Chapter Text
Waking up gasping for breath was nothing new. Waking up gasping for breath in some place other than his own bed was a bit out of the ordinary but not impossible. Waking up, sweating and chilled, cheek pressed to concrete floor, with only blank white walls facing him and no knowledge of where he was or how he got there -- that was a cause for concern.
Shiro slowly rolled over and got his feet under him. Every muscle was stiff and sore, indicating that he’d been here for a while. Which was a bit odd because he usually woke up pretty soon after sleepwalking somewhere... and on the very rare occasions that he stumbled outside while unconscious, someone else always shook him awake in the worst way possible.
A quick glance around showed conclusively that this wasn’t his apartment building -- the walls were cheap cinderblock with paint slapped on them, the lights overhead dim fluorescents that flickered intermittently. The thinly carpeted floor was covered in a thin layer of dust and grime. Even though his own apartment building was rundown and cheap, it wasn’t this obviously disrepaired.
Which meant that he was somewhere unfamiliar.
He was in the middle of a long corridor lined with blank white doors. There was a heavy metal door at the far end, most likely to the outside. Next to him, midway down the hall, was an elevator, its scuffed doors reflecting his own confused expression back at him.
Shiro groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. His sneakers were rubbing blisters on his heels; his t-shirt reeked slightly of sweat from when he’d intended to take a shower last night but had crashed, exhausted, instead. On instinct, his hand went to his neck, where there was a small carved pendant on a cord. The green stone was warm and smooth to the touch and he rubbed his thumb over its comforting shape, a tiny lion with one paw raised to strike, before tucking it back inside his shirt.
Time to find the way out of here.
Now that he was more awake, he became aware of just how dead silent the building was. For an apartment complex, even one on a weekend morning, there ought to have been some people up and about.
Shiro took a deep breath and even the atmosphere was... solid? It smelled like musty paper, the scent in the back of really old bookstores where newspapers were stored with books that hadn’t been touched by human hands in decades. Even though the air looked clear, it felt like he was inhaling lungfuls of particles that choked his throat and made his mouth dry. It would be easier if the hallway was hazy with dust because then he could have blamed it on an unused building -- no one lived here any more, everything was so dead and silent just because.
But his mind refused to accept that, even if he kept insisting to himself that it was the only logical answer. Something felt so off about this place that there had to be some sort of bizarre explanation to match the bizarre setting.
“Enough’s enough,” he said out loud. Even though he’d kept his voice at a whisper, it was still too loud in the uncanny stillness, sending rustling echoes away down the hall. There shouldn’t even be an echo in here, he realized, not when the walls were this close and confining.
Once again, best not to think of it. His head was hurting already. Against his chest, the little charm seemed to hang heavier and heavier. Time to get out of here.
He pushed the elevator button. It lit up, but there was no accompanying noise of cables moving or gears engaging. Click, click. The button stayed lit, a dim orange like a dying sunset.
Nothing.
It was fine, elevators got stuck all the time. Maybe someone else was holding it up at a different floor? For some reason, that thought was worse. It had been silent for too long; meeting someone now was going to feel all wrong and just... no. Shiro didn’t want to see anyone or anything, on the whole way back to his apartment. Once he got there he was going to crawl into bed and not show his face until the world started to make sense again.
There was a crash from the end of the hallway. Shiro let out a closed-mouth yelp and flattened himself against the wall, eyes wide as there was a sudden influx of grainy light. Somehow the door at the end of the hallway was open and had slammed back against the wall, reverberating metal that jarred his senses out of whatever calm he’d managed to find.
Right now, the thought foremost in his mind was that someone would have heard that, someone would come to see what was going on.
Abandoning the elevator, Shiro inched his way along the wall, keeping his eyes on the rectangle of light. It didn’t even look like sunlight; the angle was too low, the color all wrong. The last thing he wanted right now was to catch a glimpse of whatever landscape lay outside these concrete walls.
A glance behind him showed that the corridor -- that he was slowly backing along -- was still totally dark. There should have been some light, especially now that the door was open, but nothing. As if the darkness was a solid entity that was just waiting to absorb him. But even that would be preferable, at least it would offer some way to hide from whatever would see him in the light.
His fingers trailed along the lefthand wall, feeling the slick surface of cement give way to the raised lip of a doorframe. Closed, like all the others. No doorknob. He kept inching past. Was it his imagination, or was there a silhouette in the doorway now, a shape just slightly less bright than the sick yellow glow spilling in?
The metal door moved under his touch, being wrenched violently open by something he didn’t have time to see. Self-preservation pounded through his head, instincts he didn’t know he had, and somehow his outcry of surprise turned into nothing more than a silent intake of breath. Then he was stumbling headlong into the gray darkness of the room beyond and the door clicked shut behind him.
Just as he was regaining his balance and had time for a lightning-fast glimpse of the room -- deserted, empty, covered with dust and the flapping remnants of curtains that clung around the window like hanged corpses -- he was shoved back against the wall. Shiro lashed out blindly but the other person was too fast, ducking easily under his flailing arms and pressing in uncomfortably close, a hand plastered over his mouth.
Shiro gulped down air but stopped fighting. This didn’t seem to be an attack, not when the person was a foot and a half shorter than him and all their attention was poised toward the closed door. Safer, far safer right now, to play along. He would take a human enemy any day over whatever was walking the hallway outside.
The person backed up, keeping a watchful eye on Shiro, and held a hand to their lips. Shiro nodded understanding and tried to steady his breathing. Now was not the time for a panic attack. It also gave him a moment to take in the newcomer. At this second glance they -- he couldn’t tell their gender for certain yet -- looked a lot less intimidating than he would have thought. Short, slim build, glasses, a large backpack, looking like they’d be more at home in a library or computer lab than whatever the hell this place was.
But on third glance... there was a gun tucked into the back of their waistband. A hunting knife hanging at their side. Runic, maybe astrologic, symbols stitched into the canvas of their bag. Dangerous, but in a quiet way, more for sneak attacks and self defense than outright brawling.
Still more than enough to take down Shiro.
The newcomer’s eyes were still on the door for the most part, their body language crouched and ready for instant action. It made Shiro’s heartbeat pick up again. Of course they were still in danger. This whole world was made of danger.
