Chapter 11

            Bri followed him automatically, watching as he deposited the trays and then pulled her out of the lunch room.  Bri did her best not to look around, knowing that most of the people from her last class were probably still there, eating.  Sure enough, she heard someone call out her name.

            “Bri?”

            She turned to see Jasmine, who was looking at her quizzically, her eyes moving from Bri to Jackson curiously.  Bri’s heart dropped.  Jasmine knew Kyle pretty well and Bri also knew that the way Jackson had her hand could not be construed as anything else than what it was…

            “Hey, Jazz, I just –“

            “Jasmine, right?  Bri has mentioned you.  I’m Jackson.”  Jackson butted in, holding out his right hand to shake hers, but still holding Bri’s hand with his left.

            Jasmine looked a little stunned, her eyes wide as she looked at Jackson.  Bri couldn’t help blushing a little, realizing that must be how she looked at Jackson too. He certainly was gorgeous.

            “Nice to meet you.”  She mumbled, before turning her eyes back to Bri.

            Bri gave a guilty half smile.  “Hey, I’ll talk to you in class tomorrow and – um – fill you in, okay?”  She felt a tug on her hand and shot a glare at Jackson and his impatience.   “I think we’re in a hurry.”

            “Okay…” Jasmine said warily, and before Bri could say another word, Jackson was pulling her out the door and into the hallway.

            Brielle scowled up at Jackson as he proceeded to tug her along. “I’ve mentioned her to you, hm?  Somehow I don’t remember that.  How in the world did you know who she was?”

            “Super hero, remember?”  Jackson said, turning around her grin at her.  Brielle shook her head.

            “I expected you to say stalker.”

            Jackson shrugged.  “Well, I suppose that is true too, but really the reason is more that I am a super hero and not that I’m some creepy guy.”

            “That’s debatable.”

            Before Bri could realize what was happening, Jackson flung her around so she was in his arms.  Her pulse suddenly raced as she found her back up against the wall in the corner of an empty hallway.  He stood much too close to her, his head leaning down, and his breathing a bit too heavy for their short rush.

            “I don’t want you to be afraid.”  He said softly.  Bri closed her eyes as she felt his warm breath in her hair.  Almost unwillingly, she melted her body into his.  “This is just going to be… more weird than anything else.  Okay?  But you have to believe me.  Just keep – what was it that you said?”  Bri looked up to see the thoughtful look on his face.  “You told me that when you were around me your mind was disconnected from your body.  That you were running on instincts.  Keep thinking of that, it’ll help you understand, I think.”

            His smile was warm and inviting.  Bri nodded slowly to what he was saying. 

            “Are you ready?”  He asked, his hands moving down her arms, leaving hot little trails behind.

            “I don’t know what I’m expecting.”  Bri said, her voice low, hard to hear.

            “You’re ready.”  Jackson said confidently.  He wrapped his arms tighter around her and softly, quietly, enough to make the hairs on her arms stand on end in goose bumps, whispered, “close your eyes.”

            Bri obeyed.

            “Now open them.”

            Bri kept them closed, confused.  No time had passed – why did he want her to open her eyes already?  She could still feel his arms around her, but something seemed a little different.  Where was the wall at her back?  Her heart started to race.   Where was the floor under her feet?

            Bri snapped her eyes open, confused when she could see nothing, nothing at all.  Everything around her was a strange kind of heather gray.  How clouds looked before a storm, how the television looked when there was no cable, the color of static fog…

            Fear exploded around her.  Where is Jackson?

            “I’m right here.”  She heard and Bri instantly relaxed.  She hadn’t realized that she had said it aloud. But, that was his voice, and she could in fact still feel his arms.  But how was that possible?  He wasn’t in front of her anymore…

            “Weird, isn’t it?”  Jackson asked, a chuckle in his voice.

            Bri had to close her eyes again, the weird gray fog disorienting her.  But, she realized that she couldn’t close them – for some reason the gray wasn’t going away.

            “Jackson, why can’t I see you?”  Bri was surprised that she couldn’t hear her own voice, in fact, she couldn’t feel her lips moving.  But she was so certain that she had said it –

            “Don’t be afraid, I just wanted to show you this.  It’ll be gone soon.  Close your eyes again.”

            “I can’t!”  Bri cried, but even as she said it, suddenly it all went black around her.  She could again feel her eyelids, realizing that they were closed.  Even though she had always felt Jackson’s arms around her, she felt them solidly again, not realizing that before, in the fog, she hadn’t really been able to tell where they were – now it was obvious, around her waist, his palms open on the small of her back…

            “Bri?”  His voice was careful.

            Slowly, she opened her eyes again, seeing him in front of her.  Her breath let out in a whoosh.  She didn’t have to ask him anything, just looked up into his icy-blue eyes.  The giddiness in them was gone, instead it was replaced by a soft kind of… tenderness.  Bri knew her own body was back too as she felt a blush crawl over her cheeks.  She’d never had anyone look at her like that.

            “Do you believe me now?”

            Bri felt herself smile, surprising herself.  That was the last reaction she would have expected after that.  But he was just looking at her with so much… happiness.

            “Well, you’re either telling the truth or we’re both crazy.”

            “And either way, we’re perfect for each other.”  Jackson said, his voice sing-songy.  Bri couldn’t help but laugh aloud and she launched her head into his chest, turning their embrace into a hug.  His arms tightened around her as he gave a little “mmm” of contentment.

            “So, do you care to take a little look around, or should we just keep standing here like this?  I’m cool with either.”

