Lyle woke up with an awful headache. It was warm, but the air was cool.  He was still squinting his eyes when he raised himself from the ground.

Then he noticed where he was…

It was a park.

There were trees and landscaped walkways ornately designed, yet functional. The canopies seemed interconnected making it easier for a leisurely stroll.

“It’s so darn clean,” was all he could think of, still frozen from where he stood.

It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the  unusual environment.  He sat in one of the benches and looked around him.

“Oh jeez! This is a terrible hang over!” he recalled his drinking binge last night with his fellow explorers – Bonnie, Roel, and Novs. As the head Archeologist, Lyle got used to drinking  and partying with the locals whenever he was on an expedition.

Suddenly, he was flabbergasted by a realization – the simple truth.

“Where the heck am I?” he asked himself bewildered, as a bullet-sized sweat started forming on his forehead.

“No way those guys would play a trick on me!” he exclaimed as he fumbled in his pocket  for his cellphone.

His apprehension grew as he started to dial frantically, then his jaw dropped .

There was a jogger moving speedily toward his direction. No, this was no ordinary jogger.

“What the…” he gawked as the jogger passed him by in a zap.

The lady was running at a tremendous speed! As if she was in a movie scene played – fast forward.

But it wasn’t that which made it incomprehensible; not the fact that she was perfect in every way, that her eyes flickered flightily at his direction, that there was an audible hello that left her lips, and that her body was accentuated by the curves in all the right areas. But the realization that she had an eerie aura  – she was glowing! Her body was surrounded by a luminous yellow tint.

“Hmpf…” he was caught off guard with what he had just seen.

He looked furtively around him and noticed there were other people in the park.

A man in his late fifties was pushing a stroller. It wasn’t rolling on the ground though, it was hovering! There were numerous arms inside. One of them was holding a rattle, another was holding a baby bottle, and an arm flashed a projection – a picture of a woman smiling at the baby. Both the man and child had the same luminous glow around them.

A teenage girl was dancing with her friends. Lyle thought it was break dancing, but it was more similar to parkour. The girl climbed up a lamp post and somersaulted at the top. Another leap then she balanced herself with her index finger. The other girls were agile and did the same stunt – exactly the same routine.

Each and every one of them had the same glow.

“This is crazy!” he told himself.

“What do you mean crazy?” asked a kid who had suddenly appeared next to him. He was a beautiful child with an impressively smart look. His glow was the brightest he had seen so far.

“Uhm, nothing,” was all he was able to muster.

“My name is Lars,” the kid confidently said. He looked like he was only five. “I deduce that from your outfit that you are lost. Early twenty-first century from the archives. It must be a parallel shift from a worm hole, yes, I believe you call it that in your time,” Lars continued.

“You’re a chatty little brat, aren’t you?” replied Lyle from the kids extensive explanation.

The kid looked at the back of his hand, then spoke, “Analyze.”

“Huh? Me? What am I a specimen,” blabbered Lyle.

“Running a full diagnostics,” said the voice from Lars hand.

“Hold still Mr. Lyle Ham. Another five seconds and it’s done,” spoke Lars in a matter-of-fact way.

“How did you…?” Lyle started to speak but Lars cut him in mid sentence.

“Noki knows everything and anything,” he presented his palm. Since the Zorlonians arrived and gave us this technology, we could easily identify anything and dig from the archives all the names and events of the Earth’s history. Isn’t it stupendous, err, cool?” Lars interrupted.

“Oh, this might be useful,” Lars raised his left hand and pointed his palm in front of Lyle.

He almost ducked from Lars when he saw the glow transferred from his palm to him.

“Those are the Zorlonites. Nano-machines that make an outer layer on our skin and act as our shield,” said Lars.

“F-force shield?” Lyle exclaimed.

“Shhhh… Try not to draw anymore attention,” Lars hushed him. “Holly already knew you weren’t supposed to be here, so she sent me to see you.”

“Who’s Hol…” Lyle started, but concluded it was the jogger he saw earlier.

“Holly is my aunt. She always look out for visitors like you. She theorized that Archaeologists are the ones who would most likely discover the portals in the past and parallel Earths. She predicted with a 0.09% error using the…” Lars stopped and looked at Lyle’s confused state.

“Okay, so I’m not in my time? This is still Earth, right?”

“Yes and no,” Lars replied. “You are in a version of Earth. I presume that it is the same timeline, but in a parallel dimension,” Lars continued.

“Right! I’m never gonna go drinking with Novs, Bonnie, and Roel anymore,” Lyle acquiesced grudgingly.  “So, what do I do now? Is there any way for me to get in touch with Holly and be back to my Earth?” he asked.

Two things came to his mind. First, he had to go back to the right Earth. Second, he had to see his wife and kid. He had an undeniable urge to go home.

“You have approximately seventeen seconds to find an opening. Holly will get in touch with you as soon as your neural synapses are completed,” said Lars.  “And by the way, the guards will be here in twenty one point five seconds, so you have to make a run for it,” Lars hurriedly explained to him.