Shiro crossed the room carefully, avoiding stepping on the debris and loose plaster on the floor, until his back was to the far wall and he was out of sight of the door. The other person gave him a wide berth and kept most of their focus on the door, but as the minutes dragged interminably on, the tension in the room eased. At last they were both able to breathe easier, feeling like a cloud had passed over them and was finally gone.
“You’re no Alice.”
“Huh?” Shiro raised an eyebrow.
The smaller figure -- female, from the voice -- put hands on her hips. “You’re gonna die if you wander around here like an idiot.”
Shiro gave a weak shrug. So he was cannon fodder. Great. “I’d love it if you could show me the way out. Or just tell me what the hell is going on.”
“No time.” The girl clutched at her right sleeve and looked calculatingly at the door. “The coast is clear; we need to take advantage of it.” She headed toward the door but Shiro moved faster, taking her by surprise and grabbing her shoulder.
One hand flew to her knife but she didn’t move to throw him off, instead glaring back over her shoulder.
“This is a dream, right?” It was the only logic his brain would accept. Even if it felt far too real to be anything other than reality.
“Just keep telling yourself that.”
“No, wait --”
She slipped out of his grasp and pulled the door open a couple of inches, then darted out into the hallway. Shiro took a deep breath; the air was still musty and cardboard-y, but it did feel lighter than before. Not quite as heavy in his lungs. Maybe whatever had passed had cleared the air.
The girl was waiting in the hallway when he finally ventured out with jerky steps. “Caution is great,” she said, not looking up from her wristwatch, “but you’ve got to learn to move fast when you’ve got the opportunity.”
He moved forward to join her in front of the elevator. At the far end of the hall, the door had swung shut again, blocking the unnatural yellow light and leaving the corridor illuminated only by the flickering fluorescents. Everything else seemed the same as before. Shiro didn’t know why he was expecting footprints in the dust or bloody handprints trailed down the walls; in a way that would have made this all... not more real, but more bearable. Certain kinds of fear he could deal with. Halloween? No problem. Scary movies? A fun past time. But this, the utter unknown that left nothing but a sick horror in his stomach? He stood closer to the girl than absolutely necessary.
“I know you don’t want to talk, but I’m really lost. I woke up here. I don’t even know where here is. Please, please tell me something.”
Expression stern, the girl turned to face him. Even though she had to crane her neck back to look him in the eye, she held an aura of command. “You came here through a so-called game. The Elevator Game. You’ve heard of it, right?”
Shiro shook his head but she didn’t slow down to explain.
“It’s not a game at all. I need you to listen very carefully to me, and understand that your life is at stake here. I don’t know the consequences for messing stuff up and I sure don’t want to find out.” She reached behind her into a side pocket of her backpack and pulled out a black marker. “I’m going to show you the way out. No questions, you just follow what I say to the letter. Yes?”
“Okay,” Shiro said. If this was a prank, it was the most realistic, thoroughly-staged prank he’d ever seen, and he might as well play along. And if the girl was telling the truth, he really didn’t have any other choice.
“You’re going to get on the elevator and push a certain number of floors. I’ll write them down because believe me, stuff gets crazy and you’ll forget everything.” She rolled up her left sleeve, revealing a row of thick black numbers written down the length of her forearm. “Here.”
Hesitantly, Shiro rolled up his left sleeve. The scars weren’t as bad on that side, not as bad as his right arm that hung half-paralyzed and useless. Even if other people never reacted visibly to the signs of his accident, he didn’t want to show them off. Might as well protect whatever pride he had left.
The girl held the pen cap between her teeth as she touched the marker to skin.
1, 4, 2, 6, 2, 10, 5, 10x, 7, 1
Shiro looked at his arm and raised an eyebrow. Before he could ask, the girl tapped the first number on his wrist.
“You start on the ground floor. Then push all these buttons, waiting for the doors to open and close again before you go on to the next step. When you press ten,” she pointed to the 10x on his arm, “hit seven before you reach the top floor. Wait for the doors, all that, then go to one and leave.”
“Why does my arm say seven? Yours says ‘any’.”
“Good eye.” She tucked away the marker and pulled her sleeve back down. “Technically you can push any floor for that step, but seven is the safest. I’ve done this a lot and that’s the only floor where more crap doesn’t start happening. Usually.”
Shiro swallowed. “Anything else I need to know?”
“You’ll hear voices. You might see people, especially a woman. Heck, you might even think she’s me. Ignore everything she does and don’t say a word. Don’t look at anything, don’t speak, and you should make it out. When you get to the ground floor, leave the building and wait for me outside, okay?”
“You’re not coming with me?” That shouldn’t have sent a chill down his spine but it did, sudden and violent. He didn’t want to be in a box, trapped, no way out --
“It has to be done alone. I’ll be right behind you, don’t worry.”
Nodding, Shiro stepped forward, his newly inked arm reaching for the elevator button. The girl stopped him with a quiet sound and nodded her head off toward the metal door at the end of the hall.
“We should take the stairs. Start fresh at the ground floor.”
“No.” There was no rational reason for it, but that door and whatever lay beyond, he didn’t want to go there. He felt like a child, scared of the monsters under his bed.
The girl started off down the corridor, away from him. “It’s the only way. Plus, everything’s passed for now.”
With feet heavy as lead, Shiro followed her. The door receded the closer they got, until he was sure they’d walked hundreds of feet instead of maybe twenty. The elevator was still right behind him, the scuffed metal doors reflecting little light.
“My name’s Pidge, by the way.” She put her shoulder against the metal door and heaved. It came open with a groan, and Shiro raised a hand to shield his eyes from the light, but outside was only the dusty ash color of twilight in a smoggy city.
“Shiro,” he answered. It felt strange giving away his nickname, but everything here was strange. He needed that extra little bit of familiarity.
Outside was a small concrete landing with a rusted metal rail, and flights of hairpin stairs crawling down the side of the building. Shiro wanted to keep his eyes just on his feet -- something in Pidge’s warning to ignore his surroundings had unsettled him -- but he couldn’t help glancing up. The skyline was the same as he was used to; the towers of the university off in the middle distance, the skyscrapers of downtown even farther off. Nearby were the flat gray roofs of cheap housing, and litter-filled streets, and the occasional tree starving to death in its asphalt prison.
It was quiet. So, so deathly quiet.
The alley below them was empty, not that strange for whatever o’clock on a weekend. But back toward the campus there was a main highway and there was always traffic of some sort, students or lost tourists or the local bus routes.
