Chapter 2: The Other Side

  Light.

  The thought arrives before I'm fully conscious, drifting up through layers of darkness like a bubble rising through tar. Not sound. Not touch. Not the familiar sensory inputs my brain has spent twenty-one years learning to prioritize and interpret and build entire worlds from.

  Light.

  I can feel it pressing against my eyelids, warm and insistent, refusing to be ignored. Which is. . .

  Wait.

  I shouldn't be able to see. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this has ever worked. Sight has always been for other people, something they try to describe to me in metaphors that never quite land, something that exists in a category of experience I've spent my entire life being excluded from.

  Maybe I'm dying.

  The thought arrives with surprising calm, settling into my awareness like an old friend I wasn't expecting to see. Maybe this is what dying feels like, your brain misfiring, inventing sensations it's never had access to before, throwing up random neural garbage as everything shuts down. The biological equivalent of a computer's blue screen of death, except instead of error messages it's just... light.

  Five stars, would not recommend, but at least it's interesting?

  Dead people probably don't hurt this much. Or if they do, someone really needs to update the brochures about the afterlife because this is not what I signed up for. I was promised clouds and harps, not full-body agony.

  The blast.

  Oh. Oh.

  Oh. Truly eloquent, Fey. Really capturing the moment here. Shakespeare would be proud. Maybe I should try for a fourth "oh" just to really drive the point home. Really demonstrate my mastery of the English language in moments of crisis.

  The memory crashes back in fragments, disjointed and overwhelming, each piece slamming into my consciousness with the subtlety of a freight train. The gym. The testing. The villain who'd appeared at the entrance, throwing fireballs like an over eager Dungeons and Dragons player. I remember the sound first, because of course I do, sound is always first for me, a sharp crack followed by screaming. Then the chaos, people scattering in every direction while soldiers shouted orders that got lost in the panic. The air had filled with smoke and the acrid smell of burning plastic, and I'd frozen, overwhelmed by the sensory chaos, unable to process what was happening fast enough to react.

  And the portal. Eve had grabbed my jacket but the force had been too much. I'd felt her grip slip, felt the fabric tear, felt myself being pulled through something that shouldn't exist, and then. . .

  Maybe I am dead?

  The thought arrives cold and certain, settling into my chest with an uncomfortable weight. Whatever hit me should have done more than knock me down and burn through my clothes. It should have killed me outright, or at least left me broken in ways that don't heal, ways that require surgery and months of recovery and permanent changes to how I move through the world.

  So either I'm incredibly lucky, or something very strange happened. Neither option is particularly comforting.

  I'm laying on a bed of some kind, the sheets pressing into my body in a way that suggests I've been here for a while. They're scratchy, rough-woven fabric that feels more utilitarian than comfortable, and in the few brief moments I've been awake my skin has already started itching from the contact. The texture reminds me of the cheap linens in the group homes, the kind that get washed so many times they lose any softness they might have started with and just become vaguely hostile to human skin.

  Okay. Okay, so not dead. Probably. Unless the afterlife includes full-body pain and the lingering smell of, what is that? Not antiseptic. Not the familiar chemical tang of hospitals that always makes my nose wrinkle.

  Great. So I survived being hit by a fireball and getting sucked through a portal, which is either the luckiest or unluckiest thing that's ever happened to me, and I still can't decide which. On the one hand: not dead. On the other hand: possibly in a worse situation than being dead, which is really saying something.

  Okay. Okay. Let's not panic yet. Panic later. Preferably in private. With ice cream. And Eve.

  Eve.

  The thought of her hits like a physical blow, harder than the fireball, harder than anything. Where is she? Is she okay? Did she get hurt when the portal pulled me through? Is she looking for me? Does she think I'm dead? Is she blaming herself for not holding on tight enough, even though there's no way she could have fought against whatever force was pulling me?

  The questions spiral out faster than I can catch them, each one worse than the last, painting increasingly terrible scenarios in my mind. She's probably losing her mind right now, and Eve losing her mind is never good for anyone in a five-mile radius.

  But first I have to figure out where "here" is. And that means opening my eyes.

  I have to force myself to breathe through the rising panic, to focus on something else before it finishes what the blast started. In through the nose, careful, testing how much my ribs will tolerate. Out through the mouth, slow, controlled, the way the therapist at the last group home taught me before the funding got cut and the sessions stopped.

