"We're on the loading dock," he said, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw that he was right. We'd walked through a wall. Which, yes, was not a typical action for me on any night, but I guess I had expected a portal to, you know, take us somewhere a little...farther away...
"Yeah, sorry," he said a bit sheepishly when he saw my disappointment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a bar of soap. "It's got two settings." He turned it over in his hand to show me the two little green lights and three round buttons that were apparently the controls. "One for little quick trips, as you just went on, and--" he pressed one of the buttons, and one of the lights turned yellow, "--one for longer ones. For example..."
He pressed another button, and the ground beneath me disappeared. For the tiniest moment I felt like I was falling, but before I had time to scream, a new ground swept me up and whisked me away...kind of. I was still moving fast, but it felt like I was lying down, and there was water all around me. Warm water that quickly soaked my clothes, but at least my toes were comfortable again.
"Hey!" I shouted out, struggling to keep the spray kicking up around me from getting in my mouth.
"What?" his voice shouted back from somewhere behind me.
The chute it felt like I was sliding down turned right, then quickly left. "What is this?" I called out.
"It's a pan-dimensional causeway," came his voice, though I think he choked on a little water as he tried to say "pan-dimensional."
We dipped a bit and gained some speed, and I felt my whole body fly up onto the outer wall of another turn as we sped on deeper into the darkness. "Wait a minute," I said between splashes. "You mean to--cough--tell me that we're supposed to travel everywhere by--cough, cough--waterslide?"
"Great, isn't it?" he said, though his voice seemed more distant, as though he were trying to slow himself down a little. "We had them installed last Christmas as a joke, but they just became so popular we decided to keep them."
"Awesome," I tried to say quietly so he wouldn't catch my sarcasm, but with the amount of water that hit me in the face at that moment, I probably didn't need to worry. "How long do we have to ride this?" I called back, but before I got a response, I heard a faint beep, and the slide disappeared from beneath me. I tumbled into darkness, spinning head over heels, and this heavy wind blowing warm around me only helped to further screw up my sense of orientation.
"Ughh!" And that was when I hit the ground. It hurt, but I'm pretty sure that breeze had slowed down my fall. And what's more, it seemed to have dried me off thoroughly. I was warm and comfortable and my clothes were dry and my hair...well, okay, that one wasn't so pretty....I looked around as I got to my feet. It was still night, but Sam's was nowhere to be seen.
"Sorry about the landing," he said. I turned around and saw him standing behind me. Apparently he'd landed on his feet. "You just gotta learn to judge the coming ground by which way the wind is blowing. It always blows from the ground up."
"Thanks," I said as I brushed a little dirt off my jeans. "I'll have to remember that for next time. Now where are we?"
