While it had felt good in the moment, I couldn’t help but feel a massive sense of discomfort in my chest at how I’d had a complete meltdown over a single stupid song I didn’t even actually like all that much. It was tacky, overly repetitive, and, and… I was just looking for reasons to hate it.

I still couldn’t bring myself to look at Amanda’s face after all that though. I shivered as unpleasant memories of my childhood surfaced to my mind unbidden. Tantrums, so many tantrums. The yelling, dragging me by the arm. I was the older by far, between me and Amanda, but I was reverting back to being that oversensitive little kid who couldn’t get a grip, or suck it up when things didn’t go his way. My features twisted with disgust, and I scrubbed hard enough that my skin turned red. I signed, and took a breath, and turned to face the showerhead.

The warm water rained down on my face, vainly attempting to wash all of my mixed and muddled feelings down the drain along with the remnants of my haircut. The rope around my waist served as my trusted safety net while I cleaned myself with the generic travel-sized toiletries, and I was finally treated again to the wonder that is music in the shower. This entire experience, if nothing else, had given me a greater respect for irrational brain chemicals than I had before. I don’t think I had fully realized how much I craved social interaction, due to my natural tendency for solitude. Not to mention the relative lack of stimulus, only slightly tempered by my personal interests in this dimension. The combination had left me an utter mess without me even realizing it. Was this a case of boiling the frog?

Well, I do also have to admit; despite the unprofessionalism, my shoulders also felt lighter after the incident, like a tension in my body that I hadn’t noticed had been released. I understood that the expectations of men and emotional vulnerability were something to be fought against for this very reason, but…

I sighed, giving up on trying to sort out the turbulent mess in the time frame of a single shower and just focused on relaxing. Feeling the water pressure crashing against me for a moment longer. Listening to the music reverberating across the tiles. Letting it all wash over me like a cleansing of my mind and soul. Throughout it all, my mind wandered, jumping from place to place without lingering long enough to form any particular coherent thought. It was nice, but sadly, I couldn’t stay there forever either, so I knocked on the door and pushed it open slightly, holding my hand out for the towel.

…I turned off the tap and tapped the door again, louder. Nothing. Maybe the music is too loud? Chalking the chill running up my back to my wet skin meeting cold air, I yelled lightly, “Amanda. I’m done, can you give me the towel?”

I stood there in the cold silently for what must have been a full minute, my hand stuck in its outstretched position. I didn’t want to look. I wanted to keep hoping, for even just a second longer. I wanted to keep basking in the warmth that was rapidly leaving my body. But. Deep inside, I already knew what had happened. I pulled my hand back in, and slowly cracked open the door. Inching my head forward, I finally pressed my eye to the crack out with a sense of deranged curiosity, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t see—

—The rope laid empty, limp on the damp tile floor.

Faster than I thought I could move, I lunged at the empty spot where Amanda had stood. Hitting, slapping, trying to pry the tile up from the floor with my fingernails. The cold tile on my bare skin barely registered as I stood up, flailing my arms about, searching for that feeling, the telltale change of pressure. There has to be something, there has to be! And then I felt it. A warm spot. A sense not born of any temperature change as my hand passed through a specific spot.

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I whirled around as I turned to face it, nearly slipping. I brought my head to the spot and focused focused focused. Trying to dive into that alien sensation and just move!

Something twitched. A change of, something! I felt it! Yes, yes just a little more! But something was wrong, the spot, it felt smaller. The intersection, the window between this realm and the next closing and closing no no no no no focus, focus! The sensation twitched one more time and then…

The window was gone. The world ground to a halt. Then I was moving again, looking, swinging my hands and legs around the entire bathroom. Nothing. I checked the shower stall. Nothing. I needed to find another, fast, before—

—My foot slipped, and I fell back first to the floor with a wet smack. My face contorted, and I let out a guttural moan, curling onto my side. I tried to breathe, but the wind had gotten knocked out of me from the fall. My back burned, as well as the back of my head. I was almost grateful to the pain for giving me something to focus on other than a dull cold seeping through my veins. The echoing melodies remained, the upbeat pop music indifferent to its surroundings. A mocking remnant of what I’d lost.

It wasn’t like I was unaware of the possibility, I’d just tried to ignored it. Hoped irrationally that it wouldn’t happen, or some application of four dimensional physics would be different from what I’d imagined. But no, the reason the rope didn’t work was obvious.

Because if a two dimensional entity wrapped a two dimensional rope around their friend, what would happen if that friend was suddenly plucked up into the air by a human? Would the rope hold on? No. It wouldn’t. Because plucking the friend away would be as simple as picking up a rock surrounded tightly by a line of salt. I opened a single, baleful eye and stared up, at the single circular light fixture piercing down at me through the remnants of the mist. A single… lifeless… light.

“-t”

I blinked. What was that? I tried to look at the phone, wondering if it was the music, but something was holding my chin.

“-nt?”

The Light, I couldn’t keep track of it anymore. It shone strangely, hurting my eye.

“-incent!” I winced at the sudden noise. My head was pounding, and the world was spinning. In complete contrast, I gasped, as if I could finally catch my breath again.

“Sorry, Vincent— or whoever you are? Whatever. I know I shouldn’t move you, or something, but we need to get you off the tiles and we can’t exactly call 111. Work with me, please.”

She lifted my legs and put her hand under them, before slowly using her arm to lift my head up. I felt like I was going to hurl at the movement, and she slowed even further as she eventually leaned me against her shoulder. My mind was racing, trying to understand what was happening, but my thoughts were too sluggish. Eventually though, Amanda -god, Amanda- managed to get my head into enough of a stable position to solidly grip around my bruised back, and painstakingly lift me up despite my larger frame.

I don’t remember too much of what happened after that, as the next moment I was tucked naked and still damp into the warm sheets of the bed. Worried brown eyes looked down at me, and I couldn’t only use my remaining energy to reach my hand out toward her. But my exhaustion was too much, and it fell to the bed. That was enough, and I drifted into a restless sleep.