The Adventures of Gwen "Tracer" Allison [Valentine Z ONLY]

[Valentine Z]

The Adventures of Gwen "Tracer" Allison

This is something that I have given some thoughts about, so here it goes.

The Black Hole Incident has given one of our characters, Chief Aviator Gwen Tracer Hepburn “Fate of Existence and the Omniverse” Ellen Trixie Caitlin Foxworthy Avril Verlene Eveline Celinda Sammy Doris T-Rev Oxton Arielle Lindall Leslie Vitesse Allison, time powers. Actually, more of the fact that she was able to exist outside of time and space, and out of this game, more or less. Those that came across my character in Forum 7 will know what I am blabbering about.

Anyway, she will be going through and visiting several worlds, a third-person narrative on the adventures of Ms. Gwen. Topics and genres will vary from action and adventure, to some serious subjects (which I will try my very best to keep it serious), to sci-fi worlds from other game worlds. Basically, it will vary from down-to-Earth real-life worlds… to worlds from a literature or a video game that either everyone has heard about (or not). Some of the scenes are an accurate representation of the game/event, while at other times, it will deviate away to give something fresh of my own.

It will be updated periodically as I go along, with my University life, updates may be sparse at times. For the sake of reading and making it a “storybook”, only I will have the power as the OP to post here. Feel free to read along, and I hope you enjoy this weird fan-fiction of Gwen going through several worlds, both fictional and non-fictional. Don’t worry, it will be kept PG-13 (or even lower) as per the rules.
Occasional bad language, violence, a little bit of gore. Sexual themes will only go as far as kisses, nothing more.

The years will be in convention of actual Earth’s years, not Decimal Years that Valentine Z uses. This is to eliminate the confusion.

If you want to know more or ask about this saga, you can send me a Telegram. I’m open to it!

NOTICE
It’s all for free, but just thought I will put it here – some of the pictures are taken by myself, while others are taken from the internet. The links can be found in the raw BBCode of my posts, accessible through “Quoting”.

Some real life events are inside but for the most parts, it's fictional and will deviate away. However, in the event that storylines line-up with actual real-life events, it is simply a matter of coincidence.

RL Earth is defined as Real-Life Earth, that is, simply based on the OOC Earth, but not exactly the OOC Earth itself. Any and all inaccuracies or deviations that might be considered... deviant, is also purely unintentional, and utmost care will be given to touch and handle sensitive subjects, or best, not mentioned at all.

[Valentine Z]

World 1 – Valentine Z, Year 2045
Post 1

World 2 – Amnesia: The White Night, Year 1982
Post 2 - 8

World 3 – Real-life Burma, Year 2000
Post 8 - 12

World 4 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – Year 2525
Post 13 - 16

World 4.1 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – 1st of August, Year 2552
Post 17 - 18

World 5 – RL World – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, U.S. – December, Year 1941
Post 19 - ...

[Valentine Z]

World 1 – Valentine Z’s Earth – Year 2045

It’s been a few years ever since Chief Aviator Gwen Tracer Hepburn “Fate” Ellen Trixie Foxworthy Avril Evelin Celinda Sammy W. Arielle Lindall Leslie Allison, or Gwen for short, and one of the Valentians - 1st Cpt. Angela Stella Trista Josephine Natalie Rv. Bethany Alyssa Valeska Allyson Tan Fang Ling, took their spaceship for their spin and flew a little too close to a black hole. Angela came out more or less unscathed, while Gwen was a little stretched out – or spaghettification, as it was called. It all started with a little experiment as Gwen went out of the spaceship for a little star gazing.

“Umm, don’t you think that would be too dangerous?” Angela asked her, with a hint of worry in her voice. She has done multiple space missions before, from the nearby Venus, to faraway realms of MACS0647-JD. Despite all that, she was wary of the black holes, taking care not to veer too far into it. Gwen, on the other hand, would be the more adventurous type.

“Haha, don’t worry, Love! I did this a few times before, and it will be fine! What could go wrong?” Her voice was filled with enthusiasm, with the glowing eyes that simply scream “I want some excitement!” She was prepared to make her way out of the cockpit and into the airlock. A metallic voice boomed in the intercoms, “DEPRESSURING IN 3… 2… 1…”

All the air was rushed out of the airlock, and the lock opened up. Gwen tethered herself to the external of the ship, a click of the lock that no one can hear in space. They don’t exactly have to worry about being blasted by the Sun’s solar rays and UV radiation, given that they are more or less far away from it. The twinkling of the stars and the vast blackness of the universe felt like one of those rooms that you would go to – a dark room with mirror walls and LED bulbs set up to give you the feel of space. Except, this is much more real.

“Wow, this is beautiful!” Gwen exclaimed inside her space suit, which in turn transmitted the voice back to the spaceship, “I love it so very much! Woo-hoo!”

“Well, you are always the adventurous one of the Valentians, Gwen,” Angela remarked, “Now let’s go back before-“

As if on cue, the ship suddenly lost power. Gwen’s face turned from happy and excitement, to that of an adrenaline rush. Her smile wasn’t turned upside down that much, but her mind went into an overdrive.

“Angela! What happened?” Gwen asked, “Angela?”

The communications were down as well. The entire ship was hurtling towards a black hole without power. Fortunately for them, after 10 seconds, the electronics breathed back into power.

“Whew, that was close!” Angela exclaimed on the comms, “The EMP wave hit us… seems to be from a rather distant Gamma-Ray burst, I thinks.”

“Hah, enough sightseeing from me. Now let’s get out of here.”

As she used her tether as a way to navigate back towards the ship, a large asteroid, around 20 cm across, came hurdling towards the ship. It wasn’t enough to destroy the whole thing, but unfortunately for Gwen, it broke and dismantled the tether before she made it back in.

“Oh s-! Angela, help me!” Gwen screamed as she was dragged further and further into the black hole.

“Hang on, I’m coming!” Angela replied back, “Stay with me! Stay with me!”

Angela manoeuvred the ship such that it was facing the black hole, with its arm reaching out to save Gwen. In the meantime, the thrusters were directed backwards to escape from the pull. However, it was all too late for Gwen. Despite Angela’s efforts, the black hole was simply too strong, and Gwen was getting further away from her, given the fact that she was falling freely without any beneficial resistance from a thruster.

“I should have gotten that thruster pack,” Gwen thought to herself, as she closed her eyes, ready to embrace Death itself. With any luck, it should be a quick one, given the strong pulls of the gravity ripping her apart atom by atom.

Angela, in the meantime, managed to escape from the black hole’s pull and observed from a distance.

“Gwen… I am so sorry.”

---

Amnesia: The White Night – Denver State Hospital – Year 1980 (?)

Gwen opened her eyes yet again, and this time, she went into a state of shock and suddenly went up. She was still in her spacesuit, but somehow, she was on a bed… and in a cell. She quickly scanned around – there was nothing of interest in her small 3 m x 5 m cell; you have your bed, a small closet with nothing inside, and a table with a piece of paper on it.

“I… I was supposed to die, aren’t I?” Gwen wondered to herself. She quietly and carefully took off her helmet, grateful that whatever this place is, there is air like Earth. So… Earth?

She picked up the piece of paper from the table and had a read. Before that though, she felt weird about her body… as a result of the black hole stretch. As far as she’s concerned, nothing seems out of place. She’s still at a height of 7.5 ft, which is normal for a Valentian, but not so much for an outsider. But here? It feels like she was around 6 feet tall.

She read it, and it was nothing that significant, she thought to herself, “’Why aren’t the doctors helping me?!’ it says… Hmm… this is going to be quite an adventure. I am in a hospital, by this note alone. But… a mental one? I wasn’t crazy!”

She made her way to the door and opened it, which to her surprise was unlocked. The hallway was in severe state of disrepair, and the checkboard floors were covered with algae in some parts, and was crumbling. The place was poorly lit, and it seems like there wasn’t anyone else in this place but herself.

“Well, someone needs to take care of the place!” Gwen thought to herself. She wore back her helmet again, but this time, she lifted up the visor so that at least it won’t be interfering her. The communication module was also down, outputting nothing but static. Other systems like the oxygen and water systems still works, so if she needs a breath of fresh air or a sip of water, her suit can deliver that.

There were two ways for her to go. Going left would take her to the showers, while right would take her to a canteen. She walked towards the showers to freshen up herself, though goodness knows what kind of dirty water that she would be touching. As she made her way into the shower, she did another quick scan of the place. It was a communal shower, as in there was no privacy between the cubicles. Nothing but running showers, though one was running some red liquid. Blood would be Gwen’s guess, but she was not planning to find out.

As she stepped in, the gate was suddenly but quietly locked, only making a small clack sound. There was no one outside, and no draft to close this rusting metal gate.

“What in Dickens is this?“ Gwen uttered under her breath. No matter how hard she tried, it was locked. Gwen started to panic a little once again, though now she has more time to explore the 8 m x 8 m shower room. 4 of the 6 valves so far were jammed and stuck. Gwen was certainly not going to try the “blood-running” shower just yet, so she pulled the last one. This time, the valve was a little bit more tolerant, being able to be turned with some force. Gwen turned it off, and the showerhead was turned off. At the same time, the pressure build-up in the ceiling burst a pipe and as a result, it brought part of a ceiling down. Gwen could see the vents from where she was standing, but she couldn’t reach it.

“Well, those boulders from the broken wall might be useful,” she said to herself, proceeding to stack the boulders and to go into this hole, “Only one way out!”

[Valentine Z]

World 2 – Denver State Hospital – Year 1980 (?)

Gwen propped a few boulders and went up to the air vent, in the hopes that she would not be chased by anything that is using this place. After all, how else would she explain the fact that a metal gate closed behind her without any apparent force or strong gales? Anyway, crawling along the miraculously clean air vents, Gwen made her way into one of the openings and dropped straight back to the corridor. She made her way to the right, which would lead her to the unlocked gate towards the Canteen.

As she walked past another cell, Gwen noticed something. Her motion sensors were picking up something. It was moving towards the door, then in a sheer display of strength, whatever was behind it broke the door. The commotion broke the silence of the corridor and with that, Gwen made a run for it towards the canteen and picked up a dull knife. It was not much, but it will have to do.

Readying herself for the fight, she stances herself and was prepared to fight whatever was the thing that was behind the door. It was a 5 feet tall humanoid, though not exactly human, as far as one’s concerned. It has a grey-white skin, covered only by torn overalls. Its eyes were bulging out of its sockets, though not bloodshot. Everything about this entity was black and white in terms of colour. Its head was bulging out, like a typical alien you see in those late-night TV.

“Come and get it, you bastard!” Gwen yelled out at the creature, with a knife in her right hand.

The creature approached her with a menacing look, and with that, Gwen swung the knife towards its head, expecting it to do some damage. However, as soon as it approached Gwen’s hand, i.e. nearing its proximity, the creature disappeared into thin air, just dematerialised.

“It’s… gone. It feels like I wasn’t in any kind of danger in the first place!” Gwen pondered to herself. Could this all be a product of her imagination? What did the black hole do to her when she travelled down into it? Or was this all a play from the mental hospital? So many questions, yet… no answers. The canteen itself was uneventful and boring; just rotting food stuff and an old-timey TV that doesn’t work at all. Gwen grabbed one of the chairs and threw it in the air, which in turn landed with a thud. She couldn’t see anything from the window because of the way it was covered with metal grids, as well as that it was dark purple in terms of color. Maybe the sun was setting…

Without having the slightest idea of how she got here, she proceeded to another unlocked gate and made her way up a flight of steps, leading to another door, but this time it seemed to be a heavy wooden door instead of the metallic ones that she has been coming across on the level below. The opened wooden door leads to a huge spiral staircase, with something in the locus of the spiral. Gwen decided to take a closer look at it and there, it was a rotting human corpse with several power tools on it. She took a step back and tried her best not to gag. Fortunately, there was no smell coming out from the corpse, but the light above it was giving her the most gruesome details… for 30 seconds, anyway. Eventually, the light bulb has reached its end-life and decided to blow up… right at the moment Gwen went in.

She put down her visor and activated the night-vision, which is conveniently in her space suit. It was meant for a few days worth of supplies, so she did not have to worry on the water and oxygen. What matters is on whether she can find food in this godforsaken place.

With a sight to not behold, Gwen proceeded to climb up the spiral staircase, trying her best to conserve some energy now and then, and taking a sip of water. As far as she is concerned, this mental hospital has definitely gone off the deep end and appeared to have been abandoned for several years. Still, none of this explained the deformed entity that she encountered earlier, and how it seemed like it doesn’t belong in a mental hospital. Shouldn’t something like that go to Area 51, for the case of looking like an alien?

Either way, Gwen opened up the door at the top of the spiral staircase and came across what seems to be a huge room. The lights were present, though some of them were dim to the point of uselessness. She wanted to use her torchlight but was scared that it would attract whatever was around. Gwen turned on her night vision once again and navigated through the hallways and the patient wards. So far, it was abandoned, and messy - the common area has bed frames (without mattresses) strewn around, and the receptionist’s table was badly vandalised and turned over. Amidst all that, the flower pots were in good condition and more or less unmoved.

Gwen made her way into one of the rooms – A Patient Ward right alongside a Doctor’s Room. The latter seemed to be locked, while the former has a broken door hinges, with the said door easily opened, then fell onto the ground with a huge thud.

"Oops..."

As she made her way deeper into the Patient Wards, Gwen realised that they were all padded, i.e. to prevent the mental patients from hurting themselves against the walls. She went into one of the rooms and found a key. As she picked it up, she heard a metallic grinding noise, and some shuffling from the opposite room. It grew louder and louder, so it was time for her to make her way out. She dropped her knife in a panic, and ran into this horrible monstrosity of a… person?

It looked rather similar to the one that she came across, but this one didn’t dematerialise when touched, let alone when Gwen was near it. After all, she bumped into the freaking thing. It had shackles on its right hand, along with some chains that it managed to break free from. The right shackle was attached to the metallic bedframe, which explained the sounds.

“Ahh, bloody hell!” Gwen exclaimed and stumbled, being unable to shout and was petrified. She made a straight-line dash out of the ward and ran across the common area. Her heart was thumping louder with each step, and she could hear the metallic noises from behind. She had an advantage what with her not being tied to the bedframe, so she ran… and ran… and ran…

She made another beeline to one of the poorly lit rooms, which appears to be a rather large janitor’s room. She slammed the door shut, attached a small and inconspicuous microphone near the door, and hid behind a bunch of metal drums. Gwen thought about hiding inside of the closet, but the whatever-it-is would know that she was hiding inside. She shut off the light-switch and watched the door with her night-vision goggles. It was emitting IR, but it was still miles better to have a faint red light than emitting a blinding beam of light.

For one of the times in her life, Gwen was truly petrified. For a normally cheerful and happy person, she was certainly afraid of ghosts, or whatever that thing was. She did not have any powers to fight back – no guns, no knife, nothing. She could throw furniture at it with her strength, but that would do nothing. At least with her helmet on, outsiders would not be able to hear her heavy breathing.

The metallic grinding got closer, and closer. The motion tracker picked up something as well. 20 meters… 15… 10… 8… 5 meters away from Gwen… right outside the closet… the external mic picked up heavy breathing – not Gwen’s but from that thing outside. The noise indicates that it appears to be just standing there… waiting…

[Valentine Z]

World 2 – Denver State Hospital – Year 1982

Gwen’s heartbeats were getting faster – her suit indicates that she had a heart rate of 175 BPM at the moment, akin to someone that did a marathon. She was having cold sweats, afraid of whatever that is coming in. She usually did not feel this way when facing an enemy, but this was a new experience whereby she did not know who she was even fighting in the first place.

“Oh, bugger me, this is bad! I should have stayed in the cockpit!” she muttered quietly to herself.

There were a couple of hard knocks on the door, followed by it being completely taken down and falling onto the floor. The creature with the chains had managed to bash its way in into the closet. Gwen got quieter and was trying her best not to hyperventilate. She started taking deeper breaths, and after all, no one outside could hear her that well with the astronaut suit.

The creature snarled and opened the closet, only to find that there was nothing inside as expected. It looked around everywhere but behind the barrels, which were thankfully not illuminated by the lights at the corridor. It tried to explore further, but the chain tugged it back to the bed that it dragged along the corridor, so it went out of the closet and walked towards goodness-knows-where.

“10 meters… 20…” the motion tracker indicated. Gwen muted its output so that at least no one would pick up the beeps and blips that it would make. So, the creature should be more or less gone from now, except… the tracker now did not display anything (or anyone) other than Gwen herself. It appears as if it has vanished.

“Maybe it stopped?” Gwen pondered to herself, with her voice still a little shaky from that close call she had. However, other than the tracker, the microphones were also not picking up anything else, not even the tugs of the chains.

“I need to get into that doctor’s office… fast!” she thought to herself. There were at least two ways that she could do this – either walk slowly and carefully, or make a mad dash and hope that she could outrun and lose the creature again. She gave it some thought, and decided to go through the quiet route. After all, the last attempt of hiding and barricading herself nearly ended up badly for her.

She picked back up the microphone that she stuck on the wall and peeked out of the corridor. It was as quiet and still as last time that you can hear a pin drop. Gwen used the shadows and dark areas of the corridor to her advantage and walked along it to the Doctor’s Office. Each step was deliberate yet quiet, and with every step, she would look behind her, around her, above her, and below her, covering almost every single volume of the area so that she would not get ambushed by… whatever that thing was. She was certain that it was not a human at that point, and some sort of a failed experiment.

After 5 tedious minutes, she made it to the door of the office. She slowly unlocked the door and peeked in. Night vision and IR scans did not indicate anyone (or anything) else residing in the 4 m x 4 m room. Gwen took out a camera module from her suit, activated it, and placed it inconspicuously at a ledge, hiding it with a broken brick that she found nearby. With that, she closed the door and locked it.

“Thank goodness Angela provided extra cameras and recorders,” Gwen thought to herself as she turned on the lights. With that, the search is on… on whatever this place is, and how to get out.

The office was well-furnished, and for an old-timey place, there were a lot of papers and old documents strewn around. Most of them were patient records, which were nothing of interest as there were no around in the first place. There was a computer, but after so many tries and guesses, she simply could not get pass the login as a guest, let alone as an administrator.

As she searched around, Gwen picked up this piece of note that was noteworthy from the other documents she came across. It was a news-piece about this place:

Denver State Hospital – Shut Down!
8th of April 1982
Editor: Tanya Sztormowska

News reporters flood this soon-to-be abandoned mental hospital after many allegations about the negative treatment that the mental patients here were getting. Based on the gathered information, several doctors, including the prominent Dr. P [name was struck out] have been experimenting with the patients in order to select the type of memories that they would have them remember. This in turn caused an uprising amongst the more sane patients, who told Denver State News that they have been falsely diagnosed with diseases that they don’t even have, as well as implementing false memories about them.

Established in 1975 as a treatment centre for war victims and for the mentally handicapped, rumours of the place began circulating when the patients that were admitted to the place could not have visitors at any time of the day. Couple this with the fact that some people got straight-up missing, this was indeed a build-up with a climax that will end today.

[Handwritten, and in blue ink]
They will all pay and die for this, those bastards! [The rest of the handwriting was illegible]
- Sofia

“But… this doesn’t explain the two creatures I just came across!” Gwen thought to herself yet again. The fact that she was in year 1982 did not surprise because after all, she somehow survived the freak accident of falling into a black hole. Maybe she travelled back in time?

All of this also did not explain the fact that she would end up here. If she were to fall through the black hole as theorized, then Gwen should have died in the void of space, not waking up in some mental hospital. Was Gwen unable to distinguish reality from fiction, and this was all in her head, i.e. a dream?

“None of this makes any sense!” Gwen exclaimed, as she picked up a mug from the table and hurled it towards a nearby wall, “WHY THE BLOODY HELL AM I HERE?!” Her shouts would attract anyone within the 25 meter radius, but again, the suit managed to tone them down to muffled shouts. The sound of the shattering mug, that was still loud.

She sat on the chair for a while, collecting her thoughts. She missed Angela, she missed the Valentians. Heck, she didn’t even know if she was still on the very same Earth that Valentine Z was situated in. Cold War would still be happening according to that canon, up until Year 2000. As long as she’s still in this forsaken place, she wouldn’t know.

She took a sip of water and a breath of air from the suit’s reserves. It felt wonderful for her to breathe in something fresh and clean instead of the stale air of the hospital. She checked the camera feed from her suit – nothing but dead silence outside as well.

Gwen felt tired. She tried her very best not to fall asleep on the desk, knowing that she has to move. Checking out her suit, it actually came with 5 slots of adrenaline shots. Though, only 2 were available. She thought of taking one but then again, there is no danger at the moment.

“Maybe… just maybe 5 minutes, I don’t know. I am just utterly confused!” she talks to herself, “I need to find my way out of this mess.”

[Valentine Z]

World 2 – Denver State Hospital – Year 1982

It has been a rather uneventful 7 minutes. Gwen woke up from her short nap, feeling a little refreshed, but ultimately, determined to get out of this place as soon as possible. She looked at the broken mug and upon closer look, it appears that there was a key inside that mug. She shuffled away the broken fragments with her hand and took the key. The key itself seemed to be made out of copper, what with the shiny brownish appearance. Gwen recalled that none of the hallway doors, apart from the Patients’ Wing and the Doctor’s Office, were locked, so this had to be for somewhere else. Could it perhaps be just for the Janitor’s Closet? Then again, why would a doctor get a hold of a janitor’s key?

Gwen quickly checked the feed of her helmet camera, which again showed nothing of interest; just an empty hallway as usual. There was no sight of that creature with a bed frame as well. Whatever it is, it was gone for now. She unlocked the office and slowly opened the door, then proceeded to walk slowly along the common hall, again taking slow and deliberate steps. She quietly made her way around the hall, entering several more smaller rooms and not having any luck with finding anything – just simply projection rooms or observation rooms for the doctors to use for… whatever they were doing.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Gwen remarked, “I am so glad that they shut it down.”

She walked for a few more minutes, and found herself in front of another wooden door, which in turn looked like the door from the canteen and the spiral staircase. It seemed to have no indication or any kind of sign to show where it leads to. Yet, it seemed to be the only way out of this hall and to her relief, the key was able to unlock it.

As she opened the door slowly and walked out, Gwen also took out her visor, taking in the fresh air from outside. Well… not exactly outside to freedom, but it was a welcome change from the old and desolate interiors. She was outside the hospital, but in an alleyway that connected multiple blocks. It was a 50 meter straight route, followed by a 90-degree turn and another 25 meter route.

Gwen sighed heavily, but as a sign of relief. She embraced the pitter-patter of the raindrops on her face and her suit, which is waterproof as one of the measures for space exploration. She could not feel the breeze, since the buildings were blocking all of it... She walked slowly to savour the moment, no longer feeling the rush to get out of this hospital. She would soak in the water and the nightly atmosphere a little bit more, just standing dumbly in the rain and humming little tunes to herself. Gwen felt revitalized knowing that even in a place like this, there was rain and coolness melting her desperation and confusion away. Just for that tiny moment, she finally felt calm.

“♪ Mr. Rain… I miss you so very much! ♪” Gwen whispers to herself for a few times, “Good heavens, I sound crazy now!” she laughs a little bit more to herself. Gwen stood in the rain and walked around, walking ever so slowly towards her next destination.

“I would love to stay here! But I have somewhere else to be! We will meet again in other places, Mr. Rain!”

[Valentine Z]

World 2 – Denver State Hospital – Year 1982

After spending a good 5-10 minutes in the rain, it’s time for Gwen to make her way to the next place. It was another wooden door, but it was made cheaper and seemed to have taken quite a force. Gwen didn’t have the key for the door, and despite the weak appearance, the door wouldn’t budge. Looking around, Gwen found a railing on her right, with some parts of it broken and poorly maintained. One of the metal rods were protruding out in some funny angle and with some force and twists, it appears that it could be take out, which was exactly what Gwen did; she held the metal rod and gave it a good rotation, trying to break it apart from the foundation on the ground.

She eventually managed it – snapping the metal rod out of the ground. Gwen then proceeded to use the rod as a makeshift battling ram and struck the door several times with it, specifically at the hinges. After 3 to 4 strikes on each of the 3 hinges, the door gave way and collapsed onto the ground with a huge thud. Gwen thought of using the rod as a weapon in case there was an enemy to fight, but given the unwieldly nature of it, she would have better luck using her own fists or whatever she has around. With that, she cast the metal rod one side and made her way through the door frame and inside the hospital yet again.

As soon as she stepped in, the eerie and deafening silence took over once again, as if the pattering of the rain outside was not even there in the first place; upon checking her back, it was indeed raining outside.

“I would just stand there forever, but then again, I won’t accomplish anything!” she thought to herself, while flipping open the light switch. The lights flickered and slowly came to life, illuminating the scene that was right in front of Gwen – it was a morgue.

Most of the coffin doors were closed, while there were dried up body parts littered on the floor. As Gwen slowly made her way through this disturbing hallway, the coffin doors creaked open slowly but steadily. There was nothing around as far Gwen was concerned, who in turn was once again terrified out of her own wits. She frantically checked the motion tracker and apart from the doors and herself, nothing else was moving… well, at least not within the 30 meter radius. Taking a deep breath and mumbling incoherently to herself, she walked deeper and deeper into the hallway. The morgue (and the accompanying body parts) ended there, to Gwen’s relief. She followed further along the hallway, which ended with a 90 degree turn to the left, followed by a door 6 meters away. Fortunately for Gwen, the door was unlocked, and with that, she entered the next room.

“What the…” she stammered, but she was simply lost for words.

This was an 8 m x 8 m x 8 m room, with checkboard patterns for the floor, the walls, and the ceilings. What Gwen saw was… disturbingly out of the ordinary.

