Right the following day, out of nowhere in the middle of a rainy afternoon, Sofia came to the hospital. The only thing that warned Jack of her arrival was her scent from the hall before she silently opened the door, put a finger over her nose, and slowly closed it.

“Ufa, I don’t think they saw me…” she thought aloud.

“How did you get here?” Jack asked, straightening up on his bed, more alert after the initial surprise and guessing the answers.

“I flew here. But not on a plane,” she quickly added.

“You’re really a shapeshifter.”

Sofia’s eyes widened. “How did you know that? Was it your powers?”

“Someone told me yesterday, I don’t have “powers”. I told you that.”

“I think it’s easier to just call it powers,” she said after climbing up and sitting at the end of the tall bed, letting her feet dangle in the air. Then she shrugged. “I mean, I can probably do that too, now, but… It’s not something everyone can do, so… that makes us different. That’s cool, right?”

“I guess,” Jack said, shrugging back at her.

“Who told you about me? Was it the doctor with the briefcase?”

“It was a doctor, but he didn’t have a briefcase. He mentioned something about someone that you both knew.”

“Someone we both knew? Oh, I know, he was talking about the Unknown. I’m working for them.”

“Who are they?”

“They’re… Hmm… I’m not sure what they are.”

“Sounds like they have a fitting name.”

“Like, they’re invisible, but they said it wasn’t supposed to know… it’s complicated. Anyway, they said they were in charge of protecting other worlds, and they wanted my help.”

“For what?”

“I dunno, they didn’t call me yet,” she turned away from the window and faced him. “How are you feeling now? Yana said you weren’t doing so good.”

“I’m feeling better,” he said with a sigh, remembering with scorn the scene he made just from seeing her boyfriend for the first time.

“And that doctor, he didn’t hurt you or anything?”

“Not really,” he answered, thinking how painful the infusion was and how uncomfortable it was to put weight on his back, but how it was working. “Why?”

“No reason,” she answered with a shrug.

“The doctor said the Unknown asked him to help me. Do you know why?”

“They said you were curious to them, but I dunno what they meant by that. I don’t think they’re gonna do anything to you, though.”

“Right,” Jack said, starting to reflect on what exactly they were curious about, and disliking each answer more than the last.

“Well, I have to get going. My mom thinks I’ve gone out for a walk, and I’ve still got to fly back.”

She climbed down the bed and asked if she could go out through the window. As Jack didn’t care either way, she melted into countless blue particles and changed her shape into another typical ice glider, just like the one he had seen in her house during his first day in that world of humans.

What is going on here…

“Hey, Sofi,” he called, making the creature look away from the window, its red eyes fixated on him as he took a deep breath. “Thanks for stopping by.”

It had never been studied that the ice glider could smile, but that one certainly did, closing its eyes and nodding vigorously, before jumping from the window and vanishing in the outside world.

Pondering on her general attitude towards him, Jack reached for the phone the Lonergans had given him and went through the messages he had exchanged with the Portuguese girl. At first, while he was getting used to the different written language, they were few and far between, but as he got better at handling it, Sofia got more persistent. She had gotten that number from Yana and usually messaged him out of nowhere to ask clarification on things she had been thinking about – how did the megus attack, what did Sunshine and Moonlight eat, if he liked ground spinach or not, or how he had escaped from the laboratory where he had grown up. He answered most of those as best as he could and let her ramble on about her opinion if he was unable to give her something concrete. Like him, she seemed to enjoy nature and biology in general, even if she barely understood what that meant for the time being.

Although nothing in that chain of replies told Jack why Sofia was being so protective of him, he was grateful to know at least someone seemed to be unapologetically on his side.

“Did he tell her how he escaped from the lab?”

“Nope.”

“Yeah, you said most so I figured that would be the question he didn’t answer.”

To be honest, I still have no idea how he did that either and I’m the freaking narrator.

***

“Sofia! Earth to Sofia!”

She quickly turned away from the window to her crimson-faced classmate. She had drifted away, wondering about where she could fly to in such a rainy day.

“Holy shit, you aren’t listening again!”

“Inês, watch your swearing…” warned another of the girls in the group with a hushed and worried voice.

“She’s with those guys, she didn’t hear a thing,” she answered, making their classmates sound unworthy of anyone’s precious time.

Such was the leader of their group, forged in the heat of the Project class, charged with creating a play for their fellow classmates to enjoy. And no one in their right mind would even dream of going against Inês and her best friend, Maria. Madalena was the last of their group, and another of their clique, but with her far more gentle nature one might wonder how she had ended up with them.

Sofia was mixed in with the three of them simply because no other group had room for her once they were finished with sorting.

“Come on, Sofia. Add “And they never did such an atrocity ever again.””

She quickly scribbled down the words on her sheet, adding a “The End” before putting down her pencil and looking up for her leader’s approval.

“Give me that.” Inês took the script from under her hands and quickly skimmed through it, with Maria peeking from over her shoulder.

“Oh, that’s so much better now,” Maria said.

“I know, if it wasn’t for me always fixing it up would’ve been a disaster,” Inês replied. Sofia had only changeed a couple of words and a sentence, but her classmates’ attitude worried her, nonetheless.

