The Harry Potter World.
The police came, as expected.
Bernadette spent the day dodging from one hiding spot to the next — ducking, backtracking, slipping through gaps. By the time she'd shaken the last of them off, it was dark.
After nightfall the pursuit eased considerably. She wove through several dim side streets and eventually found an empty house to slip into. She'd spend the night here.
Lying in the unfamiliar bed, a beam of pale moonlight falling through the window, Bernadette couldn't sleep. It was the first time in her life she'd seen a moon like this. Compared to the deep red moon of her own world — heavy with dread — this light felt almost peaceful.
"Good night, Father."
"...Goodbye, Father."
She closed her eyes. Her breathing slowly evened out.
Three minutes later —
Bernadette sat up, the look of someone with nothing left to lose, and walked briskly to the bathroom. Second time was easier than the first.
"...Splhhhh—"
…
The next morning, bright sunlight fell across Bernadette's face.
She raised a hand instinctively to block it, held still for a few seconds, then bolted upright and stared at the unfamiliar room around her.
After a long silence: "...Not a dream, then."
It would have been nice to wake up and find herself back aboard the Dawn — to have everything that happened yesterday turn out to be a dream.
Still, this world and her own had much in common. Day and night. Sun and moon. Even the length of a day seemed about the same.
Coincidence?
Or was it like that in every world — every planet?
"Hiss—"
Every muscle in her body ached. That was yesterday's running, no doubt — hours of intermittent sprinting in a body that was almost embarrassingly fragile.
Bernadette worked through several pressure points until the worst of it faded, then went to the wardrobe and pulled out a black trench coat and a pair of shoes. She found a cap in another room, pulled it on, and slipped out through the window.
On the street, she showed nothing — no tension, no strangeness. Just another pedestrian.
She had plenty of experience with this. The more you worried, the more you stood out. She was confident: as long as she stayed composed, she could walk past a police officer at point-blank range without raising a single eyebrow.
Then —
Two policemen coming straight at her pointed and shouted.
"That's her! Call for backup — the deli thief from yesterday is back!"
"Move!"
"Don't run! Halt!"
Bernadette's composure evaporated. She ran.
Are every police officer in this world part bloodhound?!
…
The Lord of the Mysteries World.
Vincent had now been in this world for nearly three days.
Without a shared language — everything done by pointing and miming — the information he'd been able to gather was limited. But the problem of keeping himself fed he'd "solved" satisfactorily: days spent blending in with the vagrants, nights spent slipping out in pilfered clothes to "find" food.
Throughout all of this, every attempt to use supernatural abilities had failed. But this body's physical constitution continued to stagger him — she looked every bit the delicate noblewoman, and yet she was closer to a dragon in terms of raw resilience.
The discovery was a small comfort to his sense of safety, and a large addition to his wariness about this world. After careful thought, he'd decided to stay with the vagrants for now — until he had enough basic language to get by on his own.
The third morning.
Vincent sat in the sun outside the poorhouse with several vagrants, and traded half a white bread roll he'd saved from the night before to a mild-mannered middle-aged man in exchange for one-on-one language lessons.
Leveraging the decent memory that had come with becoming a wizard, Vincent burned through an entire morning to learn "I, you, he," "hello," "goodbye," "bread," and "hungry." The most basic of the basics.
No grammar. No structure. No rules. Pure memorisation.
"Dear kind stranger, I'm so hungry — my parents and children at home are desperate. Please, anything you can spare."
The middle-aged man spoke this sentence with complete seriousness, then looked at Vincent earnestly. "This one you have to remember. It could save your life." He repeated it several times.
Vincent memorised the sounds quickly enough, though the meaning was entirely lost on him. Still, under the man's encouraging gaze, he repeated it back a few times and gave him an OK sign to confirm.
It was a bit of a strange moment — this world apparently had the OK gesture too, and it meant the same thing as in his previous two lives. A small, confusing comfort.
Just a bit longer. Once I know enough to get by, I can start working on changing my situation.
Even as a woman, I'm going to make something of myself. No transmigrator worth the name gives up that easily.
At that moment the poorhouse bell began to ring — the daily food distribution signal. All around him, sunbathing vagrants scrambled to their feet and stampeded inside.
Vincent was about to stand when a sudden, heavy drowsiness washed over him. He yawned helplessly. The sun was warm. The warmth was seeping into him. His eyes wanted to close.
Then — a sharp pang seized his chest. The drowsiness vanished instantly.
Someone is using a Beyonder ability on me.
Vincent kept his expression neutral. He swept his surroundings with the corner of one eye. Near the alley entrance not far off — a figure: a man in a black trench coat, sharp nose, slightly receding hairline. Eyes closed, as if asleep.
The instant Vincent's gaze landed on him, those grey eyes snapped open.
"Dreamwalking failed. Direct engagement!"
Three or four figures sprang from the surrounding area and converged on Vincent.
Damn.
He was up in an instant. Without deliberating, he let the body's instincts take over and launched himself straight toward the high-hairline man.
"Captain, watch out!"