There was a green chair in the middle of the room, with a light bulb that illuminated the said chair. There was what appeared to be dried blood on the chair and on the floor. That in turn was not as disturbing – after all, this was a mental hospital, so something crazy must have happened, right?

After a few seconds, the light illuminating the floor went out, followed by another light that was illuminating the right wall. Gwen looked around frantically at the chairs on the walls, which seemed like it was stuck there with a glue like some sort of an art exhibition. The pattern of the chair and the light bulb above it was repeated on the lateral walls, as well as on the ceiling. The 4 lights in turn changed the ON/OFF status every few seconds.

“What the heck is this?!” she uttered a little louder than usual. The flashing lights, the chairs being stuck on the walls and the ceiling… none of this makes any sense to her. Gwen was literally stunned for a few seconds, not because she was traumatized, but rather because she had never seen anything as bizarre as this. She quickly went back to reality and realized that there was a door right in front of her, and there was a key on the chair (on the ground). She took the key and brisk-walked towards the door, opening it quickly and after taking one more look at the bizarre room, closed the door and locked it back for a good measure. The rest of the journey so far was uneventful yet again – almost all the rooms were unlocked, and they offered nothing of interest; the ones that were locked did not have a key, or at least Gwen couldn’t find one. She spent a good 15 minutes walking around the abandoned hallways and rooms, searching blindly for a way out.

“So many doors… no way out!” she uttered to herself yet again, “Great, I have to keep talking to myself so that I won’t feel lonely. This is a horrible feeling, I tell-“

Suddenly, the motion tracker was pinging her. There was something moving, 30 meters away from her. “25… 23…”

Gwen panicked yet again, trying to find a place to hide amongst this wreck of a place. Eventually, she found a small office space with two ways in and out of it. It seemed to be a pharmacy counter, or something. Either way, it didn’t matter much, as Gwen dashed inside and frantically (and quietly) locked both doors from the inside. The windows were frosted, but there were transparent eyeholes along with hand slots on the counters for the receptionists and patients alike, so she could be seen from the outside. Gwen quickly remedied that by switching off the lights and placing an IR camera inconspicuously amongst a stack of notes, looking out to the hallway from the front side. In the meantime, Gwen crouched and sneaked her way below the receptionist’s desk.

The motion tracker notified her once more, indicating that whatever was moving outside was now 15 meters away from her. It was at the front door, and from the IR camera, appeared not to be looking at the inside of the small office space. Instead, the heat blob (humanoid, but rather difficult to make out other features) was slowly walking towards another door and was knocking and slamming against it frantically. In the meantime, Gwen could hear some background noises, which in turn sounded like several people screaming in horror. She couldn’t exactly gauge it well, but it seemed to be coming from behind the door that the humanoid thing was slamming against. It got louder, and louder, and louder, and Gwen had to shut her ears as tight as possible. The horror screams drowned the rest of the noise, even the door slams.

“I… S… St…. STOP! STOP IT!” Gwen yelled as loud as she could, ignorant of the fact that her location would be given away. As if on her command, the screams suddenly stopped, and the door bangs were no longer heard. However, whatever was hitting that door now heard Gwen and was making its way to the back door. After several poundings on the door, the creature managed to break the door in two vertical halves, as well as dismantling the then-broken door from its hinges.

In a moment of pure, unadulterated fear, Gwen took back the thermal camera she set up and bashed through the front door, even though it was locked. The door broke and Gwen fell down along with it to the floor. After taking a quick glance at the creature (which was rather humanoid, but it seemed to have razor-sharp blades embedded in its club-like left hand), which in turn tried to swing its hand at Gwen. She narrowly missed it, though her suit’s visor took a huge scratch on its screen. Even though the HUD elements are still fine, it got a little difficult for Gwen to see thorough the scratch mark.

She quickly got back up and ran towards the door that the creature in-turn was pounding on. To her surprise, the door was in fact unlocked; the dull creature simply did not attempt to pull the door and instead was trying to push it open. Perhaps it has something to do with its club-like hand, though it left Gwen wondered on why it did not use its right hand to open it. Either way, she had little time to think about that, as she slammed the door behind her and sprinted along the new hallway for a good 60 meters. Around the 30-meter mark, Gwen suddenly felt light-headed, as if the whole world around her was spinning and trying to leave her. She pushed a few buttons and commands to inject one adrenaline shot into herself. Within a couple of seconds, she felt like a new woman, with a rekindled spirit and stamina to keep on going. She could no longer hear the frantic bangs and slams on the door, owing to the distance that she had sprinted.

At the end of the hallway, she made the only right turn and saw a flight of steps. They were poorly lit, and she couldn’t see the bottom… if there is a bottom in the first place. With the creature not on her tail, she decided to take her time to find out. She fired out an infrared laser in order to determine the distance to the bottom of the flight of stairs. It was around 50 meters, which would make for around a hundred steps. It was not too bad; after all, there is a discernable depth to it, instead of being a staircase that simply goes on forever. With that, Gwen stuck to the right side of the steps, and laterally walked downwards, i.e. she sidestepped and was watching both the top and the bottom such that there will be nothing to surprise her. She cranked up the night vision module on her suit in order to see more of the steps, while not giving attention to herself.

With the adrenaline kicking in for the duration, Gwen was able to climb down the flight of stairs rather easily and without effort. Additionally, it was rather uneventful and nothing going on. “Better to be boring than have something actively chasing you!” she thought to herself, as she reached the bottom of the stairs and opened another wooden door. It led to what appears to be a power room in a basement. The electrical supply was humming along nicely, and the lights were pretty adequate (for the first time), so Gwen shut off the night vision on her suit. She thought about taking off the suit and charging it, but there was no usable outlet at the place, as well as the fact that the hospital was too old and too primitive to have a modern charging port. She could MacGyver something in the meantime, but it would be a total waste of time for now.

“Well, good to have the lights shining the entire place every once in a while!” she thought out audibly to herself. As she made her way inside one of the rooms, she found out that it was indeed a generator inside of it. Unfortunately, her celebration lasted a total of 18 seconds; as soon as Gwen went into the room, the entire place was rumbling and shaking rather loudly.

“Oh, goodness! What is happening?!” she exclaimed, as she looked back at the door of the generator room, while covering her ears and trying her best not to fall onto the ground from the tremors. A large metallic thud was heard from the back, i.e. from the generator, as well as several of the electrical panels all popping open one after another.

After 5 seconds of eternity, it stopped. The tremors, and the noises stopped. And a few more seconds later, the whole place shuttered into complete darkness. The lack of windows certainly didn’t help.

“Ahhh, rubbish!” Gwen exclaimed rather loudly, while turning on the night vision beam once again.

[Valentine Z]

World 2 – Denver State Hospital – Year 1982

Pzzzt-BZZZT-Plunk! was the sound that the night vision module made. It was active for a few seconds, then it fizzed out.

“Drat!” Gwen exclaimed, “Must have been damaged when that twat swiped its ugly hand at me!” With the night vision out of question, Gwen had no choice but to use back the flashlight. It might attract whatever is around her, but it is still better than constantly fumbling and tripping in total darkness.

Slowly but steadily, she made her way around the rooms, trying to find a way out. After five rooms of absolutely nothing, Gwen eventually found her way out – a metallic door that could have been bomb-proof and fire-proof. It was heavily rusted on some parts, but otherwise, it seemed to be able to maintain its structural integrity rather well. No matter the force that Gwen exerted on it, the door did not budge, and judging from the parts around it, it seems like it needs some electrical power to get it up and running.

“Guess I’ll need some fuel to fire up that generator!” Gwen said to herself, as she once again was on a quest to slowly made her way around the rooms and find some fuel for the generator. At least, she hoped that there will be some fuel left in some parts. After all, there has to be backup fuel for such situations. As she made her way around the fog of darkness, there was a metallic clank that was picked up by the suit. It seemed to originate 20 meters away from Gwen’s current location. She was stunned for a second and quickly backed into one of the corners, while trying to anticipate whatever it was that made that noise. She slowly inched her way towards the source of the sound and after illuminating part of it, she was then outside of the room; in other words, the sound came from inside that small room.

“Phew, here goes nothing!” she said to herself, as she readied herself and dashed into the room. There was… nothing of interest, apart from the fact that one of the wall-mounted tools dropped due to a faulty screw. She quickly approached the monkey wrench and picked it up, hoping to use it as a weapon in case things go South. “Now why didn’t I find this room before?” she thought to herself.

With a melee weapon in tow, Gwen felt slightly braver than usual, then proceeded further down more unexplored rooms. At this point, she had little to no need to mark where she was going, because there were occasional overhead signs to lead her back to the Generator Room. Eventually, she came across what appears to be a sewer – at least, from the looks of it. Looking right in front of her, there was another room right opposite, but it was separated by a puddle that was 10 meters wide. It was pretty harmless, as long as the water weren’t deep enough in case she fell in. Aiming at the murky waters, she fired a laser beam at it, and the depth was calculated to be around… 1.33 meters. Not enough to submerge someone standing up, but would still be enough to drown.

As Gwen dipped her right leg into the “not exactly dirty but still looks disgusting” waters, she heard a shimmering sound – actually, it was a combination of low-frequency shimmering that was repeating every 1.5 seconds. She looked at whatever was causing the noise, and it seemed to be little flames… little flames that were moving towards her.

“Bloody hell!” Gwen exclaimed, as she quickly waded through the other side and made it in time. She then ran into the room and sure enough, there was a jerry can with gasoline inside. “One problem after another!” she said to herself, trying to hide in that small room, preparing to swing as hard as she could at the flame. She waited, and waited, and waited… but it did not come into the room. She waited for 30 seconds, and had enough, so Gwen went out of the room and back to the canal to check on these weird creatures.

As far as Gwen was concerned, they were little creatures that were on fire. Except, there was no creature, not from the thermal imaging, not from shining a flashlight at them. They were animated fire that somehow has sapience and were chasing her. Even more bizarre was the fact that the flames stopped chasing her as soon as the went up the water, i.e. they would only give chase in the water itself.

Tempting fate, Gwen decided to swing at one of the animated fires, at least at the base and its “head”. She lifted up the wrench and slammed it down on the fire with all her might, but to no avail. The flames acted as if they were fanned, but after 0.8 seconds, they returned back to their original state. And the fact that they were blocking her way back didn’t help.

However, Gwen had an idea: She walked along the canal, around 20 meters away, and dipped her feet into the water. The fires slowly made their way towards her and before they would touch her leg, she quickly pull it back up and waited. The fires were once again on their heels, but in the water itself. It took them a steady 10 seconds to reach her, and so she ran back to the original position, i.e. right outside the room. Gwen then splashed into the water and quickly waded her way up back to the other side of the canal. It took her 9 seconds due to the gasoline can and the monkey wrench, but she managed to evade the fires… whatever they are.

“Go burn someone else, ya twats!” Gwen suddenly exclaimed back at them, bragging a little and boasting along the way, “I only wish there was a fire extinguisher around here!”

The way back to the Generator Room was uneventful. Dark, eerie, and unsettling, but uneventful. Gwen eventually made it back to the Generator Room and with some effort, managed to fill up the generator with fuel and was starting it up. Gwen cranked the handle once and… nothing. There was some spluttering from the engine, but there was nothing else. Gwen tried it again, cranking the handle harder. The machine whirred and spluttered quietly, then it came back to life. “Let there be light!” Gwen spoke out a little too excitedly.

The lights came back in, and it was time for Gwen to make her way back to that room with the metal door. Hopefully, there would be no other switches for her to operate. She made her way towards the exit when halfway through the walk, she heard a loud roar from the back, around 80 meters away. Without hesitation, Gwen took the final adrenaline shot and sprinted towards the exit. Her heartbeats were peaking at 170 bpm, which was rather abnormal because with the shot and the way she was running, her poor heart should have been beating a lot faster. Despite all that, Gwen managed to sprint along the corridors in a whim, outrunning the growls and the roars by several factors.

As she headed towards the exit, she was ambushed by yet another creature, and this time, it was a little more humanoid, but the skin was… translucent. Gwen was able to see all its internals in slightly gory details. Worse, it managed to pin her down on the floor, subsequently attacking her with punches to the visor. Gwen took 3 hits from the creature, which all landed on the visor and/or the helmet and protecting her. As of now, the HUD was more or less broken and only the motion tracker was faintly visible on the bottom left of the visor. One more hit and the visor would crack, and thousands of glass shards will make their way onto Gwen’s face and worse, into her eyes.

However, she was having none of that. With the overdose of adrenaline still hitting her, she shoved the translucent creature one side and quickly grabbed the monkey wrench that she dropped when pinned. In one, cold, calculated hit, Gwen prepared the wrench and swung its head towards the creature. Despite its translucent nature, it had a rather solid skull and as a result of that, the sound from the impact of the wrench hitting the creature’s skull echoed throughout the generator room. There was still an audible growl in the distance, but Gwen didn’t care. Watching the creature drop on the floor, semi-conscious, she motioned and hit it once more on the head. And just with 2 hits, it lied on the ground, albeit with a lack of blood. It simply dropped dead.

“Do you want some more, HUH?! There is plenty more from me, you bloody wanker!” Gwen yelled. At this point, she didn’t care much anymore. It was the adrenaline coursing through her body. It triggered her flight system to a fight, and she eagerly awaited another one to attack her, i.e. the one that was making the growls.

The growls got closer, the motion tracker was beeping down from 30 meters to 25… then to 20… then to 15… but no matter. Gwen was there to fight, and she would make sure that she saw the end of this thing.

It was the same creature from the upper level, the one with a clubbed hand on the left. It was slightly taller than her, so she would at least have some advantage in tackling it. No problem, Gwen thought to herself. She readied herself and walked towards the creature with the clubbed hand. It attempted to swing its hand towards Gwen’s head, but she narrowly evaded it and in turn managed to hit it in the back with the wrench. It was a soft hit against the skin, with the creature’s thick skin absorbing most of the blows. This pattern repeated for 4 times, and for the last strike from Gwen, not only the creature shrugged the hit, but also managed to hit back Gwen with such a damning force that she flew back a few meters onto the floor. The visor was intact, but the visibility was severely affected, and Gwen took a few scratches from the razor blades, though just on the suit itself and not inflicted on her. She got back up, ripped off the helmet’s visor, picked up her wrench, and proceed to swung it with all her might. As the creature happened to be bending down at that lucky moment, Gwen struck it on its skull, hard. Once again, the sound of the impact of the wrench against the skull echoed through, this time even louder, and reverberating. She took another swing, and another, and another… for 13 times.

“DIE! DIE! DIE! YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Gwen yelled as loud as she could. Coupled with the adrenaline rush and her instinct for survival, she neither felt the pain nor the tiredness at that moment. All she knew was that she wanted to bludgeon that thing as hard as she possibly could, and to make sure that it stayed there for all eternity.

Not exactly tired but still exhausted, Gwen made her way back to the canal and cleaned the wrench, washing all the unmentionable matters from it. She gave a death glare at the fire creatures at the distance and made her way back to the metal door.

“What a freakshow. This place was run by a twat… A BLOODY TWAT!” she shouted, but not as loud as before. It was as if she found a new-found hatred for whoever made this place a hellhole. With that said and done, Gwen went through the metal door and took a flight of steps to the upper level. What she saw was… magnificent, to say the least.

A window to the outside. A window with sunlight filtering through it. An actual, glorious sunlight instead of the white and lifeless fluorescent lights that Gwen was walking along to. For some odd reason, the atmosphere in this place was unusually calm, with not a soul in sight or voice. There were 4-5 patient cells on each side of the corridor, but they have their doors either boarded shut or broken down.

She quickly sprinted towards the window and tried to break it open with the wrench, but to no avail. The windows, for the intent of keeping the mental patients inside, were shut off with iron bars. Gwen stopped and took a peak at the outside – amidst the sunlight, she could see trees, and some birds flying about outside. The sky wasn’t exactly blue, but bathed with the sweet, sweet sunlight.

Gwen got more agitated; she figured out that she was no longer going to explore this hospital, and was going to get out from here… one way or another. She hit the bars with the wrench, but to no avail.

She hit the bars with the wrench, but to no avail. She did this for 4 times.

“LET ME OUT, DAMN IT! BLOODY HELL!” she was screaming once again. One of the more cheerful and happy persons known to Valentine Z, was simply losing it at this moment.

“FUCKING SHIT, LET ME OUT OF THIS DAMN PLACE!” she got increasingly angrier and vulgar, and the strikes against the bars louder. However, regardless of the force that she inflicted, the bars only bent inwards instead of breaking.

“LET ME OUT! LET… me… out!” and finally, Gwen broke down into tears, dropping the wrench and sobbing uncontrollably. Her crying filled up this rather calm part of the hospital. She slumped and sat down on the dirty hospital floor and was simply bawling her eyes out.

[Valentine Z]

World 2 – Denver State Hospital – Year 1982

The sounds of her cries filled up the entire hallway and stirred whatever spirits were around. There was no danger, and Gwen did not give a care of the world at that point. She simply wanted out of this place, and it was giving her a hard time. Exploring an abandoned hospital is one thing, but an abandoned mental hospital with goodness-knows-what roaming the place was another. The oxygen system was more or less useless at this point given the lack of visor on the helmet. Gwen thought about ditching the helmet, but other than a missing visor, it was still serviceable, and the sensors inside still worked. Water systems were intact as well, and for once she was glad about it; after all, she could be filtering and boiling that sewage water, or drinking whatever water was in the showers or in the sinks.

Gwen took a look at the monkey wrench. It was pretty much dented at some parts, and a few parts on the top were chipped off. It was similar to Bioshock’s wrench, except that it had less blood stains and more dents and chipped off parts. The wrench’s handle and mechanisms were still usable, however. She gave the wrench a pat and started whispering to it, “I am so sorry, my dear friend… You protected me from those awful, awful monsters, and I treated you this way,” she let out another sob, “It’s just… I want to go home. I want to go out of this place. This forsaken place. This place that should have been torched to the ground. Please forgive me for hurting you.”

With that, she gently laid back the wrench on the ground and cried softly for 5 more minutes. Just some alone time for herself, to cope, to recuperate… to pour away all the sadness. She checked the clock on her wrist… 7.00 AM, it says. It seemed to be rather accurate, judging by the sepia-like tone that the sunlight has from the outside world. Gwen quickly dusted herself off and looked around, trying to find out what she missed in the fit of rage. Apparently, there was a door on her right, but she was not certain on where it led to. “I’m so sorry again, Love,” Gwen spoke softly, as she lifted up the wrench again and bashed the door on its lock. In one successful hit, the door broke, and she went inside the room – it was a public bathroom in a long corridor. There were around 6-7 bathtubs on each side of the room, most of which did not have anything inside. In one of them, however, there was water inside, and a shimmering key. The temperature sensors on her hand were going crazy as soon as she touched the bathtub, giving readings as high as 93° Celsius. Exactly how the water managed to stay that hot for prolonged periods of time was unknown. Well, Gwen wasted no time in trying to open the valve of cold water, which in turn was jammed with rust and age.

“Well, here we go again, Mr. Wrench!” she exclaimed, as she hit the bathtub on the side, away from her. After about 2-3 strikes, the ceramic bathtub shattered and out poured the boiling out water into the drain on the floor. She took the key just in time before it dropped into the drain. With the key in her hand, she happily walked back to the entrance of the bathroom and found a pantry, which in turn lead to a locked door. The locked door that needed this exact key.

“C-c-could it be?! Could it be here all these time?!” Gwen exclaimed excitedly. Would she be getting out of here after all of this mess? After taking one last look at the surroundings, she carefully inserted the key into the lock and unlocked it. Upon opening the door, there it was, in plain sight. Gwen pinched herself in the face, and felt it. It was real.

She got out. She was now on the second level of the balcony, overlooking the ground below. She slowly walked towards the edge of the balcony, and bathed in the majestic sunlight. She took out her helmet and took a deep breath. “Yes! I am getting out of here!”

She looked down. The device on her hand indicated a 5-meter drop, which… if Gwen landed in a bush, should be fine. However, there was a slight problem once she jumped down; there was a huge gate with fences all around to keep the burglars at bay. Anyone climbing on top of the fence would more or less meet a sharp and painful end.

Eager to get out, but still rational, Gwen started thinking of a way to get down. She walked the length along the edge of the balcony and saw one opening – a fence was broken in a place where she should be able to squeeze out of there… if she took out her astronaut suit. Granted, she had another layer of clothing, but she needed the suit for defense and to increase her chances of survival. However, she had an idea.

She jumped down the balcony and as expected, did a 5-meter drop into the bush and ended with a roll to maintain the inertia. Her technique, coupled with the soft bush and the protective space suit, have enabled her to do the roll not so much as a scratch. She approached the gate and stripped off her bulky spacesuit, while still wearing her blouse and short pants inside. She rolled up the spacesuit and proceeded to throw it in an arc, over the fence, and dropping it to the other side; she did the same with the suit. With all that done, Gwen then squeezed in between the open fence link, which proved to be rather effortless. She then picked off the grass from her suit and helmet and wore them back.

Finally, she was free. She could not believe her eyes, but she knew that she was free. She did not have the opportunity to know more about Tanya the editor from that newspaper, but Gwen finally got to meet Sofia. As in, the fact that Sofia was outside the hospital and was now aiming her gun at her.

“I got you, you backstabbing prick!” she lashed out at Gwen, “You double-crossing liar! You promised!”

“Wha? Promise what? I err, I have no idea what you are talking about!” Gwen exclaimed back.

“You knew! Or wait, maybe you don’t! You… you’re Tanya Sztormowska from that article, don’t you realise? You blubbered out to your news agency and they shut us down!”

“I… I still don’t follow! Tell you what, why don’t you make some sense?”

“Oh, you want sense? Here!” Sofia threw a rolled-up newspaper at Gwen, “The Headline, clear as black and white!”

Gwen unrolled the newspaper and read the article, the very same article that she was reading in that doctor’s office. Tanya Sztormowska… Gwen did not seem to recall someone with that name, unless it was Tanya from Intelligence Officer Jenny’s name, or Sztormowska from Adriana, Clarissa’s assistant robot. Looking at the thumbnail, it turned out that Tanya and Gwen nearly had the same face.

“So, what? She looked like me! That doesn’t mean that I did it!”

“Liar! STOP LYING! It was YOU! You ruined my experiments! You ruined everything! Now DIE!” Sofia yelled, as she fired a shot towards Gwen. At that moment in time, she was more or less unprepared and was expecting to die. Gwen closed her eyes, fully expecting to die as she was certainly not faster than a bullet. She closed her eyes… for a second… for a few seconds.

“Hm?” she opened her eyes, only to find out that the bullet had stopped midair and was near her face. In fact, the entire surrounding came down to a halt. It was as if some temporal force was stopping Gwen from dying. With that, she took a quick sidestep and dived towards a parked car nearby. She managed to escape the supposed impending death and in turn crouched near the van. Gwen then proceeded to mute her suit such that it would not make the beeping noises. Her HUD was gone, so she checked on her waist displays. A moving target, around 3 meters away from her, i.e. on the opposite the van. Anticipating the movement, Gwen slowly snuck around and behind Sofia, and swung the wrench at her. However, she only managed to do hit Sofia on the hand, which in turn knocked the gun off from her hands. Two of them wrestled against one another, with Gwen being punched repeatedly in the neck and choked.

At that moment, her suit’s automated systems kicked into overdrive and send 800 Volts of electricity from the suit, to Gwen’s gloves, and to poor Sofia. There was a loud clash similar to that of a lightning strike, followed by the attacking woman falling on her back and convulsing on the floor.

Gwen dusted herself off and picked up the pistol. 11 rounds in the chamber. She had run out of Mercy.

“I can understand why you kidnap me, taking me for a wrong person, but you should have never conducted those heinous experiments! YOU BELONG IN THAT HOSPITAL, YOU PSYCHOTIC TWAT!” she yelled so loud that some birds around the area started flying away.

“WHY KIND OF A SICK PERSON ARE YOU?” as Gwen screamed more and more at the still-convulsing woman, “No matter… I am not the one to become dark and torture you back, but… Cheers, Love. Cavalry’s here.”

BAM! She shot Sofia in the head. A clean death. Nothing more. It is indeed done.

Gwen looked at her own hands at the moment. The suit had more or less been spent, with all its systems shutting down, and the water container burst. All of its electrical components were damaged and gone.

“Well, geez, I never thought I would have to kill someone, but… I guess sometimes self-defense took over,” she said to herself, “Maybe I did those two creatures a favor by killing them, though… that one chained to the bed, poor thing. You can thank Sofia for that.” She pressed on her neck, finding no pulse.

With that said and done, she got back into that van, checking and making sure that there were no stowaways inside. After that, Gwen hotwired the van and drove off from the driveway, and along the forested and peaceful road.

She drove the van rather happily and while humming a little song at herself. She felt rather remorseful at shooting Sofia, but at the same time, it took a lot of damning effort to restrain herself NOT to shoot her. After all, all the atrocities she did was pretty paramount, and Tanya should have been hailed as a hero. At one part, all Gwen wished was for her to be safe and to live a meaningful life, knowing that she had blew the cover off of this house of horror.

[Valentine Z]

World 2 – Denver State Hospital – Year 1982

As she drove further and further into the woods, Gwen was still happily singing a tune of her own. Granted, she missed her friends back in Valentine Z, but at the same time, she was thinking of something else along the way. Her time powers, it appears, are either random, or that she accidentally managed to stop it while Sofia shot a bullet at her. Or was it all just a matter of fate, with someone or something controlling her?

“None of this makes any sense so far!” she thought to herself, “All of this is real, but at the same time, too good to be true. The fact that I not only survived a black hole, but also managed to end up here in this strange place… this strange hospital.”

It was more or less obvious that Sofia did not know who Gwen was; after all, the insane woman was shouting at her about how Gwen is Tanya. Even then, how did Gwen end up in some abandoned hospital, miles away from civilization?

