Darkness. Lip stood in a small clearing, surrounded by various shops, scaffolding trashed with loosely hanging nets and boards, and smoke. Ahead sat a T-intersection, going out to the left, right, and forward. Scattered about the area were floodlights directed at certain areas, all tinted to some extent by a red hue. She looked out towards her left, but the road only disappeared into a fog. Turning around, two lights pierced through the fog.

             As they approached, she made out the figure of a van growing larger. When it was twenty feet out, it slowed and came to a stop. Lip's bag sat next to her, ped from her meeting with Jinsoul. Her breaths shortened, echoing the hissing smoke that filled the area. A girl swung the door open, giving a small wave.

             "... Heejin?"

             "Hi! Nice to meet you," she replied, pulling out a small notebook out of her pocket. Angled towards her, she found a page, readjusting her grip. "What's your name?"

             "Kim Lip - you're real, right? This isn't some messed up dream I'll eventually wake up from, right?"

             She let out a laugh. "No, this is a real thing. I've been here for around a year, trying to work everything out." She wrote a few things down in her notebook, drawing a line through a few notes. "Kim Lip, you said? Wow, this is the real deal…" Looking up, she turned towards the car, "Come on. We should head back and get you settled in. I think someone was expecting you, actually." Lip got in the van behind her.

             As Heejin started up the van again, Kim Lip fastened her seatbelt. "So, were you the first?" she asked.

             "I was the first. It was cold, I was in the middle of nowhere, and I had tons of possessions that weren't mine. After wandering for a while, I found my way back to civilization, but everything felt off. I was still set apart from everyone, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Only when I found Hyunjin was I ready to embark on this ridiculous chase."

             "How'd she get here?"

             "Well, we're all already here, right? I was sitting outside one day when I felt an aura near me, the same cold shiver I felt on my first day. In my bag," she gave a sack in the passenger seat a few slaps, "were keys, a notebook, snacks, and other things. It didn't have anyone's name on it, but I recognized the keys. We went over to the housing closest to the school and just started trying them. Eventually, one of them worked and that's where we set up camp. From then on, we've been trying to find everyone else who… 'wakes up' here." She made a turn, entering the urban district.

             "How many of us are there?"

             They came to a stop at a red light. "There were 8 beds in the house when I got there, so I'm guessing 8. Right now, it's me, Hyunjin… Haseul, ViVi, and you. That means there would be 3 more."

             Lip perked up, wondering where ViVi fit into all this. "You know ViVi?"

             "Yeah, she'd go on about a 'Kim Lip' occasionally. I guess that's you. Oh, also," Heejin turned to look at her, "we're not only in this new universe: in a way, we are the universe." She turned back around. "As we've gone along meeting people, going through difficult times and such, everyone began getting intertwined with their thoughts, emotions, even visions… I think we're getting close to something. Maybe you'll be the one to make a breakthrough and take us higher."

             They came to a house. Merged into the line of houses to their left and right, a two-story apartment sat on its lawn, one window illuminated. "As far as anyone knows, we're just like anyone else, okay? School is the same, drama is the same, and we're all just friends from our childhood. I have your classes all sorted out, all the work for the year is already filled out at the house. As for the sleeping assignments, right now I'm rooming with Hyunjin. ViVi and Haseul are in two separate rooms, but we can all figure out who wants to be with who as time goes on. One room has two beds, another has three, and there's two bathrooms."

             She opened the door, Lip following right behind her. Reaching for some keys in her pocket, Heejin walked up and unlocked the door. As it swung open, the view of the living space was exposed: living room to the left, stairs going upwards to the right, and the dining room / kitchen in the back. Against the wall, two sliding glass doors revealed a view of a backyard. Two girls sprawled across a couch sat up to look. Farther in the back, a girl with flowing pink hair peeked her head out from behind the wall, calling out, "What did I say? Here she is, the Kim Lip!"

             "Hi. Yes, I'm Kim Lip, everyone. Nice to meet you all," she managed. Heejin closed the door behind them and tossed her bag next to a shoe rack. ViVi stopped her cooking and motioned towards a door. She opened the door and Lip followed. Closing it behind her, a large bathroom shone white, tiles covering every surface. Looking up, ViVi pulled her into an embrace.

