text: The table was cold. No padding on it- no need for padding under my body, they said, when my consciousness, all forms of sensation, would be in an entirely different place. That stood to reason. There I was lain, upon my back across that slab, as the team began attaching the wired headset. Nearly delirious with nerves, I resisted the urge to burst into inane laughter at its comical resemblance to VR headgear. The reality I was headed for was anything but virtual, though. “You still want to go through with this, Christine?” Came a voice, one that belonged to the flurry of arms, which had since been replaced by darkness- thank you, visor. It sounded like Dr. Simms. He and his husband Dr. Cotton were some of our top researchers; just palpably, I relaxed. “Your body will be in complete stasis, unharmed by any-” “Yeah,” I muttered, frustration billowing in my chest to cloud the fear, the feeling of my heart pounding wildly against its bony cage, “I’ve seen *Avatar*, and you have too judging by you attempting this consciousness-transfer bull.” A laugh. “No second body needed, though- you aren’t inhabiting a host, your mind alone is simply exploring the m-” “Y- yeah,” I stuttered, failing miserably at biting confidence but nailing bitterness at minimum, “I want to explore. No hostiles anticipated, right?” “Right. Nothing should be where I send you first- this is just a test.” A reassuring voice, but I wished I could see it smile. If it even did. I wished I could be sure it was Simms, sure of *something,* as a loud *clunk* sounded at my left. “Bon voyage, dear.” And with that, a sharp tingle arced across my temples, seeming to rest itself in the center like a nasal headache. Instinctually I made to scrunch my nose, but found the motion impossible, opting instead to just sit in the pain, the darkness... ...until I bolted upright, gasping for breath in an atmosphere that felt no different than the one I left, save for a curious absence of accompanying sensation, no familiar collapse within my ribcage I tended to take for granted. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Rising shakily to my feet, I grasped for my bearings, drinking in the surrounding purple sea I stood in. A field of lavender? No, these were no flowers, they were more like...anemones? Corals. Gasping, I jumped back, but no pain, no blood, followed, just harmless waving in the wind. Still I ran through them, wondering if they truly were simple life forms or if the gorgeous purple sea was built from the bones of hapless creatures like me. I didn’t get far before I struck what felt like a body, having made one too many haphazard glances over my shoulder at the silent field. How I missed another person *and* what appeared to be a small hill of dirt interrupting the still scene before was beyond me, but I was more concerned with the ground suddenly giving way, my field of vision overtaken by the bluish-grey sky. “Oh, you must be a visitor,” came an eager, faintly accented- though I couldn’t put my finger on any particular one- voice, before a face and body popped into my line of vision. The figure was tall, but not unnaturally so, and topped with a neat swoop of violently crimson hair as bright as his clothes, the style of which lie strangely between a tunic and a suit. Shining, nearly pitch-black eyes stared at me, making me want to jerk my head just to see when his eyes followed me if he had any sort of pupils. At least I assumed it was a he. Definitely a masculine build: quite slender, but with broad shoulders sharply contrasting a narrow waist. The eerie elegance of his elevated cheekbones was cut by an almost boyish, prominently dimpled grin, one that utterly failed to mask excitement. I almost smiled back at the sight of it. “Yeah,” I breathed, eyes roaming over the figure again and again, “how did you know, the hair?” Before *whoever had found me* spoke again, though, he’d taken my hand in his, skin tone and temperature surprisingly quite warmer than mine, to pull me to my feet, a part of my own body appearing in my line of vision for the first time since I’d...er, landed? My body- my skin, my clothes, seemingly *all of it*\- was drained of color, bathed in dull grey tones of my fair skin and plum blouse as if I was a sepia character stepping into modern-day entertainment for a crossover that was likely to royally suck. I gasped, jumping back and nearly falling onto my butt again. “Oh, I guess *that’s* how you knew. So you live here, then? And you’ve seen, er, someone like me before?” “Yes, a man,” the...humanoid? replied, “though after some visits he said he must go. Something of his body, he- he must have been unwell. But what is your name? You can call me Keyu.” “Christine,” I blurted out without thinking, nerves swimming beneath my skin as I bit back a “what the heck are you?”