Interlude 2.2
Updated: Sep 17, 2023
It started with Joshua.
The minute the group escaped Dimension X, he stormed out of the pocket dimension. It still hurt to walk on the soles of his burnt feet, and his skin was still red and raw around his ankles, but he didn’t care. No one stopped him from leaving, and when he returned, Auster and Joel in tow, no one questioned it.
After all, of all of them, Joshua was the only one with family to protect.
…Well, almost the only one. Lian did not live with their family, but they still had parents to think about, and with the Ennead missing, The Necromancer had free reign to attack anyone he wanted.
Lian left shortly after Joshua and went straight to their adoptive mom’s bakery to explain the situation. With a wink and a smile, Lian’s mom had wiped their tears and told them not to worry. Lian couldn’t help but worry, though, as their mom went into hiding with nothing but a rapidly fading indigo crystal to keep her safe.
After that, Lian couldn’t stand to be alone in their apartment.
They spent an increasing amount of time sitting on the pocket dimension couch, looking over a flustered Auster’s shoulder and pointing at memes on his phone.
Rae was the first—aside from Morgan and Peter—to actually proclaim that xe was moving into the pocket dimension. (Joshua, Auster, and Joel didn’t count, because Joshua refused to acknowledge the situation as anything but a temporary fix). Rae’s eviction notice from earlier had been carried out in his absence, leaving him without a place to stay. It wasn’t Rae’s first time being evicted, but having somewhere else to go in xyr hour of need was a nice change of pace.
The dimension magically expanded to accommodate its guests.
Dani and Juli made it one day in the outside world before they returned to the pocket dimension, out of breath, their clothes riddled with laser marks. As they patched themselves up in the infirmary, the pair explained that they’d been labelled wanted criminals by the Company. It wasn’t safe for them out there anymore.
Juli wasn’t too bummed. It was their first time having their own bedroom.
Karyme never actually moved into the pocket dimension, but as she dug into the journals in the living room, she started to spend an increasing amount of time there. At first, it was a couple hours a day devoted to reading, typing, and sorting through the information in the journals. Each journal chronicled a chapter in Jinal’s more than two-thousand years of life—it was a massive undertaking. And so Karyme found herself staying for meals more and more often. Eventually two became eight became sixteen hours of curling up in the armchair by the fireplace and reading through Jinal’s experiences.
By the end of the week, all eight mortals (plus two) were living in the pocket dimension.
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