"...oh you're an import. Yikes. Um. You're not on Earth anymore. Welcome to the City of Angles, this is the Sideways, a space between spaces, and not where most people live. Uh, I should probably take you to the city proper so the Department of Orientation can do whatever it does to help imports."

"Oh, lovely, so this might not just be a dream? How brilliant I brought my phone and earphones with me, then, because I seem to have lost my house when I went into a dining room and the door didn't go back out onto the street behind me."

"I'm pretty sure it's not a dream, and you probably shouldn't get back to your room. I'm sorry."

"… Is there a particular reason?"

"Why you shouldn't get back to your room? Sure; it's in the Sideways. It'll get twisted and weird and Picassos are going to show up all the time."

"… Oh, you mean, don't go back there and stay long term? Wait, what sorts of ways does it get twisted – like the rest of this place?"

"Yeah, Euclidean geometry is not a thing that's super respected, here."

"… So you just mean, like, physically? Because some of those rooms definitely didn't seem like they were twisted geometrically, just like they were… weird alterations."

"What do you mean?"

"There was a room with lava for a floor. And a dining room with lots more food… everywhere."

"Yeah, we also took six consecutive rights and somehow did not end up where we started, and the room I found you in had weird gravity, and we passed a couple of rooms where I'm pretty sure I saw ourselves across the hall, so..."

"… Yeah, I wasn't contradicting you on the geometrical twisting? It's just, I asked you what was being twisted, you mentioned that it doesn't obey typical geometry, and then I was clarifying if that was the only way that my room would be twisted. I mean, I don't know how the hell my room got here nor whether it would obey the same rules as the other buildings here…"

"Oh! Okay, no, not the only way, it can totally be twisted in other ways, like maybe your computer would become a very big computer-shaped bird of prey, or your bed could become a stack of books about sleeping disorders..."

"I have no idea how that first thing would work. Could possibly work. Unless the computer-bird also got wings and you were being loose about 'bird of prey'. But anyway, how do we get out of here? I think you said that was possible?"

"You don't need to know how it'd work, this is the Sideways, things don't need to make sense. Anyway, yeah, possible to get out, we just need to find an exit!"

"Things… kinda need to make sense if you're going to start labeling them with words such as 'bird of prey' and 'computer' which are at least somewhat mutually exclusive, but sure." She rolls her eyes. "Do you have something more specific in mind than just stumbling around until we fall out of the Sideways and into the Normalways or whatever?"

"...you'd know what I mean if you'd seen one. They can totally not make sense and still be called bird of prey computer." He shrugs. "Anyway, yes, I do, stumbling until we fall out would be very counterproductive and probably get us killed. We need to find shallower places and follow them until we reach an exit."

"This is– metaphorically shallower, right? And should we maybe get going?"

"Uh... Metaphorically in the sense that the Sideways is a huge metaphor, sure," he shrugs. "And yeah, let's go."

He leads her out of the bedroom and looks in both directions of the hallway outside. No Picassos in sight. He saunters off in the direction they didn't come from.

She follows.

"… Funny, I wouldn't have expected a metaphor to feel so substantial."

"Most imports wouldn't have," he agrees. "Actually, even most mappers don't." The next room they visit is a pretty ordinary dentist's office, with instruments on display. The boy opens a door that ought to lead to some storage closet and instead finds a hallway from an apartment building, with several doors and an elevator at the end. He slows down and hmms softly, tapping his lips as he studies the doors. "I'm Sadde, by the way. What's your name?" 

"I'm Jessica," she says, smiling at him. "This place is really weird, though – do you know anything about how or why I got 'imported'?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, it's just a thing that happens, the City imports buildings and all the people in them. Usually not into the Sideways, though. ...at least I think. For all I know ninety percent of imports could be coming to the Sideways but they die too soon after to tell their story and are never found... But surely more people would've run into the bodies by now if that were the case, never mind." He reaches one door that's exactly the same as all other doors, and knocks on it. Seemingly satisfied, he tries to open it, and frowns when he finds it locked.

"Lovely," she says, and then frowns when he frowns. "What's wrong? Like, presumably that the door is locked, but why do you not expect it to be locked, I mean."

"Doors aren't usually locked in the Sideways. And this is the right door. Oh, what's that?" he asks, looking at some point behind Rachel.