Two weeks.

Two long weeks of being cooped up in Nedoza's cramped room on the ship had passed, but it had felt like so much longer. She'd grown to know every single chachki on Nedoza's dresser, exactly where the bumps were on the upper bunk where she slept, and just how often the second light flickered as they flew through what felt like an infinite distance.

She'd even learned that underneath the makeup Nedoza wore were incredibly detailed tattoos across her face and all over her body, the most noticeable being tiger-like stripes on her left side from her chin up to her cheekbone, with small dots between each stripe. Nedoza didn't say much about them, other than that they were from her home planet and she couldn't work with them showing.

Being on the ship was quite boring, though Hazel's anxious heart brought just enough fear into the emotional mess that she was almost entertained by it. That boredom would soon end, however, as the man she soon learned to be Dymo Terinaz opened the door whilst Nedoza applied her makeup.

"We'll be arriving at Dyloraz in an hour, so get ready."

That was all he said before the door slammed shut again. Nedoza sighed, putting down her makeup and checking to see if any spots of black ink showed beneath the powder.

An hour, Hazel had learned, was just a bit longer than the hour that she knew. The only thing she didn't know was by how much, as her phone lay dead on Nedoza's makeshift makeup desk in the corner.

"Do you think it'll work again?" Hazel asked, motioning to the lifeless device.

Nedoza shook her head.

"Not to my knowledge, but I'll keep it just in case. There's somewhere I want to go if I ever get out of here, and I want to take it with me."

Hazel's face twisted into a frown. That was her only reminder of Earth other than the dirty clothes she wore. A reminder of the people that she left behind, that were probably panicked at her sudden disappearance.

"Where are we, anyway?"

Through all the stories she'd heard and conversations she'd had, the one thing she didn't have a clue about was anything about the world outside of Earth. Sure, there were references to planets, to empires, to history, to unimaginable distances, but nothing that referred to the now.

"Between the Sixth and Seventh Universes," Nedoza said without thought.

Hazel was taken aback. Universes?

"And which Universe am I from?"

"The First, of course."

Confused was certainly one way to put how Hazel felt in that moment. Shocked, in awe, nervous, they could all describe in some way those emotions.

Hundreds of billions of light years... in only a couple weeks. It was impossible. Hazel shook her head, slapping her arm as if it would bring her back to a reality she found more comfortable, but to no avail. This was very real.

"Between Universes is this thing called the Void. If you don't know where you're going you can get lost easily, that's why we have this ship hooked up to a Soulbeacon, so we can find our way through this mess," Nedoza explained.

Looking out the window, Hazel could see a string of bright teal light stretching out of the engines.

"Is that it?" Hazel asked.

"That's a beacon end, yes. Only we can see the light from the actual beacon, it's pretty useful out here."

Hazel nodded. Little by little, she could almost piece together the puzzle of her new reality.

"Lumen HN Sixteen, permission to dock, this is Esyatani Terinaz speaking," a muffled voice spoke from the cockpit.

Hazel pressed her ear against the wall to hear the conversation more clearly. It'd be the most exciting thing she'd experienced since being first cooped up in that small room.

"You actually got her?" a fizzy voice came from a computer.

"Surprising, I know."

"Make sure that the engines are turned off and we'll pull you in. See you soon, Esya!"

"Thank you."

The woman apparently named Esyatani sighed. Footsteps came closer to the wall, making Hazel pull back in a panic.

"Who's Esyatani?" Hazel whispered.

"Dymo's wife, she's pretty nice once you get to know her. Shorter than you'd expect, though," Nedoza replied, keeping her voice down.

Hazel nodded and sat down on the lower bunk, when all of a sudden, the ship began to shake. She gripped onto the blankets. The room was quickly filled with the same seafoam light of the beacon beam, but so bright that its color was barely visible. Wincing, Hazel turned her head from the window and shoved her face in a nearby pillow. Nedoza on the other hand seemed numb to the sudden blinding light, instead simply closing her eyes and waiting patiently for the ship to be pulled into the station.

