Huh, I thought the mirror sea would be something a little scarier. I did not imagine that it would be like a separate plane, where the floor looked eerily smooth and extended infinitely. I looked back towards where we came from, or where I remembered it. The lack of a sun or moon, or even the glowing fungus was enough to hide the horizon and it was hard to comprehend any sort of direction. There was no blue planet that way, and no indication that the whole universe was connected to this surprisingly comfortable abyss.

The rest stop didn’t take too much of our time because we had already eaten, and Rufus only stopped to refuel the vehicle. I wanted to see the alien cuisine, but then I realized that due to causality, it would be somewhat like what we already had, except maybe it would be sized differently.

I put my hand to the floor, because if Rufus never said anything then it was probably safe. It felt hard, cold and absolute, as if none of it would erode in anyway, let alone crumble onto my nails like dirt or sand, and it looked like one solid object instead of a cement.

It was supposed to be very cold, but it was only cold enough to wet my fingers. But that didn’t make any sense either, because in a void there should be no heat, or moisture to condense, or even breathable air, yet Rufus walked out with an Avian sized soda and paid no attention.

Rose took a more experimental approach to her surroundings and tried to push her shoe into the ground, but it didn’t budge or scratch. Blake too, seemed like she was upturned by the Mirror Sea, but she kept her distance.

I wanted not to bother her, because just like me she held secrets and maybe she didn’t expect to tell me either because I had my own. But she didn’t look angry at me, only accepting that her lips were sealed.

The rest of the trip was very boring. It was at least the travel of four days, which was far longer than I had planned, and honestly it kept bugging me. Rufus said over and over we were on time and no one else questioned it. Then I understood, while on the bed in a cheap, surprisingly comfortable motel that this place must exist outside of the Mirror Worlds, and time, altogether. That would explain the full stasis of the landscape except for the building and traffic. Without time, that meant that travel between worlds was instant, but I suppose that my world was only remote because of the inconvenience of physically travelling there.

There was no barrier except for the floor, and no sound other than the sound of other vehicles, driving through in caravans. I did not see them before, so I knew that the other Mirror Worlds were close. But it didn’t make sense to me. How could mine be the third of them out of four if it was also the most remote. I figured that in the time devoid Mirror Sea, Rufus meant it as maybe the most removed. If that was the case then the difference was with magic, not the locale, because then MW4 would be the most removed from causality.

I wanted to ask him, but the car was cramped as is and he was busy driving, though there was no traffic or order that would have required focus. I kept to myself, with a foreign crossword I bought that challenged my understanding of English, or rather made me appreciate it that it was also the language of this Sea.

When we did get to the next world, I don’t think Rufus told me which one it was, and again, there was no landmark to tell us which one, instead, the car fell into reality, and I felt that the force on my body was not from the convenient machines of the Sea, but of a planet that was precisely another Earth.

We blipped back into existence in a closed port, but in a building with an open roof and I saw the sun again. This one was unobstructed and shined the same color I remembered it.

“Is this Mirror World 2?” asked Blake.

“Yes,” Rufus said succinctly.

“I was told about this place. My mother was also a helper for the Bureau once.”

“It’s okay. I already guessed something like that at this point,” he said.

It seemed that he was being nice to Blake not because he approved after all, but to get back at us. At any rate, Rose and I were too surprised to talk. Though this was supposed to be highly like our world, it was uncanny. The people looked like normal humans, like Josten did, but within the crowd of pedestrians there were Avians and others too. The same sort of covered people from before were their too, minding their business, mending their time.

I wanted to sleep even though the time of day was the same as when we left home, though Rufus took us straight to the hospital, where the appointment was set, and the receptionist didn’t bat an eye at us, a group of three aliens. In the waiting room Rose said, “I wonder how the doctors are like. Maybe this world is the same except we’ll get a culture shock,” she squealed. When it was my turn I was called into a room with padded walls and the smell of the hospital got heavier. To think of it, I had never gone to a doctor’s office by myself. It was something that I had to do eventually, but just never came about, let alone with a foreign doctor.

There had once been countries, instead of just different subterranean cities, but this was too far. I imagined that the doctor could be an ugly green thing, with scales and tentacles, but it was just as strange that all the humans I saw were young looking by my standards.

The doctor came and spoke to me, “Welcome, ma’am,” but to me it should never have been ma’am because I was at best ‘young lady’.

“I understand that you are from MW3 and may have been splashed with Develin. For those without magic, it could probably be painful left untreated,” he said condescendingly, “It’s not every day I get to see people from there, but you look just like us.”

I understood that the difference was that humans from MW3 showed their age, and it had to be something if it was unbelievable for me to look young compared to them.

The checkup was mundane. He checked for fever or infection but there was no need to worry about contamination. I told him about what happened after being splashed and I was prescribed something for just in case. Though, I wonder what harm Devilin could have done if it was worth a few days to get here. I tried not to think about it.

Rufus seemed a little more happy, but he had said something to Blake because she retreated into the waiting room seat while Rose put her arm on her shoulder. He said, “Now that’s done, we have a few days before you go back.”

There were two possibilities: he was walking up to the inconvenience and pain he caused me and was giving me the rest of the trip as a gift, or he was initiating me to the greater world.