“Another thought for another time, I suppose!” she exclaimed to herself, as she focused on the road and by the mileage counter, Gwen had driven 4 kilometers along this forested road. Indeed, it was her thoughts that occupied her, but the distance was made shorter by the tranquil sounds of birds chirping, leaves rustling, and the sounds of a river as she crossed a wooden bridge. At the 5th kilometer, she saw a sign on the side of a road that says “Thank You for visiting Denver State Hospital! Wish you have a great life ahead of you!”

“Pfft, anywhere out of that hellhole is a great life!” Gwen remarked, as she stopped down at the junction and proceeded to turn left. As she exited out of the road, several cars on the right of her suddenly screeched in unison, some of the cars nearly hitting her. This was followed by myriads of annoyed faces giving Gwen a look of disapproval.

“Well, I DID give a turn signal, thank you very much!” Gwen retorted back to herself, not certain as on why these people were angry at her, “Sheesh, are people in those times pissed off all the time?!”

Without giving much of a care to the drivers behind her, she hastily accelerated the van and proceeded to zip along the highway, at a comfortable speed of 60 km/h. This was all due to the fact that while the highway was more or less serviceable and road-worthy, the presence of small craters here and there would make high-speed rides a dangerous one. Most of the markers and lines have faded away, and the asphalt had several cracks on them. At the speed Gwen was going, it was a bumpy but comfortable ride.

After a few more minutes of driving, she was out from the highway and then on the city roads. As she looked around, she saw a pagoda here and there, as well as the old-looking colonial buildings.

“Wait… Denver… USA doesn’t usually have pagodas, much less this common!” she thought to herself. Looking at one of the billboards have some familiar language to it. She couldn’t read it, but she was familiar with them.

As she made a stop at a traffic light, a woman in her 40s approached her van, with some fresh flowers in her hands. “A ma yay, pan lay tway wae ma lar (Ma’am, would you like to buy some flowers) ?” she asked. That was when it hit her…

---

World 3 – Bogyoke Market, Yangon, Myanmar – Year 2000

She politely declined the flower-seller and made her way towards the entrance of the Bogyoke Market. Typically, there is a 200-500 Kyat entry fee, but this time, Gwen got the free parking. Perhaps she looked foreign and lost, which was actually how she was feeling at that moment. Indeed, Gwen has explored Yangon with the help of Valentijn, but at this moment, she simply did not have the clue of how she even got there.



“Well, might as well enjoy the scenery and the people around me, I suppose,” she said to herself, as she slowly drove past the gantry and looked for a place to park. Several minutes have passed, and she still could not find a space to park her van. She could abandon it, but then again, they would easily trace it back to her. Besides, it would not be that difficult to locate and match that van to a tall British woman. With that, she searched, and searched, and was driving around the narrow roads of the market for a few more minutes. She was considering double-parking besides someone, but eventually, she found a parking spot. She went to the back of the van and stripped off her spacesuit, while also found a set of clothes that someone conveniently left in the said van before Gwen drove it.

“Ooh, a blouse like mine! And a… skirt! Well… that will do, I suppose.”

Along with the hot weather, not wearing a space suit would at least divert away the attention. Furthermore, Gwen could disguise herself as a tourist, albeit a very, very tall one.

“Ugggh, skirt’s a little too short, but at least it looks decent on me,” she remarked.



She walked into the inner parts of the market to hide from the bright and scorching weather of the outside. She could see the far end of the market, while there were many smaller shops filling up the said inner part. Upon further looks and exploration, Gwen realized that it was actually built by the British, given the looks of the place. There were quite a lot of people looking at her along the way. For the Southeast Asians around her, Gwen was more or less a giant, sometimes being as twice as tall as some of them. At that point, she thought about bringing a video camera, or at least a camera, such that she would be able to document her exploration, and probably to share with her Valentian friends.

[Valentine Z]

World 3 – Bogyoke Market, Yangon, Myanmar – Year 2000

The afternoon sun was shining brightly and fiercely, with many of the merchants and patrons finding as much shade as possible. As for Gwen, she was still exploring around the small shops situated inside the train station, so it was still more or less cooling for her.

She looked at all the souvenirs and little trinkets with glee. They ranged from normal-looking bracelets and necklaces, to glittering and colorful jewel pieces that would command exorbitant prices. Problem for Gwen was, she had no money to spend on anything, not even for food. Worse, given that she was on a space mission with Angela when the incident happened, she did not have her wallet or any form of identity. For the normal citizens around her, she was just a foreigner. For the police, however… she was an illegal alien that made her way into the country rather easily.

“This still doesn’t make sense,” she thought to herself yet again, “How did I get from Denver, which is probably in America… to here, through a simple car trip?”

She looked around even more, taking interest in whatever items that the merchants were selling and hawking to her. She made some polite gestures, declined, and made her way back to the van.

“There HAS to be money inside that damn van!” she muttered quietly to herself. Gwen approached the van with quite an intensity, then quickly entering it and locking herself from the inside. For all intents and purposes, the van was neither too dirty nor dusty. In fact, some of its parts were rather spotless and clean for a rather old vehicle. Gwen checked the glovebox to no avail; only vehicle logbooks (which are in English), as well as a screwdriver and a plier. The cigarette tray also presented nothing, and in fact was devoid of stubs and ash. She entered to the back of the van and searched inside the pieces of clothing, finding nothing inside any of them apart from some lint. Getting a bit more desperate, she searched the more vigorously, checking every inch of the back of the van for secret compartments or the like. After 3 more minutes, she found a small opening on the floor of the van, which she pried open with the aforementioned pair of pliers.

It was a small box with a lock on it. The key was nowhere to be found.

“No problem!” she thought to herself, as she grabbed the aformentioned screwdriver and drove it onto the lock. After 4 strikes, the lock came open and with that, Gwen opened up the lid of box.

“What in the actual hell?” she quietly exclaimed.

It was a wallet with a stack of notes inside; US$ 20 notes, to be precise. She quickly looked back at the front of the van to ensure that there was no one looking at her. After that was done, she diverted back her attention to the money. By her count, there were 30 notes, making it US$ 600. Normally, someone with this kind of money in cash is asking for trouble. As for Gwen, she had the look of a tourist, so she would be more or less fine with the cash. The only precaution is to take care of herself, in accordance to the expression “There will be people trying to rob you, and it isn’t restricted by country.” She took one more look at each of the notes. As far as she was concerned, the notes were genuine, and did not seem to have any blood marks, or some surpicious powder attached to them. In other words, they seemed clean.

With that, Gwen quickly stuffed 28 of the notes deeper into the wallet, while she readied 2 of the notes for exchange. No one outside being wiser, Gwen quietly and normally got back out of the van and headed towards a money exchange. As far as Gwen sees it, the exchange seemed legitimate – it had bright neon signs all over it, and it actually used an updating digital signboard for exchanges, instead of writing on a board with some marker.

“Please convert this USD 40 into Myanmar Kyats, please,” she said slowly but surely. The transcation went well and with the exchange rate at that time, she got herself 800 * 40 = 32 000 Ks (Kyats), which should be enough to get her around in 2000 standards. 3 course meal, some money for the fuel, some entry fees… Gwen even thought of buying a camera, but being that she was in year 2000, digital cameras were not that common yet.

First things first, Gwen got back into her van and eventually drove out of the market. She seeked out for an internet café, just so that she knew what she was dealing with, if any. After 5 more minutes of drive, she arrived at this small little internet café with affordable fees. 300 Ks for 1 hour, since the internet was still relatively new at that time. Expensive, but not as bad as Gwen would thought.

Rows of CRT monitors were present inside the café, along with a handful of people. Some of them took notice of Gwen entering the café, while others were still busy browsing around the Web. She took an empty seat and began her web-browsing session. At first, everything seemed fine – Google was still in its infancy, Yahoo! was a bigger name than Google, and so on. She needed to ease her mind, on why the drivers were stunned by her at that turn. Google Maps wasn’t around in real-life 2000, so Gwen went to the next best thing – Bing Maps. Tracing back a few hundred meters, then a few kilometres, she managed to locate the turn on the map. At least, that was where she thought it was.

“Wait a minute… where is the path?” she asked, rather confused, “Maybe Bing didn’t map that!” Still undeterred, she switched to the satellite mode and there was… nothing. Just rows and rows of forests on the left of the highway, i.e. the place where she made the turn.

“That’s impossible!” she thought to herself this time, “But that would explain why those drivers were confused by me. I… teleported? Or something…”

With so many questions in her head, she took step back for a while, panning her head away from the screen for a moment. Soon after, she searched for these few terms:

Denver State Hospital. Nothing.

Denver State Mental Institution. Nothing.

Tanya Sztormowska. Nothing as well.

She didn’t hallucinate that, did she? No, Gwen thought that to herself. There were parts in that hospital where it actually hurt, and all of it was real. If that was not a hallucination, surely she must have teleported from US to Myanmar somehow, and through several decades.

“Did that black hole destabilised my body? At least that would make much more sense, seeing the current state. Would it- would that mean I might teleport again?”

She still had these questions in her hand, but for that moment, she did not want to think about them too much. Gwen would instead take the van out and go around Yangon itself, to enjoy the sights that this world would offer to her.

Gwen cleared her search history, logged off, and made her way outside to the van, whilst saying “Chay zu par naw! (Thank you!)” to the receptionist in her rather gratuitous Burmese.

[Valentine Z]

World 3 – Yangon, Myanmar – Year 2000

With little to knowledge of when the next teleportation might happen, Gwen figured that she would simply… go around Myanmar until it happens. That is all suppose that she would not get caught for not having an ID card, or any form of identity.

She took the time to get back to the van, as well as buying some roadside snacks along the way. At this point, she had 26,700 Ks with her, not counting the remaining USD that she still had in the said wallet. She drove towards Inya Lake, specifically to this place known as Seinn Lann So Pyay, or Evergreens Garden. Valentijn would never shut up about the place, so she thought that perhaps she would check out the place, or on at least what makes it such a magical place.

The car journey to the Evergreens Garden was a little slow but uneventful; the main roads were more or less serviceable and were relatively smooth, but at the same time, given the tightness and turns of the roads, no one would dare to go over 65 km/h unless extremely necessary. Upon reaching the park, parking for the van was more or less taken care of; only matter was to take care of the money she found, as well as the gun with 10 rounds still inside. After securing it properly, she exited the vehicle and lock it from the inside, while subtly letting out a small opening to unlock back the door.

She was on a small uphill compared to the garden and the lake beside it. Gwen paid for the 300 Ks entrance fee and got herself a sticker. Just like at Scotts Market, she got a few people looking at her, but that’s mainly because they were in awe at her 8-feet height. Combine that height with the shorter-than-global-average of the Asians, it was warranted. With that, Gwen slowly took the downwards steps leading to the gardens below, taking each step rather slowly and taking in the view around her. Ever since she got out of that hospital, Gwen never felt happier upon simply walking around a garden, even if the said garden is a little too small, and a little crowded at some areas and leaving little to no room for alone time. She simply took a deep breath as she walked around the paths, touching and feeling the soft leaves and flowers along the way.

“So, this is what Valentijn was talking about!” she remarked to herself softly. Next up, she slowly walked her way towards to the lake, which in turn has a few benches around the banks for couples to enjoy the moment, as well as some swing sets. As for the lake water itself, it was a little dirty from the restaurants and the hawkers that were situated along the perimeter of the lake and the garden. However, to get to the hawkers and the food, one would have to walk uphill and exit back the park, since the garden was a separate entity from the food stalls. She spent a good 15 minutes in the gardens, simply taking in the view and sanctuary that this little garden offers. There were a few people still looking at her, but again, it was simply because the locals were not exactly accustomed to seeing a tourist around these parts, let alone a tall British woman. Most of the tourists would either go to Shwedagon Pagoda or some other nearly attractions, as well as taking the charter buses to Bagan if the climate permits it.

Gwen thought about buying a camera, but this was 2000s, so it will most likely be a film-based camera, and she did not understand how teleportation worked for her. Her body was destabilised, that much was true. But how would she explain the astronaut suit and the van? For the suit, perhaps because it was in contact with her body, but if that was the case, then only herself, the clothes she was wearing, and the parts of the van she touched should made it to that turn.

“This doesn’t make sense, again,” she pondered to herself as she sat down on the bench all by herself. There were couples on the other benches, but not that Gwen particularly cared. Still in her own thoughts, she checked the time on a nearby clock. 3 PM. It’s also been a while since she last saw the usage of 24-hour system. After all, Valentine Z ran on Decimal Time ever since the terraform.

Having spent enough time here, she thought she would eat something at the food stalls uphill. She walked up the stairs, thanked the staff, and walked along the dirt road to the food stalls. There were an assortment of foods on sale, ranging from simple snacks and even carnival food like popcorn and cotton candy, to nearly full meals such as a bowl of noodles, or Mohinga, as it was called by the locals. Gwen promptly approached one of the stalls, sitting at a vacant table that were all pitched outside, all for the purpose of taking in the fresh air, as well as the sometimes fishy smell of the lake.

“One… Mohinga, please!” Gwen said to the attending waiter. While waiting for her food, she looked at the stall opposite – 3 kids ranging from 4 to 7 years old. They were all in clothes of various states of disrepair from being covered in dirt and grime, to tears and patches here and there. They were asked to leave by the owner of that little stall, on the grounds of having no cash for their food purchase.

“Kids, you have to understand, I am not doing so great today,” the owner said in Burmese, “I didn’t bring enough stock for today, and I need the money from selling all these. Come back tomorrow!”

Down but undeterred, they wandered around and strayed further from the stalls and near a carpark, bugging and begging the people around the area for cash. None of them gave them the sympathy and ignored them. Some are generous, some are not… some are just afraid that when they are a patron of the place and they gave these kids money on a daily basis, they will start asking for more along the way. It’s a combination of an income gap, lack of welfare, and indifference from a small percentage of the locals. Often, they get 100 – 200 Ks upon begging, but that was only enough for one bare-bones meal. Perhaps this was not the day for them.

“Pyan lar gae mae naw! (I’ll be right back!)” Gwen signalled and raised her voice a little (amongst the other conversations) to the stall owner preparing her food. She walked towards the kids, who in turn were a little intimidated by her appearance, but with her smile and friendly gestures, they approached her as well. She produced a generous 1000 Ks note for each of the kids and told them to spend it wisely, and not to lose it or hand it over to anyone. You can see the smiles on the kids’ face, as well as the youngest girl (4 year old) practically breaking into tears of joy.

“Chay zu Par Naw, A Ma! (Thank you very much, Big Sis!)” one of the older kids said with some shake in his voice. Perhaps this would be one of the rarer moments.

Gwen simply smiled back and motioned them to follow her. “Lar, tu tu sar lay! (Come, let’s eat together!)” she told the kids. The now-brightly faced trio followed her along, and together, the 4 of them seated at the same spot. “Naut thoun pwae par naw. (Three more dishes, please.)” Gwen said again. At this point, she was simply glad that everyone around her was able to understand her, without needing to repeat any art that she said. Perhaps the time with Valentijn and hanging out with his Burmese friends have helped quite a lot.

A few minutes of not-too-awkward silence has passed, and the late lunch was served.

Gwen ate her food rather slowly, mostly because she already ate a few snacks on her way here. On the other hand, the kids ate theirs a little ravenously but with proper table manners. Their faces simply radiate pure happiness and joy, and Gwen was feeling a little warm herself. Quickly counting her cash, she had around 21000 Ks with her, which should be enough for a few more days without a further exchange. Being the early 2000s, a trustworthy money exchange shop was difficult to find, with the first time in Scotts Market fast only because it was a tourist spot itself. In the meantime, Gwen simply smiled back at the kids as they finished up their food, their bellies filled up for the whole of afternoon, until dinner.

Even after a short 10-minutes lunch, the kids said their many thanks to Gwen and after a quick group hug, went their separate ways. The kids walked back their way home, while Gwen would stay and walked along the Inya Lake. She walked a good 200-300 meters along the lake, taking in deep breaths of a combination of fresh air and fishy smell. It doesn’t faze her, since anything out of that damn hospital is a good one.

Along the way, she came across a street hawker that sells various snacks, mostly Burmese snacks. Gwen bought a packet of potato chips for 150 Ks, which she actually tried before again with thanks to Valentijn. The chips were cooked in oil and with some salt sprinkled, but other than that, that was it; no preservatives, and no other additives that one would find from manufactured brands. She then found herself a free patch of grass and sat down, while contently enjoying the chips and watching the life around her – couples romanticising each other (but just with simple kisses, hugs, and love talk), families having a picnic with the adults sitting around the mat and having a chat of their lives, as the kids run around in circles and played catch. A peaceful evening, just as Valentijn would like it.

After all, this was his place of peace and tranquillity before the nuclear war wiped out all of it. Indeed, terraforming has more or less repaired the land along with the relevant landmarks and some man-made buildings. Clarissa managed to map nearly all of the entire planet to rebuild them bit by bit, though some parts were left out. As for this place? It was strange knowing that she was in another parallel – a parallel where Cold War ended in the 1991 through de-escalation, not through every single nation firing nuclear bombs at one another. She slowly watched the sun go down onto the horizon and setting off, along with many other couples along the lake.

[Valentine Z]

World 3 – Yangon, Myanmar – Year 2000

The sun is setting, people are making their way back home, and most importantly, Gwen ran out of potato chips. It was time for her to go to a hotel, for the lack of a home right here. She slowly walked back to the parking lot and back to her van. She opened it by placing her palms on the slightly opened window and forcing it down to roll.

“If only I have the keys for this damn car,” she thought to herself, being careful not to say it out loud for everyone to hear. Initially, she planned to go and seek out a hotel, but eventually, she figured out that she would might as well enjoy the whatever time she had before being transported to another strange dimension. In other words, Gwen decided to go for a roadtrip around Yangon, and wherever else the roads would take her.

Fixated with her decision, Gwen got back out of the car and went to the reception and information booth at Seinn Lann So Pyay. She asked whether they have a tourist’s map of the place and a pen. The receptionists smiled back at her and politely told Gwen to give them a few minutes. In the meantime, Gwen spent the waiting time looking at the potted plants, as well as the many, many shrubbery and trees that were all over the garden. One would imagine that it will be a blessing to live nearby, so as to visit the garden on a daily basis.

The receptionist came back out of the office and announced to Gwen, “All done, Ma’am!” she produced a plastic file with some papers inside of it. The papers were printouts of the map of Yangon, as well as some neighbouring areas. A blue ball-point pen and a yellow highlighter were also clipped onto the file, with more than enough ink to draw lines and paths on it.

"Thank you so very much!" Gwen replied back with excitement in her voice. With that said, she handed each of them 500 Ks for helping her out, "Please, keep the change. Thank you once again!"

Saying their goodbyes and well-wishes, Gwen walked back up the stairs and back into her van. Opening up the cockpit light of the van, she decided to look through the maps and plan her route. As much as she loved to travel around, she figured that it would be good if at least knew where she was going, as well as the fact that if she went to some places several times in a row, much less in a van, people are going to get extremely suspicious about it.

After 5 tedious minutes of planning, Gwen finally did it. She thought that this optimal route would give her an ample view of the nightscape of the city, while trying to as minimise being on the road as possible. She would leave the gardens at 6.20 pm and by the time she reached Shwedagon Pagoda, it would be around 7.00 pm. Gwen was aware that most of the places in Yangon close shop by 9.00 to 9.30 pm, so she would have to haul around as quickly as possible without if she did not want to explore around an empty city. Granted, there was more Yangon than the drawn-up plan, but the Southern areas have been more or less explored with thanks to Scotts Market, as well as accounting for the fact that she would randomly teleport.

The plan was quickly set into motion and rejoining the wires of the van, Gwen proceeded to drive out of the parking lot and along the route as planned. She was going at an average of 30-50 km/h due to the nature of the roads, but there were times when she could go up to 70-80 km/h without any problems. Additionally, the lack of heavy traffic on the road helped as well; the traffic problem in real-life Yangon did not appear until 2014, whereby the falling price of cars meant that more people could afford it, resulting in a traffic jam so severe that walking would be a much better option at times. The journey to Shwedagon Pagoda went well as far as she was concerned. There were no traffic jams, the roads were more or less lit well, and her van was still going strong. One thing she feared was the lack of a driver's license, and as for that, it was only a matter of time before an officer pulled her over.

She soon arrived at the Pagoda's parking spot, which was paid with an easy 300 Ks. She parked it at a free spot and removed her shoes. It was a rule that those who visit and walk on the pagoda must remove their footwears. As for her outfit, it was more or less fine, even if a little untraditional; Burmese girls would usually wear a blouse with htamein - an ankle-length wraparound skirt worn by both males and females. Ultimately, the rule of thumb is to cover one's body and not be promiscuous around a place of worship. As far as Gwen was concerned, her entire upper body (save for her arms) were covered with a blouse, and the skirt was also rather long that it tends to brush against the floor at some parts. With that, she made her way to the entrance and after a quick glance, the security guard let her into the pagoda.

To say that the pagoda was teeming with night life was an understatement. There were several little shops along the entrance, ranging from selling toys and snacks, to religious artefacts and fragrant sticks. The aroma of flowers has also encompassed the corridors. Gwen proceeded to the gantry, whereby there was an additional check done by the security, particularly on the items that the visitors carried to the pagoda. Being a religious place, Gwen was smart enough not to bring her pistol into the pagoda, that is, she was only carrying some notes and a bottle of water that she bought back in Inya Lake.

“All right, ma’am, you’re good to go. Please enjoy,” the security greeted her with a small smile on his face. Gwen smiled back at him and with that, she went up to the main level of the pagoda.

The view was lit up by the golden brightness of the pagoda, standing majestic in its glory. Couple all of this with the cooling evening winds, and it made for a quiet and blissful night. The only sounds that one could hear were the chiming of the decorative, as well as the soft and meaningful chants of the pagoda’s visitors. Gwen certainly was secular, but she knew enough from Valentijn to give the respect and not to offend anyone by accident; after all, she already got the dress-code down to the details, among many other common rules – no swearing, no placing the feet in the direction of the pagodas, as well as any other acts that would be deemed indecent. She was simply there for a relaxing and cooling night, as with the idea of many of the tourists around her.

There were a lot of people as well – both the natives and the tourists, though the natives definitely outnumbered the tourists. Children and adults alike sitting on the floor and doing their nightly prayers, while also slotting some notes into the donation boxes.

“There is definitely peace and quiet in this place. I feel at peace… just… simply at peace,” she whispered to herself, while looking around and taking in the environment. No fighting, no shouting… just people going about their nightly prayers, as well as tourists taking in the atmosphere and taking some photos. Unlike the modern days, there was a certain kind of focus that the cameraman of the group had; it was as if he was trying his very best to make the shot count instead of taking multiple shots. Such was the case with the film-based cameras.

After a few seconds, Gwen decided to get back up and make a move on, proceeding to circle the pagoda a round or two for a total of 15-20 minutes. Shwedagon Pagoda has always been very majestic in the photos, but here in front of her eyes, it is simply inconceivable. Along the way, she made some donations into the various boxes, ranging from donations from maintenance costs, to electric lights, to offerings to the monks.

A few more seconds have passed, and the PA systems have opened up a religious chant. A blessing to hear for everyone, it was meant to cast aside all the danger one might face, and to let the good things come their way. She did not understand the chant, but she certainly felt at peace about it.

“No wars. No fights,” Gwen repeated to herself once again, “If only the world did not end that way,” referencing the nuclear strikes that occurred in Valentine Z.

Eventually, it was time for her to go. She has spent a good 35-40 minutes at Shwedagon Pagoda, and she figured that she would stick to the plan, i.e. to go to the other pagodas and landmarks in Burma.

Feeling the peace at heart, she slowly made her way back down from the pagoda through a series of escalators. Her feel could feel the metallic nature of the escalator, and she was trying her best not to get anything caught in the escalator steps. Carefully making her way down, she passed through a series of merchants once again, finally stopping by to buy a bunch of flowers – a few strings of jasmine flowers. She bought it for a nice 200 Ks, but she handed the merchant a generous 1000 Ks.

“Please keep it,” Gwen said, giving a rather hearty smile to the merchant herself.

Gwen then happily took the flowers for herself and went back to her van, hooking the said strings of flowers on a rear-view mirror.

“Now this car just became a little more… Burmese!” she remarked to herself, “After all, the jasmine flowers are really popular here!”

[Valentine Z]

World 3 – RL Yangon, Myanmar – Year 2000

Gwen rewired the van again and after a short stall, the vehicle started, and it was time to hit the road once again. As marked on the map, she drove her way around Kandawgyi Park, which was basically a much bigger version of Seinn Lann So Pyay Gardens. This time, there were more people around, but other than the usual couples, there were quite a lot more huge gatherings, ranging from simple 4-6 friends, to a whopping 30+ people gathered around for some party games. Even looking out from the van, Gwen could tell that the park was teeming with activity. As she made another turn and around the park, there was a large playground, all wrapped around a couple of trees. Most of the platforms were made out of wood, while there were rope bridges across trees, metallic tubes to slide down on, amongst many others. The wooden pieces were not exactly painted, at least from the spotlights that shone the place, but still, it does not exactly matter if there were still kids playing on them. Another turn took Gwen to the big restaurants, as well as the small little vendors and hawkers, all selling various items from normal food stuff, to toys, to refreshments. It was a normal day for everyone, at least for 2000 standards in Yangon.

She continued driving according to the route that she had planned earlier, taking in the sights and the night life that Yangon has to offer. At least for the time being, there were still commotion and busyness along the street, since the roads only get desolate at 9 to 9.30 pm. Checking the clock on the van, it was currently 8.20 pm, so if she made it in time, she should still be able to window shop around the mall. A few more minutes of uneventful driving, she arrived at the mall, with the parking fee paid and well. After paying for all the food, as well as some fuel for the van, she realised that she ran out of Burmese money. All she had left were US notes, which she would be lucky if the mall has a money exchange.

