To say the least, Hailey was confused.

Around her was an endless void, blue like the sky, and floating rock platforms led upward and down.

As surreal as the scenery was, it was a relatively simple place. That didn’t make her arrival here any less strange, though. Hailey knew she almost closed her door, then she’d blacked out and arrived here, standing straight as nothing had happened.

“Hello?!” she yelled out, still perturbed by her previous conversation just seconds ago.

Nobody answered, of course.

She turned around, searching every direction other than where she was. Aside from the rocks and the sky, there was no sun nor anything else in sight. She did notice, however, that she felt...light. She tapped on the stone beneath herself, testing the weight of her foot. She was surprised to see it didn’t weigh much.

She began talking to herself, “Let me guess, it was her. Nobody else could’ve done this. Not unless some random person...wait, why am I so at ease?! I should really be panicking right now since I’m in some other dimension or whatever, but this feels like...home.”

She exhaled. Whatever she was dealing with, she didn’t feel like there was any reason to be afraid. If Kait got her in here, she would get her out.

For a few minutes, she tapped her foot on the stone below. She was dressed the same as she’d been before, except, she noted, her pajamas looked...better, somehow. She ran a hand through her hair curiously. No knots, silky smooth. That was strange. Hadn’t she had a bedhead?

She shrugged, figuring there was no good reason to stick around. She began leaping between the stone platforms, each almost six feet apart. She would have been worried about a jump of that distance over an infinite void, but with half her weight gone, she was confident in her platforming ability. As she climbed up, she thought the world flickered, like it was turning into something different. But...it was just her imagination. She shook off her confusion, then kept jumping up into the infinity above. It wasn’t exhausting or scary, but it was a little fun. Despite the difference in her weight, she felt entirely comfortable in her body, able to climb the rickety set of floating platforms with no hesitation.

Then, without her noticing, she was at an end to the platforms. As she leaped on the final one, all of the previous rocks instantly collided into one large platform. A black mass of mist appeared directly in front of her. It was a portal, she intuitively understood.

“How ominous,” she said sarcastically.

She noticed a green mist swirled at the end of the platform.

“I’ll take the green one, tha-” as she took a step towards it, a feeling of guilt overwhelmed her. I’m taking a step back, she thought without trying to. She immediately stepped forward again. “B-black one it is...” She stepped closer to the portal. Her hand shook. Her body wanted to quake. What was beyond the portal? Apprehension kept her still for another few seconds.

Not far from her, a new platform appeared. Then, right after, Kait appeared atop it. As Hailey stood with a vaguely surprised expression, Kait shook her head, a little dizzy. She leaped off the platform then spoke apologetically, “Thu theis es the Polo Reelm.”

“Excuse me?” Hailey spoke in shock.

“Thistle ain util!” Kait stomped on the ground in anger, “Yaaaahhh!” She cleared her throat, then spoke in an accent, “This...is the...Polo Reelm?”

“Excuse me?!”

Kait tilted her head, “I don’t...speak? Your lan-gu-age.”

“When was that?!”

“Allcayth,” Kait shook her head, “I...h-e-l-p...?”

“I figured.”

Kait raised an eyebrow.

“This is some type of dream, isn’t it?”

After some deduction and narrowing of her eyes, Kait nodded. “Polo Reelm.”

“I don’t know what that means. Can you get me out?”

Kait raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

“Oh, COME ON! You seriously came here, and now of all times, you can’t speak?!”

Kait gave a good-natured shrug, then chuckled. “Sorry.”

“What use you are.”

“Nuh util?”

Hailey stuck her face towards Kait, “NUH UTIL,” she said sarcastically.

Kait crossed her arms, then shook her head.

“So, tell-me-what-to-do.”

“Go there.” Kait pointed to the black portal.

“...I-I don’t think that will end well-”

“Go there!”

“Fine, whatever the witch says.” Hailey and Kait walked to the portal, then, after a moment of hesitation, Hailey stepped in.

When Kait followed Hailey through the portal, she saw a room. Inside were many pods of desks, each occupied with a student, some silent, some talking, and others looked at the clock hung on the wall as if it were their salvation. Hailey stood in the middle of the room, right beside Kait.

“What’s going on?” Hailey said.

Kait shrugged, “Really nun cert.”

“Wait...this is familiar...is this my English room? What are we doing here?”

Kait tapped Hailey’s shoulder, then pointed to a student, “You?”

Hailey looked to see that the student was none other than herself, “Oh, this is a memory. What’s it about?”

Kait had a bad feeling she knew.

The teacher stood from her chair. It was a red-haired woman, maybe thirty years old. She tapped the floor with her shoe for a moment, then spoke, “Ok, everyone, let’s go to lunch!”

Most everyone was quick to pack and leave in a disorderly fashion.

The teacher looked to Hailey as she started to leave, “Hailey, could I speak with you for a second?”

