All of this as my sixth sense rang.

Because that was all it took. A fraction of a second.

And I was here.

In a dusty, sandy waste of an area as those annoying little particles blew this way and that all around me. I held the bag closer to myself. No sand was getting in this thing, even if it was getting in my socks and pants and shirt and everything else. I was going to need a shower and a change of clothes.

Was this an illusion? Teleportation? Had I traveled between alternate dimensions, ending up here? The past? The future?

Where, when, and how am I?

Not good. Not good at all. Thanks for asking.

My alien friend began stretching itself outward, ready to wrap itself around me and shield me.

I brought a hand up to my head before reaching forward outwards with it.

A signal for it to wait.

We might not be alone. Wait, hold on. Let me get a breather. I can't sense anything.

My sixth sense was still ringing in my skull. Whatever it was, my extrasensory perception of things beyond the conventional senses had resulted in a massive sensory, no, a massive information overload from this sudden displacement in time and space. Assuming it was such a displacement.

And not something else or worse entirely.

A general feeling of unease permeated me, tripled by the alien's own feelings of distrust, anxiety, and generally growing aggressive behavior. It wanted to move. Anywhere. Somewhere. Get somewhere safe or high up and get our bearings.

I crouched down to my knees, hugging the bag of fast-food and clutching it to my chest.

"What-what-what-what? What? What is . . . ?"

I set the bag down and brought both hands to my face, dragging it over as I gazed around myself, finally taking in what my surroundings looked like.

None of what I saw was helping. I don't want a panic attack. I haven't had that one in so long.

So I settled for airing out my problems with this whole situation.

"What the hell? What the actual hell?"

That seemed adequate enough.

Not.

"Kore? Kore, this isn't funny. This . . . "

No, this was not Kore's doing, was it? Why would she? Unless . . . no. I can't jump to any conclusions.

I just wanted to go home. I needed to go home.

We needed to go home.