Nothing.
Not even birds, not even cicadas hidden in the meager trees.
It felt like he was looking at a still photograph, the dull sepia tint of the sky rendering it a picture of a time long past. Lifeless and dusty, and not a hint of movement.
Pidge tapped on his hand. Shiro glanced down at where she’d paused halfway down the first flight of stairs and was relieved that at least she wasn’t monochrome too -- her shirt was autumn colors, muted green and orange that held just enough life to make her stand out from the landscape. Her eyes were deep honey and sharp as a fox’s, watching his face like she was... apprehensive of him? That was a possibility; not that he could blame her for being wary, in this world where nothing was as it seemed.
“I’ll follow you,” he said, nodding at the stairs. “Don’t worry abou--”
Her fingers had become an iron grip around his right wrist, tight enough to make his bones ache along old fracture lines. Air hissed between her teeth, louder than an exhale but not by much.
Mutely, Shiro nodded. The landscape might look dead, but anything could be watching. Listening.
Pidge glanced out at the deserted city but it was more of a warning than a lookout. They started down the stairs, much slower than Shiro would have liked, now that the silence of the place was thundering in his ears. Every scuff of boots, every loose bit of dislodged dirt, every brush of his fingertips along the rail was too loud. All it would take was one wrong noise and the stalking stillness would be broken. The last thing Shiro wanted was to be noticed.
They reached the foot of the stairs after what seemed a lifetime. Pidge, even with her backpack, was looking as sharp and poised as she had earlier, but Shiro was breathing hard. Everything ached. Sure, he wasn’t in the best of shape, but the drag of the stairs felt magnetic, trying to pull his feet around to wander his way back up to the top. Each step had been harder than the last until the ground came into view, the cracked edges of the parking lot, and it was like a chain being released.
Pidge pulled open a side door and peered into the corridor beyond, then motioned him through. Inside, the building looked just like the top floor -- same ratty carpeting, same flickering lights, same rows of closed doors and cinderblock walls and the menacing gleam of an elevator midway down the hall. Holding her shoulder to the door, Pidge retreated slowly, letting it swing closed until it settled against the frame and the lock engaged with a snap.
“Much better,” she said at a normal volume. “It’s always safer to be inside. Well, not always, but... whatever.”
“I have to ask,” Shiro said, stopping just inside the door. “Why do we have to take the elevator at all? Can’t we just leave through the lobby and go home?”
“I wish it was that simple,” Pidge replied. “You’re not in the real world anymore. The exit to this building isn’t the way out of here -- unless you really want to wander the empty streets. In order to get back to what you’re used to, you have to use the elevator. Trust me.”
“So taking the elevator and then leaving through the lobby will work?”
“Yep.”
Shiro nodded, the lingering confusion and fear making him compliant. Pidge had an aura of confidence around her and he was willing to play along for now. He’d do pretty much anything, as a matter of fact, if it could make the creeping chill down his neck go away. There was also the growing, sinking feeling that this was no dream, but it couldn’t be real either. Could it?
“Push the button.” Pidge led the way down the hall. If not for her presence, Shiro would have never gone near the elevator. It looked ugly and smug, its doors just convex enough to warp their reflections like a funhouse mirror. Pidge looked short and fat, her glasses the size of saucers. Shiro’s reflection was right over the seam between the doors, cut in half with both sides staring back at him. Quickly he pushed the button and stepped aside.
“So I have to push all these buttons in the right order. Then what?” He itched to roll down his sleeve but the sight of the numbers was comforting in a way.
“Then you leave and never, ever play in elevators again. Although if you don’t mind staying outside the building until I come out, I’d like to talk with you more.”
“You’ll explain stuff?”
“As much as I’m able.” A chime sounded and there was the sound of the elevator car coming to a stop. “Need me to go over the instructions again?”
“I think I’m good.”
Pidge nodded. “No matter what happens, don’t leave the elevator till the end. Don’t look at anything and don’t say a word.”
The doors opened.
Heart in his throat, Shiro stepped on, immediately turning to look back at Pidge.
She gestured sideways with her thumb. “Face the corner. And don’t speak!”
Then the doors slid shut, Shiro’s own wide-eyed reflection replacing Pidge’s face. He looked down to his arm for direction. 4. Pushing the corresponding button, he turned his back and buried his face in the corner by the button panel. There was just enough room for him to cradle his arms around his chest and let his eyes graze over the bold numbers. They were proof that he wasn’t alone here.
The elevator chimed and opened on the fourth floor. Shiro shut his eyes, shoulders shivering with tension as he listened for the sound of someone getting on. But there seemed to be nothing and at last the doors closed again. He swallowed and let his right hand trace over the buttons; he could feel the Braille numbers, but couldn’t read any of them. The car stayed motionless.
What if someone had gotten on? What if they were holding their breath too, just waiting for Shiro to open his eyes and see them?
His lungs were going to burst. Finally he let out a shaky exhale and opened his eyes a slit. There was enough ambient light for him to see the unlit buttons and, after a quick glance at his arm, he pushed the next number and slammed his eyes closed again. If there was only one way out of here, damned if he wasn’t going to do it right.
The same torturous process repeated for the next floor, and the next, and the next.
He started getting cocky as he pushed the fifth floor button. Nothing had happened, not like Pidge had made him fear. No Lovecraftian eldritch horrors shambled aboard the elevator with him. The numbers didn’t jump around. He didn’t suddenly forget his own name. Two more floors and he would be able to forget this ever happened.
Even before the doors opened for the fifth floor, he knew he’d relaxed too soon.
There were noises.
A clamor of indistinct voices rose from beyond the elevator doors. He wanted so badly to mash the ‘door closed’ button and not face whatever was waiting, but the unspoken danger in Pidge’s instructions was somehow more terrifying than the increasing cacophony. The numbers stood out black on bold on his arm, a key that would keep him safe until the end of this nightmare.
But whatever protection it offered felt flimsier and flimsier as the voices kept rising in volume and the doors slid open. Outside, in the brief glimpse in his peripheral vision before he slapped a hand over his face, the hallway was completely empty.
That didn’t mean that the noises abated one bit.
Keeping his right eye, the one nearest the opening, shielded with his hand, Shiro glanced at his forearm. 10x. That meant he’d have to push the button, wait for the elevator to start moving, then stop it before it reached the top floor. His pulse pounded.