  The light. Focus on the light. Deal with one impossible thing at a time. That's manageable. That's a plan. Open your eyes, see what you can see, assess the situation, make decisions based on actual information instead of spiraling anxiety.

  Right. Simple. Just open your eyes and experience an entirely new sense for the first time while also dealing with burns and a possible kidnapping. Totally normal Tuesday. This is fine. Everything is fine.

  I take a breath, careful, shallow, testing how much my ribs will tolerate, and force my eyes open.

  The world explodes into existence.

  So this is what 'looking' feels like. Thanks, I hate it.

  And I immediately want to close them again because what the actual fuck.

  Of all the ways to finally see for the first time, "mysterious portal-napping" was not on my bingo card. Sure I had a few glimpses from the flashes and from the portal, but I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing . . . I still can't comprehend what I'm seeing.

  There's a ceiling above me. I know this because I can see it, which is a sentence that shouldn't make sense but does, and the disconnect between knowing something exists and actually perceiving it visually is making my head spin in ways that have nothing to do with the burns or the possible concussion. It's rough and uneven, made of stone that looks old, really old, the kind of old that suggests centuries rather than decades. The kind of old that makes you wonder who built this place and why they thought "massive stone ceiling" was a good interior design choice.

  The texture is irregular in a way that makes me think each stone was placed by hand rather than poured or molded. I can see the variations, the way some stones protrude slightly more than others, the way the mortar between them creates thin dark lines, darker than the stone, anyway, though I'm not sure if that makes it gray or brown or some other color I don't have names for yet. The lines create a pattern, a grid that my eyes want to follow, tracing the connections between stones like my fingers would trace the edges of objects in the dark.

  But unlike touch, I can see all of it at once. The entire ceiling. Every stone. Every line. Every variation in texture and color and depth. And my brain is trying to process all of it simultaneously, trying to catalog and categorize and understand, and it's failing spectacularly. The bricks are rough, their surfaces pitted and uneven in ways I can see without touching them.

  The room is small, I think it's small, anyway, though I'm realizing I have no idea how to judge distance visually, no framework for translating what I'm seeing into spatial understanding. It feels small, in the way rooms feel when you're lying down and everything is close, but I could be completely wrong. For all I know this room is enormous and my visual processing is just catastrophically bad at scale. The walls seem close, but "seem" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

  I try to focus on one thing at a time, the way I learned to isolate sounds in crowded spaces, but vision doesn't work like that. Everything comes at once, the ceiling, the walls, the strange even light that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, filling the space without harsh shadows. My eyes don't know where to look, don't know what's important and what's background noise, and the result is a chaotic mess of input that makes my stomach lurch.

  I dry heave, turning to the side and gagging as my stomach rebels against the sensory overload. Nothing comes up, I don't think there's anything in my stomach to come up, but my body tries anyway, muscles contracting in waves that make the burns on my chest scream in protest. I squeeze my eyes shut, retreating back into the familiar darkness, and for a moment everything is okay again. Manageable. Comprehensible.

  Ah, darkness, my old friend. I've missed you. You don't make me want to vomit. You're simple. Uncomplicated. We had a good thing going.

  But I can't stay here. Can't hide in the dark forever, no matter how much I want to. I need to figure out where I am, what happened, how to get home.

  Why do I have to be responsible? Why can't I just lie here in the dark and wait for someone else to solve my problems? Oh right, because I'm probably kidnapped and that's generally a "solve it yourself" kind of situation.

  And that's when I notice the door.

  There's a door. In the wall. I can see it, this rectangular shape that's darker than the surrounding stone, made of wood, I think it's wood, it has that organic texture that suggests it grew rather than being quarried, with metal fixtures that look dull and heavy. The door is closed, a solid barrier between me and whatever's on the other side, and just seeing it makes my heart rate pick up because doors mean exits, doors mean escape, doors mean I might be able to get out of here.

  But doors also mean someone put me in here. Someone closed that door. Someone might be on the other side of it right now, waiting.

  Great. Fantastic. Love that for me.

  The door sits in a frame that's slightly darker than the surrounding stone, creating a clear boundary between wall and exit. The frame itself looks old, worn smooth in places where hands have touched it repeatedly over time, and that detail makes my stomach clench because it means people use this door regularly. This isn't some forgotten storage room. This is a space that sees traffic.

  Okay. Okay, so not dead. Probably. Unless the afterlife includes full-body pain and doors. Which seems unnecessarily complicated for an afterlife, but what do I know?

