Wylinoris awoke to Giethi pacing around her bedroom, occasionally glancing at her.

“What are you doing in here? Haven’t you gotten any sleep?” She chuckled a bit. “No, uh, Deri needed some repairs over the boat. Just enough to get us across the Brudersay Sea.”

“Still, you have your room. What the hell are you doing?”

“I uh… have to tell you something. After uh…” Wylinoris nodded with a blush. “We have to go break the news to Citirth’s little bro.”

“Right, what was his name? Rinse?”

“Reynse, get it right.” Giethi paused– “He’s uh, sorry. I’m a little nervous.”

“No need.”

She sat on the foot of the bed, breathing hard and bouncing her leg. “He’s a nice kid.”

P-Sed rolled into the room. “Deri requires you in the bridge.”

“The hell? He just went to bed.”

Deri’s hat was cocked to the side, his hair messy and fluffy and his clothing wrinkled. He had switched out of the wet stereotypical sailors’ outfit into a much lighter tee and sweatpants. “I kind of underestimated how fast the boat traveled. I only woke up because this tin can kept yelling into my ears about how the ship was reaching ‘dangerously close levels’ to shore or whatnot.” He made a nagging motion with his hands, not paying attention to them. “We’re only a couple of kilometers from Southhath.”

“Your guidance systems have an offset of a factor of twelve.”

“The hell you mean? This boat is perfectly fine.” Deri popped open the hatch on the top of the staircase. “See? Everything-” Deri stared at the luscious green hills and small cities lying on the coastline. “Oh shit!” He tumbled downstairs, pulled back large levers, and twisted some handles around. “How?! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”

“Quoting you and Giethi a few minutes ago; ‘Shut the fuck up, P-Sed!’”

“Okay, okay. Fine. Shut the fuck up, P-Sed.” He began steering the boat into port. “Right, Deri.” Giethi began flipping through her wallet and pulled out four fifty trywrin bills. “This should cover everything.” The bills were laminated and instead of paper, were made out of thin layers of cotton. “Ah, thanks.” They took the money and shoved it into their pocket. “So, what are we gonna do with–” Deri nodded his head towards P-Sed. “It’d be a burden just to keep it around,” Giethi muttered. “I mean, I’d gladly take him.” Deri nervously said, looking around. “I’d need some help that’ll be competent.”

Bells rang from the outside, and the wild thrashing of the water calmed. “Well, uh, I guess this is it.”

“Man, uh, of course. Yeah.” Giethi held her arms out and hugged Deri. “Bye, Deri.”

“Bye, P-Sed.”

“Of course, farewell.”

Giethi grabbed Wylinoris by the hand. “By the way,” P-Sed blurted. “You should exhale before breathing the outside air, Wylinoris.”

“The hell’s that for.” Giethi opened the doors and Wylinoris stepped out into the sunlight. “See? Nothing bad happened.” She chuckled a bit, slowly developing into a violent flurry of coughs. “Gah!” The air coming out of her mouth was bleak and greyish. “It’s the mana-rich air. Just let it pass.” Giethi groaned. “Hey! Get us a ladder!” She yelled to the crewmen on the decks. Wylinoris grabbed her neck and crouched down. “Yikes, is it that bad?” Giethi patted her head. “You poor soul. Get us a respirator too! Mana bleak!”

Deri popped out from behind her. “Get me a repair crew and robotics team! It’s gonna be a busy day! The group of poorly shaven dockworkers stared at the boat and broke out in a cold sweat. “Well?! Did you hear us?” They scrambled away to tents, one pulling out a ladder and respirator.

“Can you walk?” Wylinoris, over the gargling and coughing, nodded. “Hurry your asses up! We have like thirty seconds until she chokes!” Someone ran up and rolled the respirator across the deck. Giethi covered her face with the respirator. “God, you were born here. Shouldn’t you have a bit of immunity against the mana?” She clenched her eyes and wiped off the specks of tears on her eyelashes. Her sight got foggy, and everything went to a misty black.

