The Invisible World

Chapter 2: Private Eyes

Once Mrs. Scott had Jack's word that he wouldn't do anything bad to her daughter, she passed the phone on to Misty. From there, Jack gave Misty his phone number.

"Thank you so much!" Misty exclaimed. "I'll call you back."

Call him back? She seemed so eager to get right on it while he was still there at her house. "Are you sure you don't want to talk about it now?"

"I want to, but I just don't know where to start. How would we even find an infinite void?"

"And would we even want to find an infinite void?"

"Exactly! Let's just sleep on it for now. If either of us think of something, we can call each other, okay?"

"Okay."

"Awesome. Bye bye."

"Yeah. Bye." Jack hung up. There was no chance this situation was going to change between now and tomorrow. An entrance to an alternate dimension. How were they supposed to find something so elusive? Still, though, he couldn't shake the feeling that she was completely genuine. Any other guy would think she had just snuck in there, but something about this "dark void" theory kept calling to him. Well, at least she turned out to be a law-abiding citizen. He could have wound up with a stalker or a thief or a murderer in his house.

Speaking of the stalker in his house...

No. There is no stalker. That was just the acoustics in the foyer that he heard.

And the way Misty phrased it, "Let's just sleep on it for now." Now he had the feeling that he wouldn't be able to sleep that night. Did she just jinx it for him?

Jack hated that he was so superstitious. Whenever he got a bad feeling about something, people would just tell him, "There's no such thing as jinxes, only the grace of God" or "Jinxes are the work of the devil, you know" or "You watch too much TV. It's polluting your brain with all these ideas of jinxes" as if this little town in the middle of nowhere wasn't isolated enough.

But why was he still standing by the phone? He still needed to enjoy his Saturday.

He woke up on Monday morning.

That was always the worst part. The rest of it was easy enough. Eat breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed, drive to work. Every single day of his life until he retired. Or died.

Is it normal to feel this tired at 25, he wondered as he made his way down the stairs to the kitchen. He opened the fridge to get the jugs of milk and orange juice. Was the milk this empty when he left it?

Wait a minute, why was he asking himself this question? He could have just misremembered how full it was. He put both jugs on the table. He reached into the cupboards and got out a white ceramic bowl and a glass. He put those on the table and made his way to the pantry. What cereal was he in the mood for today? What did it matter, anyway? They all tasted the same. They were all "healthy" cereals, none of the fruity or sugary ones. What kind of self-respecting Latter-Day Saint would have something so frivolous in their pantry, much less their grocery store? Wheaties it is.

Luckily, there was enough milk left to fill the bowl. (Why was he still wondering about the milk?) Then came the cereal. He tipped over the box...and maybe five bits came spilling out.

That was not normal. He had just had Wheaties yesterday, and he thought for sure he had at least one bowl's worth left. He'd just have to eat something else with a little bit of a Wheatie surprise at the bottom.

He went into the pantry, got the box of Grape Nuts off the shelf, and said a little prayer that this one wasn't empty, too.

Actually, don't pray about that. God is here to give us salvation, not do us little favors. As he exited the pantry, he didn't know why, but his eyes darted towards the dishes by the sink. There were two, to be exact. A glass and a white ceramic bowl.