Gwen got out of the car, “locked” the van, and proceeded to make her way into Myanmar Plaza.

It was such a pleasant sight once again, to be surrounded by people around. Initially, there were quite a lot of looks from everyone, given Gwen's height, and for the times, a tourist in Myanmar was still not that common. Still, after giving her some attention, they went back to their own businesses. Gwen, in the meantime, wondered about the food that she could buy, as well as some clothes. After all, she has been in this dress for a day, and she still have not taken a shower ever since she into Angela's spaceship. The deodorant could only get her so far, but this is a detail for another time. So far, everything around her just seem to excite Gwen because after all, she is described as enthusiasm personified, ready and eager to do anything to brighten her day, and those of people around her. She was simply waving happily and smiling at everyone around her, though she practiced caution to make sure that no one get near her too much.

As she was looking around, she turned into some isolated corner of the mall, and into this little textile shop. Gwen suddenly clutched her head, while trying her best not to scream. She was struck by a rather nasty headache, as if someone was piercing an icicle directly into her skull. She slowly walked out of the shop, but the pain was getting unbearable until she fainted and fell into a pile of clothes. It felt comfortable for Gwen, for a good 5 minutes or so, coupled with the fact that her headache was more or less gone.

Upon waking up, Gwen opened her eyes and see nothing. She was certain that she definitely opened her eyes, and she was not going blind moments before fainting into a clothes basket. She got out of the basket and slowly waded her way through the sea of darkness, with no flashlights or candles to help her out.

“Geez, you would think they would thoroughly search the mall for people like me,” she thought to herself. She eventually walked into a wall and felt blindly around for a few seconds before finding the light switch.

“Woo, let there be light, again!” she quietly exclaimed as the texture shop was bathed in fluorescent light once again. And the scene was… normal, actually. Unlike the hospital that she got into, there was nothing bloody or no monsters around in this shopping mall. The texture shop was empty, just like the other shops in the mall. She simply fainted and fell without anyone knowing, and then she was trapped in the mall; the place was locked up from the outside and the shop owners called it a day. Still, she could only guess on the origin of the headache that plagued her for that few seconds and made her faint. She was only thankful that she did not get kidnapped or was taken to somewhere else. The time currently was 12.15 am, and not a single soul in sight throughout the whole mall.

“Well, you know what this means!” Gwen exclaimed to herself again, this time a little louder than previous, “The whole mall’s clothes are mine to try!”

Switching on almost every light switch that she found, Gwen went on a non-shopping spree, that is, she was soon busy trying out new clothes from the shops. After she was done with each of the clothes, she would then place them back in its rightful place, even as going far as to fold it back properly. She would also look around other departments and shops, looking at the radios and TVs that the 2000s Yangon has to offer, as well as grabbing one of the toy shotguns and dual-wielding them. “Death comes!” Gwen exclaimed in her rather deep voice, imitating one of her colleagues/enemies that she encountered in her own universe, “Hahaha, this turned out rather well!”

She also tried to read a few pieces of literature that she found – from children’s textbooks and comics, to non-fictional reads. Unfortunately for her, she still could not read Burmese that well and as a result, she could only look at the pictures in the books and infer from them. Overall, books did not happen to be that much of a joyful experience for her. Along the way, she double-checked for security cameras, in case someone caught her goofing off. Lucky for her, there were no such cameras. With that, Gwen then grabbed one of the mannequins from a men’s clothes shop and pretended to have a conversation with him, even going as far as to sit it down and converse with it.

“I know you are a little stiff and all, but hey, you got a rather smooth face, haha! HAHAHA, smooth, get it?” Gwen laughed rather heartily, clearly amused by her own jokes, “Hey, I have to learn how to have by all by myself here, you know?”

More and more hours have passed, and Gwen was still as happy as ever, even if a little tired. She realised that this shopping mall in turn has a hotel right on top of it; it was simply a matter of going to the receptionist area and checking in there.

“One hotel room, please! Say, er.. do you accept US Dollars? I am running short on Kyats,” Gwen told the receptionist.

“Sure, Miss! That will do just fine,” the receptionist replied back with a flash of his own smile. Gwen paid for the room, as well as for some of the room services. The hotel was not too shabby, albeit not very fanciful either. The rooms were still very quiet, given the fact that most people like to sleep away their Saturday mornings. After taking a refreshing and cooling shower, as well as washing away all the impurities and the dirt, Gwen changed into a pair of fresh clothes that she purchased - a blue pinafore dress with light blue blouse inside. The skirt below was a little too short for her, but as long as she dressed decently, she could get away with it for non-pagoda/non-religious areas of the city.

Closing the curtains and darkening the room, she threw her old clothes into the laundry basket and lied down on the bed. The soft and cool sheets and mattresses lured her into a deep sleep rather quickly, and just like that, Gwen fell asleep.

Yangon Times - 8th of February, 2000. 10 Kyats.

Tourist Missing! Search Revealed Nothing To Reveal Her Identity!

In the afternoon of 7th of February, the hotel staff of Myanmar Plaza Hotel were astonished to find out that their hotel room was locked from inside. This was not a surprise on its own, since it was at first assumed that she went off somewhere else. However, to the surprise of the staff and the police, at approximately 13.30 (1.30 PM), the British tourist was nowhere to be seen. The police at first ruled it as fare/hotel fee evasion, but the staff added on that the tourist paid for the room in advance, for exactly one day. When the room service failed to get any response from inside for a good 50 minutes, the hotel manager opened the door using a master key, to the scene of a missing person. The strangest of fact was that a good US$ 500 (in $20 notes) were found inside her drawer, and there seems to be no sign of violence or struggle going on in the room at the time before disappearance. In fact, all of the tourist’s belongings were left around, from the old set of clothes in the laundry basket, to money and other items that she gathered her time here.

A white van was also seen parked, with the door previously locked from the inside. It was soon found out that this might be the tourist’s car, though the question was on why she hotwired her own vehicle in the first place. The vehicle also has no indication of being driven in Burma, with licenses and other papers originating from United States of America. It was first seen at Scotts Market, with the merchants describing an extraordinary tall tourist woman walking about and buying some items here and there. The same van and the woman was later sighted at Sein Lan So Pyae Gardens, with 3 children that soon joined her and with her buying food for them. The kids were left unharmed and went about their own way after eating their dinner. The van also visited Shwedagon Pagoda, though the witnesses and staff described the tourist as of normal and harmless intent.

The van contained a few clothes of different variations, though nothing was as noteworthy as the pistol with 10 rounds left in it.

Authorities put this case as Low-Medium threat, in the sense that while we have absolutely no idea of this tourist’s intent, the possession of a pistol is something of a concern.

No pictures of her was found, with all the descriptions portraying a woman with stylish hair, and cheerful eyes.

Name: Unknown.
Age: Around 20-25.
Height: 7 feet.
Weight: Unknown.
Eyes: Brown Eyes, as described from multiple witnesses.

Last seen at Myanmar Plaza Hotel, at around 8 AM when she first checked in.

[Valentine Z]

Gwen rolled around the bed, which seemed to get a little bit more comfortable since that afternoon. She was woken up by the buzzing sound of an alarm clock.

“Oh, bloody hell! I don’t remember setting an alarm this early!” she exclaimed to herself, “All right, all right, I am awak-“

Her sentence was quickly cut short by her amazement and surprise. She was certain that she was not in the hotel anymore. At least, not in the one in Burma. This place, the room that she was in, looks pretty slick, futuristic, and more or less chromed. The bed was barely enough to accommodate her height, even when she was sleeping diagonally. At this point, Gwen was more or less unsurprised by waking up in an unusual place.

“Again, really? Okay, where am I now?” she thought to herself. On the nightstand was a landscape-oriented tablet, currently showing the time of day. 09:08, it says. Noticing the lack of buttons on the slick and streamlined tablet, Gwen ran her finger across the screen a few times to explore other options. The clock display simply slides to the left and made way for the date display. It was first displayed in a format that she could not fully understand, but after a few seconds, it shows the date in the standard Earth format: 8th of January, 2525.

“2525?!” she exclaimed, “That’s a good 485 years ahead of Valentine Z! But… the time.” The time indeed indicates that she is probably not on Valentine Z’s Earth anymore... or on Earth for that matter, unless there was another terraforming within these 485 years?

“Okay, okay,” Gwen muttered to herself, trying to calm down before being overwhelmed by the environment all around her. She quickly checked herself, and other than her clothes, there was basically nothing carried over from the previous universe.

At the opposing wall from the bed was the TV, and it was turned on automatically. Rather, it turned on simply to announce some news here and there, as the voice of a 30-something weatherman boomed in from the TV.

“Good day, boys and girls of Reach! Wait, why did I just say that? Wow, that’s weird, haha, I just said the planet’s name. Anyway, today is yet another splendid day in New Alexandria, and seems like we will have a rather good weather all day long, and rainfall is not expected at all. As always, do stay safe, and with that, are today’s news.”

“Thank you very much, Maxwell, and with that, I am Lucille, here to give you the latest news so far. Well, in one part, Traxus Heavy Industries seems to be taking a rather huge step-up from their usual production rates, to accommodate for the increasing rate of construction being done here in the city center…”

The news sort of faded into the background, with Gwen reaching for the touchscreen remote to turn down the volume a little. She simply did not see the need to listen to all of these news, given the fact that she would more or less be around in this place for only so long.

World 4 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – 8th of January, Year 2525

“Well, this is the place, hm?” she wondered to herself yet again. The bigger question she had in her mind was on how she got here and slept through in the first place, without anyone being suspicious on her. As far as she’s concerned, Gwen is simply a nobody in this new planet, and worse, she neither has the money to buy some meals for herself, nor the identification card to make her way and identify herself to the authorities should the need arise.

She walked around “her” home, admiring the design and the amount of money that must have went into making this single room alone. Additionally, Gwen was thinking about how she managed to get a hold of this room in the first place. It certainly was not a hotel room, given the more personalised touch in some of the areas, as well as the fact that Gwen did not have any form of ID with her. As aforementioned. With the questions still lingering around, she figured that she would make her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth, or at least try to.

The bathroom was also spotless and clean, adhering to the rest of the house itself. She took a random toothbrush, taking a quick sniff at it to make sure that it was clean. After brushing the teeth, and somehow not feeling the stomach-ache at all, Gwen wondered if something was wrong with her stomach, if anything at all. Ever since she landed in that mental hospital, and eventually to Burma, till now, she never felt the need to go to the toilet. Still, that would be the least of her worries, as she quickly washed her face and made her way out of the room. She removed her shoes back in Burma, so Gwen simply took a pair of shoes from the cabinet - a running shoe that is a cool lavender in color, which would more or less mismatch whatever she was wearing on the top. Still, after trying it on, it was rather comfortable, as well as fitting her feet just right.

With that all done, it was time to leave the room, hoping to come back here at one point. Fortunately, the door was a simple magnetic lock that was opened with a click of the button from the inside. The corridor was rather empty as well, indicating that Gwen woke up too early. Other rooms along the corridor seemed to be locked, at least from the sight, with the door handles flushed into the door itself. Using the EXIT sign, Gwen simply walked along the corridor and into the lift lobby, whereby a few people were also waiting along with her. On the top of the lift reads “40”, indicating the floor that Gwen was currently on. As for the people in question waiting alongside her, they were looking up, amazed by her now-10-feet stature. Gwen was more or less spaghettified by the black hole, but back in the previous universe, she only measured 7 feet. Was this universe smaller than the previous one?

That aside, one of the residents waiting for the lift, a young man in his 30s along with his family, took a few looks at Gwen and commented on her rather lightheartedly, “Well, Ma’am, never seen anyone like you, really. You’re certainly rocking that old fashion today!”

“Ahh, haha, thank you!” Gwen replied back, blushing a little. A few more seconds have passed, and the lift has arrived – the one where the lift’s walls were opaque and you cannot see the outside. The lift ride was uneventful, and as the lift went further down, more and more people joined in, all of them giving quite a glance at Gwen for her height.

“My friend, how is the weather up there?” one of them joked around.

“Same as us, stupid! The weather’s not that different between us and her.”

“I was joking, you nut. You don’t have to take it that seriously, man!”

Ding! The lift finally arrived at Level 1, with all the residents going their separate ways – some went to the cafeteria, some went to the restaurant for a more grand and complete breakfast, and others simply went out, probably to go to the city area. A few of them were simply sitting and waiting around the main lounge, most likely waiting for their friends or their loved ones.

As Gwen was walking towards the exit, a couple of security guards emerged from the room and walked towards her… at least at the first glance. Gwen took a small gulp and prepared herself, but fortunately, they were simply making their way towards the lift to answer a domestic disruption in a room.

“A house break-in? Ahh, all right, we will be there, Ma’am! Please give us a moment.” one of the guards talked on his walkie-talkie.

“Oh, crap…” Gwen thought to herself, “It is someone’s house! I think I should get out of here slowly and surely.”

Gwen swiftly exited the room and now found herself at the coastal area. The skyscraper condominium was right behind her, while at the front, the beautiful city skyline awaits her. The only problem was, there is a river of water that separated her from Caracalla Park, where she was currently on, as well as the condominium that she just got out from. Fortunately, from what she has found so far, there is a ferry service that would take people between Caracalla Park and the city center of New Alexandria. The only problem was that she needed to wait 20 minutes, since she missed the last one.

[Valentine Z]

World 4 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – 8th of January, Year 2525

After waiting for a good 25 minutes, the ferry finally arrived, and Gwen was the first one to board. The ferry itself was not very noteworthy, being a rather expensive cruise ship but smaller to make its way around the small river. Gwen got a few more looks due to her height, but all of them did not seem to mind. She quickly took the front seat in order to get more leg space.

“Welcome aboard, Ma’am! Say, you certainly are a tall one!” commented one of the younger staff, who has quite a jolly tone in his voice. He then shifted his tone a little louder to address everyone else, “Next stop, City Hall! Please prepare your un-boarding in advance so as not to inconvenient the other passengers, and as always, do take care of your belongings!”

The ferry ride across the river to the heart of the city was not too spectacular. After all, the water was not that sparkling, and the weather was a little cloudy despite the previous forecast. Gwen looked her fellow passengers, who were all busy using their smart devices, or in their own virtual reality. The technology has certainly advanced so much in the future, a huge contrast from the 2000s Burma that she just got off from. The ferry service took only a good 10 minutes to arrive to the other side of the shore, and Gwen disembarked out from the ship and towards the checkpoint. This spelt trouble on all accounts.

“Damn, I don’t have anything! This is going to be really bad!” Gwen thought to herself. Though, it did go well for the first few minutes, but mostly because it was a matter of queuing up. The check-in area’s line was teeming with people trying to make their way into the city center for their daily work, for their own leisure, or just about anything else. It felt like entering a different country altogether, considering the system that was set up. Gwen waited for a good 6-8 minutes, ignoring the (not-too-suspicious and not-too-glaring) looks that a few people gave her along the way. The idea of a 10-foot tall woman was simply a strange one, even in the future.

Eventually, a group of policemen and security guards walked their way to Gwen. Two of them were armed with their standard-issue armor; one of them is equipped with an assault rifle, while the other one with a SMG. The head officer, in normal police uniform and a service magnum in his holster, was the first one to talk to Gwen.

“Excuse me, Ma’am, but would you mind if you come with us?” The young but senior officer asked nicely, “Oh no, you’re not in trouble, Ma’am; we are just wondering where you are from.”

“Well, certainly!” Gwen accepted and followed them. Not only because she had nothing to do at the moment other than to explore, but also because if she were to run away or do anything suspicious, she would simply get a bullet to the leg or anywhere that the officers shoot her. It took them a few seconds to enter a police-only security zone, followed by the officers leading Gwen into this small interrogation room. She also scanned her fingerprint along the way, possibly to be used for her identification later. She sat down on the chair, with her legs sticking out to one side given her height.

The interrogator broke the ice, with a simple salutation and a genuinely friendly demeanour, “Good morning, Miss… err…”

“Gwen. Gwen “Tracer” Allison. Though you can certainly have my full name if you like.”

“Ahh, that’s all right. That will be for some other time. I am Sergeant Axel,” he got up for a moment to shake hands with Gwen, “Well, this won’t be the typical interrogation that I would be doing, really. Actually, don’t even call this an interrogation; think of it as something of curiosity.”

“Haha, well, of course! I understand on your part as well, ensuring security, you know?”

“Thank you, Ms. Allison. You will certainly make our job easier. So, here is the deal, actually. When you boarded onto that ferry and arrived at the city checkpoint, our cameras noticed something peculiar. See, when someone entered onto planet Reach, they have to do a compulsory registration and they simply could not run away from it. For you, on the other hand… our system could not find out who you are. Please don’t take this as an accusation, but outside of illegal entry, we have no idea how you got here.”

“Ooh? Well, I will tell you more later. Please do evaluate more.”

“Ahh, right. Another thing was, we received an escalated distress call from the hotel that you just got out. Apparently, a woman similar to your appearance – in other words, possibly you, had break into someone’s room and took a pair of their shoes. Is that true?”

“Hm hm, yes. If I told you where I am from, you will probably not believe me, Sergeant Axel. You will in fact think of me as a crazy person.”

“Well, this is 26th Century! I’m sure there won’t be much around to surprise us, haha! Do tell me.”

“I am Chief Aviator Gwen Tracer Hepburn “Fate” Ellen Trixie Caitlin Foxworthy Avril Evelin Celinda Sammy Wv. Oxton Arielle Lindall Leslie Allison. A very, very long name, I know. Do.. do you need time to write all that down?”

“Ohh, nah, I will get the transcript from the recordings later, that’s fine. Do carry on.”

“Right, I am from this little place called Earth, though I’m not sure if this world’s Earth is the same as the one I came from. I… I am a time-and-space traveller, whose body was rather unstable from entering a black hole.”

“Well, that is certainly very new. I have no good reason to believe you, Ms. Gwen, but from your looks and genuine confusion, I will say that you are genuine. Parallel worlds? There are other worlds?”

“Yes. I have spanned through Burma, a place on Earth, in the Year 2000, and before that, I was out from the abandoned mental hospital. So from there, I was finding my way around this horror-ridden place and…“

The story went on for about half an hour, with Gwen explaining every little detail of her trip till here, while the sergeant did not seem to mind at all; in fact, he was rather fascinated by the story and attentive throughout, even if unbelievable at first. Her life was like an adventure in a storybook, spanning several worlds both in real life and in what seems to be works of fiction in some other universes. During the middle of one of Gwen’s sentence, a knock on the door was heard.

“Come in!” Sergeant Axel called out, raising his voice a little.

“Ahh, Sgt. Axel,” another young police officer in his uniform came in clutching a clear manila folder, “Here are the bunch of papers that you requested from the fingerprint. The results might… vary a little.”

“Köszönöm, Private! Good work there!”

For the next few seconds, Sergeant Axel flipped through the papers, reading about this woman right in front of him. “Lena “Tracer” Oxton… operative of Overwatch?”

“Well, that was rather close. Not exactly my name, but the nickname and the last name are familiar!”

“It was definitely you, Gwen. Or… from your story, another version of you. Anyway, do give me a few more moments.”

As he read through it, he got more and more fascinated, and at other points, his facial expression changed from that of fascination, to confusion and bewilderment. A bead or two of sweat was forming on his forehard, prompting him to take out his beret for the time being. It was like a reader that engrossed in a storybook, and got more and more dazed by the sheer amount of facts in front of him.

“But… you… Overwatch? That was… that was from the end of 21st Century! We are in 26th now! This, this is a lot for me to take in, Ms. Gwen. Unfortunately, none of us here know about you anymore. Around 440 years have passed since those events. I am also certain that you are celebrated back on Earth, so I am not discrediting you, don’t worry about that. You said you were from… Valentine Z, which took place in 2040?”

“Ahh, yes. I think now might be a good time to mention that I did not originate from Valentine Z. Rather, I was sent back by Overwatch to prevent a Cold War, as I have told you-“

“Oh right, right… please excuse me. So you were from Overwatch, sent back to Valentine Z, then you got destabilised by the black hole?”

“Uhh-huh.”

“Well, that definitely explains the security distress. So you somehow teleported inside the room, and thus there was no sign of temper or hacking on the lock itself.”

“Yes, that is basically it.”

“Very well,” the Sergeant let out a rather big sigh, “I’m sorry, it wasn’t at you. It was just too much information for me to take on. I have never seen a time traveller before and in fact… we don’t exactly have such a technology here. I’m surprised that someone from 2075 managed to do it, then didn’t pass down the information.”

“Ohh, haha, about that… Overwatch classified most of the stuff, and let’s just say that they were really efficient when it comes to wiping out certain stuff.”

“I.. I think I can let you go, Ms. Allison. You certainly don’t mean any harm, I can see from that. In the meantime, I will give you some credits, which I hope you can use around the city so that you have the necessities for yourself. 2000 Credits will last you for a good while, you can buy around 257 Moa Burgers with them. Trust me, it is a good delicacy.”

“T-thank you so much for the money, but I have to ask you something,” Gwen said, while trying her best not to sound untrusting, “Why are you helping me out, Sergeant?”

“I can see it in your eyes, Ms. Allison. You’re a good person, and we here at Reach accept anyone from outside, really. This security, we implemented it because of the rise in insurgency, but from your look alone, I am certain that you are not an insurgent; you are simply someone who got lost in realms of time, Allison. I gave you raw credits because I want to tell you, do not associate anything with your name. Keep your purchases anonymous, and while you are here, apart from your height, please keep yourself on the down low, if you know what I mean. If another officer started searching you up and your name, and your true origin, there are going to be even longer sessions than this one, I can tell you that much.”

He inhaled a little bit more before continuing, “Oh yes, while you’re at it, all the best, Ms. Allison, and do enjoy what Reach has to offer! The insurgency and terrorism are decreasing, so you don’t have to worry about it that much anymore.”

“Thanks, Sgt. Axel! And don’t worry, I will keep my low profile!”

Gwen was then escorted back to the gate and after a few minutes at the gate, the officers and Gwen were also in good terms and thus they let her in.

“Stay safe, Ms. Gwen!” one of the officers spoke to her, “And please enjoy your stay!”

After passing through the gates, Gwen was treated to the rather beautiful architecture of the city of New Alexandria. She arrived at the multilevel plaza, presumably leading to the shopping mall and the food court inside. It has been a while since Gwen last ate her meal in Burma, so the food court would be the very first place that she went to.

As per the suggestion of Sgt. Axel, Gwen approached the nearby fast food joint and looked at the menu.

“Oooh, combo meal!” Gwen exclaimed rather excitingly. People around her were still looking at her in fascination, and for a while, she kind of took the attention rather well. Though, she would try her best not to gain too much attention, lest she got dragged off somewhere else for more questions.

After a few more minutes of wait, the meal was ready. The burger looked rather typical, especially the Moa meat that was essentially an alien to Gwen. The fries and the soft drink were more or less normal.

“Well, it smells good, that’s for sure!” Gwen talked to herself a little, followed by sitting at the nearby empty seat and taking around 2-3 spaces due to her size. The table of 4 was just enough for her, it seems.

[Valentine Z]

World 4 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – 8th of January, Year 2525

Gwen was eating her breakfast slowly but surely, while watching the surrounding around her. A few children running around in the courtyard, with their parents either keeping an eye on them or talking to one another. The rest of the people were simply here for the food, eating and enjoying their shows or whatever content they are consuming on their smart devices. She was a little envious, to say the least, since she too would like to know what this place has to offer in terms of technology. So far, everything she has seen around her are mostly holographic, but the smart devices seemed to be mostly bounded towards the traditional LCD display.

She finished her burger and on to slowly eating the fries and the drink. The fries are the usual thing, since nothing much has changed regarding the potato over the years. The drink, however, Gwen could not describe it that well. It simply stated “Soda” on the menu, but she could not make out the exactly flavour. “Oooh, seems like a mixture between a Cola and some… grape juice? Tasty!” she thought to herself, as she slowly drank it away. At that moment, a soccer ball rolled its away towards Gwen’s table, followed by a couple of children.

“Ugh, te keményen rúgott!” one of the kids yelled out to the rest, followed by a couple of other phrases that Gwen could not exactly make out.

“Hát, ezt kellett volna kapnia!” yelled out another, as they ran towards the ball and towards Gwen, “Umm, excuse me, Miss? Could you pass our ball back?”

“Haha, well, certainly!” Gwen exclaimed out rather happily, as she gently nudged the soccer ball back to the kids using her long legs, “Here you go!”

“Thank you very much!” they said, smiling back and walking back to their designated play area. One of the kids asked if Gwen would like to join them for a casual game, but Gwen politely declined, stating that she has somewhere to be and to explore around the city. Bidding them farewell (for that time being, at least) and clearing her own tray, Gwen checked her belongings and made her way out of the courtyard and into the streets of New Alexandria’s city hall once again.

Given the time of day, not much nightly activity can be seen around the city, as well as the lack of neon lights that one would associate with the future. The buildings were overall greyish or white in appearance, with a tree or two in order to make the place greener. Most of these buildings were literal skyscrapers, with Gwen estimating that the buildings went as far as 1000 meters above her. They looked rather small from the distance while she was waiting for the ferry, but now that she was in the middle of the city, Gwen realised how small she exactly was compared to these buildings.

“Maybe Valentijn would be able to make these places his home, haha!” she remarked, “Though, he would have to hollow out the floors and everything to make that happen.”

