Through The Ascension Room***Book One COMPLETE***

CHAPTER TWO ~PART ONE~

CHAPTER

          TWO

I continue thumbing through Rick's wallet where I find a couple of twenties, a ten, a couple of fives, and a few ones. This will buy me dinner and some traveling gas, but won't even come close to giving me a stay at this motel (even though it surely looks like it should be free at this point to any brave souls courageous enough to stick it out here a whole night).

I decide to put a twenty to gas before I eat so that I have the ability for a quick getaway. You never know when you'll need a fast escape.

I pull the bike into the blinking vortex that is the gas station and begin fueling. I click the nozzle releasing it from the tank of my bike. I go inside to pay the cashier who absent-mindedly takes my money, refusing to pull his eyes off of the magazine he is “reading”. I pull a snickers bar off the rack as I leave, just despite the man.

I make my way over to the diner ready to eat some food and cease this intense chaos happening in my stomach (The snickers didn’t finish the job). I walked up to the diner entrance clenching my jacket tightly to keep the cold out. A shuffling noise echoes from behind a dumpster, jolting me a bit. I stop and squint looking into the darkness. A chill begins to set in. I quickly dismiss it for just a cat or something harmless not wanting to investigate it any further and continue towards the diner.

I walk into the diner and am immediately overwhelmed by the mixture of pleasant smells filling my nose. I am promptly greeted by a waitress who seems to stand out from the rest of this town’s inhabitants. She's smiling at me as she greets me, which feels nice being the first real authentic human interaction I've had in a while (the gas station clerk not counting for obvious reasons). She seats me at a window table and hands me a menu. All the selections look so good and I can feel my stomach doing flips over every item pictured in the menu. I settle for a double bacon burger, onion rings and fries, a tall soda and a slice of cherry and apple pie. I figured I might as well use up the rest of the money I had (which I just about do).

The waitress begins to bring out the items of my order, the soda first. I am so thirsty that I down the whole cup by the time she brings out my plate of burger and fries. She leaves with my cup in her hand and a swing in her step. She couldn't be more than eighteen. Maybe twenty tops. She's cute, and I can't help but feel drawn to her. I wonder if she's into motorcycle riding sixteen year old bad boys...

Before I finish my thought she's back with my side order of onion rings and my refilled soda. She places them down strategically around my other plate of food and then it came. The thing I can never seem to outrun. The questions. No matter where I am or who it is asking, it always happens. Like a sixteen year old boy can't just walk into a deserted diner at two in the morning without being pummeled in the hot seat. Although the questions are always annoying, I don't mind it so much coming from her.

"So where you from sweetheart?" she asks.

"Phoenix. Phoenix, Arizona." I answer in between bites. My town of origin changes periodically. I choose places far enough away from the local residents of whatever small town I'm in, so they won't have enough knowledge of the town to catch me in my lie, and a place that is fairly well know as to not invite the attempts at describing my town and pinpointing it for them on a map.

"Phoenix you say. Huh, I have an uncle who lives out there."

GREAT, here they come.

"Whereat exactly?" she probes with a flicker of her eyes.

I know she isn't trying to be annoying, and to anyone else this would be a welcomed conversation.

"On the outskirts of town, in a smaller community." 9 out of 10 times this response works and throws them off my scent.