“Whoa! Call an ambulance!”

Blinding lights woke her up, stinging harshly on her eyes even with them closed. The air was still; in her opinion, dusty. Like someone was pouring sand down her throat, but now it was less intense. Probably from the massive-ass respirator on her face, she thought. She got up from the silky, leather couch she was lying on and moved around quickly, despite her eyes still not adjusting to the light. The room had some sort of aura to it, strangely invigorating but calming. In her flustered state, she failed to notice the machine following no more but a couple of feet behind her, connected to the mask and making a noticeably loud whirr with its wheels. Walking around the room shakily, tracing the walls with her finger until meeting the window. It gave with a budge, opening down instead of sideways. The familiar sound from her apartment of cars, rumbling engines, and screaming electric motors filled the whole room before dying out. She looked out into the nighttime cityscape and the yellow-orange lights in every skyscraper.

“You woke up quicker than the doctors expected.” Giethi got up out of the doorway. Wylinoris looked back into the lights. “Turns out the… uh… The robot was right about you need to exhale. All of the mana in the outside air rushed into your lungs and practically tore them apart from the inside. Yikes…” Wylinoris rubbed her eyes. “It’s uh… been a couple of days since we came here. You’ve just been like on and off, just forgetting everything about the last time you woke up.” She tried speaking, but only rasps and the occasional vowel would spit out, and then realized it was futile anyway, the mask muffled everything. Giethi walked closer.

Wylinoris stepped back. Her hands gravitated towards the large number of band-aids covering her arms and chest, some still being fresh on a needle wound. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” Giethi began closing the door behind her. Wylinoris let out a muffled yell but stopped halfway through.

The door clicked and the wind noise replaced the soothing voice of Giethi. She walked around the room, the robot with her oxygen tank following a couple of feet behind. "Why can't I just get a fucking break?"

"You tell me.”

In an instant, a glimpse of a figure disappeared from the corner of her eye. “Huh?! Where the fuck-”

“Jhul'natn! Too loud, you fucker!”

“It’s not my fault your large ass can’t downsize! Ujayna…”

The voices were quiet, barely noticeable from a large amount of background noise, and strangely not human, in a sense, despite speaking fluent English.

“How about you downsize this!” The bookshelf next to her fell over. “You thakanithe! We’re gonna get caught!”

“Shut the hell up, Noag!” The voices stopped unexpectedly. “Can… The human… hear us?” Wylinoris turned to the voices again, once more not seeing anything. “Hey… M,” The first, thick, guttural voice stuttered and muffled itself. “It’s looking at you.” The second voice was much lighter, slightly more human, and had more… emotion. “No way jackass, she’s looking at you.”

“You’re the short one, the human is also the short one.”

“You are just abnormally tall.”

“Eommoneig is nearly eight feet tall. You are five feet tall.”

They both paused.

“This is what you get for being lazy with creating your smaller form.”

The voices slowly transformed into indistinguishable mumbles, barely audible over the natural buzz of the streets down below. Giethi barged in. “‘The hell’s going on?!” Wylinoris pointed at the fallen bookshelf and mumbled. She stared at her in confusion. “What?”

Giethi sighed and left. Almost immediately after, Wylinoris began clawing at the mask. It was strapped to her face tightly using metal rings and black straps and had left red marks all over her face. She stormed out of the room; the robot carrying her oxygen tanks, only a couple of feet high, followed behind her leaving behind an obvious clatter with its bulky plastic wheels. She was on the second floor, on the verge of crying, and desperate to find a mirror or something sharp to cut off the mask. Paying attention to nothing in the house, something caught her eye.

A calendar.

She tried to remember what day it was when she left Northhath.

The fifteenth? January? It was her birthday, right?

She stepped closer to it, eyesight still blurry from her tears.

March 21, 4078

Her eyes widened.

“Oh,” She stopped thinking for a second. “March?! Two fucking months?!”