Despite the lack of night activities, the cities were more or less bustling, with commuters making their way to their workplaces, as well as shops and other amenities open for business. Gwen figured that she would go to the library, at the very least to figure out how to stabilise her body and tether it to the time and space that she is currently in. Perhaps the advancement of technology would allow her to cobble up a few parts, though if Sergeant Axel’s words are anything to go by, is that the people here in this universe has not researched or even invented a time machine just yet. “Was Overwatch’s time travel devices really lost in time?” Gwen thought to herself, “I don’t know what happened while I was gone…” making references to the fact that she was sent back in time to Valentine Z’s world to stop the nuclear strikes from ever happening.

After reading through the directory, which was thankfully bilingual (in English and Hungarian), Gwen made her way to the library. The library was a mixture of old technology, and the newer technology. Physical media such as books, magazines, and newspapers still exist, while nearly all the content is digitized and all it takes is for the patrons to take one of the durable tablets and start browsing through the paperless media throughout.

Gwen browsed through the books, specifically at the non-fiction and science bits. She has little time for fictional stories and after all, the experience that she is currently going through can fit several books, so she is living in a story itself. Looking through the physics section, she finally thought of something along the way; in order to build or at least get a grasp of what to do with the information, she at least need a book or something to write it down on. After all, without an ID or any other relevant identifiers, she would not be able to borrow any of the books.

Determined, she made her way out of the library and looked through the shopping mall’s directory once again, eager to find a stationery shop. After all of that was done, she made her way to the shop, while still trying to get used to the looks of amazement and attention that people around her are giving. She has 1,992.23 Credits left, after eating that meal, so there would be more than enough to buy a few items that she needs, and perhaps trying to look for a cheap hotel or a motel to stay in. She bought a set of pens (10 colors) and a notebook for 15 Credits, so that leaves her with 1,977.23 Credits for transportation, food, accommodation, and anything else that she will need in the future.

Feeling satisfied once again, Gwen went back to the library and back to the specific section that she was looking at. She found a couple of books, though she was not exactly certain on whether they have all the information that she needs. After all, she was trying to build a device that stabilises her body, and these books were more or less for general knowledge.

“Well, I guess I will find out, then!” Gwen thought to herself, getting a seat that is slightly isolated and with not too many students or anyone else around her. And for this few hours, Gwen was as studious as a student studying for their final exams a few days before. She wrote and scribbled the points that she thought that she will, but at the same time, she was also wondering about how exactly time and space itself works. After all, in the 21st Century, and even for the Overwatch universe, time itself is a very strange and unusual concept, and for someone of her expertise as a pilot, none of these physics theories were making much sense to her. It was as if she would need a good understanding of the fundamentals of time and quantum physics in order to in turn understand what is written in these books. There were a few hints of FTL travelling, since in this point in human history (at least for this universe), humans have more or less built spaceships and interstellar travel, so Gwen would then wonder how they managed to do it.

“Utilization of tachyons… but they don’t exist yet! So how else did they do it?” Gwen talked softly to herself, “This is all strange and new to me!”

Many-worlds interpretation is another theory that Gwen managed to read through. Though, it was mostly on theories and perhaps an explanation about how Gwen was travelling through these worlds on a nearly random basis. She would need a theory to explain about the wonders of the black holes – the very thing that she fell through, and how she ended up in that mental hospital. Furthermore, in a span of less of a day, she seamlessly transitioned through from Denver State to Burma in the 2000s, and from Burma to Reach after a day. The headache she experienced along the way could have been a matter of not having enough rest, but then again, it was sudden and piercing her head so much so that it knocked her unconscious; after all, no one collapsed from a matter of not sleeping for a day or two.

She closed the physical books for a moment and reached out to the tablet. Searching through physics terms, she finally went through this topic known as “Sötét anyag”. She didn’t know what it means, but it seems to have a picture of a black hole, so she figured that she would open the link. The link opened to this page:

A sötét anyag jelenlétére jelenleg a következő megfigyelésekből következtethetünk:
- A csillagok sebességeloszlása galaxisokban (a galaxisok forgási görbéje).
- Törpegalaxisok megléte galaxishalmazok központi vidékén: itt a sötét anyag közreműködése nélkül már szétestek volna a nagyobb galaxisok árapályerőinek köszönhetően.
- A galaxisok sebességeloszlása galaxishalmazokban.
- A csillagközi gáz sűrűség-, hőmérséklet- és nyomáseloszlása galaxishalmazokban.
- A galaxishalmazok által a kozmikus háttérsugárzásra kifejtett gravitációs lencsehatás.

Alkotórészei alapján feloszthatjuk barionos és nem barionos sötét anyagra. A barionos sötét anyag lehet:
- Csillagközi köd: távcsövekkel a csillagközi hidrogén ködökben csak az atomos hidrogént látjuk s ennek következtében az a hallgatólagos nézet alakult ki, hogy ezek a ködök atomos hidrogénből állnak. Azonban az alacsony hőmérsékletű hidrogén sokkal stabilabb molekuláris állapotban, viszont a molekuláris hidrogén jószerével láthatatlan. Elképzelhető, hogy az eddig is ismert hidrogénfelhők tömege a mostani vélekedés többszörösét teszi ki.

Az Európai Űrügynökség (ESA) által a légkör fölé telepített IR spektroszkóppal sikerült kimutatni az atomos hidrogén mennyiségének 5-15-szörösét az NGC 891 számú, élével felénk néző galaxisban, amely mennyiség elegendő a hiányzó anyag molekuláris hidrogénként való értelmezéséhez.
- Kompakt objektum: fekete lyuk, fehér törpe, neutroncsillag, barna törpe és a feltételezett kvarkcsillag.
- LSB-k (kicsi felszíni fényességű galaxis).
- MACHO-k (nagy tömegű kompakt haloobjektum).

“Wait, what? No… no, I don’t understand!” Gwen exclaimed a little too excitingly, though not enough for the passing librarians to hear her. Searching around the UI, she finally found a button to change the displayed language and went ahead with English.

Page 404: Baryonic matter

Baryons (protons and neutrons) make up ordinary stars and planets. However, baryonic matter also encompasses less common black holes, neutron stars, faint old white dwarfs and brown dwarfs, collectively known as massive compact halo objects (MACHOs), which can be hard to detect.

However, multiple lines of evidence suggest the majority of dark matter is not made of baryons:
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Page 592: Dark matter aggregation and dense dark matter objects

If dark matter is as common as observations suggest, an obvious question is whether it can form objects equivalent to planets, stars, or black holes. The answer has historically been that it cannot, because of two factors:

- It lacks an efficient means to lose energy: Ordinary matter forms dense objects because it has numerous ways to lose energy. Losing energy would be essential for object formation, because a particle that gains energy during compaction or falling "inward" under gravity, and cannot lose it any other way, will heat up and increase velocity and momentum. Dark matter appears to lack means to lose energy, simply because it is not capable of interacting strongly in other ways except through gravity. The Virial theorem suggests that such a particle would not stay bound to the gradually forming object—as the object began to form and compact, the dark matter particles within it would speed up and tend to escape.

- It lacks a range of interactions needed to form structures: Ordinary matter interacts in many different ways. This allow it to form more complex structures. For example, stars form through gravity, but the particles within them interact and can emit energy in the form of neutrinos and electromagnetic radiation through fusion when they become energetic enough. Protons and neutrons can bind via the strong interaction and then form atoms with electrons largely through electromagnetic interaction. But there is no evidence that dark matter is capable of such a wide variety of interactions, since it only seems to interact through gravity and through some means no stronger than the weak interaction (although this is speculative until dark matter is better understood).
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Page 596: Exotic Matter

In physics, exotic matter is matter that somehow deviates from normal matter and has "exotic" properties. A broader definition of exotic matter is any kind of non-baryonic matter—that is not made of baryons, the subatomic particles (such as protons and neutrons) of which ordinary matter is composed. Exotic mass has been considered a colloquial term for matters such as dark matter, negative mass, or complex mass.

In fact, the negative kinetic energy exists in some models to describe dark energy (phantom energy) whose pressure is negative. In this way, the negative mass of exotic matter is now associated with negative momentum, negative pressure, negative kinetic energy and FTL (faster-than-light).

“Dark matter, dark matter… I might know this one a little bit, though the rest are just science-babble to me! So… would this explain me being engulfed with the black veils of… something, when I fell through that black hole? But where did the EMP blast come from, then? Ooh, Exotic Matter! Would this explain why?”

Gwen made a theory, though she was by no means a physicist or a scientist: If she is correct, it was this exotic matter that was acting as a Deus Ex Machina and was holding her. Her molecules that make up the body are no longer in sync with any of the universes and would be with their own clocks. This also changed her body metabolism in a sense that adding on the digestion and assimilation of nutrients in the food, anything that the body could not digest will instead be converted into at first an ordinary form of energy, then it will be converted into dark matter through a series of Mass-Energy to Energy-Mass conversion. Overtime, al the food that she ate and any undigested food in the stomach would be converted into this dark matter that would, with a right amount of energy, send her flying into another dimension with speeds exceeding 1 x 10⁵⁰ meters per second. Though despite the unsynchronised body, Gwen can still be hurt with physical damage and pure violence.

“Hmm, okay, okay… I think I will write this down in my book!”

While not losing the train of thought, Gwen vigorously wrote down the theories that were needed for this little project to work, as well as the chronical device that she might need to tether her to an universe. She got the means to travel to other dimensions – now all she needs is a device that could let her do it by herself anytime, anywhere, without random occurrences.

The entire thought process and writing through all of this took her a good 4 hours. Gwen leaned back, happy with whatever notes she has written along the way, as well as assuring herself that this could work.

[Valentine Z]

World 4 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – 8th of January, Year 2525

The notebook was small enough for Gwen to keep inside the small purse that she bought, making sure that it would always stay with her. This was much needed, because she noticed that while not all of the items would make it from one dimension to another, there was at least a rule to it… as far as she was concerned. The transition from Denver Hospital to Burma does not make sense, but from Burma to planet Reach, it could have been explained by the accumulation of the food that Gwen ate. Perhaps by the time the digestion was complete, and enough exotic matter was gathered, her body, along with whatever was around her would dematerialize and go along with her. That would at least explain why she still have clothes on, as well as a few small items here and there while she was asleep. In other words, if more exotic matter was held, the larger the radius and number of items that would be transported along with Gwen to another dimension.

After giving a thought to all of that, she figured that she would take a break, though not exactly sure where at the moment. She would need a cheap hotel, or even a motel, to get her by, since she could not exactly use that place, on the grounds that it was not a hotel, it was someone’s home, and that the security has been alerted about her break-in. She needed to lay low, as she was advised to. She quietly made her way out of the library, after putting the books and the tablet back into place, and looked around for a city map. With all the technology and being far into the future, there should at least be a kiosk or a touch-based screen that would allow her to see the map. Though, looking around, it appears that the immediate area around the place was not so much for the tourists and visitors like her, and more for the natives and residents. Perhaps she could ask someone else in the meantime, since even if they don’t know their way around the city, they could simply use their smart devices to show her the way.

“Ahh, forget that!” she exclaimed to herself a little, “I could just use one of the computers in the library!” With that said, she went back in and paid rather efficient 4 credits to use one hour of the internet, at least the one that they have on Reach. She chose a rather secluded seat, away from whoever might be staring at her a little too much. At first, Gwen had some difficulty navigating through the computer, not because of the language, but rather because of the user interface being totally different from what she has used over the years in Overwatch, or in Valentine Z. Still, it only took her a few seconds to figure it out, and soon, she was browsing through the list of cheap hotels and motels available in New Alexandria. Nearly all of them are around 3-4 stars, though the stars were not exactly for the service or the looks, and rather, Gwen read the reviews in order to assess the cleanliness and the conduciveness of the places, and the matter of not being robbed or attacked during her visit, i.e. the security presence might be much needed. Most importantly, she need to look for a hotel that does not ask for her personal information that much; after all, she has nothing to identify herself.

Eventually, she found a little hotel, called Édes Tavasz (Sweet Springs), family-run and is not very invasive with information; all she need to provide was a 50 Credit deposit, and a cheap price of 16 Credits per night. Her 1992.23 Credits should be more than enough, and hey, she thought that she could even go for an outing or two, for recreational purposes. After searching through the address and getting directions, the map internet service indicated that it would take her an approximate 33 minutes of walking, 10 minutes if she was going to take a taxi.

“Well, I need the exercise, anyway!” she thought to herself, paying for the printing service in order to get the map. Miraculously, printers were still around in this era, supposedly because paper is a medium that simply could not be beat, not to mention convenient and does not rely on anything else once it is there. She ran through the browser a few times, erasing the browsing history as best as possible, even though there was nothing suspicious that she went through; after all, all she did was to search for hotel directions. Suppose that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Gwen set off to make her way to the hotel, which actually took her a good 45 minutes due to the combination of traffic lights, getting lost along the way, and so on. Along the way, she yet got a few more looks here and there, simply because of her height; it was simply difficult to blend into the crowd, especially when you are 10 feet tall, and the people around are perhaps 6 feet, or 7 feet at best. She simply gave them an awkward wave and a smile whenever they decided to lay their eyes on her. At this point, she would have had a few questions, and even perhaps from some officers who should be curious about her origins, but perhaps Sergeant Axel gave them an order not to, even if he is just a sergeant. Surely a commissioner or someone higher than him would take interest on the large woman?

Still, after all of that, she arrived at the hotel, while sweating a little. The weather was a little sunny, though not prohibitively hot. As far as her eyes can see, the skies were rather clear, with no dark clouds all around. It would be a great day to go out and explore, though of course, the hotel and the accommodation comes first. The hotel itself was located on the near-outskirt of the city, providing a rather breath-taking view of the mountain range behind. Entering the hotel, Gwen was greeted by a sweet old man, presumably the owner of the place. He looked to be around 70 years of age, but he still has the energy of a young child, as well as the physical fitness of a healthy 40-year-old. His hair was greying a little, and his vision still seemed rather find; after all, he was not wearing glasses for the entire duration, not even for looking at the books. They exchanged greetings and after a short conversation regarding her height and where she came from – apparently, telling him that she came from Earth through interstellar and interplanetary travel was not so far-fetched, and in fact was a common thing to do. She wrote the shorter version of her name – Gwen Hepburn Allison, and that was it; after all, she neither has a mobile phone, nor an actual home to stay in. After paying the deposit a getting the key, Gwen went up to Lvl 4 of the place, and was greeted to her little room.

“Ahh, thank you, young lady! … Miss Gwen!” the old man smiled and handed her the key, “Please enjoy your stay! For your package, there’s no complementary meals, but our restaurant is pretty cheap as well.”

“I see, I see,” Gwen replied back with sweetness in her tone and voice as well, “Thank you very much for your hospitality!”

For all intents and purposes, the room was a little too small for her, but for the price, it was more than welcome. The sliding door opposite the bed would lead to the balcony, providing her with the view of the mountains that she saw on the ground floor. The winds were pretty chilly despite the hot weather, so it was again a friendly change for Gwen, as she simply did not see the need for an air-conditioner. The small place was something that she could contend with, especially because she needed the hotel just for sleeps and showers. The bed would fit her if she curled up a little, and after taking one, Gwen realised that the shower head was touching her head perfectly, i.e. a perfect fit. She would need to either bend down, or sit uncomfortably in the bathtub.

“Not exactly the pros of being tall, but this will do, this will do!” she remarked. After taking a shower, she took a quick nap, in the span of a few hours; she was simply tired from the long and studious hours in the library. She clutched her purse and book near her, ensuring that they would not leave her or away from her. This was owning to the fact that while she now knows about the mechanics of her space-and-time travelling powers, the events are still uncontrolled and random, and thus could happen any time.

After the said few hours, Gwen woke up feeling a little chilly, but rather energised. She was ready to go out once again, and this time, perhaps she figured that she would do something to unwind herself. Turning on the TV, she saw an advert for a nightclub – Club Errera, located in the top floors of the Vyrant Telecom Tower, one of the city's skyscrapers.

“Yeah, time for a dance and a drink or two!” she exclaimed, grabbing back her small purse with the small notebook and her money inside. At least, hopefully, it would not cost that much.

The telecom tower was yet again in the city centre, so it took Gwen a total of 40 minutes to walk home. Not that she was trying to hide her identity that much, but she simply figured out that she would save up her credits and after all, she could not get any more if she ran out of it. Currently, from the hotel and everything, she still has 1,926.23 Credits left, which is probably more than enough even for a week, or 120 days if she is going to spend all of that in the hotel. Along the way, the nightlife of New Alexandria was a little too muted. Perhaps because most of the life and activities are in the building themselves, and there are overhead bridges that can take you from one place to another. The streets, on the very ground level, on the other hand, are more or less for vehicles and the homeless, though for the latter, the homelessness and begging situations were not as severe and bad as the ones on Earth. They generally leave people alone, though if needed, they would simply ask once or twice. Gwen came across one such family, while they were not dressed that shabbily, were indicative that they needed some money to get them by. Gwen handed over a fat 50 credits to them, making it 1876.23 Cr left for her to use.

She entered the tower and made her way to… Level 700. The club was approximately 2200 meters above the ground, if going by an average of 3 meter per floor. Though, being a telecom tower, some of the levels were a lot higher than others, so that would give an estimation of 2300 meters.

“Wow, that’s a lot of floors!” she thought to herself, as she waited for the lift to take her all the way to the club. Along the way, several stops were made, most of them obviously here for the club. Most of them were late teenagers or adults, all of them (hopefully) above 18 years old, and some are 25-30 year olds, here either with their significant other or by themselves to let off some steam from their work.

After what seemed like a good few minutes, along with an endless loop of elevator music, they have arrived at the club. For the others, it was a normal thing, but for Gwen, she was bored out of her mind in the lift itself. The second problem now… is the security. She did not have any identification to begin with, so how in the world was she going to enter the club? In a rather fortunate twist, being 10-foot tall means that the form of identification was more or less void, simply because no living teenager, or even an adult, would reach that kind of height. Even better, the security was taken aback to a small extent, simply due to Gwen’s height.

“Well, err, I guess we can make an exception for you,” he said, “Go right in, please!”

“Wow, thank you very much!”

And so she went, after another security check, and this time on her belongings. Given that all she had with her was the money and the notebook, the security thought nothing of it and let her in without any incident. As she went in, she was on the second floor/foyer of the club, with the golden and purple light-based decorations syncing to the beats of the electronic music.

The club music was something similar to the ones from Earth, so for over the few centuries, music has more or less stayed the same, in terms of genre, and the way they are performed. Still, due to the advancement of technology, suppose that the DJ could bring up the old songs from the 21st Millennium era and remaster them effortlessly, eliminating noise and artefacts that plagued the music of old. Gwen was not even drunk, and yet, she was feeling the hype and energy from the music. She first started tapping her legs, then she did her little dance, without a care of the world around her.

“Nah, I need some drinks to really get in the mood!” she thought to herself, heading over to the bar and buying a shot or two, each costing a fine 20 Cr (entrance to the club was 80 Cr), so Gwen was slightly feeling the pinch on her money, but she reckoned that she would have enough for the next few days, or even weeks. The shots she bought were al liquor, since beer would take a lot more in terms of volume to get her drunk. Within the next few minutes, she really started feeling the effects of the alcohol, as she slowly made her way to the centre of the dance floor and started dancing once again. The music being played was more or less the same, and the patrons wisely made way and gave Gwen the dance floor; after all, the last thing they wanted was an accidental (or an intentional) kick in their faces from a 10-foot tall woman. The DJ, on the other hand, increased the bass and volume output of the music, with the whole club now being more or less impossible to hold a conversation. Not that anyone would try to, though, since all the eyes were now focused on Gwen herself, amazed by the dancing under the influence. The dance itself was rather tame, devoid of anything inappropriate.

“Ohhh, yeah! Now THIS is the night that we will all remember!” she shouted excitingly, with the crowd cheering for her soon after. It has been quite a while ever since she felt this carefree. Granted, she used to have fun like this back in Valentine Z, and even during her time at Overwatch, but for now, she has travelled through so many dimensions that she basically lost track of time. It was exacerbated by the fact that one of the worlds was a dark, quiet, and desolate mental hospital that, where if possible, Gwen could have completely lost her mind; now she is just a little loony, but not mentally deranged or crazy enough to cast herself aside from the society. And so it went like this for the rest of the night: She would eat some snacks to keep some food in her stomach, then she would drink a little bit more to keep the buzz and the drunkenness, and go and challenge someone to a dance-off. Rinse and repeat.

This happened for a few hours until Gwen finally retreated to one of the seats and slumped on it. She was getting a headache, fearing that she would simply teleport over once again. She reached into her purse and checked her belongings.

“Ahhhh, my precious money and my book!” she thought to herself, “I thought I lost all of you!” then she blurted out the next line, being, “Don’t worry! Ms. Gwen will take care of you all!” Fortunately, no one really seemed to mind, and all accepted that as a drunk-talk. All of them still went their own way, either trying to have a conversation in this loud night club, drink their drinks, or to trying to dance-off like Gwen. It was an energetic, and rather wholesome, evening and night overall.

Gwen’s headaches were getting worse, with a few visits to the toilet to puke it out. After going back to the seat for the 8th time, she finally lose it and fainted on it. The soft cushion of the seats were surprisingly comfortable for her, though her legs were jutting out of the seats due to her height. Last thing she remembered was a neighbour seat talking about her.
“Dude, check out that chick behind us! Just came in, danced like a maniac, and passed out!”
“Pssh, freaking lightweights.”
“Lightweight?! Are you kidding me, man? Look at how much she drank! Even the bartender got worried!”
“…”

A few more hours have passed, and Gwen suddenly bolted up, her head narrowly missing the table. She quickly scanned the place around her. The music has been silenced, the lights were turned off, and there was no one around. Without the lights, she could not figure out on whether she was still in the club, or somewhere else.

“Was… was I transported to another dimension again?!” she thought to herself.

As if on cue, the bartender and the security approached and spoke to her, “Ahh, Miss! You’re awake. We were just about to tell you that the club is closing in the morning, and we are locking this place.”

The security guard told her, “Come on, Miss, let’s go. We want to go home,” then letting out a rather huge yawn.

“Haha, ahh… oops, I’m so sorry!” she said sheepishly, “Err, how drunk was I last night?”

“Very,” the bartender replied back with a chuckle, “If you’re still feeling the hangover, you can take the taxi on the ground level itself. There’s also a shuttle service here and there, depending on where your home is.”

“All righty! Thanks a lot, and Cheers, Loves!” Gwen replied back with some energy. Well, energy considering that she got extremely drunk. She stumbled out of the club, took the elevator down to the ground floor, and finally got a cab. The taxi ride back to the hotel cost her a good 50 Cr, given surcharges and extra costs related to early morning rides. All-in-all, she was left with 1,566.23 Cr, with the additional 20 Cr from the hearty breakfast; even though she still has some effects of the hangover, Gwen’s appetite was getting a little too much for her to handle, and so she ate at the hotel’s restaurant. The breakfast itself was uneventful - scrambled eggs with some rice and a cup of hot cocoa (coffee would not be the best choice). As soon as she reached into her room, she took a shower and simply dived back onto the bed, extremely tired from whatever alcohol-induced fun that she had last night.

[Valentine Z]

World 4 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – 9th of January, Year 2525 (?)

Gwen woke up to the sound of… pretty much nothing. At least, too quiet even for a hotel. Did she teleport to another dimension? Apparently not, since everything was more or less the same. Well, except for one thing. She checked the bedside clock and was stunned by the date itself.

1st of August, 2552.

World 4.1 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – 1st of August, Year 2552

“What in the actual hell?!” she exclaimed, loud enough for the entire room, but not necessarily for any other rooms to hear… provided that they are still around in the first place. She could have sworn that it was just 8th of January, 2525 for the day before. She looked at her notebook once again, and could thought of an answer, but at the same time, not really. It could be that this time, instead of travelling through both time and space, she only travelled through time itself. And it was such a great leap into the future. She countered using her fingers, and came up with a baffling conclusion: She has been asleep for nearly 27 Earth Years, which in turn amounts to approximately 10066 days.

“27 jaar; 6 maanden; 3 weken; 2 dagen,” she spoke to herself in Dutch, “I don’t believe this! The hotel… gasp! 161,056 Cr of payment due!” Gwen panicked with all the calculations. Granted, the old man, along with the other staff, that ran this place were nothing but kind to her for that particular day and night, but this is the amount that she would need to settle or it would become less of a misdemeanour, and more of a felony.

“Ok, Gwen, okay… calm down,” she said to herself. The first things first was, she wondered why no one really asked her anything for the 27 years. Surely someone must have talked to her, or at least called her to ask how she was doing. Perhaps the staff were simply trying to be polite, trying their best not to interrupt or disturb their guests. But for 27 straight years was unbelievable, she thought. Did she actually leaped through time in a much more literal sense? Would that explain why no one bothered to check her, because the payments were settled for that night (along with the deposit) and by the time the hotel staff checked on the room, they would realise that no one was inside? Not getting the hang of travelling through large sections of time and space, she reckoned that she would simply solve this some other time. For now, the problem with the present that she was in: It was too quiet. Other than her thoughts and her talking to herself, there was nothing else going on, no one else striking up a conversation in the neighbouring rooms, and most importantly, checking outside, the streets below the hotel were empty. In the distance, she could hear some low-frequency booms, which she attributed to thunderstorms, even though the skies on the mountain side were more or less blue and clear. She turned on the news, and this was when it hit her:

The news channel. A group of fanatic alien group known as the Covenant has started invading planet Reach, nothing more than to give humanity a hard time. From the news report, some of the buildings were getting hit and struck by a few ships, while orbital bombardment from the bigger cruisers above the sky have already commenced. The aliens have invaded humans, and it was no-longer the work of a movie from the 1950s; this was the real deal, Gwen thought to herself. The news also announced something about the civilian evacuations being successful, and that most of the civilians that have survived the ordeal were now on-board the UNSC (United Nations Space Command) spaceships and would be relocated to some other planet as war refugees.