The voices kept screeching and murmuring gibberish, rising and falling like a large crowd was gathered right outside. From the sound of it, the hallway ought to be packed full of people but there wasn’t a breath of movement. The elevator stayed placidly at a full stop; the floor didn’t move, indicating that no one -- presumably -- got on. The fact that Shiro had to even consider that someone could have gotten on without him feeling it... was terrifying.
He pushed the top button carefully, then a little harder when it failed to light up. No no no. No way he was getting stuck here in limbo.
Abruptly the voices stopped and the sudden hush was just as bad as the disorienting noise. In the distance, there was the whir of machinery, but it wasn’t nearly enough to drown out the tapping of light footsteps entering the elevator. They took three dainty steps and stopped in the opposite corner by the door.
It felt like an eternity later when the doors started to close and the tenth-floor button finally lit up. Shiro still had his hand pressed tight to the side of his face and his jaw was clenched against any involuntary noises being startled out of him. Pidge’s instructions seemed stupid but this wasn’t his building, he would never again have to see any of these people (if there actually was someone on the elevator with him), and he could live with a reputation of weirdness if it got him back to his apartment in one piece.
“Are you okay?” a woman’s voice asked, soft and gentle. She sounded young. Harmless. Concerned about him.
Shiro swallowed and closed his eyes as an added precaution. When would the elevator start moving; he needed it to move before he could press the next button. Except now that his eyes were closed, he didn’t want to open them again. The woman was still in her corner -- he could hear her breaths -- but what if he happened to see something when he glanced down at his arm? Was peripheral vision against the rules? What about accidents?
Blindly he reached out and rested his fingers on the smooth plastic of the button panel. The elevator’s gears started up and he lurched at the acceleration. Slitting his left eye open, he could just barely make out the number 7, and pushed it hard enough to leave an imprint of the engraved number on his thumb.
“You didn’t come here intentionally. I understand that you’re afraid.”
Biting back a terrified whine, Shiro closed his eyes again and wished he knew some prayers. Or karate. Or that he could pinch himself hard enough to wake up.
“It was because of the lions, wasn’t it? How many has the witch managed to gather?” the woman continued. She seemed not to care that she was being shunned. Or maybe she knew that no matter how tightly Shiro squeezed his eyes shut and ground his teeth together, he couldn’t block out the sound of her voice that whispered around and around his head.
Go away go away.
The elevator jolted and shuddered to a stop. The doors opened at floor 7 and Shiro had to look at his arm for the next step. Heart in his throat, he glanced down at the thick line of the 1 written on his arm. He was almost done. He’d made it.
Until the silent woman moved toward him. He flinched back, sensing her presence coming closer, and punched the first-floor button hard enough to crack it. A hand touched his right arm and every muscle in his body seized up. It felt like he wasn’t even there any more, watching from some other area of his brain as the tendons in his neck moved and he made eye contact with the woman.
Shocking white hair framed a dark, pretty face. Her eyes were soft, a multifaceted hue that reflected the light in cascading sparkles. Magic, if he’d ever seen it. Utterly dangerous.
He couldn’t stifle a whimper as his eyes were allowed to fall shut and he staggered forward, hitting the control panel and slamming his fists into it. He’d messed up. One rule and he’d messed up badly.
“I apologize,” the woman said. It was hard to hear her voice over the adrenaline pounding through Shiro’s skull, but he certainly felt it when her hand left his skin. His whole arm, shoulder to fingertips, tingled like it had fallen asleep, like he’d pinched a nerve. Only there weren’t nerves there to be pinched; it was one of the many things the doctors hadn’t been able to mend. It felt wrong in a way that made his very bones ache, and he clenched his hand into a fist. His nails bit into his palm but he couldn’t feel it.
“The Emperor is coming. You need to know that. I’m not your enemy in this world.”
Shiro pressed his head harder into the wall, hoping for some other stimulus to drive her voice away. At last the woman fell silent, a dangerous presence that tingled at the back of his neck. The elevator stopped at the first floor and Shiro blindly shoved his way forward, forcing his way through the half-open doors and into the hallway beyond. He couldn’t get his feet under himself fast enough, stumbling into the wall before righting himself, opening his eyes in his panic, and racing for the glass double doors that marked the lobby.
He thought the woman stayed in the elevator but he couldn’t be sure. Just because there weren’t heeled footsteps trailing after him, or warm fingers ghosting his arm, didn’t mean anything.
He burst through the doors and stopped on the sidewalk at the edge of the front parking lot. Noise surrounded him -- birds, an airplane, cars passing. People talking as they went about their business. It was an ordinary weekend scene in this area.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Shiro looked around to get his bearings. Oak Street was several blocks from where he lived, but not an inconceivable distance for him to have sleepwalked. Although he had to admit, if his sleepwalking was taking an adventurous turn, it was time to start tying himself to the bedframe at night. No way he was having a repeat performance of this morning.
But he hesitated now that he was standing safely outside the rundown apartment building. In the late morning sunlight, with people going about their own business on the sidewalk, and the hum of cars along the road... everything was normal. His earlier paranoia seemed like just that, paranoia. This was all a crazy case of sleepwalking and not happening to see anyone around when he woke. Right?
Pidge was a conspiracy theorist or a nutcase or a kid looking for kicks from scaring random people. Occam’s razor -- things were no more complicated than a simple explanation. There was no Elevator Game, no lives in danger, no consequences for riding the elevator wrong. That was so stupid it was laughable.
But Shiro still lingered there. Maybe talking to Pidge would help him move on from this. If she was stark raving crazy in the light of day, then he would feel better about brushing her off.
“Glad you stuck around.”
He turned to see her coming up behind him, stopping a few feet away with her arms crossed.
“Glad you could follow directions, too,” she added.
Narrowing his eyes, he glanced at the door behind her and then back at Pidge herself. “That was an awfully fast elevator ride, considering how many floors --”
“I have other ways of traveling. Part of being an Alice.” She waved him off. “Right now, I just want to give you a basic safety lesson if you’re going to make a habit of messing with the Otherworld.”
“You’re using an awful lot of proper nouns that I don’t understand.”
Pidge rolled her eyes. “There’s a lot of stuff that you really don’t want to know, if you want to get any sleep at night.” She paused and glared at him. “What are you smiling about?”