They glimpsed downstairs at Giethi. “She’ll hear this rustbucket.” She picked up the little rattling machine following her with its tiny air tank and held it close to her chest.

She took great care to walk gently, almost shuffling her feet across the floorboards. The hose leading to her mask trailed just a few inches from her shoes.

Shuffling out of every room on her floor to little to no avail, she eventually found herself in what seemed to be an empty studio, only filled with three mannequins and small passageways carved into the floor filled with water.

The air there was tough to breathe, even for the machine filtering the air for her. The wooden panels making up the floor were blackened and covered with soot, and windows appeared to have been pried open and stuck that way.

She promptly walked out immediately. Something about that room just felt… off.

“Mirror… Mirror… Aw fuck.” She turned around and set the machine down when she decided that they were far enough from Giethi. “Uh… Bathroom.” The little rover spun around and moved back a couple of inches, beeping a bit. “Uh. You. You know where it is?” The robot only heard muffled groans. “Right… Uh.” She stared at the dry, ashy skin on her arm and scratched it. “Maybe that’ll work?” She scratched out ‘bathroom’ on her skin and showed it to the robot. It glanced at it, turned around, and squealed excitedly. It tugged on the hose and pulled her rapidly across the floor. “Hey! Slow down, you-” She gagged. It stopped rapidly, throwing her against a door ornamented with gold trim. “Fancy ass bathroom.” She jiggled the doorknob.

Nope. Locked.

“I used to, uh, bust down doors for fun in high school. Maybe this one is weak.” She shoved her nail deep into the lock and turned it as much as she could without ripping off her finger.

She backed up and faced her shoulder against the door. “Here goes nothing.” She stepped slightly back. The robot backed up as well.

They closed their eyes and rammed into the door with all; albeit tired, of her power. The strike plate was completely ripped off its brass trim and a pretty deep scratch on the latch slowly released the door. She flipped on the light and opened her eyes in front of the mirror.

Big sigh.

She didn’t look too much like a mess.

They rummaged through the drawers for a pair of scissors. The mask had left pinkish-red markings on her face, along with the clear plastic straps. She was as pale as a ghost– which was exceptionally shocking, her skin was usually lightly tanned. “You good up there, Wylin?”

“Whore.”

She snipped off all but two of the plastic straps on her face. They fluffed up their hair, grabbed a brush, and made bangs that covered her eyes. She closed the door behind her with a bit of force.

It glided open.

“Oh fuck… Uh…” The doorknob was too mangled to shut the door. She thought of the next best thing. Jamming a pair of scissors into the door. Was it the smartest decision?

No.

Did it work in the meantime?

… Probably not.

Still, it satisfied her, and left the mangled, dysfunctional door behind and explored the rest of the house. She went to another room, with somewhat of a similar layout to the room she woke up in. It was decorated with a space theme, rocks carved and painted to look like the Moon, Jupiter, Uranus, and all of the other planets. Pluto had probably seen better days. The air was smooth and fresh, so much to the point that she felt comfortable taking off the last two straps keeping the mask on her face.

She picked at the bottom. The left strap was intensely tight, nearly taking some hairs with it. The other strap was very loose, even having a couple of knots in it. They lifted the mask with some hesitation and let small gaps open first. The mask stuck to her cheeks before finally popping off of her face and into her hands.

“Yeah, uh, she’s awake now. Yup, still on the ventilator-” Giethi walked past the door frame and stared at her. Wylinoris’s eyes widened. “You-” She turned towards the mangled bathroom door. “Horasil, I’m gonna need to call you back.” She set down her phone. “Uhm. Nice house.” Wylinoris’s voice was still raspy and dry, but still understandable. “You’re, uhm…”

“Yeah.” Giethi’s phone began ringing. They both stared at it blankly. “Aren’t you going to pick it up?” She picked up the phone. “Gieth’. Uh, yeah. So, uh, I might have estimated wrong.”