CHAPTER 1: WHAT TO DO?
As we both sit back to back facing away from each other I get up and walk to the closet where I grab the first outfit I see and head to the door after reaffixing my mask. “I’m going to go change in the living room.”
“right… sorry about this.”
“yeah just pick out whatever clothes you want.” After I left the room I got dressed and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast my face still red from what just happened. And then a thought occurred to me. “does this mean I can’t sleep naked anymore?”
“it should be fine it’s not like we’re planning on doing anything?” she responded. It looks like she found a onesie I wear on occasions in the winter and is currently wearing it. “why are you?”
“you have to work today right? Well… if I was home, I’d have to work today.”
“Right, yeah, work… you’re a necromancer, too right?”
“yep. But I won’t be able to find a job unless I have a recommendation of some kind. Not like I can just waltz into your job and say, ‘hey I’m him from another dimension and we’re not entirely sure how I got here so I’ll be working with y’all’ and they’ll just accept it.”
“right fair point… what do you plan to do today?” she looked through my drawers and found a tablet on the first try. “hang out… buy underwear on your card. See if I can find anything similar on the news.”
“you’re going to buy stuff on my card?”
“Consider it the price of seeing me naked?”
“and what’s the price of seeing me naked?”
“pity.”
“hey! I’m not exactly the biggest but I’m by no means small”
“Keep telling yourself that trust me it helps,” she said looking dejectedly at her fairly modest chest. “fine but once we figure out how to get you a job, you’re gonna start pulling your own weight and pay me back for whatever you spend or I’m turning off my own debit card”
“we’re the same person I’m fairly certain I can guess the password but don’t worry I hate mooching just as much as you do I won’t buy anything you wouldn’t buy”
“I find that statement fairly concerning.”
“go you’re going to be late.” After I finished my breakfast and had my coffee, she saw me out while wearing my onesie and holding my cursed teddy bear. I immediately wished I was the one that got sent to her dimension instead of the other way around. She’s probably catching up on shows I haven’t had the time to watch right now and eating my popsicles.
I arrived at the underground fighting ring I work at and started talking with some of my coworkers while I waited for someone to die or injure themselves again. Strangely though no one asked me the question they usually ask me. It made me a bit nervous so I spoke up. “so you’re not going to ask again today?”
“Nah you’ve made it clea’ you don’ even want ‘o think abou’ de question” my orc friend replied. “you seem a bit off today like something happened,” said my fairly new apprentice. “yeah something did happen and I’m not sure how to put it into words.” My friends shared a look and as if realizing something they smiled creepily. And though they couldn’t see it behind my mask I frowned… “what?”
“nothing.” The three said in unison. (the third is a Warforged). I suddenly got a summons from my boss. And I went to go see her. “hey Bobby boy my favourite elf how ya doing?”
“well enough why do you ask?”
“It seems someone broke into my secret scroll stash and made off with a very peculiar ritual but since I am a connoisseur of strange and secret magic spells and rituals I have no idea which one it was and I only noticed one was missing today but it seems as though it was stolen a while ago. You seem off today, so I wanted to know if you know anything about it.”
“Could it have been a spell that summons people from another world?”
“I don’t think I have that one yet I tried winning it from a friend in a bet but she refused so I’ve been looking through my archives for something of equal value to trade for it and it seems the scroll I was looking for was stolen… wait why what happened?”
I explained to my manager the bare minimum of what happened, and she cracked a grin on that little piebald face of hers and said, “why not invite her to work for us as another of your assistants? Or you could just tell everyone she’s your twin sister and she’ll be working under you and living with you until she had enough money to move out” I thought about it for a minute. “that could work but I don’t know how comfortable she’d be with that.”
“if she’s anything like you she’d be glad to have the work.”
“probably… I’ll introduce her as a childhood friend”
“why not a sister? Or distant relative?”
“we’re too similar they’d think it’s weird if I introduce her as a childhood friend it would better explain the similarities… at least in my experience the siblings I’ve met tend to act very differently from each other as if to better garner their parent’s attention.”
“so if you’re friends it’ll make more sense if you accidentally say the same thing at the same time?” I gave her a look and said “yes.”
“twins do that don’t they?”
“Yeah but it’s creepy when twins say the same thing at the same time. With childhood friends, it's more…”
“yes?” she said with a disgusting smile. “never mind just give her a letter of recommendation to go somewhere else.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Now hold on a minute there.”
“what?”
“We still don’t know if the spell that sent her here was even cast in this dimension.”
“Yeah so?”
“so maybe her friends are pranking her by sending her here and your friends had nothing to do with it”
“you need to stop using that omniscience spell it’s creepy”
“I only used it once and it made me a better person I don’t care what you think of it.” She wagged her robotic tail behind her and gestured for me to leave. It’s almost always uncomfortable talking to someone who at any point in time can touch a gem and know everything that’s happening at that moment. Either way, I went back to my friends and asked them what I wanted to ask. “well I never. To think You’d even ensinuate tha me an’ the bois would do such a thing just ta prank ya for no’ answering a simple question. Why the nerve of ya… so did you?”
“No!” they all burst into laughter. “we really didn’t though.” Said my apprentice with a tear still in his eye from laughing so hard. “yeah all she had was a scroll to send messages to alternate dimensions. It was the closest we got so we started asking our favourite question to different dimensions and in all the dimensions we sent that question to only one of them replied.”
“We found dat world of da gurls da look like us and den we ask em if they could come ova but dey said they need ed to test the spell foist an sent someone ova dey thought wouldna get so mad if dey sent her.”