“Bad dreams are kind of the norm for me now. But go on.”
Pidge opened her mouth to reply but paused, eyes widening in surprise. Shiro glanced down, following her line of sight, and noticed that the lion pendant had gotten flipped to the outside of his shirt, in plain sight.
Selfconsciously, he reached up and dropped it back inside his collar. Pidge’s expression wasn’t exactly judgmental, but he didn’t want just anyone looking at the charm. Something about it felt too personal to be gawked at.
“I wouldn’t normally comment, but --” Pidge started, then shut her mouth and stepped closer. Pulling up her right sleeve a bit, she held out her arm. On her wrist was a delicately inked tattoo of a lion, done in jade green, no more than an inch long.
It was the perfect match to Shiro’s pendant.
He looked at the tattoo for longer than strictly necessary; it gave him an anchor while the rest of the world spun out from beneath him. The first thought that popped into his head was that the pendant belonged to Pidge and she would want it back. He clenched his teeth at that thought. No way he was giving it up, it was his, and it felt right, warm and smooth against his chest.
“How would you feel about coming to meet my boss?” Pidge was saying. She’d pulled her sleeve back down but her fingers were playing with the hem, twisting it tighter and tighter against her arm. “I think you might already be deeper in the Otherworld than you know.”
Shiro felt like laughing because the craziness was resurfacing and he was going right along with it, the same way he’d unquestionably followed her instructions when riding the elevator. “Will it make the nightmares go away?”
She glared at him, sensing that he was less than serious, but gave a considering nod anyway. “There’s a chance. Anything’s possible, really. If you want to give it a try.”
Shrugging, Shiro glanced at his wrist where his watch should have been if he hadn’t pawned it off last week in exchange for dinner. “I’m not busy this afternoon.”
“Good.” Pidge took out a notebook from her endless backpack, tore a page, and scribbled an address. “Be here by five tonight. We’ll supply food.”
Shiro could feel his eyes light up at that. “See you then.”
“Yeah.”
----
The address turned out to belong to an old two-story house not far from Shiro’s own apartment building. Most of the neighborhood around campus had been claimed by students, renting out to five or six people depending on the house’s size. Shiro had spent a couple of semesters living in the basement of one; small and cramped and always with noise filtering down from the rest of the house.
But judging by the single car parked in the leafblown driveway, someone had enough money to keep an entire house to themselves. Pidge had mentioned her boss, so it might make sense that someone in charge had enough money for that.
It was also one of the few houses on the block that still had its old trees in the front yard, instead of burned-out stumps or sloppily landscaped flowerbeds. A pair of huge oaks, each at least three feet in diameter, dominated the yard and cast spreading pools of shadow over the sidewalk and porch.
Shiro’s stomach rumbled to itself and he cut through the yard to get to the front door. Even if he decided to cut and run from this madness, at least he could get a solid meal out of it. With that thought in mind, he raised his left hand to the doorbell and rang.
There was the sound of footsteps inside, coming closer. Heels, from the neat tapping sound. Shiro put on his friendliest smile and hid his right hand in his pocket. It was always easier that way; precluded people from wanting to shake hands.
At that moment the door was pulled open, framing a young woman with a flowing dress and long white hair.
Mouth dry, Shiro’s first panicked thought was don’t look! as he stumbled backward, his back slamming into the railing of the porch. His left hand fumbled along the wood, fingernails dragging against splinters as he tried to find something to stabilize himself.
“Sorry for startling you!” The woman looked just as shocked as him and took a step back, hands up placatingly. “You must be Shiro?”
He nodded, still with Pidge’s words don’t talk don’t say a word ringing in his head.
“Pidge said you’d be coming.” She stepped aside, then hesitated as it became clear Shiro wasn’t peeling himself from the railing any time soon. “Are you okay?”
“About time you showed up,” Pidge’s voice came from inside the house. She appeared at the white-haired woman’s elbow, one hand supporting a laptop, with headphones draped around her neck. “Hey there.”
For the first time, Shiro found his voice. “Hey.”
Pidge glanced between him and the woman. “Allura, I told you your hair makes you look like a ghost. Like, pin it up or something.”
“Sorry.” The woman nervously swept a hand across her forehead, pushing her bangs aside, and clasped her hands in front of her. “I’m really sorry. I’m Allura, by the way.”
Shiro gave her a slight bow, glad that shaking hands had been averted. Now he just had to get his heart rate back down to a manageable range after his initial shock. Hadn’t Pidge said that the woman on the elevator might look like anyone, even Pidge herself? It was yet another bizarre coincidence in this whole day of coincidences.
The interior of the house was open and brightly lit -- no monsters in the shadows there. The wallpaper and furniture looked house original, slightly worn, very ornate, almost Victorian? Shiro didn’t know exactly what era it was from but it looked rich in the way that he associated with elderly aunts who never called and never visited, hidden away in their mansions, content to ignore the foreigner blood that had invaded their family tree. He didn’t like it.
“Have a seat.” Allura cleared off an astrological starmap and a few books from one of the deep red, velveteen couches. “Want anything to drink?”
“Not right now, thanks,” he said, looking around as he sat down. The walls were lined with bookcases crammed with books faded so badly the spines were unreadable. One shelf was stacked with maps and oversized paper; another had what appeared to be parchment scrolls neatly curled around wooden dowels. There were several oddities he couldn’t place, things that looked like archaic navigational equipment and little Grecian figurines. To top it off, on the wall next to the door was a woven dreamcatcher, complete with beads and feathers hanging down.
There was a picture window behind the couch and Shiro had to fight with all he had not to turn around and see if there was a ‘Madame Allura, Fortunetelling and Palm Reading’ sign in the front yard. It would have made this feel less off-center.
Allura took a seat in an armchair across from him, white hair silhouetting her against the dark furniture. “Pidge says you found your own way into the Otherworld. Can you tell me your side of the story?”
“There’s not much to tell.” He raised his left hand to touch the pendant through his shirt, but stopped and let his arm rest on his thigh. “I woke up there. I’ve had a lot of sleepwalking episodes ever since... for a while now. It’s not that strange for me to wake up in the lobby of my apartment building.”
“How far is your home from where we were this morning?” Pidge asked, still cradling her laptop like it was a child as she sat on the end of the couch next to him.
“About half a mile.”
“Ever sleepwalked that far before?”
“No.”