“Run where?” Lyle asked.

“To the treaty of Zorlone and planet Earth,” said a familiar voice from Lars palm. But he heard it within his head.

“Noki, feed Lyle the route to the monument and use turbo feet to get there,” Lars ordered.

“Yes Lars,” Noki obediently replied.

Lyle felt his feet move, he was running! But he was not getting tired. It was almost a pleasurable run.

As soon as he started to move, he noticed the yellow glow on his skin. He felt enraptured. Like he was high on some drug without the dreadful side effects.

“I’m gonna get used to this!” he exclaimed.

His feet guided him. He saw the advancement of this place and how the surroundings melted seamlessly with nature. It reminded him of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but not quite what he would have expected. These people knew how to take care of the planet.

“I wish we can do this stuff too.”

As if his thoughts were being read, Noki fed him with the information he needed. He saw a detailed lay out of the park up to the level of what looked like tunnels for subways. Information of how the structures were built and the technology used at the time.

“Impressive,” he said when a red light blinked at the corner of his right eye. As soon as he looked at it, there were several information fed directly into his brain.

He prepared for his pursuers – two men. Regularly looking but were running at almost twice his speed from the east and west side.

He avoided hitting a lamp post with his newly acquired agile body and eased his way through a bushy path when he turned at a corner.

But it was too late. The two men were there in a blink of an eye.

“Darn!” he snarled.

“Mr. Lyle Ham,” spoke the one from the East. “You are an intruder of this Earth. You need to be escorted to the gate.

“That didn’t sound so bad,” thought Lyle.

“Are you kidding?” said a woman’s voice.

“H-Holly?” asked Lyle.

“You missed me?” she teased. “The last guy wasn’t so lucky when he went through the gate. It was commonsense to use the Zorlonites for a safe journey back. These guards wouldn’t as much as help that guy through the gate, nor you for that matter. They’ll strip off the Zorlonites and send you through it,” Holly revealed.

“Don’t bother using force, you don’t have a chance against a hand to hand combat,” Holly added.

At this point, Lyle believed her without question.

“Uhm, so how do I get out of here?” Lyle asked.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” Holly said confidently. “These guards may be fast, but they don’t have our toys,” she added.

Lyle saw the scenery changed. The green grass and the tall trees were replaced by skyscrapers and cemented roads. There was a monument in front of him with a huge inscription in the middle.

“This reminds us of the great Zorlone who shared his technology and saved the Earth from destruction.”

He realized what it was. It wasn’t just a monument. There was a huge portal within that god-like figure.

“No guards?” he thought warily.

“There is no need to guard this area Lyle. The Zorlonians designed this place to detect enemies and instantly annihilate them if they should pose any threat, said Holly to Lyle’s relief.

“This is it Lyle. Goodbye!” Holly’s voice trailed away from his ears.

“Thank-” Lyle started to speak but his body was absorbed by the gate. He felt ticklish as the Zorlonites worked to shield him from the rays that surround him. He was inside a rainbow with deadly kaleidoscope of colors. If not for the Zorlonites given to him by Lars, he had a fair idea what could have happened to anyone without the protective shield.

“-you,” Lye finished.

“Lyle! Hey? Quit staring at me and answer!”  A man was waving his hands at Lyle’s face.

“Bonnie?” Lyle said, “Long story.”

“Long story my foot, you were gone just for a couple of seconds.  Did you just black out and traveled to a different dimension, bro?” Bonnie asked jokingly. “Now come on! We have to process this archeological find before it starts to rain,” he continued.

“It is wise not to tell anyone what happened, Lyle,” it was Noki who spoke.

Lyle felt the same energy when he first synapsed with the Zorlonites. There was no glow but he knew that those nano-machines still run within his body. He smiled with this realization.

-

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Thank you Jena Isle for helping me edit this story.

Poetry Collaboration with Dragonblogger: At the break of dawn

This is the first time that I have co-written a poem and it took days to finish. I am thankful for Dragonblogger for this exercise. Sharing this poem is like having a glimpse of one’s complex mind.

Like the question asked on wandererthoughts.com, do you think you can figure out who wrote what?

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Dark skies mirror the shadows in my soul,

but moonbeams penetrate sanity into my heart.

A war of worlds beats within my chest,

like hummingbirds in a springtime of sweethearts.

As the bitter cold bites my skin, I know now what I must do,

seek comfort in the warmth of a long forsaken memory.

Return from banishment and claim the priests daughter,

for I shall never be exiled with the curse of Catullus and Propertius elegies.

I made haste, preparing for a destiny forged by my own hands,

this castle of serenity, soon to become an icon of my tortured past

At dawn, I faced my foes and fears at once,

breaking each spell, this sorcerer’s force came but was squashed.

When at last her heart and hand were won,

these darkened skies succinctly rested and its pieces  – torn.