The hotel room's electronics don't like me any more than the plane's did. The key card takes four tries before James gently takes it from my hand and swipes us in. Inside, the TV turns itself on and off at random intervals, displaying stations that don't exist in our dimension. The digital alarm clock has given up entirely on linear time.

"Well, this is cozy," I mutter, dropping my bag on one of the double beds. We both pointedly ignore the fact that we're sharing a room – necessity rather than choice, given how hard it is to explain to other hotel guests why reality keeps bending around me.

"Get some rest," James says, settling into the room's single chair. "We'll start looking for Rachel's facility in the morning."

I eye the bed suspiciously. "Sleep isn't exactly easy these days."

"Because of the dreams?"

I shoot him a sharp look, but he's focused on his laptop, pulling up maps of research facilities in the area. I haven't told him about Adrian, about our dream conversations. Haven't told anyone.

The darkness pulses gently as I lie down, not bothering to change clothes. The bed feels strange – too soft, too normal for someone who's been sleeping on the floor of a ghost town. The room's shadows move oddly, responding to my presence.

"I'll wake you if anything changes," James says quietly.

I don't respond. Don't trust myself to. Instead, I let exhaustion pull me under, hoping for dreamless sleep but knowing better.

The dream-space forms around me like crystal growing in solution. Colors that shouldn't exist paint the air in patterns that mock normal geometry. And there, waiting as if he knew I'd come, is Adrian.

"Hello, sister." His form flows between states of matter like water finding its level. "I wondered if you'd dream tonight."

"This isn't real." But the words lack conviction. Everything here feels real – just a different kind of real than normal space allows.

"Still clinging to such limited definitions?" He moves closer, reality rippling around him like heat waves. "After everything you've seen, everything you're becoming, how can you still think in terms of real and unreal?"

The darkness behind my eye pulses in recognition, reaching for something in him that reaches back. I fight it, but the connection forms anyway – quantum entanglement on a spiritual level.

"You're running away," he says softly. "With the Church's pet enforcer, no less. Looking for answers from someone who ran away herself. But you know the real answers are here, in the spaces between spaces."

"I'm not running away. I'm looking for understanding."

"Understanding?" His laugh contains harmonics that shouldn't exist. "You mean scientific understanding? Clinical observations and careful notes? As if what we are could be contained in their limited frameworks?"

He shifts closer. In the dream-space, his beauty is terrible and perfect – a form that exists in more dimensions than human senses were meant to process, yet somehow still achingly familiar.

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"Look at yourself," he continues. "Really look. See what you're becoming."

Reality ripples like a pond disturbed by stone, and I see my reflection in spaces that shouldn't exist. My form shifts between states, the darkness behind my eye reaching through dimensions I can barely perceive. I'm beautiful too, in that same terrible way – something transcending normal existence.

"Stop it," I whisper.

"Why? Because it frightens you? Or because it feels too right?"

He's closer now, though I didn't see him move. The air between us feels thick with possibility, with power, with understanding that goes beyond words.

"You're sleeping in a room with someone who can never truly understand you," he says gently. "Someone bound by three dimensions and linear time. Someone who still thinks in terms of science and reason and control."

"James is trying to help."

"James is trying to contain. To direct. To understand something that exists beyond understanding." Adrian's form shifts again, becoming something between solid and liquid, between matter and energy. "But I understand. I know what it's like to exist between states, to see realities that others can't perceive, to become something more than human."

The darkness pulses stronger, and for a moment I let myself feel it – the connection between us, the shared experience of transformation, the pure relief of not having to pretend to be normal.

"It could be like this always," he whispers. "No more hiding, no more controlling, no more trying to fit yourself into their limited understanding. Just... becoming."

He reaches for me with a hand that exists in multiple states simultaneously. For a moment, I want to reach back. Want to let go of human constraints and normal physics and all the careful control I maintain.

Want to stop being alone in what I am.

"No." I pull back, forcing my form to stabilize. "This isn't... this isn't right."

"Right? Wrong? More human concepts, more limited thinking." His voice holds infinite patience, infinite understanding. "You're beyond such distinctions now. Or you could be, if you'd just let yourself..."

"I choose what I become," I say, the words stronger now. "Not the Church, not their experiments, and not you."

"Do you? Are you choosing? Or are you just choosing which cage to put yourself in?" He gestures at the dream-space around us. "Look at how reality responds to you. Look at how naturally you exist between states. That's not something you chose – it's something you are."

Before I can respond, a sound cuts through the dream – the hotel room's TV, switching itself on again. Adrian's form begins to fade.

"You can't run forever," he says softly. "Can't hide from what you're becoming. And when you finally understand that..." His smile contains geometries that shouldn't be possible. "I'll be waiting."

I wake with a gasp, reality snapping back to normal around me. The TV is indeed on, showing what might be news from another dimension. James is still in the chair, watching me with concern.

"Bad dream?"

"Something like that." I sit up, trying to shake off the lingering sensation of existing in multiple states at once. The darkness pulses with remembered connection.

"Want to talk about it?"

"No."

He accepts this without comment, turning back to his laptop. The TV shuts itself off, then on again. The alarm clock shows times that might exist in other realities.

"We'll find her tomorrow," he says after a while. "Rachel Chen. Get some answers."

I think about Adrian's words about scientific understanding, about limited frameworks trying to contain unlimited possibility. Think about how it felt to be truly understood, to be seen for exactly what I am.

Think about how dangerous that understanding might be.

"Get some sleep," I tell James. "I'll keep watch."

He looks like he wants to argue, but something in my expression stops him. He moves to the other bed, lies down fully clothed like I did.

I sit in the chair he vacated, watching the night through windows that occasionally show other realities. The darkness throbs gently, and somewhere in spaces between spaces, Adrian waits.

Understanding isn't the same as acceptance.

Connection isn't the same as surrender.

I just hope I can remember that when the loneliness gets too heavy to bear.

The night stretches ahead, full of possibilities I'm not ready to face. Tomorrow we'll look for Rachel Chen, look for answers that might help me understand what I'm becoming.

But part of me already understands.

Part of me already knows.

The question is: what will I choose to do with that knowledge?

The darkness pulses, and somewhere in the spaces between spaces, Adrian smiles.