Chapter Text
The bar reeked of spilled beer and cheap cologne - the kind of place where the walls stayed sticky no matter how many times someone dragged a rag across them. A neon sign buzzed in the corner, half its letters dead, so "Margarita Monday" just read "Marg Mon."
The floors? Questionable. Gritty with old salt, crushed tortilla chips, and the kind of mystery grime that made you real grateful you'd worn closed-toe shoes.
The crowd was peak weeknight energy: broke college kids nursing their second beer like it was liquid gold, office workers whose eyes screamed "get me out of here," and a couple in the corner having what was either their breakup fight or their Vegas wedding planning session. Over by the pool table, someone had already baptized the green felt with their drink. Nobody bothered cleaning it. They just played around the wet spot like it was a new house rule.
The music was cranked too loud - some early 2000s playlist that couldn't figure out if it was being ironic or genuine. Right now? Mr. Brightside. Half the bar was belting it like their lives depended on it, completely off-key. The other half looked too young to even know the words, which honestly made you feel ancient.
And you? You'd claimed a booth that was somehow stickier than the actual bar, the vinyl clinging to your bare legs like a bad decision you couldn't peel yourself away from. Sarah, Liam, and Grace were deep in post-margarita mode, gesturing wildly and talking over each other like they were solving world peace instead of just planning their next hangout.
Meanwhile, you stared at the condensation racing down your margarita glass, mentally cataloging every regret that led you to skip dinner. Your stomach was staging a full protest. One wrong move and you were pretty sure it'd be game over.
You zoned out, doing the mental math on how far the bathroom was if you had to make a run for it, when Liam's voice cut through the fog.
"Y'all, we need to go watch it together. I'm sooo looking forward to hearing I'm Not That Girl, you have no idea."
Your head snapped up. Oh, hell no.
Grace clapped her hands like she was already front row at the Gershwin Theatre. "I know, right? With Cynthia's voice? Y’all are gonna have to drag me out of the theater."
Sarah - because of course she did - elbowed you with this grin that screamed incoming disaster. "Remember back in high school when-"
You froze, glass hovering halfway to your mouth. Not this. Not high school theater. The memory crept up your spine like nausea, unwelcome and unstoppable.
Liam, absolute menace that he was, latched onto Sarah's comment like a dog with a bone. "Oh yeah! When you wanted to play Regina? But you ended up as, like, Student Number Four or whatever? With that one line?"
They laughed. You did not. This wasn't funny. This was certified trauma, your own personal ninth circle of hell, and none of them got how seriously you'd taken it. High school theater wasn't just theater - it was a battlefield, and you'd been a casualty.
Liam especially had zero right to laugh. He didn't get it. Never would. You remembered it crystal clear - back when he hadn't figured out yet that guys could, in fact, like other guys. Before that revelation, he'd stumbled into theater club as the most aggressively stereotypical Straight Guy™ to ever exist. Snapbacks worn backwards indoors. Axe body spray that could be detected from three zip codes away. The kind of guy who said "no homo" after every vaguely emotional statement and whose entire personality could be summarized by energy drink logos and that one time he shotgunned a beer at prom.
Actually, that's exactly how he ended up in theater. One of his dudebro friends dared him to audition for SpongeBob the Musical as a joke - probably during some stupid game of truth or dare at a party where everyone was already half-wasted on stolen White Claws. And because the universe was fundamentally unfair and had a sick sense of humor, he landed the lead. The actual yellow sponge himself. SpongeBob SquarePants, in the flesh - or foam, technically.
You? Background sardine. Maybe a jellyfish. Honestly, you weren't even sure anymore. The program just listed you as "Ensemble Member #7" which was somehow more insulting than not being listed at all. You'd spent three months watching Liam of all people soak up the spotlight while you stood in the back wearing a costume that smelled like mothballs, hot glue gun burns, and someone else's nervous sweat from the previous year's production of Cats.
Sure, realistically you never would've gotten SpongeBob anyway - gender bio-essentialism or whatever, the sponge is technically male, even though he's literally a sponge and they reproduce asexually (do they?!) but apparently that nuance was lost on your high school drama department - but that didn't make it sting any less. You'd been salty about it ever since. Like, Dead Sea levels of salty. Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt salty.
