"Dad?"

Mr. Kay had peeled open the crumpled illustration again, and the warm lamplight had stained the page a yellowish tint. Eve's mask grinned mischievously back at him, and her words from a couple hours prior crept into his mind again. Eve wanted to meet Hua, hoping that their alliance would aid in his mental healing. Mr. Kay handed the page back to his daughter, and tears started to glaze her lovely brown eyes.

"Hua, that is Eve. Doctor Eve," Mr. Kay muttered.

"D-Doctor Eve?" Hua whispered, her rosy red lips trembling, but the color soon dissipated as terror began to rock through her bones. "Dad, this isn't a p-person."

"Yes, I know. She is a creature from White Space, a connecting dimension between our world and many others."

"Oh my God..." Hua gently walked away from her hunched father, her fingers rising to press against her mouth. "Dad, do I need to admit -"

"No," Mr. Kay snagged Hua's dainty wrist and dragged her up the crooked wooden stairs. "I am going to show you Eve."

Hua snapped her shoulder back, yanking her limb away from her father's clutches. Eve's drawing was locked in her trembling, strong fist. "Dad, get in the car. We are going to the hospital."

Mr. Kay shakily ambled backwards up the staircase, holding his wrinkled palms out to Hua, understanding of her incredible unease. "Hua, just let me show you. Please."

Hua pointed vaguely in the direction of the small garage present next to the house. "Get to the car, now!"

"Hua, no!"

Mr. Kay dashed through the creaky door leading to the living room, his feet bashing against the hollow stairs. The clomping rang around Hua's head like wolfish howls as her father sprinted away, and she pursued after him. The great chase ended quickly, and Hua slipped on her sleek socks as she tried to halt her run. A burning sensation erupted from her knobby knees as she fell before the fireplace, and her father was crouched within the firebox, a dimensionless plane behind him.

"White Space," Mr. Kay said before holding his hand out to Hua.

Now, this is an excellent time say something about Hua. Her parents are deeply Christian, believing in all the things that were unseen in the universe, but she fell out of the religion near her seventeenth birthday. Yes, the disagreement of faith caused a great stir in the household, but Mr. and Ms. Kay came to accept their daughter's bold choice. She wanted to think for herself, and they supported her path. But Hua didn't pursue seeking other explanations for the world and life and what we are supposed to do. She just stopped believing in everything entirely, which is very much okay. Hua only had faith in what she could see and touch. There was no such thing as ghosts or fairies or gremlins. There was only earth, and nothing more. Just dead space and black holes.

But before her now was something she had never seen or understood. It was alien and foreign, and it made her neurons squirm and squish, horrified. This was against everything she thought was real. It was refreshing, yes, but all unknown things are scary, aren't they?

So Hua started to cry.

"Oh dear, it's okay!" Mr. Kay pulled himself over to his daughter and wrapped his lithe arms about her shoulders, trying to comfort his kin. "It's weird, I know, but it is a safe, wonderful place. There is no society, no judgement. Just endless places you can go and infinite things you can make."

"I don't want to see it! Oh God, and I really don't want to see Eve!"

"Oh, she isn't as bad as you think she is. Uh...she smells like peppermints!"

"What?"

"Yeah, she is like Christmas. She smells like mint, and she likes to play. Eve's...very different, but she wants to save me. She knows about you."

"Me?"

"Yes, of course. She wants to meet you, become friends. Eve thinks you and her can help me."

Hua closed her eyes, horrified of the thought that a monster wanted to become her teammate. She desperately wanted to rescue her father from the dark pits of his mind, and if it took a giant furry beast, then so be it. Her father seemed smitten with whatever it was.