  My heart rate picks up, and I force myself to breathe through it. One thing at a time. First, figure out what condition I'm in. Then figure out where I am. Then figure out how to get out. Then figure out how to get home. Simple. Linear. Manageable.

  I try to sit up and immediately regret it.

  My arm comes into view, and I freeze.

  It's angry. Furious, even. The kind of visual intensity that promises pain and probably some regrettable scarring. The skin is inflamed, stretching from my shoulder down toward my elbow in irregular patches where the energy blast hit hardest. The edges of the burn are darker, deeper, more saturated, while the center is lighter, paler in places where the skin is trying to heal. I don't have names for what I'm seeing, no vocabulary for the specific shades my eyes are registering, but I know instinctively that this looks bad. Really bad.

  The bed I'm sitting on is strange. Now that I'm upright and can see it properly, I realize it's not a normal bed at all. It's built into the floor, seamless and solid, like it grew there instead of being placed. No frame. No legs. Just a smooth transition from floor to sleeping surface, the stone flowing upward in a way that suggests someone with a stonework ability shaped it directly from the ground.

  I look down at myself, my breath catching for reasons that have nothing to do with the burns.

  I was wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Thin, pale fabric that barely covers anything, the kind of garment designed to maximize both discomfort and indignity. It's open in the back, I can feel the draft, can feel where the fabric doesn't quite meet, and the front barely reaches mid-thigh. The color is that same indeterminate pale shade as everything else in this room, like someone decided "depressing neutral" was a whole aesthetic and committed to it fully.

  The fabric is rough against my skin, scratchy in a way that makes me want to take it off immediately, but that would leave me naked in a strange room in an unknown location, and that seems like a bad tactical decision. So I suffer through the scratchiness and try not to think about how exposed I feel.

  Fantastic. Of course I'm in a hospital gown. Because dignity was clearly overrated anyway. Why would I need dignity when I could have this fashionable paper-thin nightmare instead?

  I scan the room again, looking for my clothes, my backpack, my phone, anything familiar, anything that might tell me where I am or how long I've been here. But there's nothing. No pile of belongings in the corner. No bag hanging on a hook. No phone charging on a nightstand because there is no nightstand, there's just stone and more stone and that weird seamless bed and. . .

  Wait.

  Against the far wall, or what I think is the far wall, distance is still a nightmare to judge, there are cabinets. Wooden, dark, with doors that don't quite match, like they were built at different times or by different hands. Some of the doors are open, and inside I can see. . .

  Colors.

  Oh no. Oh no, that's too many colors.

  Vials and flasks, rows and rows of them, each one filled with liquid that seems to glow from within. Each one is a different color, vibrant, saturated colors that make my brain short-circuit trying to process them all at once.

  This is a lot. This is too much. Can we go back to darkness? Just for a minute? Just to catch my breath?

  I blink, testing whether this is real or some kind of hallucination my brain has constructed to cope with trauma. The room does not vanish. The cabinets don't disappear. The vials continue to glow with their impossible colors, completely indifferent to my existential crisis. It doesn't smear or collapse or retreat back into darkness like I half-expect it to, like some part of me is still waiting for the familiar void to reassert itself and prove that this was all just a dream or a dying hallucination or something my damaged brain invented while unconscious.

  But it stays. All of it stays. The stone walls, the seamless bed, the cabinets full of glowing liquids, the door that might or might not be locked. This is real. This is happening. I'm awake and seeing and trapped in a room that looks like it belongs in a fantasy novel, and I need to figure out what to do about it.

  Right. One thing at a time. I can do this. I've survived worse. Probably. Maybe. Okay, I've definitely never survived anything like this, but there's a first time for everything, right?

  I need to move. I need to stand up, assess my condition properly, figure out if I'm capable of walking or if I'm going to collapse the moment I put weight on my legs. Need to check the door, see if it's locked, see if there's a way out. I need to find my clothes, my phone, anything that might help me figure out where I am or how to get home.

  But first, I need to stand.

  My feet hit the floor and I gasp softly, startled by the sensation. The stone is warm, not hot, but warm, like a stone that's been holding sunlight all day even though we're clearly indoors and I haven't seen any windows. The warmth seeps into my feet, spreading up through my ankles and calves in a way that's almost pleasant, almost comforting, if I ignore the fact that warm floors in stone rooms are deeply weird and probably not a good sign.

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  Then I take a step.

  The air resists me.

