Insanity Was A Man

6. Lost

It didn't take us long to get back to the park. We walked inside the entrance and into the open grass, on the way to the woods.

"Well that was a huge waste of time," I huffed.

Max nodded. "Yeah. It was. But hey, we had fun!"

I shook my head to signify that, no, we did not have fun, and gave him yet another stupid look. "Anyway...should we go to a trail?"

Max nodded. "Yeah. We just need to find a space without very many people. But they won't be able to see it anyway."

He held up the small, circular piece of metal. "It will only show it to the people using it. But I still want to do it where no one can see us. We'd look funny."

Once again, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Seventy-five percent of what he said, I couldn't figure out. The only reason I was even doing this in the first place was because I was willing to try anything to find my grandmother.

We trekked up to the first trail. The park was surprisingly (and rather conveniently) not busy today. There were still a few people playing football in the field, and some laying around on blankets. But the trail was, as far as I could see, empty.

"Yeah," Max said. "This is good. You see this little thing." Max flashed the piece of metal at me. "You press the button, and it shows you where to go. Like, it literally opens up in front of you. You just walk in. It's how I got to this city. It even got me to the bus stop. Curiosity gave it to me."

"Curiosity?" I repeated. "Max. Everything you say keeps making less and less sense. Knowledge? Now Curiousity. You say them like they're names."

"Uh-huh," Max said. I wasn't even sure if he was listening to me. "Let's just go a little further..."

And so we did. We walked a little further. There were still no people in sight. When the location seemed to appease Max, he stopped walking, and pulled out the little gadget.

"Can I look at it?" I asked. He nodded.

I gently took it out of his hands. It was cold to the touch, and most of the front of it was taken over by a button. On the button was an engraving of a map and a compass. It was surprising heavy for its size, weighing about what a small stone would.

"It's cool." I handed it back to him.

"Yeah," he said. "I know. Knowledge made it and gave it to Curiousity. She's always inventing things. She's, like, way smart."

There he went again with the names. Only now, he had referred to Knowledge as a woman. A woman who invented things and gave them to other people. Like Curiousity.

Makes sense.

Maybe they just have weird names.

Max held the device out and pressed the button, holding it down. As soon as he did, the weirdness of my day and the whole situation escalated to extreme heights.

***

I saw the landscape change, right before my eyes. Not where we were standing or behind us, that all stayed the same. Even hundreds of feet in front of us, the woods of the trail remained. But what I did see was the trees in the distance turn to dirt. And beyond that, a lake that hadn't been there. And the sky in the distance changed to a thick, wintery gray instead of the pure blue it was behind us.

"Max...what the, what is? How the...what!?"

Max lowered the device and let go of the button. The altered world remained.

"This is where your grandma is," he said, simply. "Come on."

***

As we walked, the world around us was constantly changing. It went from hot to cold, sunny, to foggy, muddy to dry. But I wasn't really paying attention to that. I couldn't. There were so many things buzzing around in my mind. All things that I couldn't understand. So I was going to another world. So there was some kind of genius invention made by someone named Knowledge.

"So my parents...And the cops... And everyone else. They won't find Grandma? What is this? Is this the world you keep talking about? I don't understand."

"No. They won't find her. Not unless they have on of those metal things. And I don't think they do."

A light shower began to pour from above us.

"Great!" Max yelled. "Rain! Come on. Let's get out of here!"

He began running, and so I did too. I ran after him, into a world that I didn't know. Confused as ever. Needing answers, but not getting them. More lost than I had ever been in my life.