And now here Liam was, bringing up your musical theater trauma like it was just another hilarious story for the group chat.
You would've thrown your margarita at him if the damn thing hadn't cost fifteen dollars.
Speaking of throwing stuff - you'd thrown a whole-ass tantrum when they announced the spring musical would be SpongeBob. Like, what kind of fever dream bullshit was that?
You were pissed. Furious, even. That night, you made a group chat titled "STOP SPONGEBOB 2K19" and tried rallying the troops. You spammed everyone in drama department, their siblings, their moms - everyone. Your thumbs flew across your phone keyboard like you were drafting a manifesto. "THIS IS A DISGRACE," you typed. "WE DESERVE ART. CULTURE." You even printed flyers and shoved them through locker vents, demanding a boycott, threatening to take it straight to the principal if nobody listened.
Spoiler alert: nobody listened. Not one person. Most of them left the group chat within two hours. The only response you got? Someone sent a SpongeBob meme. That made you even angrier.
Then - and this is where it really hurt - Liam waltzed into auditions on a literal dare and somehow landed the lead. You still didn't know if it was dumb luck or if the directors secretly hated you, but watching him prance around in that ridiculous yellow square costume while you sulked in the back as a jellyfish ensemble member? Core memory. Traumatic core memory.
You were genuinely convinced there should be a constitutional amendment giving you the legal right to become the Joker after something like that. Your villain origin story, honestly.
The rest of the leads went to the usual suspects: choir kids who couldn't actually sing but could stay on-key long enough to fool the directors, and rich kids whose parents either donated to the school or played golf with the administration. Nepotism at its finest.
If it were up to you? Completely different casting. You'd have been front and center - lead, obviously - because who else had that kind of stage presence? Your friends would've gotten the perfect supporting roles, a tight ensemble, a real production.
But no. Instead, the directors gave the lead to Liam "Wait What's Blocking Again?" Thomas, and you got stuck wearing a stupid jellyfish hat. A jellyfish hat that didn't even fit right. It kept sliding into your face during rehearsals, the elastic digging into your skull.
To this day, any time you saw anything remotely musical-related, your blood pressure spiked.
You finally found your voice, cutting through their giggling. "So... when are we actually going to see Wicked?" You tried sounding casual, but internally you were already drafting excuses. Work emergency, sudden illness, the apocalypse - hell, you'd take food poisoning if it got you out of reliving high school trauma in a movie theater.
Because you knew exactly how this would go. Sure, you'd cry during Defying Gravity like any person with a soul. But the real tears? Those were reserved for the flashbacks. The missed leads, the jellyfish hat, the constant reminders that no matter how much talent or ambition you had, directors always picked their favorites.
You could already feel the emotional whiplash brewing. Watching Cynthia belt those notes while remembering your own crushed dreams? The kind of nostalgia that felt less like a warm hug and more like someone standing on your chest. Yeah, this was gonna be great. For you and your therapist.
Grace, ever the practical one, spoke up. "Let's not go opening day. Let's wait a bit."
Liam frowned like she'd just insulted his entire bloodline. "How the hell are we supposed to avoid spoilers then?"
See? He didn't even know what happened in Wicked. Fake theater kid!
Sarah didn't look up from her drink. "Log the fuck off then. Go touch some grass, I don’t know."
"Your time screen is literally-" Liam started, but you cut him off.
"Yeah, good call, Grace." You nodded like some wise sage. "I wouldn't survive a theater full of those… theater kids who sing along like it's their show. Like, hello, this isn't karaoke. Auditions are over. I didn't pay twenty bucks - plus fifteen for a Coke and popcorn - to hear you sing. I'm here for Cynthia and Ariana."
Sarah snorted into her straw. "Exactly. Like, we get it, you played Elphaba in some community college production six years ago. Congratulations. Nobody asked."
"Right!" You leaned into the rant now, fully committed. "If I hear even one harmony attempt from the row behind me, I'm turning around. They will feel my wrath."
