To Come Home

Chapter 4: Psych Ward or Police Station?

So the warm-souled stranger Bucky invited me to eat breakfast with him. Amongst all the chaos, I had completely forgotten about food, but upon being reminded, my stomach rumbled with anticipation. Bucky turned out to be very kind, and very genuine. This place, Vancouver, is very different from any place I've ever been to, or even seen in any images and books. I'm so used to being surrounded by more organic shapes, open spaces and nature; but this place, as soon as we exited the beach, it was like travelling to another dimension. All the buildings are so geometric, and rectangular, not to mention numerous and densely dispersed. The grass and the earth everywhere has been covered up and suffocated by melted and hardened rock, apparently known here as 'concrete'. Beyond the grounds of the beach, there were almost no trees to be seen. It is quite heartbreaking to see Mother Nature's beautiful gifts be so neglected and forgotten. Perhaps more alarming in my current situation though, I cannot feel the earth – none of the Elements feel vivid to me, not the way they usually do. This place feels disconnected from Her influence somehow.

This world seems to be powered by some magic-like energy sources they've somehow trapped and manipulated, Bucky refers to them as electricity and gas. No one where I'm from has ever thought to try and trap electricity; well they have thought of it, but too much could go wrong in attempting to do such a dangerous thing, no such a spell even exists! At least I think it doesn't. I'll have to find out more about where they draw their powers from here, and how they obtain their energy sources. The travel vehicles here are also certainly more advanced than those back home, although they seem to poison the air around them, so I don't think our religion would allow for such machines either way, they would weaken us.

"So, you think you're a witch, who's somehow accidentally travelled to another world she's never heard of, and now you don't know how to get back to your own?" Bucky says to me from across the small rectangular table we're sat at in at the restaurant McDonald's. He definitely seems to be confused. He's looking at me the same way my people look at the crazies who claim to be the Mother. He's looking at me as if my words carry no coherent meaning.

"yes," I reply, "but that is not what I think, it is just what I know." I try to correct him firmly. The bewildered look on his face still doesn't change, not even a little, "I don't know whether I'm supposed to bring you into a psych ward or a police station at this point..."

"how do you mean?"

He laughs, "because you're obviously insane if you actually believe this; either that or I smoked some pretty wild stuff this morning and I heard you completely wrong somehow."

"well, whether or not I'm crazy is debatable, but everything I've told you most definitely has happened, and thus, cannot account for my craziness in any direct way."

"you are... no yeah, you are definitely crazy. Yeah, that must be it. Psych ward then, right?"

I look at him puzzled.

Apparently witches aren't a thing here, but how can that be? Isn't witchkind all there is? At least the next time I accidentally travel to another world, I'll be careful not to tell just any inhabitant of these worlds that I am a inter-universe travelling witch running away from extremely dangerous enemies with immense power in another world they know nothing of. At least not until I have established that they at least believe in witches first.

"okay, we need to stop this nonsense," I interrupt his vocal strategizing of his plan for me, "how do I prove to you that I am what I say I am?"

He starts to laugh hysterically, "prove to me? that you're a witch?" he laughs a little harder, "I don't know, maybe slip some crazy shrooms or acid into my shake? ...Wait... are you tripping?"