(WARNING: LUKESSE AND OCCASIONALLY WEIRDLY CRAMPED WRITING. I AM SORRY.)

<Jesse's POV>
We stumble out of the portal and appear near a familiar-looking fortress. It was covered in vines and several of the blocks were chipped and cracked, but it is still recognizable.

"The Order's temple!" Ivor exclaims, hopping from foot to foot. "It seems so long since I was here last!"

"The Order? Of what?" Harper asks. She seemed distinctly uncomfortable. Of course, most of her life that we knew of was in the Mesa biome world, with no trees, grass, simple hills, water, anything. Oh, and trying to escape an insane computer she built. Did I mention that?

"The temple of the Order of the Stone!" Ivor replies.

"It wasn't this broken down earlier," Lukas says, gesturing toward the temple. I follow his gaze. When we had been here last, trying to escape the Witherstorm, we had taken refuge here and rebuilt the temple's defenses. Now it looks like a giant had thrown a mountain at the roof and stomped on the rest. Except more broken.

"Yeah, Lukas is right," Petra agrees. "You guys made it a lot safer. Now it's...worn down. A lot."

I nod. "This doesn't seem right." I look around, surveying our surroundings. Several of the trees had been taken down, and there were more caves in the mountains than before.

"It's getting dark. We should head inside," Lukas says, shaking his head. "Before the monsters come out."

Almost as one, we head down the hill and into the temple.

---------------------------------------------

The inside of the temple wasn't much better off. Several cobwebs had sprung up in the passageways, and the ceiling had caved in in some places, making it difficult to get to the stairs up top. But we make it.

I look across the landscape, my heart pounding in my chest. It's all so different. A small town had sprung up nearby, but the buildings are nearly destroyed and clearly abandoned. The dirt hut we had built at the beginning of our adventures seems mostly intact, the fire from the Netherrack still burning. I close my eyes and hear someone come up next to me.

"We've been gone a long time," Lukas says, and I feel him touch my shoulder. The light touch surprises me slightly. I nod, opening my eyes again. The setting sun against the horizon turned the sky orange and pink, the colors reflecting off the clouds, as if trying to prevent the dark night from taking over.

"Yeah. Longer than it felt, apparently," I respond quietly, and we watch as the day fades to night, the stars beginning to appear. I listen to the other three come up behind us, and turn to hear what they say.

"How could time have passed so quickly? We spent about a month portal jumping, max." Petra was saying. "And it looks like it's been years since we last were here."

"Yeah. That was a problem in the Portal Hallway, and the reason the Old Builders have been around for so long. I really don't like that name," Harper mutters. "Time is sort of... faster... outside the hallway than inside. We never could figure out why."

"So, if that's the case, how long would we have been away from home?" Lukas asks, fear hidden in the undertones of his voice.

"My guess would be...about twenty years or so. Of course, I could be wrong, and it would depend on how much time you spent in other worlds, and which ones, but that would be about how long."

Lukas looks at me, and I look back. "But then...what's happened to Axel and Olivia?" I ask.

"We need to find them. Soon." Petra says. "They must have worried about us being gone for so long."

"Thirty years? They probably think we're dead," Ivor grumbles. "The rest of the Old Order almost definitely are."

"Wait...," I say, remembering something. "In Sky City, the White Pumpkin's lair, Harper's lab...they all had books by Soren. What if he's been wandering around the Hallway, as well? And he's still alive?"

There was silence among the group. "You might be right," Harper says, finally. "Not all that long ago, some guy with orange hair came and left a book about the Redstone Heart with me. Said he was marking his tracks or something."

"That's definitely Soren," Ivor agrees. "Of course he would do something like that."

"Does he know which portal to go through?" I ask. Even though Soren ran away when we were taking down the Witherstorm, no one deserves to be lost in the Hallway like we were before Harper's world.

Speaking of which, I never figured out what that world was called. I'll have to ask Lukas about it later.

"We'll have to hope that he figures it out," Ivor answers.

"We should set a watch for the night, make sure nothing sneaks up on us," I say, thinking out loud. "Take turns, about an hour or so each."

"Jesse's right. We should have two people at a time, to make sure we catch as much as possible." Petra says, and glances quickly at Lukas. I barely catch it, and wonder, What's that about?

"Lukas, you and Jesse want to go first?" She continues. We both nod.

Ivor pulls out a block of Netherrack (where does he get so much of it?) and I light it with the enchanted flint and steel. The pillar of blue fire lights the area for quite a distance, and for just a moment, I'm reminded of Aiden and the Ocel-the Blaze Rods. If it hadn't been for them, we would probably still be stuck in Sky City, trying to find our way home. That's just sad.

I turn, the fire warming me to the core, and pass the pedestal the Amulet had been used on, sitting on the edge of the Temple's second floor. Lukas follows and settles down next to me.

I'm still trying to figure out what the look he and Petra were sharing right before. Why? Are they together? But no, then why would Petra tell Lukas to watch with me? I have no idea what's going on, and that's not a feeling I appreciate.

~Lukas's POV~

Next to me, I can almost hear Jesse trying to figure something out. She does what she always does; she falls silent and her gaze fades out, resting her head on one hand.

