Chapter 3

There was a blinding flash, then darkness.

Rina hung suspended in a void. There was no sound.

Then, all at once, reality rushed back.

She found herself standing in a room. The walls of the room were brick and plaster. The lighting was harsh and unkind. There was a faint scent of rust and ozone mingled with something… emptier. A hollow dryness, like dust on an altar long abandoned.

Rina stood frozen, her ears still ringing. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her skin prickled with sweat. The sudden brightness of the strange new room strained her eyes. For a long moment, she couldn’t move—couldn’t think. Her muscles refused to listen, locked by some terrible inner tension.

Finally, she took a few steps. Her legs buckled, and she slumped down, slid her back against a wall, arms wrapped tight around her ribs. It was only then that she realized she was shaking. Her eyes blurred, unfocused. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a brittle, surreal numbness. She struggled to form a thought, any thought, that would help her anchor herself.

“We made it,” Quill said softly from across the room, his voice rough with exhaustion and relief. “Just barely.”

She turned toward him sluggishly, her gaze sliding past a workshop filled with equipment—massive, jury-rigged towers of scrap and glowing cables—and the cluttered bunks and makeshift kitchen. Her eyes came to rest on a nearby table cluttered with what looked like computer parts. She blinked hard and stared again. Something about this place felt too real.

She looked down at her clenched hands. Her fingers hurt. Her knees were scuffed.

This isn’t a dream, is it?

“Where… are we?” she managed, voice hoarse.

Quill glanced over at her, hesitating. “Safe. For now.”

She shook her head. “That’s not… no. Where are we?”

Footsteps echoed faintly through the metal flooring, and a tall woman emerged from deeper within the hideout. Her eyes—one pale and natural, the other mechanical and faintly glowing—landed on Quill, then flicked to Rina. She was tall and broad-shouldered, built like a long-distance runner with burn scars just visible beneath a torn sleeve. Her face was all sharp lines and practiced calm, though her brow was furrowed.

“...Quill?” she asked cautiously, stopping several feet away.

Quill stood straighter. “Hey, Castor.”

Castor blinked. “You’re older. A lot older.”

“I’ve… been gone a while,” he said.

“Two weeks,” Castor replied flatly. “You look like you’ve been gone fifteen years.”

“It’s complicated.”

Rina listened, still trying to parse their words through the fog in her mind as she grasped for mental balance.

Ground yourself. Five senses. Five things you can see.

Quill. Electronic parts. Bunk beds. Kitchen.

Her gaze landed on the enormous mechanical arm of the woman talking to Quill. Each joint of the prosthetic gleamed dully with weld lines and carbonized plating, humming softly as it adjusted. Hydraulic cables coiled down from shoulder to elbow, flexing as she moved.

Castor’s gaze flicked back to her. “Who’s this?”

“This is Rina,” Quill said quickly.

Rina gave a small, shaky nod. “Hi.”

Castor didn’t move.

“Why is she here?”

“Because the Choir found us,” Quill said. “In her world.”

“Her world?”

Quill rubbed the back of his neck.

“Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Try me.”

Rina’s eyes still explored Castor’s prosthetic. She noticed the delicate etched patterns near the wrist, like calligraphy. Someone had taken time to make something beautiful out of it, despite everything.

Four things I can hear, she reminded herself.

An electric hum. My heart. Castor’s voice. Quill’s foot scraping anxiously against the concrete floor.

“The portal didn’t just lead outside the Bazaar like we hoped,” Quill said. “It led to someplace outside our reality entirely.”

Castor crossed her arms, the flesh arm resting on top.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

“I am,” Quill said. “Rina is not from any place on Tymeria. She is from a city called Tokyo, on a planet called Earth. There’s no Bazaar there. No Choir. Castor, people can feel everything there.”

Castor studied him for a long time before responding.

“How is any of that possible?”

Quill shook his head.

“I have no idea. Somebody in the Ministry does, probably. But it’s the truth. All of it.”

“And you’re sure?”

“Castor, I spent a decade there. I am absolutely certain.”

“A decade?”

Rina watched the expression on Castor’s face. It was difficult to read. Skeptical, guarded, and perhaps… angry?

Three things I can feel….

The concrete floor under my feet.

The breath in my lungs.

“So you stepped through the portal, entered a world full of joy and hope and peace and what, you just decided you were going to stay there and leave the rest of us here?” She asked.

The palpable tension in the air.

Quill’s face reddened. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say. Instead, he straightened and cleared his throat.

“Yes. I did. And had any of you experienced what I did, you’d have done the same. There’s nothing like it, Castor. It’s… well, indescribable.”

Castor rolled her eyes.

“Yes, I’m sure it is.”

“Cas, I–” Quill started. Castor held her hand up, and he fell silent.

“Look, I don’t care. So there’s another place in the universe that’s not like here. That’s not anything we didn’t already suspect. We know the portal can work now. That’s good news. You can keep the rest of it to yourself. I don’t want to hear it,” she said.

