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my right. It is a boy, maybe five years old. I don’t try and sit up. I stay very still, not wanting to scare him off.
    The boy’s brown, curly hair hangs just above his brow and he is wearing a white button down shirt. I look around only with my eyes, careful not to scare him. Had anyone else accompanied him here? Surely this child can’t be here alone. The boy studies my small, cautious movements with his startling blue eyes. I turn my head slightly to check for Nate and Sam. I see Nate a few feet away to my left, catching the movement from the corner of my eye, the child steps away from me. I slowly crab crawl toward Nate’s body as he lies face down in the grass, my eyes remain with the small child. As I crawl, I take in my surroundings. It looks like we are in a city park surrounded by large trees and a few sidewalks intersecting each other. It feels familiar to me. Like my campus in Georgia. Logically, this can’t be our world though.
    Losing track of him only for a split second, I turn back to the sole witness of our arrival in this place. He is standing in the same spot, his magnetic eyes fixed on Nate and I. Drawn to his eyes, suddenly the irises darken to match his onyx pupils and the skin on his face pulls back in angles that are inhuman. The grotesque event is like something is trying to break free from the confinement of this vessel. Within seconds , his face snaps back into its original state and his eyes revert back to the same crystalline blue as before.
    This is not a child. The only other time I have seen a being contort its face in such a manner was when I was sifting through the abduction files in Florida. A light goes off in my head. What if these are the beings that took over the abductees Sam was sending to Sonde for implantation?
    I nudge Nate carefully, keeping my eyes on the boy. I try to keep my voice low. “Nate, get up.”
    I scan the eerily, desolate park still keeping the boy in my sight. We need to find shelter before we make contact with anyone else. I shake Nate, but he stirs only a fraction. I hiss at him, “Nate, I need to you to wake up. We have to get out of here!”
    I roll him over onto his back. This gets him to open his eyes, not without squinting into the sunlight. I turn back to take inventory of the boy, but he is gone. I look frantically around us. Crap, this is not good. What if he went to go get others? I look down at Nate and his eyes are drifting closed and he is collapsing back down, head to ground. I pull his body up to a seated position and shake him, “Nate! We’ve gotta move!”
    He shakes his head, like he is trying to shake the drowsy effect of the traverse, but he is struggling to stay alert. Intent on finding safety for us now, I pull him up, wrap his arm around my waist, and start hauling him along. Within seconds he realizes what is going on and he is walking on his own. I’m searching, searching for a place to hide, and get out of sight. All at once, I see a stone bridge and underpass about a hundred feet away. With my arms still cradled around Nate’s staggering body, I pull us quickly in its direction. Getting closer, I notice a wrought iron gate carved into the stone wall of the bridge. In one swift motion, I lean Nate against the stone wall of the bridge, pull the gate open, push him in, and then close the gate behind us.
    Clearing his throat, Nate slowly pushes off the wall to look out the iron gate along side of me. “It looks normal, like our world.”
    It does appear that way, but after seeing that child...
    “It’s not our world at all, Nate.”
    The day seems to go on forever here. With the likelihood of the properties of time in this realm, this universe, being skewed from our own we could have been here for days when it only feels like a matter of hours.
    We were able to reach Jesca and Xander through a dream state. For a brief moment, I worried that Nate’s link to Jesca and Xander would not be strong enough. However, when I felt