  Not enough to stop me. Not like walking through water or pushing against a strong wind. Just... resistance. A subtle pushback that makes every movement feel slightly harder than it should, like the atmosphere itself has density, has substance, has opinions about my motion through it.

  I freeze, one foot raised, trying to process what I'm feeling. It's not painful. Not even uncomfortable, really. Just strange. Like the space between things isn't actually empty at all, like the air has weight and texture and I'm having to push through it with every movement. It's subtle enough that I might not have noticed if I wasn't already hyperaware of every sensation, already cataloging every impossible thing about this situation.

  Okay, so gravity is weird now. Or air pressure is weird. Or physics is weird. Or I'm weird. Probably all of the above. Let's add it to the list of impossible things and move on.

  But here's the weird thing: I feel good.

  Not good like "everything is fine and I'm not trapped in a stone room in an unknown location." Good like my body is responding better than it should, like my muscles are stronger, like I have more energy than I did when I woke up. The burns still hurt, the bruises still ache, but underneath all that there's a vitality I can't explain, a sense of capability that doesn't match my injuries or my circumstances.

  But I don't have time to figure out why.

  I need to find a way out.

  I move toward the door, each step deliberate, testing my balance and coordination as I go. The hospital gown flaps around my thighs, offering absolutely no dignity or warmth, and I'm acutely aware of how exposed I am, how vulnerable.

  The door looms larger as I approach, the dark wood grain becoming more distinct, more detailed. I can see now that it's not just one piece of wood but several planks joined together, held in place by metal bands that run horizontally across the surface. The metal is dark, almost black, with a texture that suggests it's been worked by hand, hammered into shape rather than cast in a mold.

  There's a handle. Simple, functional, a curved piece of metal that looks like it's meant to be pulled rather than turned. No lock that I can see from this side, which is either very good or very bad depending on whether the lock is on the other side.

  I pull.

  The door swings open smoothly, silently, revealing. . .

  A hallway.

  Dark. Narrow. Lit by what looks like lanterns hanging from the ceiling at regular intervals, each one containing a glowing sphere that casts warm light across stone walls that look identical to the ones in the room I just left. The hallway extends in both directions, disappearing into shadow at the edges of the lantern light, and I can see other doors along the walls, some closed, some hanging open.

  The air that flows in from the hallway is different. Cooler. It carries scents I don't recognize, something herbal, something mineral, something organic and faintly sweet that makes me think of growing things even though I can't see any plants. The acoustics change too, sound bouncing differently off the corridor walls, creating echoes that would normally help me orient but now just add to the overwhelming sensory chaos.

  I step into the hallway, bare feet silent on the warm stone floor, and immediately wish I had shoes. Or clothes. Or literally anything that would make me feel less exposed, less vulnerable, less like prey.

  The hallway is empty. No people. No movement. Just the steady glow of the lanterns and the shadows they cast, creating pools of light and darkness that my eyes struggle to process. I can see the texture of the stone walls, the same rough brick pattern as the room, and I use that to ground myself, to give my brain something familiar to latch onto.

  I need to pick a direction. Left or right. One hallway looks the same as the other from here, both disappearing into shadow, both equally unknown. I strain my ears, listening for any sound that might give me a clue, footsteps, voices, anything, but there's nothing. Just silence. The kind of deep, heavy silence that suggests I'm either very alone or everyone else is very good at being quiet.

  Okay. Okay, let's think about this logically. If I were a kidnapper who wanted to keep someone contained, would I put them near the exit or deep inside the building? Probably deep inside. So the exit is probably... that way? Maybe? This is a terrible plan but it's the only plan I have.

  I turn right, moving as quietly as I can, trying to minimize the sound of my footsteps even though the warm stone seems to absorb sound rather than reflect it. Each step is careful, deliberate, testing the floor before committing my weight. The burns on my chest and shoulder protest with every movement, sending waves of heat radiating outward, but I push through it. Pain is just information. Pain means I'm alive. Pain means I can still move.

  I pass the first door on my left. It's closed, the dark wood identical to the door of the room I just left. No window. No way to see what's inside. I keep moving, not willing to risk opening it and finding something worse than an empty room.

  The second door is open.

  I slow down, approaching carefully, trying to see inside without getting too close. The room beyond is dark, lit only by the ambient light from the hallway lanterns, and I can make out shapes but not details. More stone. More of that seamless furniture built directly into the floor. It looks empty, abandoned, like no one's used it in a while.

