Page 139 of Take You Home

Free. Fast. Beautiful. We do not exist in these fleshy bodies, you see. We exist as color and light and sound. Energy. Vibration.

Chester has heard those words from neophyte demons dozens of times, but somehow, he never thought about what they actually meant until he was in the domain of the demons itself.

He gets it now. He stumbles and falls hard as the ground‍—if he can evencallit “the ground”—shifts underneath him, swirling and undulating and disappearing at random. It’s like being thrown headfirst into a psychedelic kaleidoscope, directions like up and down and left and right ceasing to have any meaning as the world narrows into a tunnel of racing colors and pulsing lights and blurring sounds around him‍?—

This is Tamaros.

This is Obie’s home world.

Gasping in a shaky breath, Chester scrambles back to his feet, trying to wobble forward. Pockets of color fly past underneath his feetlike a rapid-fire conveyor belt, constantly moving and shifting and changing, and it’s not long before his foot goesthrougha particularly dark shade of pink, swallowing his leg up past his knee and sending him sprawling.

He can’t see the Fount of Blessings anymore. When he looks over his shoulder, he can barely even see the rift anymore, his one connection back to Earth farther away than it should logically be based on the distance he’s managed to stumble so far.

The rules of spacetime don’t apply here.

He’s officially flying blind.

With a grunt, Chester yanks his leg out of the pink death trap, clambering onto his hands and knees. Fine. If he can’t walk in Tamaros, if his “fleshy body” wasn’t made to walk in Tamaros, then he’ll crawl. He’ll crawl on his hands and knees until he finds the Fount of Blessings, and then he’ll crawl on his hands and knees until he finds the rift again.

Whatever it takes to save Obie.

Gritting his teeth, he inches forward, craning his neck to find the glimmer of crimson that Ez pointed out through the rift. Occasionally, he could swear that he catches a glimpse of it, but it always shifts into a different color as it sails past him, blending and twisting and morphing in a dizzying choreography that he can’t even begin to comprehend.

Another swirl of pink speeds towards him. Is that the translucent pink, the one that nearly took off his leg before? Cautiously, he reaches out to touch it as it zooms past, but to his bewilderment, this shade of pink seems evenmoresolid than the other colors.

How is he supposed to navigate here? How is he supposed tosurvivehere?

What if his entire body falls through a color and he getstransported across the dimension, never able to find his way back? What if‍?—‍?

“Locke!”The voice is familiar and startlingly out of place behind him, and Chester whirls around with wide eyes. To his utter disbelief, Bryant is sprinting across the shifting landscape towards him, looking for all the world like she’s running on solid ground. She drops to her knees next to Chester, her eyebrows furrowing with concern. “Locke, are you hurt? Chester‍?—‍”

“How‍—‍?” Chester gapes as Bryant drags him upright. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your dumb ass, obviously,” Bryant says, not even flinching as the world zips by below her feet. “Couldn’t let you have all the fun with interdimensional travel opportunities.”

Tears sting behind Chester’s eyes. Just as cavalier and blasé as Bryant always is when she’s trying to deny that she cares about someone. Cares aboutChester.

The very person who got her branded as a dissident and tortured less than three hours ago. “Bryant, I’m so sorry,” he says, pitching backwards and nearly toppling over when a particularly translucent shade of mauve catches under his right foot. “You were never supposed to get connected back to any of this, okay? You were never supposed to get hurt, and‍?—‍”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bryant says impatiently, pulling Chester back up when he fails to dodge another streak of mauve. “We’ll deal with all that garbage later, Locke. For now, I’m more concerned about why you apparently can’t stand like a normal person.”

“Why canyou?”Chester fires back, admitting defeat and just hanging onto Bryant’s arm for dear life. “I think it’s the colors. Different colors are different degrees of tangible, and‍?—‍”

“Well, yes, it’s obviously the colors,” Bryant says. “But you justhave to adjust your footing based on density and keep heading in the direction of the solid colors. It’s really not that hard.”

Chester stops dead, staring at her. “Keep… heading in the direction of the solid colors?” he repeats. “Bryant, you‍—you do realize that we’re standing still, right?”

“Well…” Bryant wrinkles her nose down at the swirling shades and lights beneath her feet. “Yes and no. It’s the illusion of standing still, but we’re still moving right now‍—almost like a moving walkway in an airport. And you‍—‍” She points at a cluster of colors that looks indistinguishable from every other cluster of colors. “You just have to aim yourself at the solid colors, see?”

The gears in Chester’s head slowly grind together. “You have a demon’s instincts,” he says, and abruptly, Bryant stiffens. “You have half of Maggie’s soul now, right? You’re half-demon. So I guess you have all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses.” He curses as his foot skids through yet another patch of unsolid ground. “In Tamaros, at least.”

Even as he says the words, they set off a strange pinging in the back of his brain. Not like déjà vu, not like an instinct firing, but like‍?—

Like he’s hovering on the verge of answering a question he didn’t even realize he was asking.

Bryant’s jaw works. “I mean, maybe,” she says tightly, and without waiting for a response, she starts to haul him forward. “But let’s table that discussion until after we’re back on Earth, shall we? For now, just keep walking at my speed, and we’ll head towards the Fount.”

Chester gapes at her. “You can see the Fount from here?”

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