Liam sighed dramatically. "Y'all just don't appreciate the passion of theater."
"No, Liam," you shot back. "I don't appreciate paying money to relive high school because some wannabe-"
Oops.
They all exchanged looks - the kind that screamed a silent, collective oh, she's still mad about high school. Grace raised an eyebrow but stayed quiet. Sarah hid a smirk behind her glass. And Liam, brave idiot that he was, let out a small laugh.
"Wow," he said, dragging the word out. "You're never letting that go, huh?"
You glared at him, fully aware you were proving their point but too stubborn to stop. "I'm just saying," you snapped, "it's basic theater etiquette. People should know that by now."
"Uh-huh." Sarah nodded slowly, her tone dripping with fake sympathy. "Totally about etiquette. Nothing to do with SpongeBob or, like, unresolved trauma."
Grace nudged her, muttering, "Don't poke the bear."
Too late.
"I don't have unresolved trauma," you lied, crossing your arms. "You need to stop throwing psychology terms around like confetti. You're diminishing their meaning."
"Babe," Sarah said, leaning back with this shit-eating grin, "I'm less emotional about my dad leaving than you are about your failed theater career."
"It wasn't a career, it was high school-"
"Exactly," Liam cut in, barely holding back a laugh. "High school. You know, that thing that ended like three years ago?"
"Two and a half," you corrected, which immediately made it worse.
Grace covered her mouth, trying not to laugh. "Oh my god, you're counting?"
"I'm not counting, I just know when I graduated-"
"You're counting," all three of them said in unison.
That got you a round of barely-suppressed laughter, but you let it slide. Instead, you focused on what excuse you'd need to actually get out of seeing Wicked, because if the margaritas weren't already testing your limits, rehashing high school theater drama sure as hell was.
Without thinking, you swiped Liam's drink right out of his hand and took a long sip. He sputtered. "What the hell, that was mine!"
You didn't answer, too busy letting the bitter burn drown out your frustration. In the same motion, you grabbed Grace's drink off the table and knocked that one back too. Sharp, citrusy bite. You didn't even register the flavor - it was just something to do, something to shut your brain up.
Somewhere between the third and fourth drink, everything got fuzzy. Blurry at the edges. Next thing you knew, you were standing by the bar, and the bartender was handing you a rag like you'd been his best friend for years.
"You mind helping out? Just a quick wipe down."
You stared at him, your brain struggling to process. "Uh... sure. Yeah, okay."
And there you were. Your body moved on autopilot, mechanical, like someone else was controlling your limbs.
Liam gaped at you from his seat, hand half-raised in protest, but his words got lost in the fog. Grace and Sarah looked equally confused.
You stopped mid-wipe, staring down at the rag in your hand. "Wait, what just happened?"
Sarah raised an eyebrow, voice caught between amused and bewildered. "You're seriously helping the bartender clean? I mean, I love the concept of helping out minimum wage workers, but damn."
"Well," you said, tossing the rag onto the bar with a shrug, "when life gives you margaritas, apparently you become... helpful?"
Liam looked between you and the counter, eyes huge. "Dude, you just tipped him more than I make in a week."
You blinked. "I tipped him what?"
"You tipped him ninety percent," Grace said, wheezing. "Ninety. And then you started bussing tables like you were trying to get employee of the month. Like a certain yellow sponge-"
You stared at your empty glass, trying to piece together the last few minutes. Everything felt disconnected, like watching yourself in third person. "I need to stop drinking."
On the way home, you called an Uber, knowing damn well you weren't in any condition to navigate the streets on foot. You climbed into the backseat and slumped against the window, the cool glass pressing against your forehead. A headache was already creeping in, that dull throb behind your eyes that promised misery.
The driver said something - you think? - but honestly, the words just kind of floated past you like they were in another language. Everything felt fuzzy at the edges, like someone had smudged the world with their thumb.
You blinked slowly, trying to focus on... something. Anything. But your brain was moving through molasses. The streetlights outside blurred into long streaks of gold and white, bleeding together like a bad watercolor painting.
