The door opens into a world of flames. Were they—had they gone back? No. Here is different. It was raining here, but no storm could keep the fire at bay.
This was a house once, by the looks of it, it held a family, now it is a skeleton of cinders and toppled bricks populated only by the deathly wail of a child.
Where? Where is that coming from? Still in their formalwear, the two scurry through a downpour that was equal parts water and ash.
Stories echo and weave and rhyme. They twist and shift with every retelling. Standing in a burning building, surrounded by a terrible wail, a child in danger. Colin and Alex feel like they had stepped into an echo. It is deafening and disorienting. They could worry about where, when and how they are later. First, find the child.
Colin finds the door first. Tries to kick it in to no avail. He pulls a tool from his pocket. What was happening? The reading are gibberish, his psionic scan a mess.
Alex joins him and sees the door. She takes Colin’s hand, and he takes hers. They ram into the door with all their strength.
The crib. A child is in the crib. It is coughing and crying, and it is in pain. The two interlopers scramble to get the child to safety.
Now, they are a block away, looking back at the cinders of a home. Some brick potions still stand, but those parts are now without a whole.
“Well, I’ll say it.” Colin breaks the silence, coddling the infant in his arms “This is not where we were meant to be headed.” The child whines in agreement.
“Where are its parents?” Alex half-whispers. “Did you see any—” Her question is cut short by Colin’s negatory nod. “Where are WE?”
“Coordinates unknown,” Colin says as he looks to the sky. A few stars can be see through the clouds. There was no information to be found there.
Alex looks around at the buildings that were not on fire, at streets not only empty of firefighters, but of anything. The world may as well be abandoned save for this child. “Some kind of Earth? Equalivant to our Early to mid twenty-first century?”
The Quantum Quidebook provide no information either, currently doing it’s best impression of a drunk e.e cummings.
A hospital, they need a hospital or a shelter or some place this child would be safe. They certainly couldn’t be trusted with it.
The infant whimpers, but does not cry, as Colin cradles it close. “It’s going to be okay.” Colin whispers.
The sky made up for how little water fell from the child’s face. The had entered downtown. Colored light of lively buildings fill their view, yet the streets are largely empty.
That one! It has a green circle emblazoned on it from every angle, inside the circle a strange symbol, it seems half translated, as though Alex and Colin’s minds had received the meaning without the word.
It means Medicine. Safety. It meant ‘Help is here’. Is it their joy of finding such a place, or were the signs really that bright? For a moment they think it too convenient. But this does appear to be the center of the city, a hospital ought to be around here, oughtn’t it?
The building was definitely a hospital, the smell unmistakable, they entered, and the petrichor of the streets gave way to the chemical sterility of a medical facility. Colin cradled the child closely as they approached the desk.
A young woman looks up at them. “Can I help you?”
“Unclear.” Alex answers.
Colin gestures to the child. “We found this baby.”
“Found?” the woman raises an eyebrow.
“Uh, yes. In a housefire about a mile that way.” Alex gestures back the way they came. “No parents, they either left the child behind or… y’know.”
“I understand. We can keep an eye on the child, in the morning we’ll look into the fire and try to identify the parents.”
The travelers breath a sigh of relief. Colin hands over the child. The woman gazed into the infant’s eyes then looked back up “Sorry I didn’t catch your—”
The waiting room was empty. “—names”
Odd, even if they had rushed out the second she looked down, they should be visible out the glass door.
~~~
The Planet Kiwin in the Eld System of Universe 108.3434/Dragonfruit.Phi-8 was almost entirely ocean. The only land was a five-kilometer wide ring of soft golden beach wrapped around the entirety of the planet. Pristine. Untouched. Uninhabited.
And yet, approximately halfway between the poles, there was a worn wooden door frame resting on the sand.
The door opened, spat out two humans and disappeared as abruptly as a it arrived.
Colin brushed himself off, Alex breathed a sigh of relief. “Kiwin. Lovely choice”
“Aye. I like chaos as much as the next interdimensional traveler, but I think we deserve a break after…that” Colin said
Alex nodded “We did okay. I think.”
“With the library or with the baby?”
“Both I hope. Any signs of what that last world was?”
Colin glanced through the Quantum Quidebook. “None. Some sort of paracausal eddy warping our doorway. Care to check?”
Alex took the book. “Weird.”
“Incredibly so, never heard of such a thing.” Colin nodded.
“No one left to consult.” Alex unconsciously brushed the scar under her eye.
“No.”
There was a sad pause. They really were alone. Together.
“Have you got the sleeping bags?” Colin asked.
Alex checked her pockets. “Yeah.”
“Good. The second sun is setting.”
One tent, two cots, and a small sand castle later, it was time to welcome sleep. Colin was quick to dream. Alex was left to wonder, staring at the stars.
Infinite worlds, even all the lights in the sky but a leaf on an impossibly tall tree in an impossibly vast forest.
Never get used to it. That was rule number one.
She needn’t worry of course. After all, She and Colin were an infinite feedback loop of reckless childlike wonder. Slowly, long after the sand castle had washed away, she too faded into sleep. Alone on an alien world with her best friend.