Without hesitation, Gwen took her personal belongings (the aforementioned purse with the cash and notebook inside) and got out of the room. She explored around the quiet hotel and there was nothing; no one else was around aside from her. She went to the reception and looked at the computer keeping the log of visitors.

Code: Select all

Gwen Hepburn Allison, visited on 8th of January, 2525.
Deposit was unclaimed, and 1 night worth paid for in-advance.
Presumably checked-out on the morning of 9th of January, 2525.
Special notes: Housekeeping found the door locked from inside, and the visitor missing. Presumably locked in by accident when she left.

“Ahh, explains why!” she said to herself, “I hope they are all right!” She exited the hotel and on the street, she found a rather peculiar item. It was shaped like some exotic boomerang, which turned out to be a gun of some sort.

Gwen picked it up, and took a look around it, though she still has the common sense not to point its either end onto her face, or to touch it. It was certainly made by The Covenant, but that was not enough for her to start using it. It seems like the tip (the smaller bit) at the end was the barrel, as Gwen thought. There was a meter of some sort on the front, an arc that was light lavender in color. Touching or tapping it did not seem to do anything as well. Though, when she placed her thumb at the small red pad found on the centre of the meter, the gun was activated, with the tips now brightened up to a brilliant and glowing green. There were some electrical sparks and lighting in-between the two tips, indicating that this is an energy-based pistol of some sort.

Looking around and making sure that no one was around, Gwen walked towards a wall and placed herself a little far from it. Gripping the pistol a little tighter than normal, she tried to fire the weapon, but to no avail. She gripped it even harder, but this does not seem to have any effect on the pistol. She pressed the little red button on the left side of the pistol, which simply popped open the top and exposed the vents. This in turn shut off the weapon for a while, as the front electrical arcs were shut off. Looking at the vents for a quick moment and noting nothing much from it, Gwen closed it back manually and with that, the pistol came back to life again, with the glowing and electrified arcs coming back.

Frustrated, Gwen fiddled around with the pistol, while making sure to point it away from her. “Ugh, how do you fire this damn thing?!” she exclaimed, still frantically looking around. Turns out, there is indeed a trigger at the pistol grip area, which sort of blended in terms of color with the rest of the grip and the pistol. She slowly pulled it all the way to the end. The pistol started humming, the front parts started glowing brighter and brighter, and the meter was now entirely in red. She also found the pistol getting much more difficult to control, so she let go of the trigger. In a brilliant kickback, the pistol was knocked out of Gwen's hands and thudded back on the hard concrete, while a huge green bolt travelled towards the wall and blackened it. The green bolt, as Gwen thought, was a plasma round, though seemed to be an overcharged one. She picked it back up, and tried to squeeze the trigger lightly and letting go, which in turn fires a series of smaller plasma rounds, as compared to a single overcharged shot.

“Well, maybe I shouldn’t hold on to that too much!” she said, proudly holding the small pistol in her hands and trying to find her way back… to wherever. At that moment, she found out that much of the city was more or less stagnant, with little to no humans in sight. Well… living humans, that is. Gwen was horrified to find a few dead and bloodies bodies here and there, all of them having burn wounds, and some of them missing limbs. All of it pointed to the fact that these people have been killed by the plasma weaponry. Cars were either parked and collecting dust, or was in a massive accident with several of them piling up on one another. From the direction the vehicles were heading to, it seemed as if they were all trying to flee from the city centre, and from the news itself, that might be where the aliens come from.

However, it was not just the citizens that fell victim to the war; walking further and deeper into the city, she saw a few bodies of soldiers, all bearing the army green uniform with UNSC logos on them, as well as several aliens of different types; the smaller ones with pyramidal… things, on their backs, as well as slightly taller aliens wearing a shiny armour all over their body. The taller aliens bleed purple, while the smaller ones bleed light blue, and the blue one in turn seemed to glow. Unlike the humans, the aliens have bullet holes on them, so it was pretty obvious that humanity was still relying on good old gunpowder.

As Gwen made it to one of the smaller shopping malls, to the outside of it anyway, she was greeted by three imposing figures - the taller aliens, the Sangheili, as they are called, found Gwen and approached her with guns pointed towards her. They were all in red-colored armor, and granted, they were rather tall at 7.5 feet or so, but for Gwen, it was not much of a problem when it comes to height. Taking a few steps backwards, Gwen aimed her plasma pistol and started shooting at them without question - she fired 10 rounds at the first one and it fell promptly. After dodging a few shots, she near-missed a plasma bolt from one of them, feeling the burning sensation on her right arm.

“Oww! All right, that’s it!” she shouted, as she firmly gripped on the pistol and pressed the trigger rapidly, with the plasma bolts from Gwen’s gun hitting the other Sangheili, though after 12 rounds, electric sparks flew out of him and he was then roaring in anger.

“Oh shit, what did I do?!” she exclaimed to herself, firing more rounds at her at the alien charging towards her. After 16 more rounds, it fell promptly onto the ground, with some purple blood splashing onto her skirt. Still, having the bloodstain of The Covenant is a million times more preferable than being shot at by one of their weapons.

“Hah, maybe that was his shield!” and after that exclamation, Gwen shot the remaining Sangheili in the similar fashion, who also went down rather easily. After all this shooting, Gwen realised that the pistol’s hood popped up, and that was even before she pressed the red button; the pistol overheated and took a few seconds to cool down and let out all the green-colored gases and heat before it could be closed back. For the duration that the green gases dissipate, Gwen held her breath, not knowing on whether it was toxic to her if she breathed it in. After the cooldown cycle was complete, she closed back the hood and deactivated it (by pressing on the same red pad in the middle of the temperature meter). She then approached the fallen and took a look at their weapons. It was constructed in a rather similar fashion, except that it was much longer, and more rifle-like.



“I will take that, thank you very much!” she said while looking closely at one of the dead bodies, making sure that it would not pop back to life and kill her. Neither of the three did, miraculously. After picking up the plasma rifle, she put the pistol inside her purse, after making sure that it was deactivated, lest it burn through her notes.

Gwen proceeded deeper into Downtown, hoping to find at least some resemblance of friendly life around. She has only encountered hostile alien life invading the city, and all of the humans that she has encountered were either missing or dead. At one turn, she came across a school of smaller aliens - the ones with pyramidal shells on their backs. Each of them has a mouth-breathing apparatus attached to them, which in turn was attached to the shell on their backs. By her count, there were at least 20 of them, and some of them have stranger weapons on them - a purple gun with pink needles-like spikes coming out of the holes on its top. There were a few more dead bodies scattered over the square, both of the aliens and the citizens and soldiers. Gwen thought of other paths to take, but before she could do anything, one of the aliens (called Unggoys) spotted her and started shooting at her.

Taking cover behind a wall and taking out both the plasma rifle and the pistol (she held the pistol in her right hand, and the rifle in her left hand), Gwen started blasting away at the waves and waves of Unggoys. The plasma fire was easily avoidable, and so were a few of the grenades thrown. After all, there was not much of an issue from the flying fragment, and it mainly involved running away from the explosion and not getting caught by the energy blasts and heatwaves. Gwen managed to do that just fine and she managed to kill a good 20 of them this way. There were more reinforcements coming in, and a few of them got a little too suicidal –they grabbed two grenades (one in each hand) and proceeded to run towards Gwen, in an attempt to blow her up. Now panicking and trying her best not to stumble over the obstacles and roadblocks along the way, she shot the suicidal Unggoys, with the grenades plopping down near their bodies and promptly starting a chain reaction towards the others as well.

“And stay down!” she yelled at them. Her plasma pistol, as well as the plasma rifle, has depleted at this point, so she simply tossed them one side and grabbed two more plasma pistols. Given that she has no idea how to shoot them, she figured that she would simply toss them when they are depleted, and take new ones. Around ten more came in from the back, and this time with the pink and spiky guns. The pink needle projectiles were harder to dodge for Gwen, since they homed in towards her, and she would need to hide behind some inanimate object in order for the needles to break line-of-sight with her. She sprinted all the way to the build ahead of her and barricading herself to an abandoned car, she shot them one by one, making sure to have ample amount of spare pistols near her. The gunshots and fire exchange happened for a few more minutes, before Gwen reigned victorious, as usual.

However, when the adrenaline of the fight was over, Gwen felt a pain in her right leg, and her left arm; there were sharp pains now and then, and there was small amount of blood coming out of it. For her, it felt like a burning paper cut, and with some amount of bleeding to a larger degree. She could not tell exactly what happened, though she suspected that some of the needles must have gotten inside her.

“But I don’t remember getting any!” she recalled to herself, “I mean, I would have yelped in pain during the fight itself if I got the needles! Maybe I was too excited.”

She went into the building, which fortunately was a hospital. She was right in front of the lobby, with several hundred levels above her. The reception was abandoned, the waiting area was abandoned. Basically, the whole area was abandoned, and in some parts, was littered with a dead body or two - belonging to either the humans or the Covenant.

In the meantime, Gwen started having migraines once again, and this time, it did not feel like the ones that she got back in Burma, or before a teleportation. This one feels much stranger, she thought to herself, as she quietly limped her way towards a bench and sat down, looking at where it approximately hurts. She shook off the headache for the time being, looking for the wounds. Upon a much closer look and way from the sunlight, Gwen realised that her right leg and her left arm were glowing a faint pink, the colours similar to that of those needles that chased her.

“Fuck, those were inside me? I think it splintered into li- little piec-“ she stammered, being unable to utter another word as she suddenly felt powerless and collapsed onto the bench. Even for her oversized body, the multiple row of chairs was enough to accommodate her. Perhaps she would die here right now, and the time powers did not seem to be working at her advantage (i.e. reversing the needles out of her body). Gwen slowly closed her eyes, while clutching her purse, before finally letting go of it and simply lying limply on the bench.

[Valentine Z]

World 4.1 – Halo: Reach – New Alexandria, Reach – 1st of August, Year 2552

“No, hold her properly! Wow, she’s huge!”

“Yeah, no shit! Look at her legs!”

“Are you two going to admire her, or are going to help her? Come on, we don’t have much time, move her there!”

“Yeah, yeah, fine… wait, no, hold her right there, yeah. Put her on the stretcher.”

…

“Come on, almost there! Don’t tell me you can’t carry a girl!”

“Well, first off, I can only bear so much after donning this armour. Second, this girl is huge, all right? Like 10 feet tall and heavy?”

“Ahh, all right. Good, good. Two of you, drop her right there. I will patch her up.”

Gwen slowly opened her eyes, with an extremely blurry view of the world. She blinked a few times and slowly looked around, with the blurry vision re-focusing a few times and eventually, the view around her was crystal clear once again. she was attended by no less than 6 people, 3 of which were helping her out, with a few others securing the perimeter around with their weapons aimed squarely at the doors and other openings in the reception area that Gwen was taken to. They were all donning their battle armor, with each of them donning the UNSC logo. Gwen let out a slight sigh and looked around at the smaller people around her.

“Ooh, UNSC! Thank you very much, guys!”

“You’re welcome, err… citizen…?”

“Gwen! The name’s Gwen Tracer Allison! A lot longer, but this was the condensed version.”

“Corporal Kovács Alex, at your service,” one of the medics attending her said out, with quite an anxiety in his voice. Though, this did not exactly seem to be because of Gwen’s presence and rather, they were simply terrified out of their minds for the moment.

“We have to get out of here,” he continued on, “We are trying to do the very last sweep throughout the city, and seems like we found you with those needles stuck in your leg. Took a while to extract, but it was pretty easy since you were knocked out cold.”

“The Covenant!” Gwen exclaimed once again, “They are still around? What did they want with you people?”

“Well, long story short, genocidal maniacs that were trying to fulfil their prophecy. At least, that’s what the high command told us, but it doesn’t matter when we need to kill them before they kill us.”

A low rumbling could be heard from the distance, while shaking the hospital with some not-too-violent tremors. A few of the loose items in the receptionist area were shook and displaced, but it was nothing too significant or dangerous.

“We should probably get out of here,” another soldier announced, “The more we spend our time, the lesser our chances. We need to meet up with the rest and evac this citizen.”

“Sounds good! All right, men, prepare to move out in 30 seconds!” another man shouted out, most likely their commander. Quick as a wind, they picked up their equipment and readied themselves to move out of the place. The sound of weapons being reloaded, checked, and equipment being double checked filled the room for the next half a minute, after which the commander walked towards Gwen with a gun.

“Sgt. Jónás here, Ms. Gwen,” he approached with a friendliness, which is to be perceived given the obscure nature of his helmet, “I figured that with the pistols lying around you, you should be able to fire off a weapon, right? I want you to be able to defend yourself as well, Miss. I have confidence that you will be able to use this mighty fine rifle.”

“Ahh-ha! Thank you very much!” Gwen said back, after which she inspected the weapon. The rifle was a bullpup design, with the magazine reloading done behind the trigger. There was a rather large scope on the top of the rifle, and below the scope’s eyepiece was an ammo indicator, currently displaying “15” on it.

“Once again, thanks… but what about you?” Gwen asked.

As if on cue, Jónás walked towards the dead body of a Covenant nearby and lifted up a rifle. It was obviously alien in nature, but the weapon was something that Gwen has not seen until now. It was shaped like the needle gun that she came across, but with a bigger stock and a longer barrel, signifying its purpose as a long-rang weapon.

“Don’t worry… we are used to using these weapons, and I’m sure that my rifle will be safe in the hands of yourself, Miss.”

“Why, why do you trust me so much?” Gwen asked out of curiosity, “Not that I am questioning you, but I am wondering.”

“It makes me feel better that way, and seeing you… I could tell that you have some experience fighting these fuckers.”

“Ahh, yes! I did fight a good number of them just now, haha! Don’t worry, my friend! Gwen is here to help you all!”

The group of soldiers, now with Gwen in toll, made their way up to the higher levels of the hospital. The hospital was barren and devoid of life, with no other people around… at least the ones that are alive; Gwen and the crew came across a few bodies that indicated that they have been dead for quite a while, with the smell becoming unbearable at some parts. Other than human corpses, there would be an alien’s corpse being encountered now and then, with whatever tools these patients could use in order to fend themselves at that point. One of them even seemed to be killed with an excessive voltage from a defilibrator, what with the shock pads placed in-between its heads. The rest of the hospital was not doing much to help the crew and Gwen either; just rooms and rooms, along with rows of beds with dead patients on them, being hampered by their own frail bodies and being unable to escape their doomed fate.

“This is infuriating me on the whole new level,” exclaimed Gwen rather softly, trying her best not to let her inner voice and rage out from her body.

“Indeed, my friend,” one of the soldiers echoed that statement before calling out his friend, “Status?”

“Well, no vital signs from anyone else here! They have gone well past that, unfortunately. No motion detected from other sources either.”

It was more or less just Gwen and the band of soldiers at this point. The motion tracker test would indicate that there was no one else left in this place, or no other aliens that would be there to launch a surprise attack on them. The soldiers’ plan was to find out for survivors in this hospital and to wait for evacuation on the 202nd floor, where a helicopter would take them back to join the other surviving citizens. So far, they were on 200th floor without anything eventful happening.

All of a sudden, the darkness has reigned prevalent in the entire hospital. The low hums and evacuation sirens could be heard all throughout the building.

“Shit, power’s out!” Sgt. Jónás exclaimed, “Men, shift to your night-vision goggles!”

In a quick motion, almost in unison, the men turned on their visors, emitting a small infrared lamp from each of their helmets. Unfortunately for Gwen, they did not have a spare visor and thus she would have to use her sense of hearing for the most parts, as well as to use the lighted up elements of the soldiers’ armour to locate them.

“Sorry, Gwen… looks like you will be in the dark. We move in a tight circle and watch each other’s back! Try to minimalize the friendly fire as best as you can!”

Walking blindly and following the group of soldiers, Gwen managed to make her way around steadily, using the emergency lights she found along the way. After walking and trudging through the sea of darkness for several seconds, they finally managed to make their way to the upper floor, and after that, out of the rooms and to the rooftop.

“There we go!” Jonas exclaimed, “This is our way out! Now all we need to do is for the airship to come extract us-“

Before he could finish his sentence, a beam of purple light whizzed by and struck a medic right in his left eye, along with some gore exiting out of his head wound.

“SNIPER JACKALS!” panicked voice of Sgt. Jonas yelled out, “Miss, run for cover! Rest of you lot, find cover and shoot those bastards!”

“Oh crap, our medic is dead!”

“No shit, Private! Now get behind some cover before they snipe you next!”

All of the remaining soldiers quickly ran for cover, using the purple trails and beams to determine the origin of the shot. The outside was certainly brighter than the indoors just now, but only by a small margin; most of the buildings around have their electricity supplies cut off, only illuminated by the burning flames as a result of the destruction.

“There they are, a few meters off our elevation!” one of the privates yelled out, “With any luck, we should be able to snipe them!”

Gwen decided to give it a try. Following the instructions and status updates of the people around her, she set her sights on one of the sniper jackals, and fired off three rounds. Two of the shots hit the jackal on the body, while the other one hit the head, killing it instantly.

“Woo, nice shot, Gwen!” Sgt. Jonas exclaimed, “Now it’s my turn… this is for my medic buddy, you fuckface…”

Bang! A single shot hit the jackal in the head, also killing it instantly. Jonas spared no expense and bullet in conserving, and he was going for shoot-to-kill at this point. Using the Covenant’s needle rifle, Jonas then proceeded to snipe a few more headshots, along with Gwen, who then got out of the cover she is firing from and while strafing left and right, she would dispatch the jackals, as well as the grunts and elites who were heading towards them. Along the way, Gwen realised that every time a bullet was about to hit her, time would slow down for her, just sufficient enough for her to dodge the incoming projectiles with little to no problem. Other times, time would even grind down to a halt, up until Gwen moves out of the harm’s way. This worked rather well for the next few minutes, until a bigger threat comes along.

“Shit, hunters! Miss, you might want to retreat back!”

In this case, Jonas was referring to the pair of worm-like Covenant troops in heavy armour. It was made out of a bunch of worms bundled inside. Their official species name is Mgalekgolo, or the Hunters, as Jonas would call them out, but Gwen was told that they were also called a “scary thing with spikes,” in reference to the metal spikes that were behind their armor. They could be antennas, for all Gwen knows. Either way, two of them were seen charging at them, occasionally charging up their arm cannons and firing a trail of plasma rounds at the cover that Gwen, Jonas and his squad were hiding behind on. At that point, it was just a relentless assault of cannon fire behind the cover over and over. However, Gwen had enough. She reloaded the rifle and with the fresh new 15 rounds, decided to take shots at their weak points, if any. Given that they were heavily armored, there were little to nothing in the way of weak spots, but at the same time, their backs were exposed, and there was a little bit of unarmoured portions between the headpiece and the neck.

“Hold still, you bunch of wankers!” Gwen swore, as she took the aim and fired a few shots. Taking cover and strafing around, Gwen managed to hit one of the hunters on its exposed area with 10 out of the 15 shots. Each of the impact would spray glowing orange blood out of it, but still, the damage from the bullets did not seem to have slowed it down. Gwen quickly and panickily reloaded another magazine, dropping the empty one quickly and reloading and arming a fresh one. Gwen dodged and ran for another hiding place, and this time, she managed to fire and hit the hunter 12 out of the 15 shots, and at the last hit, it went down with a thud. While it decreased the amount of Covenant Gwen and the squad had to deal with, it did not help the fact that the other surviving hunter has become enraged over the loss of its friend (or a bond brother, either way), and started charging towards Gwen.

In the meantime, the airship has arrived and was ready to pick up the squad, as well as Gwen herself.

“Everyone, get on board! Gwen, would be nice for you to climb up as well!” Sgt. Jonas shouted, in an attempt to make his voice heard amidst the roaring airship engines.

Gwen quickly nodded her head and sprinted towards the airship, while taking a few pot-shots at the charging hunter behind her. All the bullet she fired so far missed it, hitting its armor and the bullets in-turn deflected all over the place. It did not matter much at that point, because she simply needed to get out of the hospital and leave the Covenant forces behind for now. Additionally, the remaining Covenant hunter was not shooting at the airship and instead was hellbent on chasing Gwen and charging its arm cannon.

Gwen sprinted with all her might, her heart beating wildly, and breaths becoming more and more irregular with time. For the next few seconds, all it mattered for her was to get to that airship quickly, and hopefully take down her chaser with a few well-placed shots from the airship. A few seconds later, while everyone was up on the ship, Gwen was still 5 meters away from it. Having little to no time to lose, the airship’s pilot quickly started ascending, with Sgt. Jonas holding out his hand for Gwen.

“Come on, Gwen, take my hand! Jump! JUMP!”

As she attempted to do so, the hunter caught up to her and pushed her one side, away from the airship and back onto the landing platform. The hunter readied itself, preparing to pummel Gwen with its half-shield and half-basher, raising its left arm up onto the glistering moonlight, as well as with the ambers of the fire from all around the city. As luck would have it, the platform gave way and tilted to one side, with both Gwen and the hunter off-balanced. Gwen ran back to the platform’s edge, away from the edge of the building and back to the courtyard that was around the landing pad. Her rifle given by Sgt. Jonas was nowhere to be found. Time around her was slowing down, wanting Gwen to get out of this mess. The space around was modulating and pulsating, changing hue and brightness now and then.

“Oh gosh, I’m going to be sick!” Gwen exclaimed loudly, as she clutched onto her purse filled with the vital info that she needed for her device. After slinging around the purse and securing it, Gwen decided to climb back out onto the safe place, away from the collapsing landing pad that was about to fall. As she was nearing the edge of the platform and prepared to drop down to the courtyard that they have just got to, she felt an extremely heavy force on the landing pad; almost as if someone was hitting with all the force that they got. It happened to be none other than the Covenant hunter, who then proceeded to hit it twice or thrice. Eventually, the platform gave way and broke into several pieces, with both the hunter and Gwen dropping 2000 meters below.

“GWEN!”

Gwen screamed extremely loudly, piercing the sounds of the rain and the distant thunders, as well as the burning sounds from nearby buildings. The hunter fell silently, or at least because she could not hear its low-pitched screams and rumblings as it too fell alongside her. During the drop, Gwen and the hunter got closer to one another, with the former trying to get away from the hunter in fear that it was going to kill her. On the contrary, the hunter was somehow trying to embrace her and to protect her from the fall. She was confused at that very moment. Here she had this very enemy that was trying to kill her, and after having its brother killed, would try to maim her in the worst possible way. Yet, it was rather forgiving, and now was trying to make up to Gwen somehow.

“Well… it was nice knowing… you! But we are going to die, so… AAAAAAA!” Gwen yelled yet again, with the two dropping down, and down, and down.

1800 meters above ground… 1600… 1200… 600… 300… 100… 10 meters…

And yet, despite the quietness of the ground level, as well as the low and soft rumblings in the distance, not a thud was heard from either of them.

[Valentine Z]

“I seemed to have teleported again…” she whispered to herself, trying to get herself familiar with the surroundings. Her vision started off as blurry, with nothing but circles of light and streaks of blur in her eyes. Additionally, wherever she was lying on was moving back and forth, as if it was riding on a wave.

“I’m on the sea?” she thought, “Wait… then what happened to me on Reach?”

Before she could gather her thoughts more, a voice was heard shouting in the distance, obviously referencing her, “Sir! The stranger woman is awake!”

The pieces were quickly put together by Gwen – the sailor outfit of the man watching her, the swaying motion of the place she was in, and the small galley; Gwen found herself on a ship, being held captive probably due to her unknown origin and intent (at least, for the people in this dimension, wherever it might be).

“Ahh, finally awake, huh, Missy?” the sailor guard started off, “What, you have never slept before that you decided to just do it for 8 hours?”

“8 hours?!” Gwen exclaimed a little, with some panic in her voice, as she realised that her purse was missing.

“Yeah, 8 hours. I mean, provided I am keeping the time, of course. We found you unconscious. Well, thought you were dead actually, but the on-site medics say “Spiky is still alive!” Haha, I think I shall call you that too.”

“Hey, that ain’t very nice,” Gwen retorted a little, “I have a name, you know? The name’s G-“

“Shut yer trap!” the sailor snapped back at her, though slightly light-heartedly, “Whoever you are, I don’t give a hoot; the Admiral on the top, on the other hand… perhaps he will be more interested in you. I am just a plain o’ guard, and I do NOT give a rat’s ass about people I have to watch.”

“Eh, fair enough,” Gwen shrugged back, “Err… one question, actually.”

The guard sighs heavily, “Fineeee… what the hell do you want to know?”

“What date is it? And where am I?”

“Well, Missy… you are on the fine ol’ USS Maryland!” the sailor let out a hearty laugh before answering the next question, “I guess you got hit in the head too hard, hm? 7th of December, 1941. It’s 6 in the morning!”

“What the hell…”

World 5 – RL World – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, U.S. – 7th of December, Year 1941

“Pearl Harbour?!” Gwen asked back, with even more panic in her voice then.

“You caught on very quick, Missy… yes, we are docked here for now, then we have breakfast, then we head- shoot, why am I bloody telling you this? Need to know basis only!”

“You don’t understand!” she retorted back, “Goodness gracious, all of you are in trouble! The Japanese, they are going to attack us!”

“And HOW do you exactly know that?!” the guard, now slightly annoyed and angered, walked to the bars of the stockade Gwen was held in, “Are you… are you one of those Jap-… Japanese?”

“Oh my goodness, read my lips and my appearance! Do I look like a Japanese to you?! I am a Brit!”

“I will only believe you when the Admiral believes you. Missy, stop cursing us around, will ya? They are NOT going to attack us, and we have a dozen battleships and destroyers here! Who do the Japanese think they are to attack us?!”