You might've dozed off. Or maybe you were awake the whole time. Who knows? Time felt meaningless, stretching and compressing in ways that didn't make sense. One second you were staring at the back of the driver's headrest, the next you were watching buildings slide past the window like they were on a conveyor belt.
Your stomach churned. The margaritas were staging a full revolt now, sloshing around with every turn the car made. You pressed your forehead harder against the glass, hoping the coolness would somehow anchor you to reality.
It didn't work.
The driver slammed the brakes, jolting you back to some semblance of awareness. You blinked at the sudden stop, head lolling forward like a drunk bobblehead.
"This it? Your building?" he asked, glancing at you in the rearview like he wasn't entirely convinced you could form coherent sentences.
You squinted at the apartment complex outside. It looked... vaguely familiar? Like maybe you'd seen it in a dream once, or walked past it on your way to buy overpriced coffee. But was it your building?
"I think so," you said, with absolutely zero conviction.
The driver raised an eyebrow. "You think?"
No. You did not think so. This was definitely not your building.
But you were too much of a people pleaser to admit the obvious. Instead of inconveniencing this Uber driver, you flashed a tight smile. "Yeah, this is it!" Like you were absolutely, one hundred percent sure.
The nausea wasn't helping. The last thing you wanted was a full debate about addresses with a stranger while your stomach staged a rebellion.
You stepped out of the car and made a big show of acting like this was totally your place. You stumbled a little - brushed it off as cool, casual swagger, which was definitely not convincing - and headed toward the building. You dug through your purse, muttering loudly, "Where are my keys?" You even pulled out your phone and pretended to call someone. "Hey, um, I forgot my keys - can you buzz me in?"
You glanced back at the Uber, heart racing. You fully expected the driver to be watching, ready to call you out. "HEY, YOU LIED! THIS ISN'T YOUR PLACE!" - that's what your anxiety-brain convinced you he'd yell.
But no. He wasn't staring you down. Instead, he was hunched over his phone, probably checking for his next ride. Or - your brain whispered - he could be stalking you, tracking your moves to confirm you didn't actually live here. Rational thought? Out the window.
You kept up the charade, shuffling through your purse with Oscar-worthy determination. Keys? Not here. Wallet? Nope. Anything that would make you look like an actual resident? Zero. But you kept muttering under your breath like you were on the phone, fully committed. You even threw in an exaggerated sigh and tapped the buzzer for good measure.
When you looked back again, the Uber had quietly driven off. Just gone. No confrontation, no dramatic reveal - just gone.
You froze, purse still dangling from your hand, relief washing over you in one messy, margarita-fueled wave. You'd been so wrapped up in the possibility of being called out, you hadn't even noticed him leave.
"Nice," you muttered to yourself, glancing up at the unfamiliar building. You sighed. Time to figure out where the hell your actual apartment was.
You looked around and immediately regretted not paying attention earlier. You had no clue where you were - other than somewhere that definitely wasn't your apartment building. Great.
With a deep breath, you straightened up and started walking, trying to pretend like you knew where you were going. It wasn't much, but it was something.
You stumbled down the sidewalk, clutching your purse like it might suddenly give you answers. The streets looked unfamiliar, every corner bleeding into the next like a bad dream. You tried pushing the panic down, focusing on just getting your bearings, but that nagging feeling in your skull wouldn't let go.
Then, of course, you weren't paying attention. You crossed the street - head buried in your phone again, trying to figure out how not to look like a complete mess - when a car horn blared.
The sound cut through the air, sharp and invasive. So sudden, so loud, it made your chest lurch. You didn't even have time to flinch. Didn't see the headlights until it was too late. The car came at you - a blur of metal and speed - and it hit you. Full force. Like you were the only thing in the universe that mattered for that split second.
Your body snapped like a ragdoll tossed against a wall. Your head jerked back, everything spinning in a dizzying whirlwind of lights and colors and confusion. The world twisted. The pavement rose up like a hand from a nightmare, and you felt the impact in your bones - like you were made of glass, shattering at the slightest touch.
You never even had a chance to scream.