Allura crossed her legs, a bump in the silky sheen of her dress. “I can see that you’re getting impatient with us being the ones asking the questions. Go ahead and speak your mind.”
Easier said than done. What should he ask first? Alices? The Otherworld? The Elevator Game? Why Allura looked so much like the woman on the elevator? Why his pendant looked just like Pidge’s tattoo?
“I guess, everything?” He shrugged despite the way it pulled at his right shoulder uncomfortably. “What do you two do?”
Leaning forward, Allura plucked a teacup from the coffee table and took a sip. “Am I right to assume that you don’t have any knowledge of the supernatural? You’ve never encountered anything out of the ordinary before?”
Shiro made a noncommittal sound. “I don’t... didn’t believe in ghosts. But I’m hardly an expert on anything like that.”
“Well then this is gonna knock your socks off,” Pidge said with a hint of a laugh. “The place where I met you this morning is called the Otherworld. Actually, we don’t know if that’s it’s real name, but we haven’t met anyone to tell us otherwise. It’s kind of a mirror to our world. A lot of things are similar, but the things that live there aren’t human.
“As far as I’ve seen in my scouting missions, the Otherworld is only inhabited by... I don’t know. Allura and I call them aberrations, but really that’s just our take. Demons, maybe. Spirits. Depends on your religion, I guess. But whatever you want to call them, it’s abundantly clear that they aren’t on humanity’s side.”
As Pidge finally stopped and took a breath, Allura picked up the thread of conversation.
“There are ways to cross over between these two worlds. One, the Elevator Game, you’ve already discovered. It’s a modern version of a very old ritual. There are other ways to summon things to our world, or vice versa: ouija boards, the child’s rhyme of Bloody Mary, even some of the Bermuda Triangle disappearances.
“But one thing is very important to note, and it’s very dangerous for you to accidentally cross over. While it’s relatively easy to get to the Otherworld if you know the means -- if you know the elevator numbers, for instance -- it’s very hard to get back out once you’re in. That’s the sole reason why this world isn’t flooded with aberrations and demons, because they can’t get out of their world unless specifically summoned.”
Shiro raised his hand, feeling like he was in school again. “So how was Pidge able to get us out so easily? Couldn’t any elevator be used to cross over?”
“Actually, no,” Pidge cut in before Allura could. “There are only a few rifts around town. We got lucky and that building had one. If it hadn’t, we could have been searching a long time before we found somewhere else for you to get out.”
“Hm.” Shiro chewed his bottom lip. This was a huge amount of information to process, but it seemed to make sense in its own weird way. At least there was a pattern to the madness, he thought briefly. His headache was lingering, threatening to make a comeback, but he pushed it aside.
“Pidge, can I ask... why do you cross over, if it’s so dangerous? Why would anyone want to go to an alternate-reality demon world?”
“The same reason humans have gone to the moon and the ocean floor,” Pidge commented. “Because we can. And because it’s my job. Better me crossing over than you; at least I know how to get out.”
“Alice is the name given to people who make it a regular habit to cross over and explore the Otherworld,” Allura continued. “Pidge is an Alice who makes sure that the mirror version of this city is relatively free from aberrations who might try to cross over.”
“Like a supernatural early warning system?”
Pidge grinned smugly. “It’s a cooler job than most people’s, right?”
“So about these demons, aberrations, whatever,” Shiro mused, starting to fit together some pieces. “The woman I saw in the elevator, was she one?”
“What?” Allura’s eyes were sharp on him. “Pidge, didn’t you warn him not to --”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Pidge bit back, glaring at Shiro like a venomous snake. “After everything I said, you looked?”
A weight like a rock settled deeper in his gut. One rule, one rule and he’d managed to break it. He licked his lips. “So, like, is my life forfeit now or something?”
“Or something,” Allura echoed, frowning. “By interacting with the Otherworld, it’s now linked to you to some extent and there’s no telling... Pidge, do you think you could teach him how to survive as an Alice?”
Both Pidge and Shiro jerked upright. “Don’t you think that’s a little too far?” Shiro asked. “I mean, she may not have noticed that I looked at her.”
Pidge slowly closed her laptop and propped her chin on her hands. The lamplight was reflected off her glasses, turning them into shining discs with no sight of her eyes behind them. “Hm. It might be good for you. Especially if you sleepwalk a lot; some people say that’s one way to accidentally fall into the Otherworld.”
Oh great. What would be the next reveal, that his landlord was a demon and he’d unknowingly bartered away his soul with last month’s rent?
“So what’s involved in being an Alice?”
----
Shiro wondered if it was a good thing he was unemployed, because it gave him plenty of free time to indulge in all this Otherworld lore; or if none of this would have happened to him if he’d had a job and kept himself busy elsewhere.
According to Pidge, there wasn’t much to being an Alice other than going to the Otherworld and coming back in one piece, preferably with some sort of intel on what was going on over there. Shiro had asked, more than half serious, if he could do all the work on this side of the demon world and leave all the exploring to Pidge -- it sat badly with him to let her go into danger, but she seemed more competent at all this anyway.
That conversation had ended with the offer to go the next day and meet two other members of Allura’s network, who specialized in containing the nightmares when they reached the real world. Shiro was expecting some sort of... he wasn’t sure. Maybe a wealthy businessman with a basement full of silver bullets. Maybe an eccentric old woman in a black dress and pointy hat. He had no idea what sort of people would be willingly working for Allura’s particular brand of crazy.
But when Pidge led the way, just a few streets over, to a single-wide trailer parked in the middle of a construction zone for the new campus parking garage, Shiro could feel his eyebrows drawing down in confusion. The trailer was nice enough to be a mobile headquarters and there were a couple of workers in neon green vests taking a break in its shadow.
“Morning, guys,” Pidge said, giving them a nod. “Is Hunk in?”
“He went on a pizza run,” one of them replied. “Back in a few. Lance is in there if you need something.”
“Thanks.” She knocked once on the door and then pushed it open. “Hey, slacker. What’s up?”
“Pidge! You dragged yourself all the way out here to see me?”
“Actually I came to talk to Hunk. But I guess you’ll have to do.”
Shiro followed the sound of Pidge’s voice inside and let the door swing closed behind him. Inside, the trailer was open and airy, one large room that was well-lit and covered in evidence of a big project in full swing. A set of construction blueprints was pinned to the wall. There was a portable air conditioner wedged in the window, buzzing away like its motor was about to fall out. A messy desk littered with progress reports and colored highlighters.