Maybe she's worried about Axel and Olivia. Before the building competition, when they beat me and the other Ocelots, she only really knew them and Petra as anything like friends. They really did have good chemistry.

Or she could be puzzling over the time differences between the Portal Hallway and the worlds. Knowing Jesse, she probably already has ideas for why.

Me, I'm trying to figure out how Petra knew. I thought I'd been pretty good at hiding my feelings, but that look she gave me while talking about the watches for the night kind of scared me. Was I more obvious than I thought I was? Or is she just good at picking up other people's emotions, even better than Jesse? If she is, she's never shown it before now.

And from there, my thoughts turn back to Jesse. If Petra knows my feelings for her, could Jesse know, too? Back at the White Pumpkin's Mansion, when we were investigating Captain Sparklez's murder, and she came to talk to me, I was tempted to tell her. And then in Harper's tunnel, when she saved me instead of Petra, I could tell she was hiding something, and giving me a different reason than the truth.

And before that, in Sky City, she came to help me fight Aiden instead of trying to pull the Founder - Isa - to safety. And when she was kicked over the edge, my heart practically stopped beating. I thought Aiden had killed her.

Then a new thought enters my head. If she hadn't stopped me from looking for the other Ocelots, then I could have been the one to knock her over the edge. The thought terrifies me, and I start shivering.

I need to think about something else.

Jesse can be strange sometimes. She tries to be kind to everyone, and she doesn't make a big deal about being in the Order of the Stone, but she gets really intensely into things. It's kind of similar with how well she picks up emotions. Sometimes, she catches things that no one else would notice in someone's voice, and other times, she's completely clueless.

I need to tell her. If I don't, I might never feel strong enough to again.

"Jesse, I need-" I begin, but she cuts me off.

"Hush," she says, reentering herself.

"Jesse-"

"Lukas, be quiet for a second."

"But I-"

"Lukas, shut up for ten seconds, please!"

I shut up, and everything goes quiet. After a few moments, I ask, "What?"

"You don't hear the singing?" Jesse replies, gesturing toward the stairs.

Now that she mentions it, I do barely hear someone singing softly, the echoing of the tunnels giving the music a strange, haunting quality. I can't quite make out the words the voice is singing, but they're there.I shiver again, and she says, "I'm going to go check it out. Stay here and keep an eye on the others."

"No. I'm coming with you." I don't want to lose you, I continue mentally. "It's not safe to wander around alone."

"Is it safe to leave them without any guards? If it's a trap, then I'm not going to leave them defenseless."

"If it's a trap, and you die-"

"I can handle myself, Lukas. And even if I couldn't, I'd rather give you guys a chance to survive instead of giving away that there are more people here."

"Jesse..." I'm growing desperate. If she knows how much pain she's inflicting on me, she doesn't show it.

"I won't die." She stands and heads toward the stairs. At the top, she turns and looks at me. "If you hear screaming, you can come down and save me," she says, grinning, and heads down into the darkness.

If she dies, I'm never going to forgive myself. So I wait for her to reach the bottom of the stairs, and follow her.

I haven't really explored the tunnels before, so I use the music to find my way. As the song gets louder, I begin being able to pick out words and phrases.

"-when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time-"

I freeze.

"If you can see that I'm the one who understands you-"

This music matches me perfectly.

"Been here all along, so why can't you see-"

I feel just like this with Jesse.

"You belong with me-"

Does she know?

"Have you ever thought just maybe, you belong with me-"

I close my eyes, and I feel a tear trickle down my face.

"You belong with me."

I wipe the tear away as the song ends, and continue forward.

Soon, a flicker of orange firelight begins to illuminate the corridor. I hang back a bit, seeing a shadowed figure ahead of me. The figure steps forward, away from me, and I see three other figures facing me. They're all sitting on the ground, close to the fire. Two boys and a girl, about my age.

The girl seems to be the only one awake. Her long, golden brown hair is wild and completely covers her left shoulder and half her face. She's wearing a black jacket, zipped up to her neck. I can't make out any other details, but she definitely seems dangerous, in a "stay away from me or I will bite you" kind of way. It almost looks unintentional. Maybe it's because she has one hand on either of the boys' shoulders calmly, as though they are siblings.

One of the boys is wearing glasses and a puffy green coat. His hair is black as night. The other is hugely different. His pale blond hair brushes his shoulders, and he's just wearing a short-sleeved shirt and knee shorts.

I slip off one of my armor's shoulders and grab my jacket sleeve. These three remind me a little of how the Ocelots used to be, before I joined Jesse's team because of the Witherstorm and Aiden went crazy.

The figure in front of me asks, "Who are you? And why are you here?" Of course, it was Jesse.

The girl answers, "Who I am, I'm not sure." Her voice is quiet, but strangely rough, as though she hasn't spoken in a long time.

"Then what's your name?"

"I have many names. You, and your friend in the shadows, can call me Ruby."

"Friend in the shadows-?" Jesse asks, turning to me. "Lukas? I told you not to follow me!"

"I had to follow you, Jesse. It's not safe to be alone."

"Listen to your friend. This world is not the same. It never is the same as any other day." Ruby smiles slightly. She almost seems a little insane. "No world ever is."

For the first time, I notice a scar crossing from the right of her forehead to her left cheek, and I shudder. No monster I know can cause such injuries.

Something isn't right.