The air went still. The world stopped, like someone pressed pause. For a moment, there was no sound, no movement. Just the faint buzz of an echo, then nothing.
Your heartbeat pulsed in your ears, but everything else was muted - like your body was no longer part of it. Your breath came in jagged bursts that felt too loud, too intrusive for the silence around you. You couldn't move. Didn't even want to move.
Somewhere far off, voices cut through the fog. You couldn't make them out, but they were there, shouting. Maybe help? Maybe cursing you for being an idiot. It didn't matter. The voices, the panic - all of it was fading fast. The world was slipping away, and there was no way to hold onto it.
Then there was nothing again.
Just weightless quiet, like you were floating outside yourself, untethered. The pain - sharp at first - had softened, fading into a distant memory, like the last echoes of a song you couldn't remember the words to.
You were gone.
No final thought. No regrets. Just stillness.
It wasn't scary, though.
It wasn't terrifying.
It was just... nothing.
________________________________________
The first thing you noticed was the smell. Not antiseptic like a hospital or chemical like asphalt after rain, but sharp and clean, with an edge of damp earth. Too pure, too tangible, like the smell of rain hanging in the air before it even starts falling.
You blinked. Your head pounded with brutal precision that felt like punishment. And when you opened your eyes - when you really opened them - everything about the world was wrong.
For starters, the sky. It wasn't the greyish blue you were used to. This sky was bright, unnervingly bright, an impossible shade of cobalt that looked like someone had cranked the saturation slider too far in Photoshop. It was glaring. Cartoonish.
Then there was the grass. You were lying in it, and it was too soft under your body, like you were sinking into a feather-stuffed mattress. You lifted your head and saw green - no, not green. Green. Electric green, bordering on radioactive. It was unnatural in a way that made your stomach churn.
What the hell was this?
You pushed yourself up on your elbows, groaning as the world tilted, like the axis of reality itself had shifted. For a split second, you wondered if this was the concussion talking. Or shock. Or maybe you were in a coma. Had to be something like that. Because none of this felt right.
And then you remembered.
The car.
Your heart skipped - maybe a few beats - and your breath hitched as the memory rushed back. The sidewalk. The headlights slicing through the darkness. The flash of impact. The sound - oh god, the sound. And the pain, white-hot and all-encompassing, like someone had set your entire nervous system on fire.
You were dead. Had to be dead.
So why did everything hurt so much?
You sat up too quickly. Dizziness slammed into you like an aftershock. You pressed a hand to your chest, feeling the erratic thud of your heartbeat. Dead people didn't have heartbeats. Or throbbing migraines. Or knees that ached like hell.
You were alive. Somehow.
You blinked again, harder this time, trying to will the world around you into something recognizable, something logical, something real.
But it wasn't.
No city skyline. No traffic noise. No acrid exhaust fumes clinging to the air. Instead, there was silence. Not peaceful silence - wrong silence. Too quiet, too empty, like the world had been vacuum-sealed.
Then, finally, you took in your surroundings.
It was like something out of a storybook - one of those old illustrated ones with gilded edges and fairy tale cottages perched in valleys. You were sitting in the middle of an open field, the kind that stretched on forever, dotted with flowers that looked fake. Too symmetrical, too vibrant, like someone had hand-painted them one by one. In the distance, a village spilled lazily across the hills.
The houses were made of stone, with sloping thatched roofs and chimneys puffing delicate ribbons of smoke into that too-bright sky. Quaint. Idyllic. Like someone had commissioned a diorama of pastoral perfection and plopped you in the middle of it.
But that didn't make any sense. None of it did.
Your clothes were next. They weren't your clothes. Gone were the crop top and jeans you'd been wearing when - you know - you died. Now you were in... a dress?
Your hands trembled as you smoothed the skirt, as if touching it would make it less real. It didn't. The fabric was stiff, scratchy, and smelled faintly of lavender. Or maybe that was you. You didn't know. You didn't know anything.
This wasn't your life. This wasn't even your world.
"What the actual fuck," you whispered, your voice small and cracked in the emptiness.