- you know, just in case I didn’t want to see whatever it was get mad. “Well, Christine, very nice to meet you. Very nice,” Keyu repeated, warm hand still gripping mine as he led me forward toward the dirt mound, “as soon as the next storm hits, we will show you our hospitality.” *We?* *How many of them are there?* *What the heck sort of world is this?* All I asked, though, was “Storm?” “Gravity storm,” Keyu said with a nod as if that cleared anything up, “it’s coming very soon.” “Yeah, ok, we *visitors* don’t have those. That sounds dangerous- should- shouldn’t we go now?” “Worry not, this is how we get home.” Sweeping aside some crimson hair, Keyu helped me onto the mound, where I knelt like he did, eyes still searching him. I wanted to fold up, to brace myself for whatever flies at you in a *gravity storm*, but he fixed me with such an intently, joyously anticipatory grin that I remained seated, asking him *what* until he burst into melodious laughter, laugher that only increased when I jumped at the new sensation. It was like the oddest cross of wind and an earthquake, an almost electric, shaking jolt of air that cut through my bones as the mound began to rise. With one final giggle, my odd guide gripped the sides of what I now realized was essentially a small chunk of land, broken from the ground as if by some massive piece of construction equipment. We drifted higher still until our makeshift vessel bobbed about twenty or thirty feet in the air. Glancing over the edge of it, I saw the ground bobbing too, rising pebbles, roots, and even some of the strange lavender, closer and further from my line of vision and far enough down that a fall would do some serious damage. There was no leaving, not then. *If I die, I just wake up*, I told myself. “Ready?” “No, I don’t think am- *whoa!”* Mid-sentence I was thrust forward, almost slamming into Keyu, who released an arm to wrap around my waist as we sailed forward through the sky, strange static-electric wind running through our short hair. Gliding like that was surprisingly smooth, a lot like a roller coaster on a track, one that slingshots you from zero to sixty in ten seconds and maintains you on the straight, momentous path. I laughed in spite of myself, an insane rush crashing over me as I waved a hand. There was nothing to crash into at least. “Fun, right?” Keyu called into the wind. “Yeah, ok, you win, it’s fun!” I shouted back through my adrenaline high. “I thought we were getting rained on by asteroids or something!” “Asteroids?” “Big rocks.” “Ah!” We sailed over the field, Keyu promising he wouldn’t do any crazy turns or loops *this time*, and I narrowly resisted the urge to just close my eyes, surrendering to the lack of control, and breathe in the possibility of my faded self existing- or, well, half-existing- in a world where I could ride the wind, deathless. The structure that shot onto the horizon, rising beyond the lavender fields near the face of an expansive cliff, was a carven stone metropolis, a quaint yet elegant haven of crimson-haired, black-eyed beings like Keyu, all of them thin, some leanly toned like him and others practically bony. They gave me a red dress, a gorgeous, shining piece that registered somewhere in my mind between a long jacket and a saree. They ate fruit from trees that abundantly lined streets and courtyards. A group of black-eyed kids spun little discs on the street, squealing at the figures that popped up and even letting me try it. Just about everyone was interested in *the visitor,* at least enough for their dark eyes to follow me. Or as far as I could tell- it turned out they did not have pupils. I kept waiting for them to try and throw me into the soup at dinner, grin and chant *one of us*, tell me their beloved trees were watered with blood or tie me up for a sacrifice. Maybe Governor Brainwash would step his way out of his YA novel palace and break up the party. Decapitate someone. Nothing like that happened. The weirdest thing was when I told them a funny story- something about a dream I had- they insisted they’d never heard of such things, none of them ever having a dream. It wasn’t taboo, though, they just acted like I was an alien. Which maybe I was. When they pulled the plug on me, sending me shooting up and gasping for breaths I never felt like I’d missed, I raised a hand before my eyes, flexing my fingers. They were still pale, but a healthy pink had returned to them. Even if it was faintly mottled. Most curious of all was the wave of disappointment I felt when my eyes met the calm ocean blue of Dr. Simms’s, which fixed me softly from behind his thin-rimmed, ovular glasses. “Christine,” he breathed, “you’re back.” “How long was I gone?” I muttered, blinking fluorescent light out of my eyes, which I’d assumed had been closed for a long time. *What’s he gonna say, a week or something?