Dimension 4 - A Digital Odyssey

by KumaKazemon

Chapter 1

Toyland

How I arrived here, I don’t know. It is not where I was ten minutes ago.

**********

Ten minutes ago I was furiously cleaning house while I waited for the kids and their dad to get home from their camping trip. They had left the place a total mess, and as usual, I was the only one who seemed to care enough to clean it up.

‘Blasted housework,’ I cursed to myself. ‘You’d think if they really liked their toys and things, they’d keep them neat. Why am I always the one to have to take care of everything they own?’

‘Because you’re the mom, stupid,’ I answered myself. ‘That’s what moms do.’

A deep sigh issued from the depths of my throat. Just once, I’d love to do something fun like when I was a kid, instead of having to be everyone else’s maid as well as my own. Let’s face it, no one cleaned up after me either. They’d go off and enjoy themselves and I’d get stuck with maintenance.

I picked up a pile of clothes and underneath was revealed about a dozen Digimon cards that my son had left lying on the floor. ‘Oh perfect!’ I thought. ‘Didn’t I just have to shell out about $40.00 for all these? Now they smell like a locker room and they’re about as organized as one too!’ Being the neat freak that I was I started dusting them off and alphabetizing them. I sank to my knees when I saw how hopeless this was in the face of all the rest of the stuff I had to do that day. I also knew they’d be all over the floor again the next time I came in here, about a week from now….if it took him that long to rummage through and scatter them because they were in too logical of an order to find the one he was looking for. I was so tired I was about ready to scream. My eyes were already tearing up at the thought that this was how he’d lead his whole life if I didn’t do something about it…but what? How do you stop a kid from being spoiled? Toss everything and leave him a bed, blanket and two changes of clothes the way my parents had done? I hated them for doing that. I still did.

All I was asking was that they grow up a little. Was that so much?

‘It’s too much for you,’ I thought to myself, ‘you still wish you were a kid.’

It was true. More than anything, most days, I wanted to run as fast and as far as I could from all my responsibilities. I wanted to have nothing to do but collect cards and figurines and play videogames all day, like my kids did…to have just school and grades and friends to worry about instead of bills and chores and work.

My only recreation was the Internet. I would lose myself for hours in my computer, late at night after everyone else was asleep, wandering the web with a fascination I had not thought possible when I first got one. All the amazing things one could do and find online were mesmerizing and kept me completely hypnotized. That is, when I could get the kids off of it first. They could do ten times more with it than I could with half the effort for the most part. Kids these days…what could they possibly know that I didn’t when I was the adult, right?

But I was sure entering the mouth of the beast with this thing…too complicated and too far above my level of comprehension to tap one key without wiping the entire hard drive…which I almost did a few times, to be honest. It was trial and error, and most of the trials were worth the errors now when I thought about it. When I figured something out for myself that I’d screwed up, it could give me a sense of self-satisfaction I could glow about all day and half the next week. Until something else went wrong, that is.

Sort, sort, sort…I was hopelessly obsessive/compulsive, I thought, as I filed, mindlessly, through my son’s cards. Not so mindlessly, however, that I wasn’t noticing how vicious-looking and, let’s be honest, UGLY some of these were; Snimon, Vademon, Pukumon, Devimon…. Butterfingers-mon! I dropped one and it slid under the desk. Bending my already painful back, I went underneath it to retrieve the truant Digimon from his hiding place. “Come out of there, you,” I growled, knowing I looked and sounded like a complete idiot. But what the heck…nobody was more interested to hear what I had to say in this house than I was.