Your brain raced for explanations, none of them sticking. Dream? Coma-induced hallucination? Did you survive the crash and hit your head so hard your mind shattered into this medieval theme park simulation?
You pinched your arm. Hard.
Still here.
"Shit," you muttered, running a hand over your face. Your fingers felt clammy against your skin. "This isn't happening. Fuck-"
"Oh, do pardon me, miss, but what did you just say?"
The voice made you jump - sharp and lilting, with a strange, almost sing-song quality. You whipped your head around, stomach flipping, and saw a woman standing a few feet away.
She was holding a basket, half-filled with wildflowers and herbs, and wore a crisp apron over her blue dress. Her hair was braided neatly over her shoulder, face flushed from the sun, and she was smiling. Not warmly, though. Something too sharp about her eyes, too calculating.
You stared at her, mouth opening and closing uselessly. She seemed so normal compared to everything else, but not in a comforting way. More like a cat watching a mouse.
"You look a bit addle-brained," the woman said, taking a cautious step closer. Her voice had an almost theatrical quality. "Did you bonk your noggin, dearie? You've the look of someone who's been twirled around one too many times."
"I - what?" Your voice was hoarse, weak.
She tutted, setting her basket down and crouching slightly to get a better look at you. "Oh, dearie me, you do look peaky. All clammy. Have you been lying here long?" Her accent was strange, almost sing-song, with an odd cadence that made her words sound like they didn't quite belong to this century. "Really now, you shouldn't go flopping about in the grass like some silly goose. You'll catch a chill!"
Did she just call you a silly goose?
"I don't..." You shook your head, trying to clear the fog. "Where am I?"
The woman's face twisted into something halfway between a smile and a smirk. "Where are you?" she repeated, drawing the words out like she was savoring them. "Why, Gillikin Country, of course! Have you taken a tumble and forgotten your whereabouts? Honestly, miss, it's not like you to be so topsy-turvy."
Gillikin Country.
Gillikin.
Country.
Oh hell no.
"I don't understand," you mumbled. "This isn't real. This can't be real."
The woman clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Oh, you've gone all fuddled, haven't you? Were you out in the sun too long, or did one of those nasty outlanders give you a fright?" She leaned closer, eyes narrowing as she inspected you. "You've the look of someone who's been to the brink and back. Did you faint again?"
Again?
Also, was she xenophobic?
"I was..." Your throat felt dry, words catching. "I was in the city. There was a car. I got hit by a car, and then..."
Her eyes widened slightly, but she quickly masked her surprise with a theatrical gasp. "Oh, my stars! Listen to you, talking nonsense! What in Lurline's name is a car? Some newfangled contraption the munchkins cooked up, no doubt." She straightened up, brushing nonexistent dirt off her apron. "You're as wobbly as a jelly, but I suppose I can't blame you. Let's get you home before you frighten anyone else with your babbling."
She reached out a hand, but you scrambled back, pulse racing. "No," you said, voice trembling. "I need - I need to understand what's happening. What year is it? Where is this? Where am I?"
The woman tilted her head, braid swinging as she gave you a curious look. "Year?" she echoed, like the word was foreign. "Really now, what a queer thing to ask." She leaned in again, sharp smile returning. "Are you sure you're quite yourself, miss?"
Your stomach dropped.
"What the fuck," you whispered, barely audible.
"Oh, there's that word again!" she said, voice taking on a faux-cheery lilt. "Really, miss, mind your manners. You'll give old Mrs. Morkettle a conniption if she hears you talking like that."
You didn't respond. Couldn't. Your chest was tight, breath shallow, and the world felt too vivid, too suffocating.
"Come along now," the woman said, grabbing her basket and gesturing for you to follow. "Best get you inside before you cause a scene. The Highmarch folk already think we're a touch peculiar, and I'd rather not fuel the fire."
She turned and started walking, humming under her breath like this was all perfectly normal. Like you were perfectly normal.
But you weren't.
This wasn't home. This wasn't your life.
And as the strange woman's voice drifted back, cheerful and carefree, the weight of it all finally hit you.
You weren't dead.
But you weren't alive, either.
You were somewhere else.