“Okay, now all we have to do is fix the names,” Maria said.

“What do you mean?”

“My puppet, she’s not going to be “Maria”. I hate my name. I want to be “Kika”,” she answered, handing the script back to Sofia with a frown, for her to get on with it as fast as possible. Without question, she took the sheet and quickly erased the names while the other girls laughed and arranged to meet at Maria’s place to put finishing touches on their dolls.

Then, while Sofia mused about a new excuse not to go with them, she felt as if someone had called her and looked back up from her work.

“What, you forgot how to write “Kika” all of a sudden?” Maria asked, crossing her arms and sneering back at her.

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“Didn’t you call me?” she asked.

“No, why would we do that?” Inês answered.

Instead of replying, Sofia looked around the room for someone that might have called her, but everyone was embroiled in their activities. Even the teacher was discussing with another group. That feeling of being summoned had not faded, and Sofia kept looking for its origin.

In the horizon, on the other side of the window, there was a blue ray of light aimed at the dark rainclouds.

“Sofia? What’s going on?” Asked Madalena, looking outside as well once her gaze fixated on the window.

“Earth to Sofia!” Inês yelled, scaring her into a shout and making some of the rest of the class laugh at them.

“What’s going on over here?” the teacher asked, approaching their group with her hands resting on her hips.

“There’s something out there, Ms. Olivia. I think…” Sofia said sheepishly, pointing towards the beam of light. Both the teacher and her classmates looked towards the direction her finger pointed, but none of the were as astonished as she was.

“There’s nothing out there,” Madalena said. “It’s just the rain.”

“You’re probably tired from all your hard work,” the teacher said. “I heard you wrote the script for your play on your own.”

With a shy smile Sofia nodded back, starting to believe that she was truly imagining things.

“I corrected her, teach,” Inês hurried to say.

“Oh, it’s great to see that you are helping each other. Well, five minutes until the bell rings, so why don’t you rest for a bit?”

“Thank you,” the girls said as the teacher walked away to assist the last group before recess.

While the other girls enjoyed the spare time to its fullest, Sofia finished the task that had been handed to her, looking back outside afterwards to confirm that the blue pillar of light was still there, calling out to her alone.

She already knew what to do as the bell rang. In a hurried step she walked to the deserted ping-pong tables, failing to see how loudly Nasser and Carlos argued in a corner of the student common room, and apologizing to every person she accidentally collided with. Once there, she turned into the ice glider and flew towards the light, which seemed to move as well, changing its point of origin until in stabilized, losing power as Sofia approached, like a hand that slowly covers the light of a candle, disappearing completely once she floated a breath away from what she perceived to be the limit of the world of the Unknown in Roca Cape.

The squall back in school had been replaced by a small hurricane. Sofia turned around the pillar of the cape to reduce her speed before finally landing at its side, trying to shield herself from the raging wind as best as possible after shifting back to her human form.

“The weather will be far more temperate where we’ll be sending you,” said the voice of the Unknown, from close in front of her. “Why didn’t you bring Jack with you?”

“I was in school, I have to go back there soon, recess is almost over and I have Geography,” she replied, worried she had let them down.

“You don’t have to worry about that. As soon as you set foot in this pocket world everyone who expects you to be at a certain place at a certain time will forget about such things. Everyone forgets about you, putting it simply,” it added upon her confused face.

“Even my parents?” she asked with a tone of panic.

“They’ll remember everything as soon as you return. Rest assured, it’s quite an effective system.”

“But that’s very disturbing.”

“How did they implement such a system? Lots and lots of magic?”

“A powerful wizard together with a forgotten God and some Energy.”

And no, I have no idea what any of that means.

“But if they remember Sofia after she comes back, won’t they be aware she was gone?”

“Not at all. Those people’s memories are filled with the most likely outcome if she was with them.”

Putting it that way it is incredibly disturbing.

“That is exceptionally convenient but not very intelligent or interesting.”

Oh, right, they think I wrote this. Yeah, complain all you want, I know I did.

“Are you ready for your first task?” The Unknown asked to the thoughtful girl, probably dwelling on the same implications as the ones we just discussed. However, the sense of adventure will rise above common sense for most 13-year-olds.

“Yeah, of course.”

“You will find two conflicting groups on opposite sides of a creek. Make sure nothing crosses that creek.”

Even if she wasn’t sure of what they meant with such a cryptic request, Sofia trusted she would understand once she got there and nodded in approval.

“Cross the portal we’ll open for you and make sure you don’t do anything pointless or dangerous.”

“Like being seen?” She asked while the portal became visible, as the same silver arc floating in front of her, just like the one that had brought Dr. Swain in her world.

“It depends on the way in which you are seen.”

Although she waited for a few more encouraging words or tips, the invisible Unknown remained silent and the portal waiting. So, she crossed to the other side of the arc.

Exactly as if she was just walking into another room, she arrived into the edge of a brush, overlooking a shallow, clear stream, where two strange creatures fought with swords only seen in story books.