Dunn made his decision on the spot. He stepped back rapidly, drew his revolver, and fired several shots — every one of which Vincent dodged with an almost insulting ease.
In a breath, the "vagrant" was nearly on top of him.
Dunn didn't panic. Since advancing to Sequence 8 he had physical capabilities and hand-to-hand combat skills far beyond the ordinary. Hold the target for two or three seconds, and the others would have time to close in and surround.
But the expected attack never came. The "vagrant" pivoted sharply less than a meter away and swung around him, darting into the alley behind.
Dunn's expression changed. He understood immediately. By the time he turned, the "vagrant" was already standing behind a bewildered Klein, a cloth-wrapped shard of glass pressed to his throat, delivering halting words in badly-accented Ruen:
"Nobody... move."
The glass had broken skin. Klein felt the sting at his throat, went rigid, and did not move. His mind raced, turning over escape options.
The others had closed in by now. Leonard went still with sudden recognition. "It's you?"
Despite the short hair, he'd placed her — the one holding Klein hostage was the same "suspicious woman" from a few days ago.
Fury flared. Internally, he turned on the old voice: You told me she was just an ordinary deaf-mute.
The ancient, unhurried reply: I said you should treat her as an ordinary deaf-mute.
"What does that mean?"
I suggest you withdraw immediately and let her go. Otherwise everyone here dies. Including you.
Leonard: !!!
Even as Leonard was recognising Vincent, Vincent was recognising him. First a blink of surprise — then a quick read of the situation. His gaze swept the faces around him.
The kind young constable wasn't among them.
Something shifted in his chest. He looked at the man he was holding: No way.
The moment their eyes met, both recognised each other instantly.
Vincent thought, with tired irony: Well. This is awkward.
Klein's eyes went wide with outrage. He desperately wanted to shout: You owe me three pennies, you wretch!
Dunn gave the others a look and stepped slowly forward. "Release Klein. Take me as your hostage instead."
Vincent pressed the glass shard closer to Klein's throat without a flicker of hesitation. "Don't. Move."
He began backing away, pulling Klein with him, and pushed out more words in his laboured Ruen: "I... don't want... to hurt anyone. Let me... go."
Halfway through the sentence, his hand seized up. His thoughts went foggy.
In the Harry Potter world, Bernadette — strolling along with a chicken drumstick in one hand and a cola in the other — stumbled mid-step.
A few seconds later —
Bernadette's consciousness snapped back. Bewildered didn't begin to cover what she felt.
Bernadette: ???
Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
Then she noticed Klein, still held in her grip, and something clicked. Without thinking, she closed her fingers around his wrist and flung him.
Thud.
Klein hit the ground six or seven meters away, feeling like every bone in his body had opinions about this.
The sudden change left everyone in the alley frozen. Several seconds passed before anyone reacted. Dunn broke into a run first; Leonard lunged to grab him — "Captain, wait—"
And then Leonard's body locked up. Spirituality, muscles, blood — even his thoughts seemed to congeal. The others froze too, caught mid-sprint in whatever pose they'd had, locked completely still.
On the ground, where there had been nothing before, a faint ghostly chessboard had appeared. Everyone standing on it seemed to have been shifted onto slow-motion — slowing, slowing, stopping.
This was Bernadette's fairy tale magic: the Aged Chess Game. It caused the movements of all within range to decelerate, as though they'd stepped into a region where time ran differently.
She looked over the frozen figures before her, and slowly put it together. I've come back?
Her soul had returned. She should have felt relieved. But when she took in her surroundings, scenarios began flickering through her mind until she arrived at a conclusion:
While her soul was in the other man's body in another world, someone else had entered hers — and had been operating it for the past three days. Almost certainly the man himself.
What on earth did he do with my body, to end up cornered by what looks like official personnel?
Her brow knitted. She surveyed the frozen figures — faces contorted with fear and desperation. She held the thought for a moment.
Then said nothing, dissolved into a stream of water bubbles, and vanished.
In an instant the alley's time flow returned to normal. Everyone lurched forward several steps on momentum before stumbling to a halt, staring in stark-white shock at the spot where the "vagrant" had been.
Klein dragged himself up, grimacing, and could only scream it in his head again: My three pennies, you wretch!!
…
Bernadette had barely left the town behind when a faint chirping reached her ears. A translucent creature slipped out of the air and fluttered toward her — one of her Invisible Servants, a type of spirit world being she used as aides and messengers.
The creature dropped a letter into her hand and prepared to retreat back into the spirit realm. Bernadette scanned the letter. It asked why she had suddenly left the Dawn.
She frowned. "This letter is from Stefan, dated three days ago. Why are you only delivering it now?"
The Invisible Servant hesitated for a few seconds, then conveyed its meaning: Because you were acting very strangely for those three days. I was too scared to come near you.
Bernadette's face went flat. Given what she probably looked like right now, she could imagine all too easily what the creature had witnessed.
Then it struck her.
"Wait," she said, brow creasing. "Are you saying only three days have passed?"
To be continued…