Worlds Apart

Chapter 1

"Hello? Miss?"

Although it was a bit distorted and far off sounding, Max knew that this man - or at least, he sounded like a man - was talking to her. She tried to open her eyes to get a better idea of what was going on and who was talking to her, but it took a little more effort than she expected to.

Just as her eyelids opened enough to let the light pour in, she felt a hand being placed on her shoulder. Squinting at the harsh light, she made an effort to look over at the hand, and then up at the person it belonged to. It was a man - probably in his early 30s - and he was looking down at her with what seemed to her like... concern?

Max pushed herself up from the ground and into a sitting position.

"Are you alright?" He asked her.

Max nodded, then took her gaze off of the man and started looking around. Where was she, anyways? From the looks of it, she was in some sort of park. How she got there, she had no clue - considering the last thing she remembered was an explosion in her brother's lab - but she figured that there had to be some sort of logical explanation to this.

"Do you need me to call someone?" He asked her. "An ambulance, maybe?"

She shook her head and rubbed the side of her face with her palm. "No, I'm fine. Thank you, though."

"Are you sure?" He asked her, unsure of whether or not he should take her word for it.

"Mm-hm." She nodded. "...Where am I?"

"Just outside of Los Angeles."

Okay, so in theory she was in the same general area of the lab. Maybe she'd somehow gotten blasted out of the building and in a concussed daze, she walked all the way over to a park where she passed out, unable to remember a thing between then and now. Yeah, that was plausible, right? What was the alternative - she'd suddenly gained the ability to teleport?

"How far away am I from Bowen Industries?" She asked.

"From what now?" He asked. The weird thing was that he seemed to understand what she'd said, but his confusion seemed to be directed towards the name.

"Bowen Industries?" She repeated. Still, he seemed just as confused as before. "You've never heard of it?"

He shook his head and pursed his lips. "Sorry."

"What about Logan Bowen? That name ring a bell?" She asked, to which, again, he shook his head.

Okay, that was weird. Her brother was, like, a celebrity now. This guy must really live under a rock for him not to recognize his name. Logan was just about as big a name as Elon Musk at this point, so how this guy hadn't heard his name before was beyond her.

No matter - she was sure it wouldn't take long for her to come across someone that did, and then she could finally get some directions.

"Thanks for the help, but I'm okay now. Really." She said, pushing herself up to her feet.

Once she was fully standing, and the man was fairly certain she wasn't going to fall back over, he reluctantly nodded.

"Yeah, no problem." He said. "Just take it easy, okay?"

Max nodded. "I will. Have a nice day."

The man nodded back and then began walking in the other direction. Turning so that her back was facing him, she pulled out her phone to check the time.

2:08pm.

So this wasn't that much longer after the incident, either. If she remembered correctly, she was pretty sure the accident occurred just before 2:00pm, so in theory, she'd only been out about ten to fifteen minutes or so.