Milo's expression shifted from excitement to concern. "I'm not sure. His energy signature is fluctuating. It's like he's overloading?"
Horrace made another sound, higher and more urgent. His form began to blur at the edges, the colors shifting rapidly through his spectrum. Through our connection, I felt his confusion, his alarm, something was happening that he didn't understand.
"Horrace?" I reached for him, but Milo pulled me back.
"Wait! Don't touch him! His molecular structure is destabilizing!"
As we watched in horror, Horrace's glow became even brighter. He let out a crystalline note, high and pure, that made the windows rattle. And then…
He sneezed.
It wasn't a normal sneeze, of course. Nothing about Horrace was normal. The sneeze sent a shockwave of blue energy pulsing outward from his body, rippling through the air like a stone dropped in a pond. When it reached the refrigerator, the appliance simply disappeared.
In its place was a perfect circle of nothingness, a hole in reality that looked disturbingly familiar.
"Oh no," I breathed. "Not again."
Milo approached the rift cautiously, his eyes wide. "It's a micro-pocket reality," he observed with inappropriate scientific detachment. "Horrace must have absorbed some of the inter-dimensional energy from your trip, and when he sneezed..."
"He created another dimension in the kitchen," I finished, staring at the void where my refrigerator had been. "Great."
Horrace made an apologetic trilling sound, several tentacles forming what looked like a sheepish shrug. The glow around him had dimmed somewhat, but he still pulsed with unusual brightness.
"Is it dangerous?" I watched Milo, who was now using one of his tiny skeletons as a measuring device, holding it up to the edge of the rift.
"I don't think so," he watched as the skeleton poked a bony finger into the void. "It seems stable. Just unexpected."
I approached cautiously, peering into the rift. Unlike the swirling chaos of the void we'd traveled through earlier, this pocket dimension appeared to be a perfect replica of the kitchen, except, well, everything was floating. The vending machine drifted lazily through the air, along with several apples, a cartonof milk, and a blender, all revolving around each other like planets around a sun.
"It's the kitchen," I blinked, "but with zero gravity."
"Fascinating!" Milo leaned further in. "Horrace must have created it based on his most recent memories. A perfect replica, just with different physical laws."
Horrace sneezed again.
We both jumped back, but it was too late. The edge of the rift expanded suddenly, engulfing us before we could react. One moment we were standing in the kitchen, the next we were floating in its gravity-free duplicate, surrounded by orbiting appliances and food items.
"Well," Milo spun slowly in midair, looking far too delighted for someone who'd just been sucked into a pocket dimension, "this is exciting!"
I grabbed the edge of the counter to stop myself from drifting toward the ceiling. "Exciting isn't the word I'd use."
The place really did look like the kitchen but unlike ours where it was an open concept, this dimension had a different layout.
Horrace, who had been pulled in with us, seemed perfectly at ease in the zero-gravity environment. He propelled himself through the air with graceful movements of his tentacles, catching a floating apple and examining it with several eyes.
"At least he's happy," I snorted, trying to orient myself. "Any ideas on how to get out of here?"
Milo was now doing somersaults in midair, his childlike joy at the situation making it hard for me to stay annoyed. "Well, since Horrace created it with a sneeze, maybe he can uncreate it the same way?"
I looked at Horrace, who was now playing with floating milk droplets that had escaped from the hovering milk carton."Horrace? Any chance you could sneeze us back to normal reality?"
The manticore paused in his zero-gravity exploration, all twelve eyes blinking in consideration. He made a series of musical notes that conveyed his uncertainty.
"I don't think he knows how," I translated, pulling myself along the counter toward where Milo was floating. "He didn't do this on purpose."
"Then we need to figure out another way," Milo caught my hand as I reached him, anchoring us together in the strange environment.
He was interrupted by a loud crash from what should have been the living room. We exchanged alarmed glances.
