...the ground feels solid. It's how she can tell there's a ground. After a minute of staring at nothing she crouches and touches it. Fine sand, fine enough that it gets stuck in the creases of her skin, and the solid ground beneath it. She tries to dig her hand into it but there's no give.

She stands up again and wonders idly how she's not blinded by the light, there's so much of it. She knows she's not blind because she can see her hand, her self.

But everything else is so empty.

She starts walking.

Whiteness update: still white. Is she going to stay at it for hours?

No. This is giving her a headache (it's not really but it feels like it should be). She needs something. Why is there nothing? There should be something. It makes no sense for there to not be anything, nothing—this featureless empty eternal nothing—nothing is crazy. There are—molecules. The ground must be made of those. They must've come from somewhere. Everything comes from somewhere—the Big Bang, ultimately. The great soup of everything in an inflationary period followed by the rapid cooldown—soup of matter, too energetic to even be called elements, coalescing in random locations due to gravity, forming the very first stars, the simplest thing made of matter, the place where all matter comes from, and if there's matter then there should be stars—

The sand shifts and moves like being carried by the wind. It's hard to see the white on white, but she can tell something happening up in the sky and then darkness starting to spread out from the middle of the whiteness, moving much like sand. It's quickly followed by color that paint beautiful nebulas. The cosmic clouds then quickly form stars dotting the heavens. She can see a galaxy overhead for a solid moment before it's replaced with a star that grows larger and larger and then... there is a sun hanging from the clear blue sky.

...that's more appropriate.

Fenris thinks that the memory of crossing the portal wasn't real, but trying to fly beyond the edge of the dimension proved useless (he just kept being turned around). After some effort he locates the point in the sky where the portal stands and uses this portal's opening key. Make the wind go in a circle and then rise up. Just like in his memory. Fenris flies through it.

He doesn't find himself on the other side, instead he wakes up on some sort of cheap hospital bed in a poorly lit room. It smells terrible in there.

Fenris keeps his eyes shut for a moment, before peeking through them very briefly. A reptoid is in the room, but turned away from him. There are at least two other people in the same room, both unfamiliar and both in similar beds, sleeping.

Fenris takes a few moments to observe the reptoid. Two people pass outside the room and the creature tenses.

"This delay is unacceptable!" hisses someone.

"Ssorry, massster. We will be ready to explore their pocket dimensssions sssoon. Your nephew isss troublessome." Says someone, obviously another reptoid.

They move away and Fenris can't hear the conversation. The reptoid in the room relaxes marginally and Fenris observes what he is doing...

...Apparently the reptoid has a pen and a book and is drawing or writing something while sitting on the floor. He casts furtive glances at the door every so often.

Fenris considers his options. His powers are back, but he can barely feel the sky which means he is somewhere underground or very closed. The air feels dry and the terrain feels flat. A desert? They most likely have been moved from Florida then. He also considers his... dream and what it implies.

Very carefully, Fenris removes the pillowcase from his pillow. He picks a moment where the corridor is quiet and the reptoid is distracted. With a swift but quiet movement, Fenris flies and then stuffs the pillowcase in the reptoid's mouth. While the reptoid is still surprised, Fenris immobilizes the being. That part doesn't go as quietly as desired. The creature panics and starts kicking. Fenris hoped he could get some information, but he probably should get on the move.

Fenris lets go off the reptoid and then causes the air around the scaly being to get so hot as to make anyone pass out. Fenris leaves the room and flies close to the ceiling. Searching for Felix, Dayo, their mutual boyfriend, Jessica, Victor and Vii. There are more people on beds, but no one he recognizes. Mostly pale and old.

Fenris has no idea what is going on here. He thinks he spotted Vii through a door's window, but upon closer inspection... a room with at least two dozen white-haired people. Most puzzling of it all: they are wearing or holding various metallic objects with the apparent magical effect of assembling common electronics like smartphones. They all look scared, starved and miserable.

Fenris lingers too long searching for Vii among them and one of them spots him. He is out of there in a flash, but that's not fast enough, he can hear shouting behind him. Fenris finds the stairs and moves up. Reptoids start pouring into the stairs and Fenris catches the brief glance of an open window and bull-rushes past a pair of reptoid creatures.

There is a brief moment where Fenris thinks he made it.

Something pounces on him from behind, sinking sharp teeth in his neck. Much bigger than the other reptoids and with clawed hands that feel strong enough to break bones. There is some kind of poison spreading out of it, which causes Fenris' vision to blur and his blood feel like it's on fire.

Worst of it all, whatever what is holding onto him is making almost orgasmic sounds at the taste of his blood.

Fenris half-falls and half-tries shrug the thing off. But that only earns him an embrace that probably did break something as they both crashland-

Even as the blood causes him to lose consciousnesses, Fenris tries to not just give up, even if he thinks there is an alternative, he doesn't know if it will work... He just needs to keep trying anyway...

Darkness takes hold of him again.

She's small. She's so small. And the house is big. It's naturally big, like a mansion, bigger than her parent's place, and made even bigger by the fact that she's so small.

"Mom?" she calls. "Mom, I don't know where I am."

No one answers.

There's wind, now, and a sea.

Planets are ejected matter from stars, right? Balls of molten rock and iron, elements coalescing randomly into stuff big enough to be approximately-spherical under its own weight. That's how rocky planets are formed, at any rate, and she's clearly on a rocky planet, so that's what must have happened. But the ground is solid and cool, this isn't molten rock, so it must've cooled off. The core is still molten, of course, but that's far away.

And there must be water, right? That's an important part of temperature regulation, is water—and the microorganisms in water, converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, which is then hit by ultraviolet light that turns that into ozone. The ozone layer and the atmosphere keep the temperature stable and breathable. So this planet must have water, and an ozone layer, and the water must be salty—an ocean—because it's always in contact with the rock. The rock on which she's standing, for instance, in the middle of the ocean.

Atmosphere and ocean, very important to sustain complex life.

Like the ones in those three motorboats over there. They're heavily covered in protective gear, but they look like reptoids. At least a dozen in three boats, one of which is going straight to Dayo.

What.

Those don't make sense.

So the ocean starts trying to make sure they're not there.

The waters become turbulent enough that the boats starts zigzagging. One is briefly caught in a whirlpool and turned around. Another capsizes. They're still trying to approach.

No they don't understand this world is not ready it makes no sense for them to exist here. They should come back later.

Now the ocean is really violent, to almost impossible levels. The capsized boat is swiped aside, one of the reptoids actually goes flying up in the air and lands closer to the shore. But the waters are dragging most of everyone else away. Some are going under and not coming back.

Yes, that is at it should be. This world cannot contain these things yet, they don't follow from what exists.

The reptoids change their minds and turn around. At least the ones that are able to.

And the ones that aren't will become raw material that fits with the rest of the world.

Such is the nature of the universe. Or at least this one.

Several minutes later. Several portals appear around her out of nowhere, showing some kind of frozen wasteland on the other side.

That... makes some sense?

Well, her confusion doesn't dispel the portals.

In fact a tighter ring of portals opens around her. Then two- no, three more portals right on top of her. It's going to get hard to move at this rate.

...she's not even actually moving though. She's just. There.

Well, now she literally can't take a step without going through a portal.

She wasn't taking any steps anyway.

Was she moving at all? Because now the portals are preventing her from doing that.