"Winter!" Milo's voice seemed to come from miles away.
Horrace was vibrating against me now, his form beginning to blur at the edges as he responded to whatever was happening. Through our connection, I felt his recognition, his excitement, his fear, a tumult of emotions that mirrored my own rising panic.
I tried to step back, to pull away from the rift, but my feet wouldn't move. The blue markings had spread up my arm, across my shoulder, creeping toward my neck like living vines of light. Horrace's glow intensified to match, his form now pulsing with the same rhythm as my markings.
"Milo, get help!" I managed to call out, but it was too late.
With a sound like a giant intake of breath, the rift expanded. I felt a violent tug, and then Horrace and I were being pulled forward, inexorably drawn toward the hole in reality. I caught a glimpse of Milo lunging toward us, his hand outstretched, before the world turned inside out.
We fell.
Or maybe we rose. Direction had no meaning in the space. Colors that shouldn't exist swirled around us, and sounds that had no source filled my ears, a chorus of whispers, shouts, songs, all overlapping in a cacophony that should have driven me mad but somehow made perfect sense.
Horrace was still with me, his tentacles wrapped protectively around my body as we tumbled through impossible geometry.Through our connection, I felt his recognition, this was familiar to him, the space between dimensions, the pathway home.
But we weren't alone in this in-between place. Shapes moved in the swirling chaos, things with too many angles and not enough edges, beings that existed in more dimensions than my mind could comprehend. They reached for us with appendages, curious, hungry, fascinated.
Horrace made a sound that rippled through the void, a warning or a greeting, I couldn't tell. The shapes retreated, but I could still feel their attention, their awareness of us as we drifted through their domain.
How long we traveled, I couldn't say. Time had no meaning here. It could have been seconds or centuries. But eventually, I felt another tug, a different kind of pull, and suddenly we were falling in a way that made sense again, down, definitely down.
We hit something solid with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs. For a moment, I just lay there, gasping, trying to reorient myself. I was lying on a floor, no, a rug. A thick, plush rug in a shade of purple so deep it was almost black. Horrace was beside me, his form slowly stabilizing from the blurred state it had taken in the void.
"What... where are we?" I managed to sit up, looking around.
Bookshelves lined every surface, even the ceiling, with books arranged not by size or color but in intricate spiral patterns that hurt my eyes if I looked at them too long. A chandelier hung in the center, but instead of bulbs, it held small, glowing orbs that changed color every few seconds.
"This isn't the apartment," I stated the obvious, trying to get my bearings. "Horrace, do you know where we are?"
Horrace had recovered faster than I had. He was already exploring the room, moving from shelf to shelf with excited trills. Through our connection, I felt his curiosity but no recognition, this place was as strange to him as it was to me.
I struggled to my feet, my head spinning slightly. The blue markings on my arm had retreated back to their usual extent, no longer spreading across my body, but they still pulsed with unusual brightness. I felt different. Like I'd left something behind in that void, or maybe brought something back with me.
"Hello?" I called out. "Is anyone here?"
No response, just the soft sound of Horrace's movements as he investigated a particularly interesting shelf. I took a tentative step forward, then another, gaining confidence as nothing immediately tried to kill me. Because you never know.
The room was larger than it had first appeared, with archways leading to other spaces that I couldn't quite see into. Everything had a slightly dreamlike quality, edges that weren't quite solid, colors that shifted.
"I think we're still in some kind of pocket dimension," I looked at Horrace, who was now attempting to read a book by pressing a tentacle against its pages. "The question is, how do we get back?"
As if in response to my question, one of the books Horrace was touching suddenly flew off the shelf, hovering in the air before me. It flipped open, pages turning rapidly until it settled on a hand-drawn map.
I leaned closer, trying to make sense of the strange symbols and curving lines. "Is this supposed to help us?"
The book shuddered, then more pages turned, revealing a detailed drawing of what appeared to be a fish bowl?
"Frank?" I blinked in surprise. "Is that Frank's bowl?"
The drawing began to move, the fish swimming in circles, just like Frank did when he was agitated. Then the perspective pulled back, showing the bowl sitting on a kitchen counter, my kitchen counter.
"That's the apartment," I realized. "Is this book showing us how to get home?"
The pages turned again, revealing another drawing, this time of a familiar face with large, curious eyes and an enthusiastic smile.
"Milo. He must be trying to find us."
Horrace made an excited trilling sound, bouncing slightly on his many limbs. Through our connection, I felt his understanding, the book was somehow connected to our world, showing us what was happening there.