“They also wanted to make sure they could get back if they did come over”
“yeah dat two” the orc raised three fingers. “so how do we send her back?”
“umm… we don’t know that yet”
“what?”
“We know of a pendant that lets you go to worlds you’ve been to before we just don’t know where it is or how to get it.” My friends began arguing over how best to return her to her home when someone died and I had to go do my job. Apart from having to sew some arms or legs back on to people and some of them dying from me taking too long on others the day progressed fairly smoothly no one stayed dead too long for me to revive them I managed to get enough money to buy the new computer I wanted but judging by the fact I have a new guest staying with me that might have to wait. When I got back home something unexpected was waiting for me.
HER POV
I woke up this morning at 5 AM like I usually do and while I was waiting for myself to stop being lazy the cold from the fan was getting to the point where my force of will to turn the fan off outweighed my laziness and I turned it off. And that’s when I saw it… there was a man lying in bed next to me. I saw him stir so I swiftly and as carefully as I could went back to a sleeping position with all the important parts as hidden as a sleeping person could… he definitely saw me though. I heard the rustling of the bed stop and motion from the bed froze… he seems to be just as shocked as I am. Weirdly, my friends have been asking me a strange question recently and I’ve been refusing to answer… I wouldn’t put this kind of prank past them though.
It was only further confirmed when we took off our masks and confirmed the extremely rare red irises on an elf even my parents don’t have red irises it’s not genetic it only happens once in a generation which for elves is extremely long. If not for his skin looking almost identical to mine I probably would have thought it was some kind of time travel spell but no this room everything going on is almost identical to my home except outfitted more towards what a dude would like… not that we don’t have similar interests we do it’s just the things I’m more ashamed for liking are out on display while the things he’s obviously more ashamed of liking are hidden away.
After he made himself breakfast, I noticed he wasn’t used to having guests stay the night and waited until after he left to make myself breakfast. As I was cooking, I came to the sudden realization that I usually wear nothing under my onesie. Which means he probably does too… my face turned red… or it would have if I didn’t immediately remind myself of one important detail, “ah who cares we’re basically the same person anyway.”
I ate my breakfast in silence and made myself at home. This house really is similar to my own. He even watches the same cartoons I watch. I spent most of the day not sitting still while watching cartoons and browsing the internet for clothes in my size. I bought some similar to the ones I wore back home and they’re set to arrive later today. As I caught up on the cartoons I was watching I noticed some of the genders of the characters in the cartoons I watch were changed too but after watching the first episodes of some of them again I realized they were almost exactly the same and stopped caring.
It really was too hot to be wearing a onesie though. Towards the end of the day, I ended up taking a shower and walking around the house in nothing but a towel as I watched the new episodes of my favourite show and then the door opened…
BOB’S POV
“well… you’ve certainly made yourself at home.”
“yep…” while I was talking, she stared at me like she forgot I was coming home and her sudden freeze in motion caused her towel to drop. We maintained eye contact and eventually, she just shrugged and went back to watching tv. “I take it this means I don’t have to change my sleeping habits?”
“Nah I don’t mind if you don’t”
“no, I don’t mind. Is there any hot water left?”
“should be.” I went to go take a shower. And went I came back I also decided to not care and walk around the house in a towel until I dried off. She put one of my favourite cartoons up on the episode I left off on and invited me to take a seat on the couch. “I figured this was our favourite and waited to see if you wanted to watch it together.”
“How thoughtful of you.”
“I also made a note of where you were before watching past where you were on some of the other shows, cause I know I don’t remember where you were.”
“thanks. mind handing me my tablet?”
“sure.” She gave me back my tablet and I looked over what she bought. It was just a couple sets of underwear nothing too expensive. Looks like she knows I’ve been saving money too the bank app was open. She was probably just making sure I had enough money before buying but it’s kind of concerning we have the same bank password. She suddenly broke the silence “you’re not as lonely as I am right?”
“no…? maybe…? Did the air conditioner repair guy come over yet?”
“no, I don’t think he did.” The doorbell rang. “sh*t!” we both said in unison. We immediately scrambled for the bedroom and both got dressed. I put my mask and some non-sweaty clothes on and went to talk to the guy. He told me he’d be done in a couple of hours and that it would cost me about half as much as I was saving for my computer. So, I paid the man and shed a tear for the loss of the new computer I wanted and went back inside to find her lying in my onesie on the bed with her mask on. “hey it just occurred to me” she said. “I haven’t asked your name”
“oh… It’s Bobiliam, people just call me Bob the necromancer though, or Bob”
“heh Bobby”
“oh yeah well what’s your name then?”
“my name’s Beth- … just call me Beth”
“what? Is your full name Bethanial or something”?
“sh- shut up!”
“ha! I have a stupid name as a girl too!”
After a while, we both shared a laugh and while the air conditioner repair guy complained about working under the hot summer sun, I reminded him that if he died I could just revive him and he stopped complaining. That night I was able to sleep in comfort with my blanket on. It was a bit weird intentionally sharing my bed with myself but neither of us wanted the couch and we agreed nonverbally not to take advantage of the situation but by the look on her face, it seemed like she was considering it. Not like I could talk though. It is a bit unsettling how we both have insomnia and tossed and turned around a lot we ended up just holding onto each other to keep from moving around so much it was honestly one of the fastest times I’ve gotten to sleep… who knew to get to sleep you’d have to stop moving.