Dimension Walker

| chapter seven |

BROCK

I check the time, waiting for Lea's parents to get here. They called yesterday, asking to come over and talk to me specifically, although they phrased it like they wanted to talk to both of us.

It's been a couple days since I saw Lea vanish, and her face had just appeared in the missing person section of the newspaper. I could only imagine what her parents felt when they sent it in.

A car pulls up in the driveway, and I get nervous all of a sudden. They'll probably think I'm crazy. At this point, though, they have no one else who says they saw what happened to her. Besides me. The nerd at school who barely even knew Lea.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones get out of the car and head for the front door.

"Dad," I call out, "They're here."

My dad comes out from the hallway, and stands next to me while we wait. He looks down at me seriously, looking like he's trying to find the right words to say to me. Finally, he speaks. "Son, don't give them false information." He holds up a hand to stop my protest before it had fully formed in my throat. "If you are sure you saw what you saw, then tell them exactly what happened." The door knocks, and I start forward, before my dad stops me. I raise an eyebrow, and he smiles. "We'll find her."

I nod, and then go to the door, opening it.

Lea's parent's smiles are fragile, as if they might shatter at any second. And I understand why completely.

I open the door fully, stepping to the side. "Come on in."

They do, and my dad takes over from then. "How about you all sit down, and we can talk about this."

They sit down on a couch, and my dad and I sit in chairs opposite them. No one wants to break the silence for a long time, wanting someone else to. I sigh inwardly as I figure I'll have to be the one to break it.

"So..." I start, and Mrs. Jones' head snaps to face me, looking desperate.

Thankfully, she doesn't require me to say anything else to start the conversation. "We're looking for any information about Lea. Her friends say she didn't meet her, although she had texted them she was on her way."

I start talking, telling them step by step what happened, right after I saw her disappear. Both of them look confused, and disbelieving. Of course they would eager to believe you. I think sarcastically. You just said that someone literally vanished in front of you. Doesn't that sound normal to you?

"And... you're sure that's what you saw?" Lea's dad has a low pitched voice, and he is speaking slowly, as if to make sure I understand.

I glance at my dad, who doesn't say anything, and then back to Mr. Jones. I recall seeing Lea vanish again, and I sound stronger, more convinced when I say, "Yes, I'm sure."

"Where would she have gone?" Mrs. Jones sounds desperate again, and I feel horrible as I shake my head.

"I... don't know." It comes out as a mumble, and I look down at my hands, wishing for the world that I'd have some idea.

We invite Mr. and Mrs. Jones over for dinner, but they politely refuse. It distantly occurs to me that perhaps they want to be home in case Lea shows up at their front door. If they do, I wish they wouldn't give themselves false hope.

It's nighttime, and I head to my room, going over to my desk to set my phone down. My radiation tracker is lying, abandoned on the desk, and I pick it up, turning it over in my hands. If I hadn't been tracking radiation, I wouldn't have seen Lea disappear. Then no one would have known what happened to her.

I scroll through the days this year I had tracked radiation, lost in thought. What could have happened to her? I come to the day she vanished, about to put it away when I notice what it reads.

On the other days, the radiation had been low, varying only slightly. On the day Lea vanished, at that exact time, it had spiked.