  I keep moving.

  The hallway curves slightly, following the contour of whatever building I'm in, and as I round the bend I see. . .

  Light. Brighter light. Coming from ahead, from around the next corner, spilling into the hallway in a way that suggests a larger space, maybe an exit.

  Footsteps.

  I freeze, every muscle in my body locking up as I hear them. Not close. Not yet. But getting closer. Shit. Shit shit shit. Okay. Okay, I need to hide. I spin around, looking for options, and spot another open door a few feet back. I move toward it as quickly and quietly as I can, slipping inside just as the footsteps round the corner behind me.

  The room is dark. Darker than the hallway. The only light comes from the doorway I just entered through, casting a pale rectangle across the floor that I'm careful to stay out of. I press myself against the wall beside the door, trying to control my breathing, trying to stay absolutely silent as the footsteps pass by outside.

  The footsteps fade, moving away down the hallway, and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

  Okay. Okay, that was close. Too close. I need to be more careful.

  Wait.

  There's something in this room.

  I can see it now, my eyes adjusting to the darkness, picking out shapes and details that weren't visible at first. The room is smaller than the one I woke up in, more cramped, with the same stone walls and floor but no bed, no cabinets, no furniture at all. Just empty space and. . .

  A circle.

  On the floor.

  Drawn in something that glows faintly in the darkness, barely visible but definitely there. A perfect circle, maybe six feet in diameter, inscribed with symbols that look like letters but aren't, like someone took an alphabet I should recognize and twisted it into something alien. The symbols look familiar. Not in a way I can articulate, not in a way that suggests I've seen them before, but in a way that makes something deep in my brain sit up and pay attention. Like my subconscious recognizes them even if my conscious mind doesn't, like there's some part of me that knows what these symbols mean even if I can't access that knowledge.

  There's a pattern to them. I can see it now, the way certain symbols repeat at regular intervals, the way others seem to be grouped in sets of three or four. It's like looking at a language I don't speak but can almost understand, like the meaning is right there, just out of reach.

  A sound.

  Behind me.

  In the hallway.

  I spin around, heart hammering, and see a shape in the doorway. Backlit by the hallway lanterns, cast in silhouette, but definitely there. Definitely real. Definitely. . .

  Oh no.

  It's tall. Taller than me by at least six inches, maybe more. It was clearly female, with a long slender body mimicking the proportions of a human woman. I can see the outline of horns, curved and elegant, rising from the top of its head in a way that should be impossible but clearly isn't. A tail curled around its leg, coiled around its left leg like a snake resting. Even in silhouette, even backlit, I can tell its skin is wrong. Too pale. Too uniform. Not the kind of pale that comes from lack of sun but the kind of pale that suggests an absence of pigment entirely, like someone bleached all the color out and left only white behind.

  The figure steps into the room, and the light from the hallway catches its face.

  I stop breathing.

  Its eyes are bright. Impossibly bright. Wrong in a way I can't articulate, in a way that makes my stomach drop. Not like any human eyes I've ever been told about. Something else entirely. Vivid and intense in a way that makes them look like they're glowing from within, like there's light trapped behind them trying to get out.

  The irises are flowers. Petals arranged in a circle around the pupil, each one distinct and delicate.

  It . . . has powers. . . and clothes. It was wearing a white lab coat over what looked to be a black dress.

  Huh . . . I thought, who knew monsters wore clothes.

  We stare at each other for a moment that stretches into eternity. Me, frozen in place beside the glowing circle, wearing nothing but a hospital gown and terror. It, standing in the doorway.

  Then it speaks.

  The language is wrong. The sounds are wrong. Clicks and syllables that don't fit together in any pattern my brain recognizes, words that slide past my comprehension without leaving any meaning behind. The tone is... calming? Maybe? It's hard to tell when every sound feels like it's coming from somewhere outside normal human vocal range.

  I don't respond. Can't respond. My throat has closed up, my lungs have forgotten how to work, and all I can do is stand there and stare and try not to pass out from the sheer impossibility of what I'm seeing.

  The monster takes a step forward.

  That breaks the spell.

  I scream...

  I run.

  Absolutely not. Absolutely fucking not. I did not survive a fireball and a portal just to get eaten by a demon.

  I run for the door, ducking under the creature's reaching arm, it has hands, I notice in the split second I'm close enough to see, each one tipped with something dark that might be nails or might be claws, and burst into the hallway.