There was an odd glow coming from under there. Figuring it was only the surge suppressor indicator light left on; I shoved my hand into the unknown. ‘Just don’t let me grab a ten-day old banana peel,’ I thought. Well, I didn’t, but what happened next was worse. The light suddenly grew and flared into my eyes and I backed off quickly, smacking my head on the drawer above me. YOUCH! More pain, how nice! I was tingling all over. Was it from hitting my head or did I get shocked by a live wire somewhere? My vision swam and I tried to get to my feet. There was still light flowing about the room, changing colors and making me squint. I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought and I stumbled out of the room to the bathroom where there was a mirror to make sure I wasn’t bleeding or anything. I could see the headlines now; “Overwork and Lack of Co-ordination Slays Housewife-(film at 11:00)”

But I never made it there. I heard a strange sound behind me and when I turned, everything went black. What was that noise?! It sounded like a wild beast of some kind, ready to slash me to ribbons…. What the….? I had to be hallucinating! And I didn’t feel so good either…. If only someone else was home, I could get help….

**********

So here I am. Where’s here, you ask? Sure beats me with a stick. But it’s somewhat quiet and there’s the sound of running water. There’s green grass and blue sky and no sign of my house or my housecleaning waiting to be finished. My back doesn’t hurt anymore and my head feels fine. Have I died and gone to heaven? I should be so lucky.

No, I didn’t really mean that….

I suddenly remembered that there was that strange sound before I blacked out and I jumped up to look around me. No sign of anything remotely animal or human…except for me, that is, provided I was me and not somebody else now. Jeez, never mind who I was…WHERE was I? And how would I get from wherever this was, back to my household duties….wait a minute…did I just say that?

End Part One

Dimension 4-A Digital Odyssey

Toyland-Part Two

“Hey kid!”

I sat bolt upright. Someone was here…wherever that was.

“Are ya deaf? I’m talkin’ to you!”

Some ridiculous human tendency to turn around and look when you know someone couldn’t possibly be talking to you made me turn around and look to see who it was. That and I wanted to find out where…oh never mind, you know what I wanted already.

There was a dark-haired boy coming towards me. A boy dressed like my son would dress with one exception; he was wearing what looked like swim goggles on his head.

Swim goggles? I looked around for a pool. Nope. No sign of one. Then he must have an astigmatism he needed them for because there was only the two of us here.

“Yeah, I’m talkin’ to YOU, kid! Can-you-hear-me?” He drew it out like I was now from another planet…which I probably was. Although this boy did look human, I suppose it could be one of those little grey aliens playing a trick on me. I felt strangely akin to Jodie Foster. But something else was bothering me….

What did he just call me?

“Kid?” I answered, putting on my best sarcasm. “Just where do you see a kid?”

The boy’s face twisted into one of scorn and impatience. “You look like a kid to me.” He replied. “What do you think you are?”

I got to my feet, a little more than annoyed by his attitude. “I think I should be the one to tell your folks to take you over their knees and teach you better manners, bud.” I was so used to getting lip like this from my son, not that I’d put up with it, and I sure wasn’t going to take it from someone else’s uppity boy. “Just where do you get off talking to me like that?”

“Well, we’re pretty high and mighty, aren’t we?” he grinned, as if he was making the whole thing a joke. “Just settle down now, I’m not looking to fight with you. But you could use some attitude adjustment there, sweetheart. Jeez, I thought girls were made of sugar and spice.”

“I’ll give you some spice, you little jerk!” I growled at him. “Show some respect for a lady some years your senior!” I took a step towards him.

He backed up and raised his hands, “Whoa! Down girl! Bad dog…sit!” he quipped.

“WHAT?!” I yelled, and balled my fists. Oooo if this were my kid, I’d….

“Ooops…uh, was that out loud? I mean, yeah, well…how much older than me can you be…like, sixteen?”

I stopped dead in my tracks…was this guy really blind? “Sixteen? Where do you pull a number like THAT from?” I muttered, not sure if I was ready to strangle him or nominate him for president if he was trying to butter me up with flattery.

“Eh-heh…fifteen?” he ventured, obviously thinking he was insulting me with a higher age. Now he WAS trying to flatter me.

I took a deep breath. “Where’s your parents, son?” I asked, hoping to get some worthwhile information and sane company.