            “Look around?”  Bri asked, reluctantly ending the hug. She hadn’t even noticed – were they not back in the hallway…?  She gasped as she finally looked over his shoulder, noticing that they were in a room with a very high, white domed ceiling.  She must have been so focused on Jackson when they materialized again she didn’t even notice that they weren’t back home…

            “Whoa,” She said as she pulled even further away from him, looking around her.  They were in a sort of train station, or at least that was what it looked like.  The large domed ceiling led down to a very wide, open room that had a number of corridors opening up all around.  She felt a little silly, not having noticed before, especially since there was a multitude of people around her, milling around, seeming to be coming from and going to one any number of the different corridors.  Jackson adjusted himself so one arm was around her waist and led her out of the middle of the room.

            “People tend to get a little cranky if we stand in the way.  Shall we go sit down and I can explain some more to you.”

            Bri nodded her head enthusiastically, realizing that her mouth was open in awe.  She quickly shut it though, as one very tall, very beautiful woman looked at her with a smirk, obviously making fun.  Bri collected herself and opted to look at Jackson instead, suddenly seeing him in a whole different light.

            He had always looked powerful before, gorgeous but now he also looked… majestic.  The confidence in his walk and the way his grip on her was light, comforting, but at the same time iron-clad.  She had never before thought about a person having that much power…

            It wasn’t long before they were o the edge of the massive room, away from what seemed to be more of the major corridors that people were using.  There was a long, white bench attached to the wall, where Jackson motioned for them to sit.

            “Where are we?”

            Jackson smiled.  “The same place we were before.”

            Bri looked at him quizzically.  At this point she wasn’t trying hard not to be skeptical.  She remembered what Jackson had said, leave her mind behind and act on instincts.  It actually wasn’t that hard to do, since her brain had never seen anything like this before.

            Jackson leaned back against the wall, at ease.  “You’ve heard about different dimensions before, haven’t you?  You know, like how we’re in the third dimension but there are all these theories out there that thing there might be as many as ten dimensions but it’s really hard for us to…. Well, think about?”

            Bri nodded.  She really had heard about that.  There was the whole thing where the first dimension was a point, the second was a plane, the third was… well what she knew, how she lived.  But then the idea of thinking of more, well it kind of made her head hurt.

            Jackson shrugged.  “Well, it’s true.  There are that many dimensions.  And this place,” he motioned his arms out in front of him. A couple of the people walking nearby glance over, but then didn’t seem to pay him any mind.  “This is the portal to all the different dimensions.”

            He turned her to and grasped her hands again. “You see, where I took you before, that was part of the 5^th dimension.  But you couldn’t see anything, right?  You couldn’t tell what was going on?  You knew you were there, but you weren’t really…. You knew there was something but you couldn’t figure out what to do, who you were, or even where you were…”

            Bri nodded, watching his eyes as he talked, realizing that as she did that his expressions were helping her understand as much as his words were.

            “Well, that’s because you don’t know the 5^th dimension.  You only know the 3^rd so it makes it… very hard to even experience the 5^th.  Your mind can’t really handle it.  So, instead, I’ve brought you here and I’ve brought you in the context of the 3^rd dimension and now… it’s manageable.”  Jackson looked around, contented.

            “This is the exact same thing as the gray… nothingness I was in before?”  Bri asked, looking around again.

            Jackson nodded, “Absolutely.  Just in a different context.”

            “What’s the point of traveling different dimensions if you can’t experience them?”  Bri asked, her question surprising her.  Of all the things to ask…

            Jackson laughed.  “Well, you actually can, it just takes some getting used to.  It helps if someone can explain it to you before hand, prepare you a little. And, admittedly, it’s far easier to go to lower dimensions than higher ones.  The lower ones are easier to understand.”

            “Who are all these people?”  Bri asked, and lowered her head as some people walking past looked over at her.  Jackson just pulled her closer to him and laughed again.

            “Who do you think they are?”

            Bri raised her eyes.  “There is no way that they are all super heroes.  How could there be so many but we don’t know about them?”

            He smirked.  “Well, they are.  Though, I have to admit, there are very few in the third dimension.  It seems as though most of them are rampant in the 6^th dimension.”

            Bri tried to collect everything in her head, now using that instead of her instincts to help her understand and keep her sanity.  “But why are they all in this 3^rd dimension if they are actually in the 6^th?”

            Jackson shook his head.  “They aren’t, this is just our perspective.  Most of these people are in different dimensions, but because we chose the 3^rd, we are seeing them that way.”

            “Whoa,” Bri said again, watching at the people passed by.  It was hard to imagine that she was there, instead it felt much more like she was just some kind of observer.  She felt certain that she was on the other side of a panel of glass, that they were somehow in a television set, apart from her, different from her.

            “And you know what?”  Jackson said as he whispered into her ear.  She could hear the smile in his voice.  “Only super heroes can ever travel to another dimension.”

            Bri’s head jerked around to face him, her eyes wide.  “Really?”  She asked, her voice a higher pitch than usual.

            Jackson nodded.  “Crazy, hu?”

            She nodded with him, her head mirroring his.  “It’s hard to think about.”

            He grinned and then planted a kiss on her forehead.  “You’ll get used to it.  Surprisingly quickly, too, I think.  Let me take you back so I don’t completely overload you, hm?”

            Bri stood with him and automatically closed her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her.  She concentrated on what he was doing and seemed to be able to almost feel the existence around her slip away…

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