Aleks, as usual, follows.

And there's the central clock face, with the three shadowy figures, almost detailed enough to see...

...until they surge out of the clock towards her and everything goes dark.

The castoff abruptly tips to the side and falls to the ground, unconscious.

But this is not, precisely accurate. She is not unconscious. Her mind just... isn't inhabiting her body anymore. It's somewhere else.

There, it's dark and confusing. With distinctly non-Euclidean geometry.

And she is not alone.

The three figures seem—maybe even more disoriented than she is. They don't even notice her there, at first. And they are definitely also castoffs; if nothing else, they all have a tattoo like hers.

"What befell us?" asks the leftmost member of the trio, a woman dressed in powerful armor with a scarred face. "Did they do something? Are we still in the clock?" What new torture does the Changing God have for them?

"Uh. Hello," she says with a little awkward wave, somewhere between shy and distracted trying to figure out how the geometry doesn't work. "No, I was the one that did something. Are you three okay?"

The three of them look at her, then. The rightmost one, a small and tense man carrying a shield, says, "Probably. You did this, then? We were—ingested into your head. I saw it. How is that possible? Who are you?"

"Uh. I'm your very youngest sister, about an hour old if you round very generously. And... you were ingested into my head, sorry about that, I uh. Didn't mean to." Why would that have happened, though...? "... Did the clock separate you from your bodies? Trap your minds and leave your bodies to starve as vegetables in your wake?"

"...yes, I believe so," says the middle one—tall, dressed in black, a violet fish-like crest attached to the top of its head, large yellow eyes squinting at her.

"An hour old? That's not possible, we faced the Changing God only days ago and yours is not the body they wore then."

"Centuries ago, not days," corrects the third. "I believe we may have been trapped in that clock for much longer than we think, Kamose. Something... about it... it messed with our perception of time."

"Time is an illusion," shrugs the middle one, looking at the void that replaces the sky in this location. "'How long?' is the wrong question." It turns to the latest castoff again. "What is this place? Where are we?" Outside time, then as now, he wagers.

“I… am not entirely sure. I think we’re somewhere in my head, but. I’m not sure it’s… just mine. This only feels like a very small part of it, but this place is so vast, and it scooped you up so easily.” She frowns. “… do any of you three remember things from before our sire used our bodies?”

"Yes," says the middle one, its six nostrils flaring. "If this place is not just yours, however... whose else is it? I have never visited such a place."

The rightmost castoff's eyes have grown wide with the revelation, too, though, and he walks over to the latest castoff to grab her by the shoulders, desperation on his face. "One prison to another!" he says, wildly. "You brought us here, you must let us out."

Aaaaahhh touching she did not want there to be touching! The touching should stop!

“Yes, agreed!” she cries, tugging herself out of his grip and glaring at him. “But let you out where, what is a mind without a body to house it? What do you think would have happened if this place didn’t catch all three of you?”

"Death, as certain as any prison," concludes the middle one, which causes the one that had been grabbing the latest castoff to slump in dejection.

"Did our sire never give you any other abilities?" wonders the woman, the one who was called 'Kamose'. "We all have our unique gifts, and this seems to be yours... but to only be able to draw in consciousnesses, and never let them out... seems incomplete. What other gifts did our creator bestow upon you?"

She steps very carefully away from castoff grabby hands and tries not to be too offended that her first physical touch - mental physical touch? - on her actual person was that. Does touching Aleks' hand count? Probably. Okay, second physical touch, she guesses.

“Could I get some space to think, please, I am an hour old and doing my best to help you and I was trying to figure the answer to that exact question out before someone decided to invade my personal space,” she snaps, irritated.

Dejected castoff now looks guilty as well as he walks back to the others.

"Of course," says Kamose. "We're not going anywhere."

"Great, thank you." Deep breath. Then she turns to pace, because she's thinking and she doesn't want to be in arms' reach of any of these people, because they're all traumatized and taking it out on each other and also her.

"Okay, so," she says, picking up her previous train of thought, "we catch memories from bodies we weren't. Why would that be? That implies that there's, mm. Some level of mental connection besides merely housing the same person for a while."

"The Tides," agrees the nonhuman one.

"The... what now?" she asks, stopping her pacing.

"The Tides," it repeats. "I don't understand them very well, but our sire has harbored an obsession with them. They have colours, and represent different ways people relate to each other, themselves, and the world. Psychic links, if you will."