“Son?” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, yo mama, or yo papa, boy, as in someone who might be my contemporary and can tell me WHERE I am, WHO you are and HOW the devil I get back to my own home!” I spat out, trying with little success to reign in my temper.

He scratched his head, “You seem to be seriously confused,” he said.

“I am seriously hacked off right now, and I want you to tell me what is going on and WHY you are talking to me like I’m a child!” I couldn’t take much more of this.

“Uh, maybe because you ARE one?” he gave me one of those C:looks.

“All right, that’s it!” Without really thinking of what I was doing, or why, I lunged at the boy and knocked him down. A big mistake because, what I had failed to notice before was that we appeared to be standing at the side of a low hill and, as a result of my tackle, we proceeded to roll down it together, accumulating all sorts of bumps and bruises and shouting expletives on the way. At the bottom was a creek, from which the sound of running water I had heard earlier came. Into this we both splashed and our fall was broken…and probably a few other things as well. Most certainly, one of them was pieces of what was left of my dignity.

Disheveled and soaking, we both picked ourselves up. The water did little to cool my temper, but I was now too dazed to do much of anything else. However, he was quite capable of some rage himself.

“What the heck was THAT for?” he yelled. “Jeez, I didn’t do anything to you! What’s your damage?”

He was right, what was I doing? I had to think about what was happening to me. I didn’t feel like myself. He was just a kid and now I was acting like one too. I truly couldn’t explain it. I didn’t understand any of this. Especially when I peered into the pool that was forming where the weight of my body had crushed the creek bank and left a depression large enough to collect some of the stream and it was forming a quite decent mirror image. If I was looking into it, then that was me staring back. Not me; the 40-something year-old mother of two and wife of one…but the ‘me’ of about 25 years before…the teenage me. No wrinkles, no greys, no sign of what one would call aging. Instead of my shorter, rather spiky coif, I had longer brunette locks. It was almost down to my waist, like it was back then…a bandana tied around my forehead and Uggs and a split skirt and peasant blouse. I hadn’t worn clothing like this for years! Dirty and messy though I was, there was no mistaking the reflection. I shook my head and the picture didn’t change. My eyes and mouth grew wide in shock and disbelief. ‘Oh my god,’ I thought, ‘what could’ve done this?’

When I didn’t answer the boy right away he asked, “Hey, are you okay?” I felt a hand on my shoulder and I jerked back with a gasp of fear. I had almost forgotten he was there.

“Oh god,” I said, almost in tears, “Oh god, I must be seeing things! This can’t be real! What kind of place is this?” My emotions were racing in circles and I was totally lost in them. I hadn’t been this panicked in years and that was saying something for a woman who’d grown up with anxiety disorder.

“Oh man, you’re really messed up,” he said, and tried brushing some of the dirt off me. But I backed off from him, winding up in the puddle that I didn’t want to look into anymore, for fear I’d see something else I didn’t want to see. I was messed up, all right. And god only knew how I was going to get back to normal. This had to be a dream…just a bad dream. Or maybe I was….

“Get away!” I cried, reacting completely from shock. “I don’t know who you are, or how I got here or why I’m this way, but just get back and don’t touch me!”

“Steady,” he said, and it seemed he was trying to be soothing, “hold on, and just relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“For all I know, you already have!” I grouched. “Who are you or WHAT are you?! I’ve never seen you before…or this place or…or…” I thought about what I had seen in the pooling water. “My reflection…it’s not me, it can’t be me!” I buried my face in my hands and dropped to the ground.

“Well I admit this place is strange,” he said, sitting next to me, “and I don’t quite know how I got here either…but I’m perfectly harmless and I don’t understand what you mean about your reflection. What are you talking about?”

“My face,” I said, trembling, “my clothes, everything…about me has changed. When I got up this morning, I was a 40 year-old mom keeping house in fleece and a t-shirt and now I look like a kid in a world I’ve never seen before and I don’t know how I got here.”