* “It’s nighttime,” he replied, “how do you feel?” “Fine,” I replied before motioning to the headset, which felt to be cutting a red line into my forehead, “may I?” “Oh, yes, yes! Of course.” Dr. Simms instantly shot up to untangle my head, helping me sit up further after the gear was finally lifted, a cool rush of air hitting my sticky forehead. “So you didn’t feel any complications? Nothing unusual about the world around you? Empty?” All I could do was shake my head. Nothing came to mind. “Your body was in complete stasis.” Our respected researcher repeated his earlier reassurance, tone strangely...impressed? Relieved? “Would you consider making a return journey?” “Yes,” I replied before a single gear in my head had even turned. My vitals seemingly at norm, I was let free shortly afterwards, free to cross the station’s institutional halls and take a meal alone like always. The soup I wordlessly spooned into my mouth seemed almost devoid of taste, drained like my color had been where Simms had sent me. Memories of the city, the gravity storm, Keyu’s smile as he sent our tiny two-person island racing through the sky, arm wrapped reassuringly around my waist, flickered across my mind as my eyes swept the rest of the cafeteria tables, all of which were inhabited by couples and laughing groups of three or four. The lavender wasn’t coral. It was a thick-leaved, almost frilled plant that fanned out a bit to catch the sun like one of those lizards that ran on their hind legs. When the field erupted in bloom, it lit up bright orange “just like the sea”. As the visitor in the scenario, I knew better than to argue with Keyu that the sea was not orange. I learned to use terms like “my sea” as if I owned all of planet Earth. Apparently, the other visitor, the man, had done that too. I started learning to ride gravity storms that day, claiming a chunk of stone that broke off the city and gripping its sides like it was an ATV, not someone’s old bedroom wall. I only hovered about four feet up, the electric breeze not nearly as strong down there, so as to keep my falls soft just in case. And fall I did, again and again, Keyu laughing at my “wobbling knees”, until I began to master keeping my weight distribution up, hovering straight ahead without dumping myself into the lizard flowers. A wave of triumph crashed over me, sending me whooping and leaping against Keyu in some weird half-embrace, half chest-bump, my own chest feeling light as a feather even through the faint vertigo. From over his shoulder I saw shadows in the sky, human shapes, limbs waving, striking, tugging. Starting, I jumped back, and that’s when I was yanked back into harsh fluorescent light, gasping and tightly gripping a wrist over its smooth, cold watch. “What the heck was that? You weren’t so violent last time!” I burst out incredulously, panting a bit and shaking a few beads of cold sweat off my forehead as I twisted as far to my right as I could. This turn met me with dark skin, a short beard, brown eyes laced with concern. Dr. Cotton. “Get Landon,” he commanded one of the masked attendants, who reluctantly loosened her grip on my arm. “But,” the woman protested, “he said-” “Get him.” This time, even harsher. “No, I’m sorry, I’m fine, I was... I was fine,” Numbly waving my hands, I made dizzy insistences until the doctor seemed to be assuaged, his eyes softening once more as they looked into mine. “Nothing in the forest with you?” *Nothing in the forest*. “No.” \~ My nails dug into Dr. Cotton’s flesh that time. The shapes had flailed much more violently, frantically, as I shot awake-or rather back to that particular consciousness-from Keyu telling me the next time I visited, he would take me to the shore, earnest, dimpled smile across his features as lightning pain arced across mine. My cheeks felt like they’d been hapless victims of less-than-nimble hands missing my hair with my three-hundred-degree straightener. Rather than blink slowly and plaintively, clearing sleep from my eyes, I winced, panting, as I glanced upward. Right into Dr. Cotton’s eyes. His very, *very* concerned eyes. “Why do you keep doing this? I was *fine*.” I bit out, annoyance blooming in my heaving chest. The last memory I had from the trip was sinking to my knees, Keyu narrowly catching hold of my hand as the shadows flailed above