Chapter 2

     When everything came back into focus, all five of them were standing inside a white room with shelves and shelves of various containers of solutions labeled with various numbers followed by an “M”.
     “How did we get into the chemical storage room?” Anastasia asked, her hand at her chin.
     Drew looked at her. “Wait, we’re not supposed to be back here. How do you know what the inside of the storage room looks like?”
     “Oh, well, you know…I catch glimpses of it, uh, when I go to the bathroom around the other way…you know how there’s a window?”
     Drew still glared at her dubiously, wondering if perhaps she wasn’t always the goody-goody she made herself out to be.
     “Oookay, something went wrong here,” said that stranger’s voice again. “Why did you guys get pulled along too?” He scratched his head. “And why are we still…or are we actually back in…”
     “I’m getting tired of this. Whoever you are, you’re wasting our time. It’s after school, we’re all tired, and we need to get our lab done.” Heather went over to the door to the classroom and opened it. “So just—”
     She stopped dead in the doorway. The stranger peered around her and said, “Oh, I guess that means we did make it back to my dimension, then.”
     Heather was speechless. They all peeked into the opening, and they could see why.
     Instead of the classroom, there was a huge laboratory with assorted colorful solutions, flames, gases, and lights. Where the teacher’s desk would have stood there was a table where rows of test tubes and flasks were standing, and scribbled ink papers were piled on the desk.
     "Wh…wha...?" Heather blinked, flabbergasted.
     "Yeah, it seems like there's that room in your dimension that looks really similar to the storage closet here,” he commented.
     “Oooh…cool,” Anastasia nodded.
     “ ‘Oooh, cool?’” Heather said with disbelief. “That’s all you can say? When our classroom has disappeared and we’re stuck with some nutcase kid that has the fashion sense of a Lord of the Rings fanatic?”
     “Hey!”
     “You know what I think?” Drew stepped into the room and gazed around solemnly. “This is…absolutely, totally awesome!!”
     He turned to the stranger. “Where is this exactly? What’s this place called? Oooh, ooh! Is this place called Middle-Earth? Or Amestris? Or…”
     “Hey, c’mon!” The blonde held up his hands, overwhelmed. “One thing at a time here…”
     “And we haven’t finished our lab yet!!” Heather almost sobbed.
     The stranger sighed. “Okay. Everyone, just…pipe down! Right now.”
     They did so and turned towards him, although Heather still had a pained expression on her face.
     “All right, everybody. Let me try to set things straight. Right now we’re in my dimension. It just happens to look like yours. Your classroom didn’t disappear; you’re just not there right now.”
     “Then where are we?”
     “We’re in my dimension,” he replied. “Well, if you really want to get into specifics, we’re on the planet Thenrin, continent West Hamelin, country Gestault…”
     “Oooh,” Drew observed attentively. “Does anyone have a pen and piece of paper? I’ve gotta write these down…”
     “…Argh, that’s not important right now. You guys want to get back, so just give me a second and I’ll fix things.”
     “Fix things?” Anastasia asked, puzzled.
     “Your device there,” Phillip said, speaking for the first time since they arrived. “That’s what got you to our world, and us to yours, isn’t it?”
     “That’s right,” the stranger nodded, punching a few things into the device, almost as if it really were a programmable graphing calculator. “I’m not quite sure what happened, but I guess it must have pulled you guys into it too when I set it.”
      “Say,” Drew began, still brimming with enthusiasm, “is there anyone else that works here with you? Don’t tell me you’re the one that owns this whole place!”
     “Well, actually,” the blonde seemed to inflate a bit, “that’s basically it. The only one that’s not here right now is my prof – er, my colleague, he’s in another city right now.”
     Phillip frowned vaguely.
     “Okay, I’ve got things set. Here we go.”
     He pressed a button, and things began glowing again. Although, Anastasia thought she heard a small mutter, “Geez, I hope this works…”