The Dimension of Us

Chapter One

Anna Wray

The story begins here.

Smashing the crystal dildo on the sidewalk wasn’t a bad idea, but she doubted it’d break. With her luck, she’d get a citation for indecency. And another for littering. Typical.

Rolling to a stop in the bike lane, Olivia adjusted her helmet, positioning it with two fingers at her brow, the way her mother had taught her. It was during one of her mother’s rare sober weekends. The memory let her pretend, for a moment, her childhood had been normal.

Pedaling again, knuckles white on the handlebars, she eased her grip, flexing her fingers one at a time. The path veered toward the park, the greenway on one side, traffic on the other.

The wind picked up, coming at her sideways. If she got off and walked, it would add another fifteen minutes. Her shoulders slumped. She just wanted to get back to her apartment and be alone. There’s no place like home.

“Damn it, for the love of god, just quit.” Her scream was muffled by the gusts.

It stopped. Not everywhere. Just around her. Trees bent, limbs twisted, pink Redbud petals danced with Star Magnolia blooms. They scattered throughout the park, covering the bike path, blowing into traffic where stoplights and power lines rocked, but no wind touched her.

The shiver crawling up her spine wasn’t from a chill. Back on the bike, the air around her, just her, stayed calm. Freaky calm. The Wicked Witch’s bicycle music from The Wizard of Oz popped into her head. She started chanting. Duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum-dum. She did it all the way home. Havoc on two wheels. Accurate.

By the time she slammed her apartment door shut, she was sure the bizarre wind episode hadn’t happened. Exhaustion and grief were messing with her head. She kicked off her sneakers and collapsed on the sofa, giving in to a hard, ugly cry.

It was dark out when she sat up. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she turned on the table lamp and emptied the backpack. She put her pumps in her bedroom closet and changed out of her suit and into leggings and a tee shirt.

Grabbing a ponytail holder, she knotted her long chestnut hair on top of her head, returning to the living room to face that damned crystal dildo. A dildo for wellness.

Diabolical.

She set the thing on the bookshelf before it broke a toe. Whoever carved crystal into an anatomically correct dildo had committed to the bit.

Most of the office assumed the gift would land like a joke, but Billie, one of her closest coworkers, didn’t do jokes. She did devotionals. The paperweight on Billie’s desk was a large crystal ball. She believed in mysticism, read tarot cards and palms, and yes, the predictions were dire, never anything good. She invited coworkers to séances and burned sage to rid offices and cubicles of evil spirits until she set off the fire alarm and all nine floors of the building had to evacuate.

Billie was sure a man would lift her spirits, and this X-rated rock was bringing him. Olivia sank into the chair. Billie knew she hated this woo-woo crap. They’d worked together for almost 10 years. They were statisticians, not spiritualists, for god’s sake. She’d like to wring Billie’s neck.

Her head flopped back against the cushion, the irritation draining as her eyes swept the room. The apartment was too quiet. There were no nails on laminate, no tail thumping, no warm, furry body to hug. Some mornings, she still reached for the leash. Stella had been gone just over a week, and the loss battered her heart. The apartment was still arranged around her, as if she might wander back in and take her place as the center of Olivia’s world, and no mystical healing crystal, dildo-shaped or otherwise, could fix that.

Forcing herself to sleep in the bed, she pulled up the covers, chilled by the spring breeze. Stella used to love these nights. With the window open, the temperature was dog-perfect. Stella would sleep with an ear up for neighborhood noises, stretching across the mattress, all four legs straight as sticks as she hogged the covers.

She’d been a retriever-hound mix with a thick white coat and a couple of brown spots. A mutt, no question, but Olivia never bothered with a DNA test. It was trendy, sure, to profile your dog’s genes, but it never mattered. Stella was hers.

The wind changed, becoming wild, and the curtains flapped against the wall, the window screen rattling in its frame. The air felt wrong, displaced somehow. Moonlight spread across the floor, and eyes appeared at its center, loving, calm, looking like Stella’s. Nails clicked softly against the hardwood.

Olivia grabbed her phone, yanking it from the charger. It flew from her hand and shattered against the wall, but it didn’t matter. She knew that head tilt, the uneven ears, the curve of Stella’s back.

The light intensified, bright enough to make her blink several times, and a low electrical hiss filled the room, like vibrating power lines. This was what happened when you combined sleep deprivation, grief, and a crystal dildo.

She’d spent weeks worrying about loss, sleepless nights listening for changes in Stella’s breathing, trying to decide whether the sound meant pain or slumber. She knew how to put off bad things, to postpone unpleasant endings. She’d wanted one more day, one more decent afternoon, one more morning of Stella lifting her head at the sound of her name. Dread and loss had unsettled her so much she couldn’t trust her own judgment.