Gwen wanted to say a word – anything, to proof herself. Still, with no physical evidence and only her mouth, it was impossibly difficult to convince the guard, who in turn was already angered by the implications that Imperial Japan is going to attack them. There was nothing, and no one, that would help her prove her case of a time-travelling woman across dimensions and space.

“Miss… I’m sorry, all right? Look, I would trust you when you have the papers, but you do not have them. If anything, you are an illegal alien here, and even if your appearance says otherwise, we have to make sure that no one is going to spy on us. World War 1 has happened, you probably know that.”

“Yes… yes, I do.”

“Good. Then you know how much trouble those in European countries are getting, and in some Asian countries. We have reasons… plenty of reasons, to believe that we might go to the war with the Germans soon. Japan is still far away, there is no chance that they will get to us.”

Soon, a couple of footsteps were heard from the stairs. The sound of the steel-toed-and-heeled boots walking down the stairs with such weight on each step. It was the Admiral himself, it appears, in his officer uniform, with the four stars on each of his shoulder boards.

“Admiral Kimmel here,” he announced himself, “What seems to be the problem, sailor?”

“Ohh, good morning, Sir!” the guard saluted with much stride and pride, “Ahh, nothing, Sir, nothing… well, I got your captive right here.” His voice has definitely diminished, as compared to the way that he talked to Gwen just a few moments ago. This one was rather meek and submissive.

“Ahh, Miss… what a tall lass,” Adm. Kimmel commented, looking up and down at Gwen, “Well, you don’t look like one of those Japanese folks… Anyway, I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind. But I would rather that we will take you to the quarters, instead of here…”

“Sure thing!” Gwen replied back, this time with some reassurance in her voice; she still had little to no proof of what was going to happen, but at the same time, being able to talk to a higher power might be just the ticket out of here, and with any luck, she could warn them about the impending attack that she has learned from history. This time, she was living the history; in fact, she could end up as some historical figure.

With the opening of the lock, Gwen followed the sailor guard and Adm. Kimmel to the quarters of USS Maryland. Along the way, the sailors and officers alike were looking at her – an 8-foot girl that stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the sea of seamen. Gwen would have noticed that her height was changing slightly with each dimension (after all, she was 10 feet tall in Halo: Reach), but that was of little concern for her as of now. What was important as of the time, was for Gwen to answer the questions properly so that she would not be ousted as a spy. Granted, it would be unlike Germany or worse, Japan, if she became a POW, but she also remembered that it would not be too good for her if they somehow got the misinformation that she was a spy. On the other hand, looking British should be more or less adequate, since, after all, the US and the UK were friends during the World Wars.

A few minutes have passed, and the trio were finally in the cabin, along with the other sailors that are, while not doing anything to navigate the ship around (it was still docked at the ports), they were reading the maps and listening intensely to the radios and transmissions that they were receiving almost all the time. The Admiral and Gwen then made their way into the former’s private office, along with one guard standing by at the door. The door was closed by the guard as soon as the two went in.

“Have a seat, Miss,” the Admiral told Gwen, motioning at the empty wooden chair, “I have some questions for you.”

“This would be like with that sergeant from Reach, then,” she thought to herself, before she realised that she said it out loud.

“What is Reach? I am curious.”

“Ohh, right.. That was from the book I was reading, haha! So there was this girl that was lost in a strange city or a place, and she got asked by this police sergeant regarding her.”

“Hmm… I see. Very well, let’s get started!” the Admiral announced, followed by sorting out the small stack of paperwork that was on his table, and as he shuffled around the items on his table, Gwen saw something that was extremely familiar to her – her purse. As if on cue, the Admiral took the purse and opened it up, noting the notes and some currency that were inside.

“Credits? Hmm, must be war bonds from some areas of Britain,” he remarked, “Anyway, this was not the important part. There was nothing noteworthy about the notes, pun not intended. What’s important…” as he trailed off, he took out the notebook and flipped to the page about the “Chronal Accelerator” that Gwen was working on, “… is this. What is this, may I ask?”

“Ahh…. Hmm… would you like the truth or an elaborate lie about it? Either way, these are going to sound ludicrous.”

The admiral chuckled a little before replying back, “Well, you are free to try. I am not sure if I will believe in you, still. I mean, look at you; whatever you are wearing now does not seem to conform with the fashion statements for a woman in this era… especially with that spiky hair. Anyway, please, do continue.”

Gwen let out a big sigh and began talking. She explained about where she is from, as well as her adventures in Overwatch, in Valentine Z, and the recent dimensional travelling. She tried to explain the best of her abilities on who she exactly was, as well as on what she wrote in those notes. She remarked that her body was more or less unstable and was travelling through different eras and locations, and thus needed this device, if it was able to be built, to tether her and to let her control where she goes… as well as when she goes.

“Ok, then, Gwen…” the Admiral pondered for a few seconds before asking a question, “If you claimed to have come from the future, tell me… what will happen to us in the next few hours?”

“Pearl Harbour? It will be in flames!” she replied back with some energy, but not with a large amount of exclamation, lest she started to sound even crazier, “I read it in the history books of the future! You, your people, and a few other ships in this Harbour, were going to be attacked by the Japanese!”

“The Japanese? That’s impossible,” the Admiral replied back, “They are too far away from us, and we don’t receive a warning about it as well! Gwen, really, I would hate to put you back there, but I am not sure if I can entertain you with whatever you are saying right now.”

“Well, what else can I say, Admiral,” Gwen replied back, with some defensiveness and assertion in her voice, “I am as honest as you want me to be! I mean, why would I lie so elaborately just to get away from something? Then tell me this… where did your men find me? In the middle of nowhere? Some unknown place? In a place where a woman should not be in?”

The Admiral was silent for a while. It was difficult for Gwen to determine what exactly was going on in his mind, but she could tell that it might not be too well for her if she continued talking to him that way.

“I have to be very honest with you, Admiral… I have no intention of spying on the Americans, and I am not in cahoots with the Axis powers!”

“Then where is your proof? You kept telling me to believe in your words, and I tried to! And from what I can see so far, these words hold no substance as long as you don’t provide a clear proof. You have no documents of yourself, and that little notebook of yours seem like flights of fancy.”

“That’s because I am from the future!” Gwen exclaimed even more.

“Ok, you know what… I have enough of this, Miss Gwen,” the Admiral spoke up, this time louder than his usual self, “Guard, please take her back to the stockade.”

“Oh my goodness, are you serious right now?‼ I am telling the truth!-” as she was trying to speak, two guards were summoned, each one holding her either arm, and was dragged back to the stockade, “Hey, let go! Ok, fine! If you don’t believe me… at least tell everyone that Pearl Harbour is going to be attacked! Can- Can I have my purse back-”

“All right, Miss, you had your feverish fun,” one of the guards uttered at her, “Now please, go back to the Stockade until we can assign somewhere to you.”

“He means a mental asylum!” another guard remarked, along with some laughter, “Such a screwball woman.”

Gwen simply followed them back to the stockade, not refusing or resisting at any point in time. She knew in her heart that it could have happened soon, but with no one to believe her, what could she do?

“Gah, this is hopeless,” Gwen thought to herself, this time fully in her head, “But I need the food soon, or I will never get out of here… or I will be dead from the bombs.”

Gwen went back to the stockade and sat down rather solemnly. It was not simply due to the fact that they called her mental or tried to have her committed; rather, she tried to stop more deaths, and she simply could not do it. No one would believe her, understandably, but at the same time, she would have thought that at least the Admiral would have more sense than the others. Granted, he was inclined to believe in her, but Gwen felt that she blew it when she snapped.

“Heh, hello again, Missy,” the stockade guard greeted, “I assume that the talk with the Admiral did not go well? Of course not… you look a little deranged in the head, let me tell you that much.”

Gwen did not answer. She simply hung her head in shame and slowly bang her hand against the wall.

“Hey, don’t sweat it! It could have been way worse… I mean, you could have been shot on the grounds that you are a spy, but he didn’t, so… you are very lucky.”

Gwen still did not answer back and rather, she slowly and heavily walked back to her cold, hard bed. The stockade guard also walked towards the cell and sat down on the stool outside, trying to comfort her.

“Look, Miss… don’t be worked up too much. You can sell a lot of by making up weirdest conspiracies, it seems. I mean… it has the potential, I am simply stating the fact. Fine, I will hear you out… Well, suppose that I will believe you, and I pretend that I believe you. When do you think the bombing is about to happen?”

“7.48 am… Hawaiian Time…,” Gwen uttered quietly, before looking at the clock on the wall: 7.35 am.

“Well, well, we got a clock here,” the guard replied back, “Since we have nothing to do… let’s play a game: See who is right.”

Gwen simply nodded, preferring not to say anything. After all, what else can she do? She cannot control her time powers, and she has no weapon or anything of that sort to use in order to escape.

The next 10 minutes went on in a tedious manner, and while Gwen was watching the clock tick by, there were some distortions along the way. As it gets closer to 7.48 AM, the space warping and the random time slowdowns were becoming more and more rampant. The whole ship, at one point, would wrap, but no one else seemed to notice it; it appears as if the time and space warping was only noticeable and affecting Gwen. The next 2 minutes were becoming much more distorted, coupled with ear-piercing and overwhelming noises that was affecting Gwen. At 7.47 am, she would start clutching her ears and scream a little, complaining about a headache.

“Oh, what in goodness gracious?!” the guard exclaimed, “Miss, are you all right?”

“I- I--…. AAAAAAAAA!” Gwen could not make out coherent sentences and instead, all she could do was shout, cupping her ears and screaming as loud as she could to make the pain go away, as well as praying in vain that she would wake up from the horrible nightmares, if they were nightmares in the first place.

“Ahh, shoot, I need the medic, and maybe call Admiral too!”

Suddenly, feeling a lot better, Gwen shouted at the guard, “No, DON’T! … I am fine now, thank you! Just a migraine…”

The guard stopped himself quickly and approached Gwen again, trying to compose himself, “Well, Miss, don’t scare me like that… would you… would you like a medi-“

Before the guard could finish his sentence, the sirens and low rumblings were heard, along with some shaking and the ship itself getting slightly more violent vibrations. The whole ship was now shaking more than ever, along with seemingly bigger waves that were hitting them.

“Attention, everyone! We are under attack! REPEAT, WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!”

Gwen simply nodded, not smiling one bit; she did not want to be right for the wrong reasons.

[Valentine Z]

World 5 – RL World – Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, U.S.A. – 7th of December, Year 1941

The sailor guard quickly panicked and after fumbling with his keys for what seemed like an eternity as the bombs dropped around the ships, opened the holding cell for Gwen. After doing so, the guard sprinted out of the ship and up to the deck, presumably trying to get away from the whirlwind of madness. Gwen, on the other hand, already got her headache cured, at least for now. She was a little too casual with the bombs themselves, somewhat confident that they would not hit her. Still, she briskly ran out to the deck and tried to make her way off the ship. However, a thought suddenly struck her; she was missing something, and she felt bare without it – her purse with the pens and notes inside. She would need it in order to tether herself to the worlds that she was currently in, as well as to prevent any more unpredictable slips in time and space along the way. Gwen sized up the situation, trying to make sense of the chaotic world around her. The Japanese has struck swiftly and stealthily, and the Americans did not know about it, or at no one bothered to decode a transmission that might have reached them warning about the entire thing. As a result of this, the harbour was now on fire, with stacks of smoke rising everywhere, along with broken and semi-sunken ships all over the place.

With no more time to waste, Gwen quickly ran back up to the quarters and to the offices of the captain and the admiral. From the interrogation that was done earlier, the purse was most definitely in the Admiral’s office and with that, she ran up to the second floor of the quarters. As she climbed half a flight of stairs, the ship rocked with a sudden burst of energy. She fell forward on the hard floor, though she recovered quickly with not even a single scratch on her.

“Shit, these bombs are hitting! They are making their mark!” Gwen thought to herself, still trying her best to make her way up to the quarters. After a few more seconds of climbing up more stairs, she managed to enter the office, which was open, and in turn vacant. It would appear that the officers and the crew had evacuated, at least for the quarters. Grabbing her purse, she quickly looked out to the cockpit of the ship. There were still sailors and officers alike scattered all over the deck, scrambling to either jump off the ship or to use the bridge to get back to the harbour. Additionally, Gwen found out what caused the explosion; the ship’s bow was hit hard by a bomb, and missing, apparently. Either that, or it was detached by the impact and sunk to the waters below. After a few more seconds, the deck was more or less cleared of people and in some fortunate-unfortunate timing, another bomb hit the ship, this time right in the middle of the ship. It sent splinters of wood and other debris flying all over the place, including towards Gwen who was still at the controls of the ship. While most of them were small debris and Gwen managed to dodge them, she was hit by a rather large plank of wood, which in turn caught fire. It knocked her out for what seems like a few minutes before she finally came back to her senses.

“Well, guess I am not that much of a lucky girl!” she thought to herself, “Damn, the whole ship is on fire…” the stairways were also on fire, blocking Gwen from going back to the lower levels. The cockpit was also on fire, and given the multitude of maps and documents on the ship, the fire began spreading faster and faster, consuming everything that it touches. The windows were also mostly shattered, so Gwen walked towards one of them and looked down. There was a thick cloud of smoke that she could not see if she would make a good landing below. She could see a little bit of water below, but she was unsure on whether it was a shallow pool of water or the sea itself. Becoming a little desperate, she dashed towards the other side of the cockpit and looked down from another window. There was nothing but a sea of burning oil on that side. Weighing her options, it was more or less obvious that she was going to jump towards the one with the smoke. At that moment, she could either jump into an unknown depth of water, or into the raging fires of burning oil. After a second of thoughts, Gwen quickly ran and jumped out of the window and into the smoky waters below. As she fell, the smoke dissipated and would reveal the blue waters below. Gwen was relieved that she landed in the deep water and after that, swam a few meters back to the harbour and climbed a wooden ladder back onto the pier. She was at least in one piece, even if her head and her hair have taken a few hits from planks of woods, as well as some other debris.

After climbing back onto the pier, she saw the harbour becoming slightly quieter. The sounds of the planes were becoming more and more distant until they were drowned out by the general chaos around Gwen. It would appear as if the Japanese planes were either going back for re-fuelling, or that they were preparing for the second round. However, the planes were not much of a concern at that point, given the disorder around her. Soldiers, sailors, and officers alike injured and needing medical assistance. The wounds ranged from minor bruises and scratches, to severe burns, dismemberments, and everything else that were unfit to mention in great detail. All Gwen knew was that people got injured, and what the Japanese forces did were more or less unwarranted; they are usually not the one to fight in stealth and instead would face an enemy directly for an honourable match. At least, that was what Gwen heard or was told from the books and history that she read back in the Overwatch Archives.

Snapping back to reality, Gwen realised that she should be helping a few people, but at the same time, she was unsure on how to do that. After all, she was not a medic by any means, and would only ask Germaine for help if she was wounded or anything else to that effect. Essentially, Gwen’s only medical expertise is with applying bandages to the wounded. Either way, she simply waited for the on-site medics to arrive, and after a few minutes, the medics have indeed arrived. She followed a few of the medics around, helping them load up bodies or injured people to the stretchers. She might not be able to do anything worthwhile for the time being, but being able to help people in the times of crisis is definitely something that Gwen is fond of doing. The medics gave her a few looks and decided to let her help, given that her physique can help her carry the bodies much easily. While doing so, a school of thoughts raced into her head: What about the Admiral, as well as the many others, that have heard of her “flights of fancy” recently? Would they accept her for who she is, or will there be worst things to come? After all, Gwen was aware that in this transitional period in 1941, primitive school of thoughts might still exist, and thus was afraid that she could be tried as a witch for whatever reasons that they have decided to give as a justification. Gwen figured that she would simply keep quiet, and perhaps slip into the background even if she was easily distinguishable compared to the people around her. Her height, along with her hairstyle and the fashion statement, are the three major factors in play that will get her singled out every time. Should she escape to another state? Gwen thought of it, and for something as major as World War II, she rather that she stayed within the territories of USA, since if history is anything to go by, the attacks don’t happen that often on the American land.

Around 30 more minutes have passed, and everything was more or less settling down. The medics have more or less rescued the people, while the fires at the harbour were also put out. Thankfully, most of the gas tanks were still intact and after having their valves shut off, there should be not a lot of problem with them exploding in a fireball. As Gwen was about to head into the city area, a voice called out to her, “You, Ma’am! Over there! I would just like a word with you.” Gwen froze for a brief moment before coming back to her senses; should she make a run for it, or should she just go and talk to the familiar voice of the admiral? Running away would net her having the entire police on her back, but at the same, she does not know what the Admiral wanted with her. Is he going to arrest her, or worse, try her for witchcraft as she was thinking about recently? Several questions raced around her head, but she figured that it would be good for her if she simply walked towards the Admiral, while thinking about a contingency plan if they were to take her in once again. Taking a deep but subtle breath, Gwen walked towards the Admiral and in the meantime giving a weak smile.

As she stopped in front of the Admiral’s face, the latter started talking, “Well… we certainly were wrong towards you,” he spoke weakly, “At this time of crisis, I am not going to make a long-winded speech, but at the same time, I suppose that an apology is in order?”

Gwen looked at the Admiral for a brief moment; from being well-groomed to in tattered uniform, what a change of event, she thought. Gwen also realised that the shoulder ranks on his uniform were missing. Well, missing, or that he simply took them out of shame, what with his ship in utter ruins. She would ask him about it, but it would seem too trivial to say, so she zipped her lip on that question and simply nodded lightly.

“Well, Admiral,” Gwen talked back to him in a rather gentle voice, “I don’t blame you for that, really. I only blame myself for being too assertive, and perhaps I should try to be a lot more convincing. I suppose that my way of talking back there was like a lunatic woman?”

“But… Miss, tell me,” the Admiral asked, “How do you know in precise details of this happening? No, please do not re-tell your flights of fancy adventures in ‘Overwatch’. All of us know that this simply cannot happen.”

“You can’t be serious,” Gwen thought to herself, “The very idea of a time traveller being real just did not convince him. Well, at least I can provide him with what I have learned in history of this place! I have to lie and cover up that whatever I said were all imaginary, then.”

“Ahh, you see… I was one of the intelligence officers, from Her Majesty’s Service, of course!” Gwen replied back to him, this time with a little bit more energy in her voice, “I was tasked onboard one of the HMS ships, and along the way, we intercepted and repeated a transmission that the Japanese were planning a surprise attack. And they were, well, they did, attack this place, and that was what we were all trying to warn you.”

“Then what about all these things that you have told me earlier? Were they just codewords, or lies?”

“I… let us just put it that I got hit in the head real hard during my journey here. I mean, that was how you and your crew found me, right? I was unconscious! And I blabbed out about this fictional story that I have read from a few years back.”

“I see, I see…” the Admiral sighed loudly, “Perhaps you will notice that I don’t have my shoulder ranks anymore? Keeping an eye on me, I see. Yes, I have ripped them myself. I am in no position to command further, what with my ship being gone, and that I have failed.”

“Aww, don’t be like that, Admiral! It is not your fault, though! I mean, the attack was a surprise, and it was nigh-unbelievable that they would pull such a thing.”

“Perhaps, perhaps… thank you for your consoling voice, err, Ms. Gwen… Ms. Allison? Anyway, now that this is over, I suppose that America will be going to war against the Axis, am I correct in say that?”

“Indeed! Well, it is going to be havoc on your people, there is that. I have no further intelligence to give at the moment other than this, so… I suppose I should get going?”

“Of course, Ms. Gwen. I wish you all the best with your missions! Hopefully, we will see each other soon behind the lines, or even on the battlefield itself.”

Nodding, Gwen said her farewells and made her way to the row of village homes in the distance. She was looking to find some refreshments, or some food along the way; after all, it has been around a few hours since she last ate, and she was certain that the warships’ galleys were more or less gone to make some meals of their own. Slowly yet cautiously, she walked and slowly disappeared into the said row of village houses. Her plan as of the moment was to keep a low-profile and perhaps to get back to American lands. With her telling the Admiral and a few other people that she was an Intelligence Officer from Britain, it would only be a matter of time before they started asking Britain if there was such a person doing reconnaissance work. Worst of all, she has no money for anything, so transportation, eating, and anything else will be extremely difficult.

[Valentine Z]

World 5 – RL World – Oahu, Hawaii, U.S.A. – 7th of December, Year 1941

Despite the relative timeframe of being in the 1940s, as well as being an island, Oahu was not too secluded and rather, it was teeming with life in some of the more populated areas. By Gwen’s estimate, she has walked for at least 5-8 kilometres over the course of a few hours, with the clocks she found along the way indicating that it was around 16:00 in the early evening. Without a proper map, she was essentially walking in circles for some of the parts, in turn cursing at her stomach that would never stop growling. Gwen has not eaten for at least a day now, but at the same time, she did not feel extreme weakness and instead would just press on. She had the feeling of being hungry, but at the same time, not exactly. All in all, Gwen was simply very conflicted, and even assessing her state of hunger would become difficult, what with some mysterious force or some dark matter residing within her.

While she was walking a further 50 meters towards a village, she suddenly had a headache yet again. This time, she did not scream out and rather, she would simply bottle it up inside, trying to power through it. Intensely gritting her teeth as she walked further, her steps would become smaller and smaller, with Gwen getting incapacitated by the very pain that she was feeling in her head. “I have to get to that village!” was the only thought that she had at the moment, trying to find an empty hut just so that she could lie down. However, the headache got increasingly stronger and eventually, Gwen fell onto her knees, followed by simply lying on the ground, clutching her head with both her hands in a vain attempt to make the pain stop and go away. It never did, not until Gwen pass out due to the splitting headache. She breathed out slowly just to let Death, or whatever else that ailed her, to take her away. At the last few seconds, time seemed to stretch out for her and with that, she started to think about the multiple universes that she has gone through. They were certainly a breath-taker, sometimes a little too literally as in the case of her at this very moment, but for what that was worth, her life was definitely something that she has lived to the fullest, way more than many others could only dreamed of - she has spent her time in Overwatch, then went back in time to meet the Valentians, then fell into the black hole and has traversed through multiple worlds. If it ended here, it might certainly be not too bad, she thought. Her hands finally let go of her head, no longer clutching her head, and instead would went limp onto the ground along with the rest of her body. She slowly closed her eyes, ready for the next life…

However, it would seem that life in itself still has a certain few things for her. Perhaps it knew that Gwen’s life is certainly not supposed to end here, and perhaps not for a long time. Some time must have passed since she passed out, and Gwen found herself now in a village housing, surrounded by a couple of people conversing – some of them in Japanese, and some of them in English.

“Is she awake? I hope she will be awake!” one of the people exclaimed, though in Japanese. This would have passed right through Gwen’s ears, though then again, even the English words would have passed right by given her semi-catatonic state.

“Of course she is!” a voice of a different person exclaimed, but this time in Hawaiian, “Look at her, she is slowly opening her eyes… No no, please don’t talk too much here. We can only hope that this girl has safely recovered.”

Gwen slowly woke up to the scene of her caretakers, as well as the place that she was put in - a small little village home. Due to her height, she nearly took up the entire width of the home from her head to toe, with items and belongings having to be moved aside to make way for her. As for the people, they are the native villagers – 2 elderly, 3 middle-aged women, 2 middle-aged men, along with 5 to 6 kids, with the kids surrounding Gwen. One of them was checking on her purse, though polite enough not to open it. One elderly man, presumably the village’s doctor, was holding and feeling Gwen’s right hand in order to check her pulse. Another little kid, around 4 years old, would then hold Gwen’s left hand, trying to imitate what the village doctor was doing for Gwen.

“What big hands you have there, Miss!” the little kid spoke to Gwen, who in turn was only half-conscious as of then. However, she quickly recovered from her rather unconscious state and tried to get up, but was stopped quickly by the doctor in order to stop her from further injuring herself, if any. Gwen would have done the whole cliché of “I am fine now!” but she figured that no one would believe that she was actually fine. As a result, she simply stayed put for as long as it’s needed in order to entertain and talk to the villagers. After all, she was not going anywhere at this rate, that is, nowhere important and urgent, anyway. The villagers, especially the children and the elderly, began to ask Gwen a couple of innocuous questions – who is she, where is she from, and how involved is she with the grand scheme of this war that is going on in other parts of the world. Looking around her surroundings, she found a bowl of soup ready for her on the low table right next to her, which she slowly and politely consumed all the way. At the same time, she checked her bearings, and found herself in a set of clothes that obviously was in-line with the 1930s to 1940s attire - Gwen was in a cheongsam dress, a grey one, to add.

After getting used to it, Gwen cleared her throat a little and gave her fullest attention to the people that asked her the questions. After all, she realised that these people were well-meaning and have nothing to hide, and thus she would more or less tell them the truth… at least the “truth” that would be believable. That is, she told them about her retirement from the British army and how she was coming here to Hawaii for a vacation and getting lost along the way without any food or money. For obvious reasons, she was a little protective about her purse, citing that there were still classified documents inside of it that she forgot to dispose of after retirement, when in reality, they were the plans that she got from Reach regarding a chronal accelerator. Current time-check on the nearby wall clock shows that it is 4:00 AM in the morning, which in turn would explain the candle lights that would illuminate the village house’s interior. That would in turn mean that Gwen was unconscious for a good while – from 16:00 when she set off, to 04:00 in the next day. After answering the questions that the villagers have posed to her, Gwen would lie back down on the floor-bed, raising her arm to give a few pats to the kids that were beside her. They all simply seem so… well-meaning. It was a break from the every day havoc and busyness that she would experience even in Valentine Z.

As she was preparing to sleep once again, the other villagers would give her some privacy, moving back to their floor-beds, while the village doctor and some of the middle-aged men and women would go back to their respective village houses with nothing but moonlight to illuminate their paths. In the meantime, one little kid, around 8 years old, would stay behind with Gwen. She seemed rather different compared to the other kids, perhaps even in terms of her skin color, eye color, and possibly race and nationality? Perhaps she was adopted?