me, fighting for their lives in a silhouetted dance of death. Not fun. “Christine, I just- Your-” “Exploration of the forest *had been* quite enjoyable,” I shot back, frown deepening at the pain each stretch of my cheeks caused. He thought I was flitting between hollow rows of uninhabited trees, Snow White-ing my way through the flora or perhaps on an intrepid trek. So, trek I did. I didn’t want Keyu involved, didn’t want whatever pain and visions that befell my body, or perhaps my mind, to come to him at the hands of the wrong visitor. Just the mental image of him buckling like I had was enough to send a heavy jolt to my heart. Dr. Cotton’s bearded face buzzed with a multitude of bitten back words, lips parted and moving soundlessly as his eyebrows remained firmly and concernedly furrowed. “I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I’ve never travelled to any other worlds before. I don’t know what it feels like, what it-” he cut off with another sigh of sorts, this one more of a defeated exhale. He obviously knew more than he was letting on. “What are the other worlds like? Simms mentioned some of them already, said my forest there,” I questioned innocently, tilting my head and pointing diagonally off to the sky with a wistful ceiling-ward glance, “was one of the less dangerous ones.” Keyu’s world wasn’t dangerous. Not a single one of those black-eyed people so much as spoke a rough word to me, let alone being armed or starting cults or trying to cut out my mostly-white eyeballs. Gravity storms, for the most part, caught you, and if they didn’t? Well, that’s why you rode them on a vessel. Trying it skateboard-style was hard, but I was getting the hang of it. Laying down was the easiest until you got a nice bob like the one we’d used to picnic that one day. They could have sent me there deliberately- if they’d actually wanted to. Any hint at a non-plant life form and the researcher cowed. Worried as if I’d mess it up or something. “They can be dangerous, yes. We wouldn’t enact anything but a test journey with anyone outside of very select personnel,” Dr. Cotton thought he was reassuring me. “Like the ones you’re actually prepping for interplanetary excursions, not the people in perpetual training like me.” “Christine, you’re a *very valuable*­-” “Guinea pig! I’m a valuable *guinea pig*.” “Christine, you are very strong and- And-” I was getting *really* tired of that preschool-teacher voice, those attendants’ furtive, fearful glances at me like I’d been pulled *from* Keyu’s world, not *back out of it*. “And what?” I finally sat upright, ignoring the sharp burn raising my voice ignited within my hapless face tissues. My vitals beeped a bit faster. “None of you trust me!” All I got was a wry smile and a disgustingly sympathetic hand upon my smarting shoulder. “We researchers are much more ignorant than you think, dear.” “And I’m not. Even when you ask me to study how many kinds of trees I see, to identify them. You don’t want a botanist. If you did, you’d send Maneet. But you’re *not* sending her, not once as far as I know. All I ever heard from you guys was that I was stubborn. So what do you *really* want from me?” Silence. Not a word about what happened to the first subject they’d sent to an inhabited world- the man Keyu mentioned, the one who’d aborted the mission, probably out of fear or anxiety...or one too many of those rude awakenings Simm’s husband favored. Not a word about any certain skill or gentleness or discernment or even simple *eagerness to travel* that impressed. Yet another middling grade chasing a profession that asked for astronomical numbers- literally. Heat pricked at my eyes, a warmth nothing like the hot, tender pain upon my cheeks, which had to be bright red by that point. Dr. Cotton’s consternation blurred before me, image shifting like it had been dropped into a pool. “I’m starting to think the reason you’re sending me is because I’m the only one no one would miss if something happened!” “Christine, I-” “I’m sick of it!” Tears flowed, saline I’d only previously allowed to soak my bunk on the worst solitary nights. “You do not have to continue with this project,” Dr. Cotton replied, firmly but with a new sort of smile in it, one far less insipid, perhaps more hopeful, “in fact, it may be better if we simply called it off now. Perhaps-” “No.” I blinked, my hands curling into white-knuckled fists as sparkling sunset seas lapped at the shores of my mind, swishing powerfully beneath the sound of mine and Keyu’s mingled laughter, not unlike what I heard from the others in the halls, in the cafeteria. The ones who stole judgmental glances so painfully obvious, it was like