Serrated Love's Deceit

Chapter 24: Stars in the Matrix

"I will book a ride share. We need to get to the herbal shop." Twilight says. I shrug.

"What will we get from there?" I look up at him in confusion.

"Ms. Dean has a book in her office that helps you find the master code cheat sheet of the stars. Do you know how to read the stars?" I shake my head.

"Nope."

"It's fine I'll find our original world's star code and maybe I can put things back in the order we are used to." I bite my lower lip. I really don't want to go back to the way things were. I just want to change the trajectory of where we are heading. Should I run away from Twilight? That could give me more time to steer our future to a world I'm more happy with that feels like home. I cup my chin with my finger and look down.

"What are you thinking?" He asks. I shake my head and shrug.

"Nothing much." I nervously chuckle.

Our ride appears. I fully expected a highly intoxicated person to pick us up since that is how the people around us are acting. Shockingly, it is a very alert brown skin old man and what appears to be his adult son in the back seat. Twilight hops in the front seat and I sit in the back. I go to buckle my seat belt and the man shoots out of the strange zombie infested suburban neighborhood before I can fasten the belt.

Him and his son have soft wavy curls. His is just grey and thinner than his son's hair. "How did you all get over there? I thought everyone has been listening to the news channels. Didn't you hear? This is one of the areas to avoid because of the drug crisis has spread to most areas all over the country." The old man says.

Twilight looks out his window stoically. "Wow! I didn't know that." I say. The driver's son nods his head. "Yeah, most normal people live in safe zones in the city. Actually, your destination is in one of the safe zones." The driver's son says. My jaw drops momentarily. I don't want to go in a safe zone. I don't need guards and surveillance drones watching my every move. As I said in another dimension, I don't do leashes and or cages. That's like an open air prison with no way to get privacy. I need to get away.

"Stop the car!" I yell. The old man looks at me through the rear view mirror. "I can't. We're stuck in traffic on a highway." He says to me. I can't do this. I can't go there. I want to stay free!

"Where are you from? You don't look native to these lands. Me and my father are from Ethiopia. I'm Trevor by the way." Trevor says to me. I nod.

"I was born in the states. My parents are of Caribbean descent. My dad was from South America and my mother is from Bahamas." He nods.

"That's interesting. Very interesting. What do you think about the people on Earth?" Twilight cocks a brow and looks at me in the side mirror of the car. He shakes his head and I roll my eyes. It's not that big of a deal if I tell this stranger some of my story. It's not like I'll see any of them again. Twilight is trying to act like my dad. That's so annoying. I only had one father in this life and it was hard losing him so early in life. Plus, Twilight interrupted me mourning my dad's death. He's definitely in no position to tell me what to do.

"I don't know about the people on Earth as a whole but... Most of the people I've met are not like me. Sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes that's a bad thing. I feel like there's hope for people to align with the nature of the planet they live on, but I'm too exhausted from their internal battles to want to see them eventually evolve for the better. I do think with less governance things will get better for all living beings on Earth. I just think it's time I go back to my first husband and pay off the debts I owe him." My throat tightens and I take a deep breath.