“My name- erm, my name is Doris,” the kid spoke a little timidly and shyly.

“Gwen Allison. You can just call me Miss, or Gwen… anything, really. I don’t mind the formality and all,” Gwen replied back to the kid with energy, “So, what would you like to ask me, or talk to me about?”

“Miss, when will the fighting stop?” the little kid asked innocuously, though with a hint of sadness in her voice. It was at that point that Gwen realised that this little kid was possibly from Europe, possibly from a country that was a victim of the war. It was also then found out that Doris’ family were more or less gone, lost in the storm and whirlwind of madness that is World War II. Upon being asked about anyone that she would possibly know, Doris only shook her head, while mustering up a few words about how her family went missing back in Europe, and she was one of the lucky ones that has travelled from some undisclosed area in Europe to Oahu. There is her little sister as well who came alongside her, but she was sleeping in the adjacent village house. Doris, however, was simply disturbed about the whole war thing.

Doris (Left) during a mealtime with her sister (Right).

As she explained halfway, Doris had tears welling up in her eyes, breaking down into quiet sobs right beside Gwen. The latter, on the other hand, felt a small degree of awkwardness but eventually, gently held Doris by her shoulders and wiped the tears away from her eyes with her finger. “It will be fine, I promise,” Gwen reassured her, “Your little sister, you, the rest of the family… all of you will be fine,” Gwen cleared her throat a little before she continued on, “I am not exactly sure when the war will end, but I can only guess that it should end soon.”

“1943, right?” she thought to herself in her head. If the history was not deviated further, it would be sufficient to say and predict that the war will end with the nuclear bombs and with the Soviet Union entering the Pacific Theatre. However, at this point, she was not certain on what could and might happen along the way, with possible deviations and alterations that might happen.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Doris’ voice, “I will see my family again, right?”

“Of course, you will. I will find your family, and I will reunite you all.”

With that reassurance, Gwen could see some resemblance of hope and brightness once again in the little girl’s face. Even if rather empty and uncertain, that was all she needed in order to stay happy again, to get some comfort from a foreign figure, even if a little awkward. Going way past bedtime, Doris asked if she could sleep beside Gwen and having an extra pillow to prop her head while she was unconscious, Gwen gave one to the girl and let her sleep beside her.

“Thank you!” she whispered, before finally sleeping off soundly. Gwen, too, fell asleep once again with the soup that she recently drank making her sleepy. They dozed off and slept the entire night once again, with their future uncertain, and for Gwen, anticipating on whether she would teleport along time and space once again, or that she would stay long enough to unite Doris and her sister with her family.

[Valentine Z]

World 5 – RL World – Oahu, Hawaii, U.S.A. – 8th of December, Year 1941

Gwen woke up to the morning sun, and checking the clock, it was 8 AM in the morning. She looked around her surrounding and was pleased to find out that she has not teleported anywhere, not in time, and not in space. For space, she could tell that she has not moved an inch from her bed and for time, Doris was still beside her, sleeping soundly and using Gwen’s right arm as a pillow and hugging it. Gwen felt warm inside of her, that this stranger of a girl has the fullest of trust on her to get her back to her country or with her family, even if it was uncertain that Gwen would even get to Europe, let alone to find Doris’ family. With World War 2 happening and basically affecting the whole world, air travel and going to other countries is not exactly something that will be easy for both the civilians and the military personnel. After a short moment of looking around, Gwen slowly slid her hand off of from Doris’ hugging grip and instead propped her with a pillow. Slowly and surely, she walked around the small hut that she slept in and realised that she and the child were the only ones around. There were noises and commotion coming from outside the hut, and it would seem like an average day for these people judging by the conversations and the calm tones that these people have.

Gwen got out of the hut and started looking around the village and its people, who in turn greeted at her. Normally, an extremely tall woman would be an extraordinary sight for many of them, many of them still being taken aback by her sheer height. For some of them, however, they simply accepted her as a foreigner that would come from the distant lands of Europe. The village home and huts were simple yet comforting, mostly made out of straws or shoots of the trees, while there were a few that would be made out of the usual wood or bricks. Gwen certainly felt the comfort that these homes offer, reminding her of the simple times that Valentijn would always talk about his home country back in the 1970s. She would learn from him that most of the folks would prefer the slowness and simple nature of these villagers, without much of a care and the stress that the cities would have for the most parts.

As she was thinking about these people and her mind drifting away, Gwen would snap back to reality by the children running towards her and holding either of her hands. “Come on, Miss! Come eat breakfast with us!” they would chant and talk around in their various languages. Gwen then looked behind and saw that Doris had awaken as well after a change of clothes, ready to start the day. Smiling and nodding gently, Gwen followed the kids as they walked to another hut, this time a bigger one than the other houses. In actuality, it was more of a communal dining area, as Gwen would realise later. The hut itself has no doors or walls of any kind, and instead was a simple straw roof draped over the benches and the cooking area on the ground. There were many of the folks, most of which Gwen had seen from the previous night, all cooking and frying up the food that they have, while others would be busy fanning and keeping the fire alive, and some setting up the plates for the dining tables. The children went to their respective parents and relatives and helped them out, while Gwen was politely told to wait, as they would hate to bother the guest.

After sitting around for 15 minutes, the breakfast was indeed ready. The children all sat together at their respective benches, while Gwen simply sat together with the older folks, while keeping in check that Doris and her sister were doing fine. It would seem that they were accepted readily into the community, adding to the fact that the other kids would talk and interact with them. Still, given the circumstances, they would find themselves a little distanced away, longing to see their friends and family back in Europe.

“Poor kids, yes?” one of the ladies commented to Gwen, “I know what you are thinking. Doris and her sister, Jayne… their folks are not here. We found them here. We assume that they were here for vacation, then their parents were called back, or they got lost.”

“Indeed,” another man commented, “War is hell, and facing reality… I don’t think this is going to end anytime soon, Miss.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about that,” Gwen confirmed her thoughts, “Is there any way for me to… go back to Europe, or perhaps even to United States?”

“Europe, we’re not sure,” the man replied back, “United States, I hear that they are sending some of the folks back by ferry. Perhaps you can take that ferry with those two girls.”

“Ahh, sure. Wait, you trust me with them? You do know that I just came here, and there were no formal records of me and anything that I have provided.”

“Miss, I can see the sort of person that you possibly are,” the slightly older man of the group commented on Gwen, “You have told us that you were indeed a British soldier, an intelligence officer, as you have said. You are certainly the only hope for them to be united…. You are going back to the British Empire, right?”

“Ahh, yes. Of course, I certainly am,” Gwen said back anxiously, “Though, that will have to be thought about along the way. I am honestly not very sure how to get there now.”

As the rest of the conversation went on, Gwen was happy in her mind that these people trust her. Her plan, after all, was to bring Doris and Jayne back to the country that they resided in, but the problem was always in the details. Given her status as a time-traveller, she is and will always be a ghost to the people around her, perhaps minus her own homeworld, if she can go back to Valentine Z or even Overwatch eventually. As for anywhere else, she has no passport, no ID, no fingerprint database, and no other forms of identification for herself. The villagers’ trust is something that she will not betray and in fact something that she will certainly keep, but as for the other people that she will meet along the way, that trust will not be something that is as easy as this.

As Gwen ponders away once again, the breakfast was served. It was a slice of meat, along with a cube of butter, a hint of sugar, and half an egg. There was also some rice that came along with the breakfast.

Given the time and the era that was ended up in, Gwen understood the situation and after taking in the aroma of the food, would began eating it slowly but steadily. She was hungry after not having eaten for a day or two (minus the soup the previous night), but at the same time, she still tried her best to show the table manners as much as possible. “Man, that Moa burger would have been fantastic right now,” she thought to herself, thinking about those days in Reach when she could have a hundred meals with the money that was given to her by that officer. As she looked around, she would see that the others were also eating their meals carefully, making sure to eat every single bit that were served to their plates. After all, a waste during this era would spell hunger or even starvation and as a result, the people were careful with everything they have cooked up. They would be careful not to waste the cooking oil, careful not to overcook anything, and were certainly careful to make sure that they get every single piece of meat stripped off from the bones. The sugar could either be mixed with the meat and eaten, or for the case of a few people around, they would simply eat the dash of sugar on itself to get the energy that it provides.

As they finished up their breakfast, they would go to the communal water tap to wash off the plates, with a few of the children helping out, while the others would go out and get a ball or some other toy to play around with. Gwen would find herself talking to Doris and Jayne once again, with Gwen hinting and giving her thoughts about how they would go back to Europe, and to the country that they were from. Jayne would then mention that they were from Britain as well, specifically from London.

“Well, that will be rather easy,” Gwen thought to herself, “After all, how hard can it be for the natives like to return back to our own home?”

As she finished up her thought, Gwen would then find herself playing with the kids, ranging from hopscotch to football. She would pass off playing jump-rope, since her height would not allow it, and she would need more string than the children’s playset has. As she eats, sleep, and plays in the village, Gwen would also be talking to the villagers about how she would get off the island, though in a positive manner. After all, she was not getting out to get away from the natives and rather, she would need to get to Britain to get Doris and Jayne back with their family. Gwen also learned from a few American soldiers stationed here that the Japanese-Americans were ordered to be either kept on these islands, or transferred to other concentration camps that were situated in the western parts of United States mainland. The President had recently issued this order, it seems, in response to the attack, and this would prove to be a rather bad time for these villagers and other Japanese-Americans.

These internments in turn would make it extremely difficult for these people, but for Gwen, Doris, and Jayne, it would seem easier because of their British nationality, at least for the latter two. It would take more than that for the Americans to be convinced that Gwen is British. Adding this is the fact that as aforementioned, she does not have any form of identification, nor money, to get around, and as a result of all of this, Gwen would either need to send the two off alone, or try another way. Another way, in this case, Gwen decided that she would help the two kids get back to Britain as quickly as possible, while trying her best to stay low-key and interacting with as few people as possible. She would most certainly need connections, from whoever it might be, and she reckoned that she would need to get some rations as much as she can when she reaches the main land.

World 5 – RL World – Oahu, Hawaii, U.S.A. – 15th of December, Year 1941.
En-route to San Francisco.

After a few days have passed, Gwen, Doris, and Jayne were ready to set off by ship to America. The three of them packed their belongings, got themselves some snacks for the trip, and bid farewell to the villagers. A lot of tearful hugs and best wishes were had, with Gwen exchanging kind words to the villagers for helping her out, and for entrusting Doris and Jayne with her. “I will remember your very kind deeds!” Gwen told the villagers that have helped her, “Thank you, for everything. And for paying the ferry tickets, too!”

“All the best with your endeavour, Miss Gwen,” one of the ladies told her back with a tearful hug in her eyes, “We will be safe here, all right? We can’t go anywhere anymore, but don’t worry, we will be fine.”

With all that said and done, they went about their separate ways, waving the villagers goodbye as the ship gets off from the docks and heads to its destination. Once on the boat, Gwen and the two kids walked their way to the cabin while trying their best to ignore the many other looks. Specifically, they were looking at Gwen on the grounds of her being non-humanly tall compared to the rest of the people around. After all, being 10 feet tall was rather difficult to hide. Even the tallest person ever was 2.72 meters tall, so being 3.048 meters would be something that would attract many people to talk to Gwen. She, however, played it cool and simply retreated to the cabin, locking the door behind her and reassuring the two kids that they would be fine. She looked around and after checking their cabin for any hazards, Gwen let the two kids sleep on the double-decker bed, while Gwen would sit on the chair and turn around to talk to them.

“We will be fine, but I will have to tell you two one thing - do not talk to anyone that freely here. We don’t exactly have passports and if they suddenly started asking who we are and where we are from. If anything, tell them that we are from Britain, I am your distant sister in-law, and that we just needed to head back to Britain. Please do not say anything that will deviate away; this is war-time, people will be extremely suspicious about what we said to them.”

“Umm, what is extremely?” Jayne asked with curiosity in her voice.

“Ohh, it means ‘very’. Like, they will get very suspicious.”

“What is suspicious?”

“They may not trust us. You know, like you girls trust me, right? They probably will not, that is what I meant.”

“Oooh, I got it!” Jayne replied back with a chuckle, looking at Doris with a sweet smile.

“If either of you want to go for a bathroom break, do let me know, all right? It is important that neither of you goes missing.”

“Got it, Miss Gwen!” both Doris and Jayne replied back, clutching their backpacks.

“Good girls! Now just sleep, or do whatever you want in this cabin, but please be quiet as well. You don’t want them to come in and check on us,” as she finished that sentence, Gwen would shut off the windows that would provide the view to the sea, close the cabin door’s window, and instead turned on the old light bulb that was hanging overhead. It was not as bright as the sunlight outside, but it at least illuminated the cabin properly. Gwen then sat back down at the table and took out her notebook from her purse. Along the way to the cabin, she managed to write down the rough map and distance from Oahu to San Francisco, i.e. 3855 kilometres. The ship at the time would be going at 6 knots, around 11.112 km/h. The journey would take them 14-15 days, and Gwen was increasingly worried for that moment. They certainly could not stay inside the cabin for the entire 15 days, and they would need to get some fresh air, or to get their daily rations. Luckily for them, room-service was available on the ship and as a result, the ship’s staff would bring their daily rations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which were packaged in small boxes. It would be less of a proper meal, and more of MREs, but at that point, neither of them complained and instead would be glad that they at least got the food. For the first 10 days, everything went as normally as it would, with the questions from the crew and staff given ordinary answers either by Gwen, Doris, or Jayne. As for Gwen, she would get slightly trickier questions about her height, or her occupation, but she simply told them off that she was an ex-British Intelligence officer and that she couldn’t say anything else on the need-to-know basis. As for the former question regarding her height, Gwen would have some difficulty telling them about it. After all, that kind of height would have landed her in a world record, or more attention, so people would wonder why she did not get that. Being unable to provide a straight answer, her answers would vary - from genetics, to extremely tough exercises and conditioning, to censoring world records in order to hide her name and her occupation.

It was a rather tense ten days on the ship, but with Doris and Jayne around and following Gwen wherever she went to, Gwen would rest easier and was only thankful that the kids were easy to take care of, instead of getting someone too bratty for their own good. One evening on the 25th of December, they would watch the sunset from the top floor of the ship, sitting together, with Doris on the left of Gwen, and Jayne on the right of Gwen. As they watched the warm and yellowish-red sun setting into the horizon, both girls would lean on Gwen and hug her arms.

“Miss, err, I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Jayne squeaked out with all her might, a little nervous, “Why are you helping us out?”

Gwen gave her a soft smile and patted her head gently, “Well, Jayne… Let’s just say that it feels good to help you both this way. War is a terrible thing, and I was alone for the most parts, anyway. And sometimes, being alone can be a little… lonely, yes, but I travelled alone as a choice. Some people like you kids, you have no choice and you have little to no chances of meeting your parents back. We cannot have that, can we?”

Doris shook her head as a negative reply.

“We will get through this together, friends! I will make sure that you are all safe and sound till the end,” Gwen reassured once again, this time to both Doris and Jayne.

Gwen checked the clock on the ship’s deck. It was 6.44 PM in the evening, and the sun has more or less set onto the horizon. The stars and the moon were becoming much more visible, and the skies were getting darker.

“Well, I guess we can move on back into the cabin,” Gwen announced, as she let the kids walked first, then her following and watching them from behind, making sure that no one would yank them away while she was not looking. As they approached the cabin, they realised that the cabin door was open. Almost as if someone was inside…

“Shh, kids, behind me,” Gwen whispered to them as she crouched down, propped herself against the wall, and inched along towards the door, with the two kids following suit watching her and their backs.

“Who or what could have possibly gone in?” Gwen thought to herself, anxious.

[Valentine Z]

World 5 – RL World – En-route to San Francisco, U.S.A. – 15th of December, Year 1941.

With Doris and Jayne right behind her, Gwen took a peek from the cabin window and saw pretty much nothing given the lighting conditions. There were some rays of light from the evening sun, but that was not enough to illuminate the entire place. They would need to turn on the light switch from inside, but as of the moment, Gwen was not willing to go in just yet, much less for the kids. She was not too anxious about herself, but rather with the kids. If it was someone, she could probably take them on, but if it is something, then she would have some problems with it.

“I don’t know what it is, but I better find out quickly!” she thought to herself, after which she opened the door slowly. As the door creaked loudly as it was opened, more and more light from outside shone into the cabin inside, revealing… nothing eventful. Checking quickly behind the door then signalling the girls to come into the cabin, Gwen then closed the cabin door and checked every single inch of the room – under the table, on the bed, tapping the ceilings, under the bed. She was as thorough as an army drill sergeant during an inspection, making sure that no one or nothing escapes her search. She asked the girls to check inside their own backpacks, neither of which has anything missing inside them. Gwen also checked her own purse to make sure, and there was nothing inside that was missing either. Her notes were intact and all-bound, with no missing pages or rips on the paper. She looked around one last time and she was nearly certain that she got everywhere; well, almost everywhere. As she sits beside Doris (Jayne was on the top bunk of the double-decker bed), she noticed some strange sounds coming from inside the closet. She could have sworn that she has checked the closet and in fact, that was the very first thing that she checked. Gwen checked again for the second time, and this time, she made sure that she removed the excess clothes and sheets from the pile, as well as any other cloth hangers that would prove to be a hazard since she is going to check even more thoroughly. As she removed the final bits, Gwen found… absolutely nothing, still. No hidden walls on the cabinet itself. Slightly frustrated, she took out the drawers and removed the dividers for each compartment. After looking through more again and using a torchlight, she found a small little handle. Pulling it would open a vent, a rectangular secret compartment that is around 1.00 meters by 1.30 meters. It was of the right size for the people around her, but for Gwen, she would have some difficulty going in and out.

“Miss Gwen… what is going on?” Jayne asked, looking down from her double-decker bed.

Looking back at her and giving a quick smile, Gwen then locked the cabin door and walked back towards the girls, asking them to look at the cabinet.

“I knew it! I think someone was trying to sneak into our room, girls! Would that explain why the door was open? Maybe someone forgot to lock it back after using the compartment. I will go in with the torchlight, see what’s what. I have locked the door and checked every corner, so I am certain that no one is going to get you both. Stay there, okay? I will be back in a short while.”

Both of the girls nodded and with that, Gwen was set to crawl into the tiny vent with the flashlight beside her. As she crawled in, she realised that the vent was rather tinny in terms of the sounds. Rumblings from the fan were heard as well, as well as distinct conversations from several other rooms as she crawled through and around 50 meters of the vent. Thankfully, the path of the vent was rather rounded instead of the sharp turns and as a result, it made Gwen’s crawl pretty convenient. As she reached the end, she realised that she was looking at a metal grating and from there, peeked into the captain’s quarter of the ship. There were a few sailors who were doing their typical shipping things, while the captain could be heard conversing with a few others. From what Gwen could interpret, it would seem that they were suspicious about Gwen and the two kids, but more on herself. It was actually one of the staffs that would sneak into the room using the secret compartment and vent, but ultimately decided to take nothing.

“Try again at night,” the voice could be heard saying, “They would be sleeping at that time.”

“Try what?” Gwen thought to herself. Are they about to enter their room using the secret compartment again? Or worse, are they going to do more than just looking around? What if they are trying on kidnapping the kids, she thought. Several thoughts raced into her mind with that statement she heard, and none of them were good or reassuring her. Her worst fear is her suddenly missing and letting the two kids fend themselves, and she could not do it herself. Trying to think about the situation in the meantime, Gwen slowly slid backwards back into her own cabin, which took her much longer than needed since she was crawling backwards, and it was difficult to determine the distances. As she got back out, unharmed but covered in some soot, the two girls looked at her with delight and curiosity, asking her about what she has seen.

“What did you see, Miss?” Jayne asked yet again, with Doris on the lower bunk nodding at Gwen.

“Err… nothing too good,” Gwen started, letting out a short sigh, then continuing on, “I don’t know what these people are trying to do, but these people were using these compartments as a way to spy on people? Would explain why the door was open when we were outside seeing the sunset. Anyway, that aside, they are going to come in here again through this compartment.”

“I wonder what they want from us,” Doris asked, but with genuine curiosity, not with the cliched ‘What do you want from me?’

“I am not very sure about that,” Gwen answered back, looking back at the curious kid in the eyes. That innocence, Gwen thought to herself. If only they know what kind of a person she is, and where she is from. It would break their little minds, but the explanation cannot be let out to anyone, not even them.

“I think they might have wanted me…” Gwen stuttered, “But not in the way you think. I am not a criminal, I am not a bad person. I am just… I am just a strange person in this world. Maybe they knew that I am an intelligence officer, but I told them that, correct? I probably should have kept that secret, I don’t know.”

Approaching towards the bed and with Jayne climbing back down to the lower bunk aside Doris, Gwen crouched down and looked at them, reassuring them once again, “I am just a strange person, like I have said. No matter what happens, or no matter who anyone else thinks that I am, know that it is still my personal duty to get you both alive and back to your parents. I will never abandon you both, I promise.”

“Cross your heart?” Doris asked softly.

“Yes, I do,” Gwen doing just that.

With that done, Gwen put back the sheets and other articles of clothing back neatly into the cabinet, as well as shoving a pole across the cabinet’s handles so that no one can get through it. She also double-checked the kids, making sure that they have brushed their teeth or have done their businesses with the toilet before locking the door once again. Gwen wanted to make sure that both kids are within her sight nearly all the time, avoiding if and all possible kidnappings that might happen while they were alone; she would wait outside the bathroom, eat dinner together with them, tidy them up… Gwen was basically acting as capably as a legal guardian for these two kids.

“Good night, girls,” Gwen said to them softly, watching them as they fall asleep soundly. She did not have a bed of her own and for these 11 days, she has been putting up a few sheets and was sleeping on the floor, with her feet touching the cabin door and her head touching the bed; she was simply too tall for everyone else around her. Even as she was lying down, she still could not sleep; she could not shake off what she heard whilst crawling through that vent. “What if they came?” she whispered to herself, “And by force?” Gwen tried to reassure herself that she would not face too much resistance given that this is a citizen-based ferry; maybe at worst a few revolvers, but she should not be expecting a lot of firepower or shoot-to-kill statuses. At the same time, however, her mind was constantly reminding her of the World War 2 that was basically happening, and the bombing of the Pearl Harbour was a start of everything bad and worse to come. She would need to get them home quickly, provided that the home and their parents were still around in the first place. She didn’t have the hearts to tell them of the personality, but sooner or later, if circumstances become worse in the future, she would have to ease them in with the possibility of the bad news.

Worried and frustrated, she shut her eyes for a few seconds, praying that she would not get teleported somewhere while these kids were still around with her. She simply could not have that. Suddenly, after 8 minutes, she felt a tap on her cheek, almost as if someone was poking her.

“Gwen? Gwen! Wake up!” Doris whispered a bit loudly, “I heard something inside the cabinet!”

Quickly and quietly getting up, Gwen approached the cabinet with caution, taking note of the metal rod that she has slid into the handles to prevent it from being opened. She pressed her ears and listened to the sounds that were coming from the inside. At first, it did not appear to be anything, given the muffling and dampening effects of the sheets and clothes that absorbed the sound of the vents and the rumbles of the machinery inside the ship. However, as she listened much more closely, she would hear some other sounds, almost as if someone was crawling across the metal vent and was struggling to open it. A few soft thuds were heard, as well as sharp curses from a man who crawled and could not get the cabinet secret door out of the way. With Gwen closing the cabinet with the metal rod, the drawers, let alone the cabinet compartments, could not be opened from the inside and thus the person still trapped inside. Eventually, after 10 minutes of small thuds and knocks of the similar fashion, more sounds of vent-crawling were heard, and this time, they were fading away; the person inside the vents were slowly crawling back out of it in a failed attempt to get inside the cabin and disturb Gwen and the girls.

She waited for another 30 minutes. Checking the time, it was around 1.30 AM in the morning. Gwen quietly went back to the table and wrote down in detail of what she saw and heard, as well as the aforementioned time that it happened. Granted, the captain was most definitely in-cahoots with the staff and people who intruded into the cabin, but for record sake, Gwen figured that she might need it sometime in the future. Confidently writing it off, but still tired, she decided to check on the girls yet again, assuring them that there is nothing to be afraid of, since they could not even get out of the cabinet, let alone check the cabin or take them away from Gwen. With this reassurance, Gwen and the girls slept it off, with the former sleeping much more soundly this time due to the combination of relieve and for staying up rather late.

The blare of the horn woke everyone up, and the ship has docked. Gwen and the girls packed their belongings and checked out of their windows, only to see probably the most majestic view that they could only laid their eyes on. The city of San Francisco glimmering in the morning sunlight, looking like something out of a travel brochure. The living city, the glittering seas, and the blue skies… Gwen was simply happy to see it all.

“There it is, girls!” Gwen exclaimed, “America! We are finally here!”

The three of them disembarked out of the ship and thanking basically everyone that kept them company for these 10 days. Gwen, on the other hand, was rather itching to ask the crew on what was up with them sneaking into their rooms through a secret compartment. However, at the same time, she chose not to, and instead would just disembark out of the ship. After all, the staff and crew are not going to follow them anytime soon, and instead will be stuck on their ship for their duties.

“Remember, Doris and Jayne!” Gwen started off her sentence, warning the kids about the dangers, “Try to stay with me all the time! This, I am afraid, is a rather war-happy period and so we cannot really wander around and make friends with the strangers; you will never know who’s who.”

Both of them nodded once again.

“Good girls!” Gwen would reply back, letting the kids go first while she follows them from behind, “Now then… let us look for a place to stay, and somewhere that won’t be suspicious about us!”