“No problem,” Hailey said, breaking from the line of students and standing in front of her teacher.

The real Hailey’s eyes widened in fear, “No...”

The scene continued despite her apprehension. Her teacher placed a piece of paper in her hands, “First, you forgot your name on the assignment.”

Fake Hailey took the paper, snatched a pen from the teacher’s desk, then scribbled her name down on it and presented it to her teacher.

“And second, you didn’t read the whole thing, again. You were supposed to color in the pillars specific colors.”

Fake Hailey, who had already been understandably perturbed, being held up at lunch, gave up hiding her annoyance, “Are you seriously telling me you care about whether or not I color-coded my paper? This isn’t a coloring book.”

“Sure, you’re right. All I’m telling you is that you aren’t paying enough attention to the directions. What if you lost points on the YTU test because of this?”

“Then I’d lose points?”

“If you don’t care, you don’t need to. It’s just my job to make sure you know when there’s an issue.”

“Actually, I’m fairly sure it is your job to make students care.”

“Fair. Fair. You can go now.”

Fake Hailey raised her arm and left the room. “Bye.”

The world cut to black, with the two ethereal spectators standing on nothing.

“Why did you show me this?” Hailey said, looking to Kait with a furious scowl.

Kait looked around, unsure what Hailey was saying.

The dimension slowly gained color, even as Hailey’s anger grew. “I know what happened this day. Why did you lead me to see this!?”

Kait shrugged, “Null clue mean.”

“I-I don’t...”

“Nuh rujnaing from ye preste”

“What do you mean?!” Hailey cried out in frustration.

The world, which slowly regained its color, had finally set the next scene. It was the school library.

“No...please...” Hailey pleaded at nobody in particular.

Walking through the library, towards the entrance, was him.

Hailey stopped. She just looked down, averting her gaze from what she knew would happen.

Fake Hailey, who was on her phone, walked through the entrance.

“Oh, sorry,” she said as she bumped into him.

“O-oh, yeah.” The guy didn’t have time to say much before she walked straight past.

For a moment, fake Hailey walked left, then something caught her attention. “Oh, it’s out!” she jogged to a bookcase and pulled out a book.

Meanwhile, Kait watched as the man returned once more a minute later, carrying his backpack, which was inconspicuously missing before.

“So many things...” Hailey muttered.

Kait wouldn’t turn her eyes, even though she had a feeling she knew what would come next.

The man walked to the left, escaping fake Hailey’s notice entirely. He walked into a room at the very back of the library then...

A few seconds later, there was a loud noise, a crack, and a scream. Kait wasn’t sure what it was, but she knew exactly what had happened.

“NONONONO!” Hailey’s eyes homed in on Kait, whose back was turned as fake Hailey rushed to the room in a panic, passing by the killer without processing his guilt. She walked in the room-

“NO!” the world distorted, the seams of reality breaking and shifting, “WHY!? WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THIS, KAIT? DO YOU HATE ME?! JUST GO. AWAY.!”

Kait felt queasy, “Calm don!”

“I WON’T CALM DOWN, WITCH. THIS IS WHY SHE DIED, AND YOU DIDN’T!”

Kait sighed.

“Just...leave.”

The world fell, and in some strange, incomprehensible way, it was about to crash.

“Frain.” Kait shook her head then vanished.

Hailey stood still. There was nothing to be angry at anymore, just a void. Hailey wanted to scream, but she didn’t know why she would. She wasn’t sure what was happening or where Kait had gone. She didn’t know anything at all. Now, the world was silent and falling.

There was a silent crash.

She felt weighty.

She didn’t feel like moving.

It was dark.

She was deep.

She wanted to move.

She didn’t want to move.

She stood.

She waded.

Light.

Step.

As thought returned, Hailey fell onto her knees. When she looked up, trying to grasp her situation, she saw a white realm. Orbs floated through the air, filled with images of various words, items, events, and anything else she could visualize.

She didn’t feel like talking, so she just laid down and gazed up at the bubbles, like clouds on a sunny day.

“Onomatopoeia,” a stupid word she didn’t think about much.

“Ghostier pepper,” a joke her friend from elementary school loved to make about the terrible cafeteria food.

An image of herself lying on a picnic cloth, staring into a pocket mirror. She’d almost forgot about that one, where she’d played tennis with Linne and Abbie, in a small picnic.

A video of a cheesy mecha show she’d loved as a kid.

All things she’d kept to the back of her mind, rarely dredging up to memory. Suddenly, the black mist flew past the bubbles and into the distance from above her, disappearing far away, where her dream couldn’t render.

She looked backward. There was nothing to see behind her. No void, no black, no white, just a feeling that told her ‘there is nothing beyond this’. She looked forward. Everything in her mind was ahead, and she really didn’t want to see everything.