His eyes and mouth were wider than mine in response. “Uh, come again?”

I sighed heavily, realizing it sounded weird even to me. I mean, stuff like this only happened in movies, right? But then he was here with me and unless I was just dreaming, this was really happening. Could it be any stranger to him than it was to me?

I couldn’t believe there was any way he’d understand. Even so, I tried to tell him everything I’d gone through today up to now. He sat there listening, scratching his head and looking somewhat bored, but still he listened. When I finished he fiddled with his hands on his knee for a moment, peeling blades of grass.

“Wow, that’s some story. But…all that and you can’t tell me your name?” he asked wonderingly.

I looked at him kind of strangely for a second…then he grinned at me and I started laughing. What else could I do? He was right. I’d spewed an auto-biography and managed to leave out introductions. Typical female thing to do in an impossible situation. And what was so hard for me to believe coming out of my own mouth he seemed to take in stride. I wouldn’t have fallen for such nonsense in a million years. He laughed too and after a moment of embarrassment, we dusted ourselves off and he helped me up.

“My name is Mariko.” I said. “But from a youngster like you I expect to be called, ‘ma’am’.” He looked incredulously at me for a second until I giggled at how surprised he was. He knew then that I was joking. Ah, my poker face was still good!

“I’m Toshiro. But you can call me ‘kid’…. Nice to meet you….ma’am!” he held out his hand and bowed. We both busted up laughing.

End Part Two

Dimension 4-A Digital Odyssey

Toyland-Part Three

Not knowing what else to do at this point, we began walking in the direction he was going when we met. If we were going to be here for any amount of time, we needed shelter. So far, including up until he met me, he’d seen nothing that resembled a building of any sort.

I kept stealing glances at him and then when he’d look I’d look away. I didn’t want him to think I was some kind of psycho…but it was probably too late for that. Out of boredom and for lack of anything else to do, I decided to strike up a conversation.

“So Toshiro,” I began.

“Toshi is fine,” he said.

“Okay, Toshi,” I replied, “How did you get….here?” I spread my arms to indicate the surrounding scenery.

“Well, like I said, I’m not really sure.” He began to fiddle with his goggles, a gesture I would come to know from now on as his method of being pensive. “I was playing some computer games….”

“Typical,” I snickered. I hadn’t meant to be rude and he looked at me like most kids would at an adult when they say something like that. I backtracked and said, “Sorry, don’t mind me. Force of habit, you know. Keep talking, I’ll shut up.”

He grinned sardonically, and then continued, “There was this strange glow coming from the tower.”

“Kind of like the one I saw coming from under my son’s desk…?” I interrupted and he gave me that look again. I rolled my eyes, “My bad, really, I’ll keep my mouth shut this time. Promise.”

He laughed, “I’ll bet,” he said, and I raised my eyebrow at him. “Anyway, I went towards it to see if it was overloading or something and there was this big flash and I got blinded. Then there was this weird feeling, like I was being sucked into a drainpipe. Then I wound up here.”

“Did you hear a strange noise, like I did?”

“Hm…oh yeah, like a yeti with an uber-nasty headache or….”

“Like a vicious animal about to attack.”

“Absolutely! Funny, I thought I was imagining it.”

We walked on, pondering these things.

“Do you remember the card?” he asked suddenly.

“The card?”

“The one that you dropped, what was it?”

I had to think about that. I couldn’t, for the life of me. Either my memory was going, which wouldn’t be surprising, or that bonk on the head was enough to make me forget. “Sorry, no clue,” I said.

He shook his head, “It might be important. Keep trying.”

“I will.”

More silence as we continued our walk. Where we were going or what we’d find on the way was anybody’s guess. But the area was beautiful in a magical sort of way. Fantastic colors and shapes assaulted our eyes. There was no describing it. It was like something I’d seen before, but couldn’t place.