Rina took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Two things I can smell…

Dust.

…Perfume?

Footsteps entered the room, then suddenly stopped short. Whoever it was gasped.

“Quill! You’re alive!”

It was a girl’s voice. Not a young child, but not fully grown either. Rina opened her eyes. The voice belonged to a girl in her late teens with sharp features and short, choppy hair that looked like it’d recently lost a fight with a windstorm. There was absolutely no doubt in Rina’s mind that this was Quill’s younger sister.

“Hey Sera,” he said. He seemed almost sheepish.

Sera crossed the space between them and threw her arms around him.

“I was so worried that something had gone wrong when you didn’t come back right away! What took you so lon–” She drew back, and her face scrunched up. “Whoa, why do you look so old?”

Castor sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Quill exhaled awkwardly. Sera looked back and forth between the two of them, confused.

“What? What happened? Are you okay?”

Before either of them could answer, she finally noticed Rina.

“Oh, who’s this?”

She walked over, looking Rina up and down in a way that would have been rude coming from anyone else. Coming from her, it was oddly charming, in a childish sort of way. She held out her hand.

“I’m Sera!”

Rina took her hand. She struggled to find the words, but when she opened her mouth, nothing would come out. Sera furrowed her brows, then looked over to Quill.

“That’s Rina. She followed me back through the portal. She’s still pretty messed up. The Choir chased us. We barely escaped. She’s not from the Bazaar. I had to bring her with me to save her from them,” he explained.

Sera let out a low whistle, her face taking on a look that very distinctly said “yikes”.

“Well, I guess that explains all of this,” she said, looking at Quill and gesturing to her face. She turned back to Rina with a grin that distinctly didn’t reach her eyes.

“Nice to meet you, Rina!”

Rina nodded, mustering her best attempt at a smile and managing only about half of one.

“So, what now?” Castor asked. “You’re clearly not going back the way you came.”

That caught Rina’s attention.

What?

Quill turned and looked back at the complex machinery behind them. He crossed to it, picking up a half-melted component off the concrete. He cursed and turned back to Castor.

“What the hell happened to the gate generator?”

Castor shrugged.

“Don’t know. As soon as the portal opened back, the power draw overclocked every component in the system. By the time the two of you made it through, half of the components were already melting into slag. The rest of it that didn’t melt pretty much exploded when the gate finally collapsed shut,” she said.

“But that makes no sense. It didn’t have any problems when I left!”

Castor shook her head.

“That’s not entirely true. There was a surge then too. A bad one. But not bad enough to do all this. It still took the better part of a week to get it back to functioning. Sera, Tensor and I worked day and night to get it working again. Sera was terrified you were trapped there and couldn't get back. Once we had it working and you still didn’t come back through, we assumed the worst. Though, it seems as though those fears were misplaced,” she said sardonically.

Quill looked back at the burned-out remains of the gate generator.

“This will take much longer.”

“Months,” Castor said. “Assuming we’re lucky enough to be able to find and steal all of the restricted components. If not, gods only know when it’ll be ready again. And even if we do, I have absolutely no idea of what the calibrations were to reach where she comes from.”

“So, that means…” Quill started. He turned to look at Rina.

“Yes,” Castor said. “Outside of a miracle, she’s stuck here for good, thanks to you.”

Quill said something else in reply. Sera chimed in. But everything that was said swirled around Rina’s head, dissolving into meaningless sound. Static.

Nothing made sense. An hour ago, she’d been in a basement talking about feelings. Now here she was, probably trapped forever in a nightmare that made no sense. Her life, her friends, the people in her support group, her apartment, the smell of summer rain on Tokyo asphalt – all of it suddenly felt like a postcard from someone else’s memory.

One thing… She thought. One thing I can taste.

Stomach Bile.

It rose hot and bitter in the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, but it didn’t go away.

Quill was the one responsible for all of this. She’d just tried to get him to open up, and what’d she get for it? Now she was never going home again, and for what?

Her breath came faster. Shallower.

I can’t go home.

Her mind replayed it like a mantra, as if repeating it would somehow make it better.

I can’t go home.

She clenched her hands into fists. Nails bit into her palms. Pain. Real. Grounding.

No– Start again. Five things I can see.

One: Smoldering machinery.

Two: Looks of pity.

Three: ….

The tears in her eyes blurred everything into a distorted mess. Her breathing was too fast. Too shallow. She was getting dizzy. She sat down on the cold, stained concrete to keep from falling over.

Don’t stop, Rina. Four things you can hear.

One: People saying my name

Two: My breath

Three: Sobbing. My voice?

Four: Pounding in ears.

Okay. Three things. Feel.

The floor.

Breathe. Breathing. Breath. Too Fast.

Three. What… three?

She could no longer hold herself up, and she laid back on the ground, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Blurred smudges of people leaned over her. They were saying something, but she couldn’t grasp the words. The blur of the room darkened at the edges as consciousness left her.

Three things. Feel. Three.

Cold floor.

Breath.

Cold.