She threw aside the duvet and stood, her legs weak. The last time she’d seen that face, the vet was carrying Stella’s body through the apartment door while she stood in the kitchen staring at the collar twisted in her hand. A couple of days earlier would have been kinder.

“Stella, good baby. Come here, sweetheart.”

She almost reached for her, into light that seemed harsh enough to burn straight through flesh. That troubled her less than it should. The beam widened with another pulse, the floor shuddering beneath her feet as the walls swayed, and strands of Stella’s fur lifted and drifted like snow.

She lunged for Stella, and a high, unnatural sound split the air. Pressure built behind her eyes, and she heard popping, like bones were breaking. The bright light encircled them, catching them when they should have fallen, stretching them. A violent jolt followed, and her body snapped back as if all her cells had been taken apart and then realigned.

The light sagged and gravity slammed back into her. Her knees buckled as her feet landed with a rough, dragging drop, like being released from a grip that had squeezed too long. The moonbeam surrounding them faded, the last shimmering particles vanishing, and silence rushed in, vast as a vacuum.

This was nothing like Earth.

Okay, props for the production value of her hallucinations.

Stella stood a couple of steps ahead, and Olivia staggered toward her. The ravine pitched sideways, and the ground shifted like water under her bare feet, but she didn’t sink.

Two figures faced each other on opposite ridges, no more than a football field apart. From that distance, the figures looked human, sort of. One had a sword at his side, and the other seemed ready to pounce.

Even without the intense light, it was bright for night, the world lit by three moons. Behind each sloping ridge, rocky heights touched the sky, their outlines jagged and forbidding, giving off a purple-and-silver glint like oil on asphalt. She tracked nothing green, no flowers, nothing alive in the rocks, at least not in this moonlight.

She reeled, a fresh wave of fear almost kneecapping her. Reaching for a collar that was no longer there, her hand sank into scruff, and digging her fingers deeper in the dog’s warm fur, she was comforted by the heartbeat beneath her touch. Her dog was here, real, alive. Mixed with the soul-crushing fear was heartache. Yes, she wanted Stella alive but not in this nightmare.

The one with the sword neared, silent until he was in front of her. She shook so hard her teeth rattled, and she almost collapsed. This was scarier than finding her mother dead in the bathtub.

That stare was cold, hard, and it didn’t just strip the clothes from her. It peeled back skin, and she almost crossed her arms over her chest. She’d never felt more like a specimen in a Petri dish.

“Welcome, you have crossed through.” His voice was accented but not in a way she could place.

“Crossed through? Through what?” Her brain scrambled for a logical answer and came up empty.

“To the 10th Dimension.” His voice was remote, without inflection, as though giving directions to the post office.

“Oh, hell no.” She shook her head, a wild laugh escaping. “Okay. Very funny. You can stop now.”

He pointed to Stella, his gloved hand so dark against his clothing she couldn’t tell where it ended and he began. “The Guide brought you. Your powers are needed.”

“Powers? What the hell are you talking about?”

Her only power came from unresolved emotional damage, otherwise known as the power to not give a fuck about anything other than Stella. And her career.

“Your magic,” he said.

“My magic? Okay, note to subconscious, good one.” She hated that she stuttered, hadn’t done it in years.

She saw his eyebrow lift. “What? Yes, I talk to myself, so what of it?”

But her attempt at denial was failing her. Maybe this was proof her social media algorithm really would drop her anywhere. Going down rabbit holes had to stop. But why was she kidding herself? This seemed real, not a bizarre nightmare.

Don’t show fear, be bold, panic later.

He watched her, and she glared back but took him in. He was tall, lean, and yeah, he was handsome, if you had the hots for aliens, that is. His eyes had a striking iridescent thing going on. Closer, she could make out the dark grey or black combat-like clothing. He looked like a medieval soldier in a video game.

“I am Nave, the commander.”

Okay, trying to be a bad-ass wasn’t going so well. “I don’t understand.” Her words came out in a whisper.

He pointed to the figure watching them from the opposite ridge. “We must go. For your safety.”

“My guy, no.” Even to her own ears, she sounded hysterical. “This is insane.”

“You are here to help us defeat them,” he said.

She closed her eyes, fighting the dizziness, balancing her weight evenly on each foot to stay upright. “You’ve dragged me to another Dimension to defeat someone? Me?”

“Yes, come. We are at war.” He took her hand.

She tried to shake free, but her movements were slow, like in water aerobics. Wonderful, she was crying in front of this alien commander.

“Soon you will see.” His voice was deep.

Her vision tunneled. Whether she’d snapped or crossed into the 10th Dimension, she wasn’t sure, but the terror was real just the same. Her legs gave way. This was that moment right before death, and in her fist the wad of Stella’s fur was solid, undeniable.

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