they wanted to be noticed. “Let me go one more time.” A pair of arched raven brows. It brought a tiny smirk to my face the way Dr. Cotton all but jumped back in his little swivel chair, wheels grinding faintly against the dull steel floor. “You *have* been viewing the reports, yes?” “Yes,” I lied, “and I’ll put a stop to everything going wrong next time. I want to take a walk there one more time-see the trees. They’re nothing like ours. The color of their leaves... If you really trusted me, you’d let me.” Ultimatums really scare people. He let me. I was bidden a good rest of my evening, released into grey halls, where I didn’t let myself stumble until Cotton and his pair of uneasy scrub-clad helpers couldn’t goggle at me. A shudder wracked my chest as my vision went in and out, flickering pitch-black then back to the station at intervals like a light switch had been installed behind my eyes. One hand, still mottled after twenty minutes, rose to my head, pinks and red splotches dancing before my eyes. I really hated when it did that. Vertigo was temporary; I thought maybe that was too, but getting worse over a week wasn’t the best sign. Not that Cotton needed to know that- I’d given him a chance to come clean, tell me about the first man they sent, the one a little crimson-haired kid had attempted to make a straw and fabric doll lookalike of, the one that had Keyu chiming in about our eye variants when I made a joke at the expense of my light green irises. The one who couldn’t push through it like stubborn, stubborn Christine, the one everyone whispered *just wouldn’t give up*. “You don’t have to do this, Christine.” Those were Dr. Cotton’s words as he stuck a diode to my forehead, eyes softening slightly at my wince-and-frown combo. “I need to,” I replied, voice hard at first until I sighed, giving into my fatigue as the face before me flashed into pitch, “you understand just feeling like you have to say goodbye, don’t you?” *Splat.* Another diode. “Of course.” “It’s beautiful over there,” I told him before slipping away one more time. Keyu smiled, poking at my cheek as he whispered my name. “You’re here.” Plush beneath my head. Thickly woven, yet somehow still soft, covers. All familiar-Keyu’s bedroom, the place I’d begun to wake up after the first few visits. “Of course I am. I said I’d come back, didn’t I?” His eyelashes, a softer red than his hair, fluttered briefly upon his angular cheeks as he drew back, hand leaving my face to rest under his chin, elbow settling upon the head of the backwards chair his lanky legs always straddled. “Yes. You did.” “You’ve got a much better bedside manner than the doctor back there,” I told him, propping up on my side. Keyu gaped, eyes falling widely open like I said I’d said his great-great-grandfather’s ghost was jigging behind him. “The blue-eyed man?” “No, Cotton. Simms is the blue-eyed-” Scrambling in my fabric cocoon, I shot vertical, sitting upright like I had after my very first journey, chest turning upside down just as fast. *No.* *No.* *There’s no way he wouldn’t have told me.* *He wouldn’t have said it was empty.* *He must not have known.* “Christine?” I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud, wrapping my faded hands around my knees, until Keyu shot me back to reality. “Are they pulling you from me already?” I shook my head, image of the masked attendant lady protesting bringing Dr. Simms into my room, to take one more look at my lovely little home slab flashing across my mind alongside Dr. Cotton’s face, the laboratory screens, even the peripheral little images of my nose that only bugged me when I chose to perceive them, fading into black as they sent me away one more time. “The blue-eyed man sent me here, but I don’t think he meant to. I think he wanted to stay away.” “Are you leaving?” Keyu repeated more urgently, his face fading from concern, expression falling away until he just looked *lost*. Never had I been looked at like that. It was enough to defibrillator me back into action, heart skipping an erratic beat before it calmed entirely, a smile shakily returning to my face as I shook my head once more. “I’m flying over the sea with you, if I’m not mistaken.” There went those deep dimples, those almost unnaturally straight, beautifully pearly teeth. “You are not, Christine.” Flickers didn’t happen there. Not physical ones, anyway. I didn’t lose sight of Keyu, nor the smooth stone walls of his home or the intricate, almost mandala-like chair head carving before me. “Good. I’m so sick of Earth’s BS today,” I announced, breathing a shaky laugh, “I think I need a beach escape or something.” “BS?” “Yeah, it’s short for-” I just