1 Second for Marco, yet less than a Millisecond on Earth.

___

"No matter how long it takes..."  Marco muttered under his breath, it was barely audible, but he did not care.  He stepped into to glowing edges of the dimensional portal, and he found his foot resting on a rocky and sandy surface.  Marco put his other foot side, and the portal closed itself,  which Marco noticed so suddenly, a small noise came from the west, and he snapped his head right at its direction.  "What did that scissors lady say again?" he tried to recall, but there was a loud raspy noise from in front of him.  It was the sound of a wooden wheel moving along a paved road, there was a short man on the end of the cart, he started whistling a strange tune, and whipped the two horse...Pig.....Goat.... Whatever that was moving the cart.  Marco looked to his direction and saw a large castle with eccentric alleyways built up into the sky, it was like a tower intertwined with other towers, the gate house was just ahead of him, Marco kept his gaze at the mocha colored castle and spotted a small continuously burning flame on someone's head bounce along an alley and disappear along a corner.

"That must be it!" He whispered to himself, he suddenly ran for the gatehouse and intercepted the man who was on the cart.  "Hey! Watch it you little-"and the rest he shouted was unintelligible, for Marco at least, he saw the sun start to set, and the sky started turning color orange.  Marco tried to look up to see if the flame would show up again, but to no avail, there was none.  The area around him was mostly empty, except for a few people moving to staircases to go to the plethora of peasants cramped and moving along the narrow alleyways.  He quickly ignored the crowded alley, but looked up and saw a large fish fall from the sky, "Whoa!" he expressed surprise, and muttered under his breath, "If I'm gonna find my way out of here, it'll be up there..."

Up the stairs he went, into the large alleyways and deep corners, staircases with poor beggars sitting down on them, a few glass panes that looked sulky at first glance, but would turn into moving pictures that told the news, another death by this corridor, another handful of guards recruited into the army, and another lost sheep or basket of corn that was accidentally burnt, a slow news day it must have been for them.

The higher he went, the more uneasy he felt; it was either the height, or the massive crowd of people in the city market, cramping just to get what they need to feed 4-5 mouths, pets not included.  Marco (thankfully) went up the stairs to the relatively empty part of the marketplace. Oops, there goes another fallen fish; the Earth boy saw a few smart shoppers buying things from the empty areas then waiting for all the other shoppers in the other part to flood into the empty area. "Guess a lot of people here don't consume their time that well huh." He told himself, Marco wasn't here to buy food; he was here to catch a lady with a red flame above her-

"Wait... There!" exclaimed Marco, and dashed towards the bobbing flame.  The flame bounced up and down rapidly and was out of sight, Marco was just in time however to push away all the people in front of him to get to see the flame just run forward.  "Hey Stop!" He called out as he ran to the corridor; it was relatively empty, except for the few dog-cats in cages outside or the mothers tending to their children outside, who quickly moved aside as the girl with the flame above her head passed by, and as well when Marco did.

They did not stop running, Marco started growing weary, but he saw that the girl was still very full of stamina, and continued to move her way.  He lost her at a sharp corner, and saw that she had made a vase fall behind her, Marco stopped to dodge it and continued to move,  a distant "Hey!" had come, but neither did Marco nor Heckapoo, (at least that's what Marco Thought her name was) notice any of it.  The girl was suddenly stopped dead in her tracks at an end of an alley.

Marco stared at her, and he notice how tired she looked, she was breathing very heavily, hell, so was he, but he also saw a tint of blush coming when he slowly approached her.  "Okay... Okay..." She said between puffs of air, "You caught me... Ha-Ha... Can you just blow the candle... out already...?" Marco looked at her face and saw her redden even more... (No, I'm Not a Marckapoo Shipper Okay?)

He walked closer, and her face went even redder for every step. Marco touched her bare shoulder, and saw her face blush a dark red real quickly, but Marco used it as a balance support to pull his head up and give a light puff to the top of her head, the candle went out, "Just 49 More to go Earth Boy~" she muttered, and she smiled and disappeared.