“Shiro, meet Lance. He’s Hunk’s moral support when projects get too overwhelming.”
Shiro’s attention was directed to a spindly teenager sitting perched on the edge of the desk. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, looking just like any other college student Shiro had ever met. Except his eyes were pale, a white film of cataracts over blue.
“Hello, nice to meet ya.” Lance smiled and held out a hand.
Shiro edged forward, managing to force his right arm up to shake hands, but there was no strength in his fingers. Lance cocked his head, milky eyes narrowing slightly.
“You, too,” Shiro said.
Lance relaxed back against the desk and gave him a friendly grin. “See, Pidge, I knew you’d find friends eventually.”
“Yeah, yeah, so you can see the future now too?” Pidge scoffed and settled herself in the overstuffed desk chair, finding a box of doughnuts hidden amid the paperwork. “What else do your Elf eyes see?”
Lance smirked. “They see that Hunk’s going to be mourning an apple fritter.”
“It’s chocolate.”
“Close enough.” He turned, pulling one knee up onto the desk as he faced Shiro more directly. “I’m guessing you’re here because...?”
“Apparently I’m an Alice now. And what’s an Elf?” As far as Shiro could tell, it was just another code name. Unless the fae were living alongside humanity, which... actually wouldn’t be all that hard to believe after hearing about demons and mirror worlds.
“It just means that I can see ley lines. They’re areas where rifts are likely to open between here and the Otherworld. I’m kinda like a bloodhound for trouble.” Lance chuckled.
“So you work for Allura too?”
Pidge mumbled something around a mouthful of pastry, then swallowed and explained, “Everyone around here with any kind of abilities works for Allura. She’s responsible for organizing everything. Off the books, of course.”
There was the sound of footsteps outside and the doorknob rattled. Pidge ate the rest of the doughnut in one bite, wiped her mouth, and sat up straighter, innocent. The door was shoved open and Shiro took a step back as a large man came in bearing pizza boxes and a dour expression.
“I smell lunch.” Lance perked up noticeably.
“Hey, Hunk,” Pidge greeted. “What’s up?”
“A new job for you, probably.” Balancing the boxes in one hand, he reached to the top of the stack and tossed her a newspaper. “I, ah...” His eyes rested uneasily on Shiro before going back to Pidge. “It’s your kind of stuff.”
“Otherworld stuff, you mean,” she commented, already thumbing through the paper.
Hunk looked troubled at discussing it in front of Shiro, but Lance piped up, “It’s cool. Shiro’s one of us now.” He stood up and skimmed fingertips along the wall until he found a folding chair and sat down. “Pidge is babysitting him.”
“Oh. Nice to meet you.” Hunk held out a hand -- it happened to be his left, and Shiro took it gratefully. “I’m the construction manager of this site.”
“Are you an Alice?”
Hunk laughed. “No way. I prefer keeping both feet in the real world. It’s Lance’s job to spot the rifts and my job to seal them.”
Shiro cocked an eyebrow. “Pave over the rifts?”
“Not quite,” Lance cut in. “There are special materials and patterns that you can work into the architecture to make it seal. Different locations use different stuff though, so that’s why I’m along to see what’s needed.”
“Hm.” So the blind person was the only one who could see. No less strange than anything else around here.
Pidge frowned at the newspaper she was skimming, and made an unhappy noise. “You’re definitely right about weird stuff happening. The Otherworld has got to be involved in some way.”
“What’s going on?” Shiro asked. Hunk leaned against the edge of the desk and set out the pizza boxes, with a wave of his hand to help themselves. They all settled around as Pidge turned the newspaper around to show the headline.
Strange New Illness Causes 4 Deaths at Local Hospital
“It’s always something,” she muttered. “Just another case for us to look into. Apparently healthy people go into the clinic for minor injuries, and they end up dying. Of course the doctors are blaming it on stuff they can understand, but it’s probably not.”
“Yeah, it didn’t sound like a real disease to me.” Hunk shrugged. “I mean, I’m not a doctor, but it is a little fishy. Think it’s worth checking out?”
Lance reached for a piece of pizza and expertly flicked the trailing cheese up onto the slice. “Just ‘cause it’s death doesn’t mean it’s necessarily Otherworld stuff. We’ve gotta prove to Shiro that our job isn’t all doom and gloom.”
“Yeah, sometimes it’s demons, too.”
“Pidge. Not what I meant.”
Shiro shrugged and laughed it off. “I’ve already caught a glimpse of the Otherworld once today. How much worse could it possibly get?”
“You’ve seen more than a glimpse,” Lance joked back around a mouthful. “I mean, you’re glowing all over with leys. Your whole body is lit up like a Christmas tree!”
The sudden hush in the room was tangible as everyone but Lance took in Shiro’s downturned expression. And even Lance, picking up quickly on the lack of laughter, slumped in on himself.
“Sorry,” he murmured, creasing his eyebrows and looking down. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Shiro made a generic noise of acceptance, but didn’t have anything to add. Lance’s words had struck a little too close and even if the others didn’t have magic eyes that could see everything, he still felt like a bug on a pin.
“Shiro has a lion charm shaped just like my tattoo,” Pidge spoke up, voice too loud. “And we know I’m pretty much a walking rift myself now.”
“So I’m a demon magnet because of my pendant?”
Pidge twitched her shoulders up. “Who knows. Although I am curious where you got it.”
“I wish I knew. It’s... it was under weird circumstances.”
Hunk reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t wanna. These guys are nosy little imps.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Now I’m just wondering how much of my life has been influenced by this Otherworld stuff and I’ve never known. Like are nightmares just nightmares, or...?”
“It’s pretty hard to tell most of the time. Especially with rifts everywhere nowadays,” Lance said. “Although with you?” he glanced over, blind eyes sweeping over Shiro with intensity. “I’d guess you’re deeper into the Otherworld than most people.”
As if that wasn’t completely unsettling.
Pidge wiped her mouth on a napkin and bounced to her feet. “The main reason I was bringing Shiro out here was to see if he had anything special about him. Lance, could you show him around the construction site, see if he can detect any ley lines? It’d be handy to have another Elf around.”
“Sure.” Lance picked up a long white cane and headed for the door. “The rift here is mostly sealed but there should be enough left for you to see some of it... if your eyes are so inclined.”