  The world explodes into motion and color and overwhelming sensory chaos that makes my brain short-circuit. The hallway is brighter than I remembered, the lanterns casting warm light that seems to pulse and shift, and I can see details now that I couldn't before, the texture of the stone, the shadows in the corners, the way the light reflects off the metal fixtures.

  Behind me, the creature shouts something. The words are still incomprehensible, still that same alien language, but the tone is clear: alarm. Urgency. Maybe anger.

  I run.

  Running barefoot is a terrible idea, and I learn this immediately and repeatedly, each step driving the lesson deeper into the soles of my feet as they slap against smooth stone that's warm and faintly textured but has absolutely no interest in cushioning my panic. The hospital gown flaps around my thighs, offering zero dignity and even less coverage, and I'm acutely aware of how exposed I am, how vulnerable, how completely unprepared for whatever this is.

  The air resists me more now that I'm moving fast, dragging at me like I've offended it personally, every stride forcing my muscles to work harder than they should. It's like running through water, except I can breathe normally and the resistance is constant rather than progressive. My vision lags behind my movements, the world smearing and catching up in nauseating waves that make my stomach lurch.

  But fear is an excellent motivator, and standing still in a hallway with a demon feels like a fast track to becoming a cautionary tale.

  I sprint down the corridor, past closed doors and open rooms, past lanterns that cast dancing shadows, past stone walls that all look the same. The hallway curves, branches, splits into options I don't have time to evaluate. I pick directions at random, left, right, straight, trying to put as much distance as possible between me and the creature with the flower eyes.

  Behind me, I hear footsteps. Fast. Steady. Gaining.

  The creature is chasing me.

  Of course it's chasing me. Why wouldn't it be chasing me? This is exactly how my day is going. This is exactly the kind of luck I have.

  I push harder, forcing my legs to move faster even though my lungs are burning and my ribs are screaming and the burns on my chest feel like they're tearing open with every jarring impact. The hallway opens up ahead, widening into something larger, and I can see a doorway.

  An exit. Maybe. Hopefully. Please let it be an exit.

  I reach the doorway and push.

  It doesn't budge.

  I push harder, throwing my weight against it, and feel it give slightly. Not locked. Just stuck. Just heavy. Just one more obstacle between me and whatever passes for freedom in this nightmare.

  The creature rounds the corner behind me. I can hear it, I can hear footsteps getting closer, I can hear it shouting in that language I don't understand.

  I push again, harder, putting everything I have into it.

  The door gives way.

  I nearly skid sideways as my vision lags, struggling to adjust to the sudden openness, colors bleeding and catching up in nauseating waves that make my stomach lurch. I was still indoors, that much was obvious from the ceiling. The ceiling is higher here, arching overhead in a way that makes the space feel grand and deliberate, designed to impress or intimidate or both, and I file that away as another piece of information I don't know what to do with.

  The air here feels denser, like I've gone from wading into something deeper without being asked, and I can hear the acoustics change, sound bouncing differently off the curved surfaces in ways that would normally help me orient but now just add to the overwhelming sensory chaos.

  And I'm not alone. . .

  There are monsters everywhere. Students, because that's what they look like, even if every other detail about them is deeply, profoundly wrong. They move in clusters, some seated along the walls talking quietly, others walking in loose groups with books tucked under arms, tails swaying casually behind them like built-in punctuation, and the normalcy of it clashes so violently with the impossibility that my brain stutters trying to reconcile the two. They were wearing what I could only describe as uniforms. With minimal variations, each monster wore a brown sweater with a green shirt. The female looking monsters wore skirts while the male looking monsters wore pants.

  To my horror I couldn't help but notice the shortness of the uniform skirts.

  “God I've been portal-napped by sexist monsters” I said, to my mistake, as everything in the room immediately turned to look at me.

  Every single one of them has white skin. Every single one of them has horns. Every single one of them has various flowers for pupils, petals shifting and contracting as their gazes turn toward me, tracking my movement with varying expressions.

  Some of them started to speak in hushed whispers, pointing at me.

  I froze, my brain shutting down as loud chatter, pointing, and shouting filled the grand hallway. Any rational person would have passed out from shock, but rationality left the building the moment I woke up In a place that very clearly did not include humans in its default settings.

  I sprinted into the hallway, narrowly avoiding the chasing monster who was now yelling in a mixture of strange words and clicks. A monster gasps as I barrel past it, the sound sharp and startled. Another stumbles backward, barely avoiding a collision, shouting something sharp that sounded like an insult.