...

Marco walked away from the hallway and noticed that the sun was going to fully set, turns out the sunsets last longer than the ones on earth, and Marco started feeling quite cold, even if he was wearing a cozy red jacket. All the people started to go inside their cozy rooms and turn on their window lights, Marco wandered around, shivering to the temperature and decided to knock on doors.

...

Nope, nobody in the past thirteen minutes.  It was quite pitiful actually.  "One More Door," Marco said to himself "And I'm just going to sleep outside, its real dark now and-"

A strange rattling of metal came from a dark alleyway, and then sounds of a strange cat like creature rang about, attacking something, a soft muffled groan of a guard was barely heard, then silence.  "What was that?" Marco wondered, and then knocked on the door in front of him, "Christ is it cold here..."

"E-Excuse me, Ma'am?" Marco greeted to the young woman who had opened the door; "I'm in the wrong dimension, and I think I'll need a place to sleep... Am I Intruding? Nobody's opened the door for me yet..."

The kind woman smiled, "Why... Of Course! Always happy to let in tourists, even from other dimensions, where are you from?" She opened the door to let him in, Marco took a step in and felt a relaxing warm breeze come from the room, Marco gave a light sigh, then realized the lady had asked a question, "Oh, I'm From Earth. Marco Diaz is the name, Hehe." The lady giggled, and said with a light smile, "My name is Easter, and don't worry, my daughter and the two boys are in the other room, I'll go get them, feel free to treat the living room like any living room!" Easter went to a separate room that was dimly lit, and Marco was left to wander around the large living space.

There was a decent flat screen television on a wooden shelf with hundreds dusty books in the bottom shelf rack which also started piling up on the floor, a red brick fireplace which was emitting a soothing warmness by some magical pile of soot, a large rocking chair with a circular glass table with a woven basket full of yarn that looked like it had never been touched in its life and crayons of different colors that looked worn with age, there was a soft couch not far from the television with a red arrow struck deeply into the cushion, a table with a blue painted porcelain vase in the left side of the room, a room with a red door right next to it, a glass coffee table, in front of the couch, twirling stairs opposite of the room, and a second walkway a few steps in front of with beads falling down from the upper frame,  Marco sat down next to the fireplace, in the large rocking chair and felt the calming heat of the fire touch his skin, Marco let out a sigh and started to relax.

"Hey Mom, where's my-"A girl who was just about Marco's age came from the red colored door beside the couch and almost screamed when he saw the boy getting comfy over Easter's favorite rocking chair, Marco woke up as he heard the voice and a second later found himself dodging a volleying arrow pointed directly to his face, "What The?!-"He exclaimed, then he dodged another arrow that was nearly inches above his forehead, another whirring noise came from the girl, and an arrow flew straight for his left eye, Marco wasn't fast enough to dodge it.  The girl panted, and saw that Marco had grabbed it with his right hand just as it was centimeters from his face.  Easter's footsteps could be heard from a short hallway as she stormed in from the room she left from a minute ago, "Katrina!  I heard arrow volts!" She shouted from the hall, "You'd better not be harming our new-"She was stopped talking all of a sudden as she saw Marco holding the arrow in front of his face, "Oh, no harm done."

A voice rang out from the hallway Easter peeked from, "Hey! Where's that new guy Easter's been talking about?" It was male, and it sounded a whole lot like a little kid's voice... "Oof!" a teenager slid down the stairs and rested on top of Katrina's boots, Marco snapped his gaze in his direction, the boy was wearing a black jacket loosely hanging along his shoulders with a blue undershirt covered in sand and dirt, black pants with some huge bulge in his left pocket, Marco looked back at Katrina, who gave him an unimpressed glance, Marco then looked at Easter and  She giggled like a child, and it was the most amusing giggle Marco ever heard, so he started laughing, the boy under Katrina's Foot Started laughing as well, and Katrina kicked him aside and went back into her room, unfazed by the idiots laughing in the other room.

. . .