Shiro followed him out of the trailer, hands ready to steady Lance in case he stumbled, but the Elf seemed to know his way around expertly. Once on solid ground, Lance headed off toward the middle of the construction site, mostly deserted since the workers were still on break. He slowed his strides, cocking his head to catch the sound of Shiro’s footsteps, then picked up the pace as they fell into step together.
“I’m sorry for what I said back there. I have no filter. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s okay,” Shiro said quickly. “I didn’t mean to sound so offended.”
“I have a tendency to read situations wrong, you know? I heard people laughing and thought to make a joke. One of the downsides to being blind; I can’t always figure out social interactions well.”
“You seem like a perfectly nice guy,” Shiro said, trying to put his earnestness into words. “It’s not your fault. I mean, I was joking at first too, so it’s understandable.”
“Well I’m glad that’s cleared up.” Lance returned to his smiling self. “If I start doing something stupid again, just yell at me or whatever. I’ll figure it out eventually.”
The conversation died down into friendly silence and Lance stopped walking after a few more steps, cane hovering over the smooth-packed dirt. He turned in a slow circle and seemed to be surveying the area, although Shiro could only see piled construction materials and a group of workers having lunch in the shade of a bulldozer.
“See anything interesting around here?” Lance gestured outward with a wide sweep. “Tell me what you see.”
“Looks like a pretty ordinary construction site to me.” Shiro looked closer, trying to spot any important details that he might be missing. “There are some crows on the ground back near the trailer... there are tread tracks all over the place... some little pink flags marking where the corners of the building will be.”
“No glowing white lines that kind of sear into your eyes and make you dizzy if you stare too long?”
“Um. No.” Shiro shot a sideways glance at his companion, but Lance seemed perfectly content, smiling slightly at the red clay landscape. “Is that what you see?”
“Pretty much. They’re kind of dimmed now that Hunk’s almost done with the seal, but there’s still enough showing through that you ought to see something if you were an Elf.”
“The seal? But there’s nothing here.”
“Look down.”
Shiro was about to say that there was nothing on the ground but the prints of heavy boots and tire marks, but now that he was looking closer, he could see regularly-spaced dark stripes of dirt. The pattern radiated out like wheel spokes from the center of the site; at the end of every dark spoke was a perfectly square block of white marble, clearly set apart from the rest of the building materials.
“That’s... definitely something.”
“Seals come in all shapes and sizes, linked to the features of the rift you’re sealing. This one is more like a medicine wheel but really, the names don’t matter. It’s a way to seal up any rifts between here and the Otherworld. It’s my job to spot the rifts and recognize what kind of stuff is needed to seal it. In this case, it’s a bunch of pure marble. Other times it’s trees planted in specific patterns, or an undercoat of silver paint, or little cord-and-feather dreamcatchers. Pretty much anything is possible, but it takes an Elf to see exactly what’s needed.”
Now that he knew what to look for, Shiro could tell that the blocks were arranged very carefully, eight of them equally spaced around the perimeter and one larger one in the center. They all looked to be polished off, with no sign of dirt anywhere on them.
“Seems like a pretty good deal for Hunk,” Shiro said as they started back toward the trailer. “He gets the building contract and seals rifts at the same time.”
“It would be better if Allura was paying us, but yeah. Protecting people from aberrations is a nice side job.” Lance sounded downcast for the first time. “Hunk wants to break off from her, though. The thought of the Otherworld scares him and he wants to go back to ordinary work contracts that don’t deal with rifts and seals.”
“That’s understandable,” Shiro said. He didn’t know how to be comforting, but he could certainly sympathize with Hunk’s fear. “I mean, all this talk of the Otherworld is out of my league, and I’ve only been there once. I’m not sure myself that I want to go through with this Alice business.”
“Man, I totally understand. Everything in this line of work is freaky.”
One of the scars on Shiro’s right arm tingled, pulling tight and itching even though the nerve there was long dead. He tried to rub at it through his sleeve but that didn’t help; the skin couldn’t register the sensation, and the discomfort settled into his bones. Nothing to do but wait for it to wear off.
“Did you always know that you were an Elf?” Shiro asked. He was almost certain, from the way that Lance was carrying his head, that he was listening to the futile sounds of fingernails on cloth, and it was oddly embarrassing. Shiro was used to being stared at; being listened to was new and uncomfortable.
“Nope. At first I had no idea that not everyone saw the leys. I only realized I had something special...” he paused and swallowed, finishing the sentence in little more than a whisper, “once it was too late.”
“Oh.” Shiro wasn’t sure if an apology was in order -- he seemed to have unwittingly brought up a sore subject -- but before he could think of anything better than I’m sorry, they were in front of the trailer again. Lance tucked his cane under his arm, out of the way, and reached for the doorknob; Shiro was a step behind him, still with an uneasy expression.
A black flash flew past Shiro’s head, causing him to jerk back and cry out in shock. There was a crash just in front of him, a shrill cry and the sound of crunching glass. Lance stumbled backward, arms up to shield his face, and Shiro tried to catch him but only ended up taking them both to the ground.
There was a scatter of black feathers on the ground by the door, surrounding the body of a large crow. It was clearly dead, neck snapped sideways at a right angle, dead eyes shiny and pupil-less.
“What was that?” Lance asked in a breathy voice. Scrambling to his feet, he started to feel around with his cane but Shiro grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“The hell?” Hunk appeared in the doorway, looking just as shaken as the two outside. “That’s a first.”
Shiro waited until Lance was steady on his feet before letting go of his arm. “It’s just a crow that flew into the door. Must not have seen that it was shut.”
“It’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
Lance looked up at the sound of Hunk’s footsteps in the doorway, and reached for Hunk’s hand. The bigger man guided him easily around the mess and helped Lance up into the trailer. “I’ll get someone to clean it up. Come on back inside.”
Shiro did so, careful to not disturb the feathers. A bit of blood trickled sluggishly from the open beak. The wings were still outstretched, spanning nearly two feet, a pool of darkness and sharp angles.
Rather than step over it, Shiro gave the bird a large berth, inching his way in the door and shutting it behind him. One of the glass panels was cracked and bloodied but he turned his back on it resolutely.
Freak happening, nothing more.
He tried to ignore how those situations were coming up more and more frequently in his life lately.