“Toyland,” I said at once.

“Huh?”

“Toyland,” I repeated. When he looked clueless I started to explain. “When I was a kid…” there was that look again and I laughed. “Um, well, back where I come from, there was a song about Toyland. It was from an old Christmas movie. Jeez, it goes back to when my folks were kids.” And like a fool, I began to sing, but not too off-key:

I stopped and looked at him. His fingers came out of his ears. “That was positively dreadful,” he grimaced. My face fell. He snickered and put his hands up defensively, “Just kidding.”

I punched him in the arm. “Thanks,” I said.

“So what brought that on?” he asked, and rightly so.

“That’s what this place reminds me of. It’s like some kind of imaginary land you’d dream about going the night before Christmas.” I laughed when he gave me an even more puzzled expression. “Maybe it’s just an old lady’s ramblings,” I finished.

He shook his head. “You’re not old,” he said.

“Not here.” I replied. He sounded like my son when he said that.

“No, I mean you’re not old anywhere. Come on, my mom’s about your age, but she’s still full of spunk.”

That got him another raised eyebrow and another punch.

He sighed. “You’re as old as you feel,” he quoted.

“Yeah, right…you sure sound like the voice of experience. Tell me that when YOU’RE forty. Believe me, when you get there it feels like ninety!”

“Really. It’s not like I had to have a reason to come up with that saying to know it’s true.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Maybe you should.”

I shook my head. “Too many responsibilities to think of being a young punk again. Somebody’s gotta be the grown up.”

“You can be both.”

“Not in my world.”

“Yeah, well…but as you’ve noticed, you’re not in your world now, are you?”

I had to think about what he was implying. “’Sure doesn’t look like home,” I snorted. “But what good does that do here anyway? I have to find a way back.”

“We both do. So while you’re here, you might have to start thinking like a kid again.”

Ooookay…so he had a point.

“So what game were you playing when you got drawn here?” I asked. “Don’t tell me, something Digimon, right?”

“Actually…yeah, well no, not exactly, I…that is, uh,” he replied sheepishly, turning red as a beet and briefly paused like he wasn’t sure what to say next, “what I mean is, I have Digimon stuff, but…ah…I never use it much anymore. It just kinda lies around.”

“Under your dirty clothes, probably.” Now I got a sock in the arm. I had to laugh. “Point for me.” I licked my finger and drew a score in the air in front of me.

“How old is your son?” he asked suddenly, changing the subject. “Man that sounds weird, saying that to someone who looks my age, I mean.”

I smiled to myself, because at my age, one could NEVER say enough about one’s kids. But I didn’t want to go off and bore him again. “He’s got to be about your age,” I said.

“Well, I’m fourteen…I’ll be fifteen in a month.”

“Hey, I was right! You two would probably be best buds, too.”

“He likes gaming, huh?”

“Not even. He LOVES it. It’s his life.”

“Works for me. What’s his name?”

“Makiya. We call him Mack, for short.”

“Sounds like a cool name. I like it.” He smiled.

“If we ever get back home, you two should meet.” Listen to me talk like any of this was even real. “He could use a good friend who’ll play guy stuff with him. He’s a bit of a goofball and other kids don’t really understand him. All he’s got is his sister, Emi.” I sighed. “I wonder if they even know I’m gone.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, I guess, because he gave me a sympathetic look and then we just kept walking.

“It’s funny,” I added suddenly, feeling peckish, “they were out camping and should’ve been home by now. If they had been, maybe they’d be here now instead of me. They’d probably appreciate a place like this more than I would. ‘Looks like one of their TV shows.” I snickered.

Silence for quite a few paces, and then he stopped. “You know, now that you mention it….” he began.

“What?” I asked.

“This does look like somewhere I’ve seen before.”

“Where?” I urged.

He turned to me with an odd look on his face. As if he weren’t sure how I would take his answer.

“It looks like the Digital World.”

End Part Three