  “Yeah, fuck you too demon!” I shout, running.

  I file the possible insult away as yet another impossible thing to process later, assuming there is a later, assuming I survive whatever this is. Hands reach out reflexively as I pass, some trying to grab me, others pulling back at the last second like they're afraid to touch me, and I don't know if that's because I'm human or because I look feral or because I'm clearly having some kind of breakdown, but I'll take it. Good instinct. I am having a day, and anyone who gets in my way is going to regret it.

  The monster screams again from behind me, closer now, her voice carrying an authority that clearly makes some of the other monsters jump to attention and start to run after me too.

  I need to find a way outside. If there's an outside, then there's sky. Space. Somewhere to breathe that wasn't full of monsters. Somewhere I can escape to and orient myself, maybe figure out where I am, maybe find a way home or at least a way to think without feeling like the walls are closing in.

  I veer toward the widest opening at the end of the corridor. As I near the opening, now with grass on the other side, I feel something grab my gown and pull me backwards. My heart jumps, and my breathing quickens as I see the horrifyingly familiar face of the original monster behind me. She was breathing heavily, bent over while one of her hands gripped the side of my gown in a firm fist.

  I pull.

  She refuses to let go.

  I thrash, trying to escape even if it meant wriggling out of my only piece of clothing. I knew what monsters were capable of, of what damage and horror they could enact given the opportunity. We were surrounded by others in a wide circle. Some looked to be talking, others were . . . Laughing?

  Were they laughing at me?

  I turn, overwhelmed by the hoard of monsters surrounding me. I'm terrified beyond belief when I feel something cold and metallic snap around my wrist.

  I turn, expecting to see a shackle or a pair of handcuffs, but instead I see a thick silver metal cuff around an inch in thickness. It has smoothed edges, and carved into it were symbols.

  Familiar symbols.

  I thought back to earlier. . .

  The portal, the circle.

  These look similar.

  The symbols glowed, slowly filling with brightness one point at a time until the symbols glowed pink and settled into a consistent rhythm of pulsing. My hand strangely felt lighter for a moment than the rest of my body, as if the thick blanket of the invisible force in the air had been lifted off my hand for only a brief second.

  The monster lets go of me when the symbols finish filling with light, marking my cue to continue running.

  “Wait!” I hear, causing me to stumble but not stop as I barreled past the now parted encirclement of monsters to reach what I could only assume was the outside.

  The corridor opens abruptly, and suddenly there's no ceiling. I burst through the threshold and skid to a halt, feet sliding uselessly on grass as my brain shuts down completely, overwhelmed by what I'm seeing. I stare upward, mouth agape as I see leaves. Not trees. Not branches. Leaves.

  They stretch across the sky in every direction, massive overlapping shapes forming a living canopy so vast I can't see where it begins or ends, I can't even comprehend the scale of what I'm looking at. Each leaf is the size of a building, maybe larger, veins etched deep and glowing faintly in a complex pattern that hurt to look at, layered so densely that the sky itself is reduced to rumor, to suggestion, to something that might exist beyond the green but can't be confirmed from here.

  Clouds drift beneath them. Actual clouds, rolling lazily below the canopy like the sky had been rearranged without any regard for how reality is supposed to work. White and gray and tinged with green from the light filtering through the leaves above, they move in slow currents, weaving between the massive stems, occasionally obscuring my view of the higher leaves before drifting past.

  I forget how to breathe. The scale of it hits me like a physical blow, awe crashing into my chest so hard it almost hurts, stealing what little air I'd managed to pull into my lungs. I've never seen anything like this. I've never imagined anything like this, because how could I? How could anyone? Eve would love this. The thought arrives unbidden, sharp and painful, cutting through the awe like a knife. She'd stand here with her mouth open, probably crying, definitely taking pictures even though no camera could capture the scale of it. She'd grab my arm and shake it and demand to know if I was seeing what she was seeing.

  The world feels suddenly enormous and intimate at the same time, like I've stepped inside something alive, something ancient and vast and utterly indifferent to my existence, and for a moment I forget about the chase, forget about the panic, forget about everything except the impossible beauty of what I'm seeing and the terrible, crushing realization that I am so far from home I don't even know what direction home is.

  I guess I can amend my assumption. I'm not in Europe. . . Kansas. . . Or even on Earth anymore. I think as I'm tackled from behind.