shook my head, momentarily letting it fall back upon the plant-down-stuffed pillow it had been raised at a right angle from. “It’s a saying.” Weightless and free, I floated on my little six-by-six foot island of one, zooming along the glittery, faintly Himalayan-pink beach. Keyu piloted his at my side, dodging fallen rocks upon the sand with ease, having taken the inside lane and leaving me “the open, novice shore”. Stick my tongue out at him though I did, I’d laughed. Even harder still when the gesture went completely over his head, causing him to raise his bright red eyebrows and mutter that yes, my tongue was “quite a nice one” as we arced further past the shore. Seas were, in fact, bright orange there, looking and sparkling for all the world like an underwater sun was setting in their depths, tinting all but the white wave crests I skimmed merrily above. Whooping and shooting closer to shallow waters, I reached a hand out like they did in all the movies, spraying translucent orange droplets that caught the sun like fire diamonds and laughing as some water flicked my face, my nose instinctually wrinkling in response. Keyu laughed too, flicking more water at me until I did the same, earning a cover performance of my expression upon his much richer-toned face, those shining black eyes squinting tightly closed as he squeaked in surprise. We stayed above the water for what felt like nearly two hours, keeping by the shallows lest the water prematurely affect our reduced pull, forcing us into an early version of what I called the land land. We landed our lands near one of the jagged tidal rocks, Keyu jumping nimbly off as I tried to do, failing miserably in a comical stumble. Yet again, my guide was there to catch me, arms firmly grasping my waist, one hand traveling up, up to my shoulder... Another blackout, except this time a white flash, one that burned a distinct, moving afterimage like a vintage flip book. I gasped at the image of my body, soulless, eyes white as bone save for the veins creeping up their newly-rolled backs, writhing, Doctors Simms and Cotton’s assistants struggling to hold it down as its hands made clawing motions, fingers finding home base around their wrists. Just like I’d woken up practically palming Dr. Cotton’s expensive watch a couple weeks back. Two? Three? They tried to unplug my headset, electricity arcing above my reddening, unwilling head. A hand cupped my face, warm, grounding. “Christine?” Keyu’s eyes, complete and utter negatives of my thrashing body’s, searched mine as the image faded, their lids fluttering like they had when peering down at me in his bedroom. He’d reached with his right, I reached with my left, the gentle friction of warming skin beneath mine pulling me back from that sight, though my heartbeat didn’t slow in the least. Not when Keyu’s eyes opened back up, boring at me intently, pleadingly. Not when he adjusted his grip on me, pulling me a bit more onto my feet and against his broad chest. I yanked myself closer still, tilting my head slightly as I pulled his lips to mine. He responded immediately, hand on my waist traveling lightly on a little up-and-down circuit as his lips picked up the pace, quirking up in a smile at my faint inhale of surprise. Pleasant surprise. I’d like to say the kiss made me weak in the knees, but in reality I just dropped like a ragdoll the moment we pulled apart for air, sending Keyu calling out my name once more. Another white flash overtook my eyes like lightning, this time burning in the sight of Dr. Cotton weeping and shaking his head while his masked attendants shook my hands off and raised a pure white sheet, covering my utterly still, lifeless, burned-out face. Shuddering, I bent my knees, standing shakily up from a kneel with Keyu’s help. My hand, resting gingerly in his, had returned to its healthy pink. As he gave it a squeeze, my gaze travelled up to meet his eyes; wiggling his eyebrows, he smiled at me, *saw me*, as for the first time in that world I felt a full gust of crisp air rush into my lungs. I breathed in and out heavily, tasting the temperate sea breeze with a growing, relieved smile. My lavender fields and white city awaited. I have an eternity to make that colorful world my own, and Keyu says he wants to give it to me. His neighbors greet me warmly, regard me as a much more successful traveler than the blue-eyed stranger. I came to know that one little stone hollow, those woven indigo sheets, like the back of my hand, the one price I had to pay being faced with the sight of my own lifeless body staring back at me in my dreams every night. I can see why Keyu and the others didn’t talk about their dreams.