A deep rumbling sound thundered through the ship as it moved throughout the Void. Shaking metal, air roaring through the vents, and an odd low resonance joined in the thunder, making it nearly impossible to think. And yet, as suddenly as it came about, it stopped.

The door opened once more. Dymo stood patiently, motioning for the two of them to get moving. Hazel's breath was shakier than the ship just moments before as realization set in that this was not home.

This was a whole new place near-infinities away from the land she knew and loved, from the memories she'd made, from the friends and family she cared so much for. And above all, for some reason in her mind it was only set in stone when she stepped foot off the place that took her away. The past couple weeks weren't as real as they were to her, and by leaving, there would be no turning back.

As if there was a way.

"Come on, now, we can't stay in the unloading bay forever!" Dymo snapped, baring his horrible fangs.

Hazel shook herself back to the present. On unstable legs, she took her first steps out of the ship and into the Multiverse.

She stood in a six-sided hall, the white pearlescent walls bending outwards into a point where a line of neon blue light stretched from end to end. It almost looked sterile with how eerily clean it all was, like a stereotypical laboratory or some dystopian hospital. Dymo grinned. He was home at last.

He led the way to the end of the hall at which an arched door twice Hazel's height stood over them. Hazel's mouth fell open in awe. Looking around the group of strangers, she realized they all stared at Nedoza as if expecting her to do something. The woman gave a curt nod and reached her hand to a keyhole in the center of the door.

As her smallest finger came closer, the skin around it peeled itself downwards with a terrible squelching sound, revealing a key-like structure which took the place of bone. Bringing it closer, a string of golden light connected Nedoza to the door. She carefully pushed the bone into the keyhole and gave it a twist, and as she did so, her entire body glowed with that same golden light. The tattoos under the copious amounts of makeup the woman wore looked to have changed to gold. Not even her desperate attempts to cover herself could stop that gold from shining through.

Nedoza brought her hand away from the door with a click, and as she stood back, a chain reaction set off. The golden glow seeped from the keyhole as if it were liquid, but some snaked through glass pipelines to the outer edges, where it filled intricate patterns which almost looked to tell a story before draining down to some sort of void. The door creaked open as soon as the show was done, allowing entry into an even more magnificent place.

It was heptagonal, each of the seven walls having an empty doorway similar to the one they just came through. An elegant crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, and below it, a man-made waterfall surrounded by gemstone formations. Hazel's heart raced with both excitement and fear, a mix of emotions that she had never felt before.

She didn't even realize she'd stood still.

"Move, girl," Dymo growled in her ear, grabbing her arm and pulling her along.

"Let her go, she can walk on her own!" Nedoza pleaded.

Dymo squeezed his nails into Hazel's arm and nearly pierced her skin before dropping it. Hazel's eyes were as wide as the room and her chest pounded in an erratic rhythm.

They traveled a network of hallways and rooms until finally they reached their destination. Hundreds of rooms with glass walls facing the walkway, some filled with strange creatures, some empty, and some whose lights were shut off in a way that made it look like some sort of video game glitch with the room in pure darkness, as if obscuring something horrible from sight.

Hazel kept her arms close, cradling the newly scratched one and just barely keeping herself walking straight. Nedoza stood behind her with a hand on her shoulder the entire time. She could have sworn she felt Nedoza's cold stare make the room drop a few degrees when they stopped.

"In here, Eternas," Dymo said, motioning to a room furnished oddly like her own bedroom.

Hazel gasped, turning on her heel and sprinting the other way with all her energy. No, this wasn't right, this had to be a dream... As her hair flew behind her, it felt so freeing, unlike the small room she'd called home for the past two weeks.

Home... but that was almost what she could call that room. And it wasn't as if she had much of a choice, either, as doors automatically closed around her until she found herself cornered once again.

"You're a fast one, Eternas," Dymo said with an odd smile, "this would be so much easier if you would just cooperate. But alas..."

Something pierced her neck before she could speak, and as had happened not so long ago, darkness overcame her vision and she slipped into the realm of unconsciousness.

"Night, night," she could hear him say, his voice warped and twisted, "sleep tight."