Her instincts immediately kicked in and Sofia took shelter behind a nearby tree, to witness the event with a slightly lesser chance of getting seen. Both of the fighters were alike normal people, but with bark like skin and what could only be described as branches down to their feet, coated with leaves and small green buds, instead of hair.

On her side of the river there were three horses, chewing on their bridles while the two riders watched the fighting, human men older than her. On the other side of the river there were another four horses with three riders, but they all wore cloaks, and thus it was impossible to determine what they were or how they were feeling about the unbalanced fight.

By a mix of more agility, experience and strength, the more serious looking creature disarmed the other, kicking it into the stream and presenting the tip of its sword before its face when it turned looked back up.

“I’ll take what was promised,” the winner said.

“No, please. I’ll do anything, don’t take her!” the loser grabbed onto the winner wrist, desperate and sad. “I’ll train, I promise! I’ll protect her!”

“By the time you become strong enough to do it, the Ruler will have already won.”

Without further ado, it smacked the other one with the back of its free hand, making it fall back down to the stream.

“That does it.”

One of the riders, a boy with unruly, curly hair, pulled out his bow and readied an arrow each while the other one, an older man with a shirt too large for him, looked to his companion and unsheathed his sword, shaking his head.

“Run, Muleni, run!”

Only then did Sofia notice the foal behind the horse without a rider, nervously stomping about. It stopped for a moment while the other horses shifted, sensing the rising tension, but it didn’t run away like it was told to. Instead, it started walking towards the river.

Only after admiring its soft yellow fur and while mane did Sofia pay attention to what was about to happen.

Oh no! They said no one should cross the river but that foal is about to. Does that even count? Maybe not, I mean it’s just a horse… But what if it does? Argh, what do I do? How do I even stop it? Use the water as a barrier? Do I even know something that can control water like that? Oh wait. Actually, I do. Here goes nothing.

She dashed out of her hiding place picturing the creature she had remembered on her inner sanctum. Immediately as she touched the water, as a blue deer-like hidan with transparent, glowing horns, Sofia made the river rise in a wave that blocked the foal’s path. It continued onward, wetting the first creature’s hips and waking up the second, and vanished as the creek descended further ahead.

All of the heads turned to the wave’s source, and Sofia felt her meguio heart flip upside down with the pressure of their glares. She gulped, but sticked to her plan, stomping and lowering her head towards the two beings still on the river, imagining she was staring down the stupid girls from her group project instead. The one that been defeated jumped up and both left the creek unimpeded, running back to the shores where they each had come from. The foal trotted to its companion, and although Sofia could tell a weight had been lifted from their shoulders, they couldn’t rest while that strange blue deer was still there.

“Dorlimin,” called a girl’s voice, coming from one of the hooded riders.

“I don’t know,” answered a second rider. “It might be the spirit of this river. I suggest we don’t antagonize it anymore.”

“Spirit!” The girl called out, removing her hood while her grey-maned white horse stepped to the front of its group. Her short-haired head bowed slightly to her, and she returned the meguio’s stare with determination and respect. “We apologize for disturbing your waters.”

Then get out of here, Sofia thought as she loudly snorted at them. As soon as the last rider was on the last horse, the girl put her hood back on and reached for her horse’s reins.

“We shan’t bother you no more,” she said, turning to the group on the other side of the river afterwards. “We will return. Be prepared.”

Finally, she and the other riders squeezed their horses’ bellies, entering a canter that took them inside the forest. As the sound of their hooves vanished, Sofia turned to the other group and snarled at them as well, thinking she should stay in character until the end. The thick-skinned person stared at her briefly, as if trying to read her true intentions, but with a small push on its legs from the foal and the shouts from the guys behind it, it quickly turned towards the last horse and mounted it.

“Thank you,” it said as they turned the horses around towards the forest and started to canter. “Thank you so much!”

Until she stopped listening to hooves pounding on dirt, Sofia tried to keep still, thinking she was the meanest, baddest meguio the world had even seen. Once she was sure they were gone she sighed and reached down for some of the stream’s water, allowing herself to relax. Then, thinking she had done a good job at keeping everything as the Unknown had told her to, she trotted out of the stream and into the woods as well, the way she had come from. Suddenly she found herself back in the Roca Cape, still cut off from the rest of world by the infinite thunderstorm of the dimension of the Unknown, and quickly shifted back into human form to able to talk to the Unknown about what she had just done.

“We are a bit disappointed with your first task. You made a mistake.”

“I did? What?” She asked, feeling her heart sink down.

“The form you used. The humans and adakhe believed it to be a spirit when no such thing exists in their dimension.”

“Adakhe? The people with tree branches in their head?” Sofia asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh. But… is it really a bad thing, for them to think that spirits exist?”

“It will not influence the course those people are taking, but you have to be more careful in the future, because in some cases, it will. Either do your job entirely in the shadows, or, if you must show yourself, make sure you don’t leave your marks guessing about your intentions or your origins.”

“I can show myself and tell them you sent me? But no one will believe me.”

“They don’t need to. Most of the time they will be merely grateful for your help, and that is enough. Didn’t you have class to attend to?”

“Oh, right, I forgot!” Sofia changed into the ice glider and dashed outside the bubble, shouting back to the Unknown. “See you!”