             "It's been so long…" ViVi sniffed out. 

             "This is the craziest thing, isn't it? We're back together again!"

             ViVi stepped back, "I know, everything just feels… upside down. It's hard just falling asleep sometimes, this whole momentous expectation looming above us to figure it all out."

             Kim Lip stopped her, "How come you said it's been forever? I saw you just today."

             "I mean… I saw you, but it wasn't like that. What we know now is that Jinsoul is somehow a part of this."

             Lip began to feel flustered, so she spoke quickly. "Why? How do you know?"

             "There's... this thing, right, that we all carry with us, it's like our second identity. Hyunjin was the one that figured it out. There's two 'worlds,' or something, that we occupy. If we're on one side, we're us. There's a certain way, though, that you can flip instantly onto the other side, and we're… basically living as someone else. Today, I brought you in. That 'other' me… is who you know as Jinsoul."

             "... I don't-"

             "Don't ask me, it's over my head. But since she isn't here, and that's who I've discovered is my other half, she has to be involved. Somehow. She's out there somewhere, but as of right now none of us have actually met her yet."

             "What about the 'you' that… actually looks like you?" Lip looked at her. "Back at school?"

             ViVi sighed. "Lip, I haven't been at school for months. That's what I'm saying. I've been here with these girls, going through what you're going through right now."

             "... Alright, alright. It'll be okay, right? Let's just figure it out later."

             "Okay, sure..."

~ ~ ~

             Dinner brought everyone together. Lip heard everyone's stories, some more bizarre than others. Tales of strange people, voices, and other exciting moments filled the room, often followed by laughter and teasing. By the end, she had begun to match their names to their faces. Walking up the stairs, the other two agreed to stay with her in the larger bedroom. As Haseul and ViVi gathered their belongings, she spotted a suitcase full of clothes at the foot of each bed.

             "We, uh, weren't sure who was going to be coming, so there's a bit of everything in those," ViVi noted.

             "Oh, that's fine," Lip returned, placing her own bag upon the farthest bed. Like in a typical hospital, each bed was spread out facing outward, spaces between each to move in and out. Shelves with lamps sat between each bed and dressers lined up on the opposite wall, a handful of products scattered on each. Eventually, all three girls had resigned to their beds, wrapped in their covers; Haseul had her phone out while ViVi read a book by the light of the lamp. "What do we all do, then?" Lip asked suddenly, "Go to school hoping to find people? By feeling things?"

             ViVi angled her book down, "It's weird, right? I just want to know if I can change the color of the sky if I try hard enough, all the talk about being 'divinely connected' with the universe. What would that even look like?"

             "There's just a lot we don't know yet," Haseul reminded. "Lip, have you seen anything strange happen, lately? Anything we might be able to use?"

             ViVi sat up. "I mean, Heejin started this all, right? If she has powers, she probably created this whole thing; we could just ask her."

             "ViVi, you know we can't do that. If Hyunjin says we shouldn't have to worry, then we should listen and just trust each other. Besides, we might never know how long she's been here if she was the first one."

             ViVi got up and closed their door. "If the other girl was here, we'd be able to know."

             "Alright," Haseul clicked off her phone, "that's far enough. Do you want me to take away the answer keys again?"

             "No, no, no," ViVi exclaimed, "this was my mistake, I'm sorry. Don't make me learn all those history chapters again. I am so tired of writing down names and dates, it's so tiring…"

             Haseul plugged in her phone. "Are you both okay with me turning off the light?"

             Lip rolled onto her side, "Sure, I'm okay."

             With a click, the room was dark. The minutes ticked by, silence broken once in a while by a shifting in their bed or leaving for the bathroom. As Lip yawned, her bed quietly vibrated. Waiting a moment, she got up and reached for her bag. Her phone lit up the inside of her bag; she lowered its brightness and brought it into her bed.

    ViVi: Yo.

    Lip: What?

    ViVi: Things don't feel right.

    Lip: How so?

    ViVi: I think Heejin created this whole thing. Not just the idea, but the world somehow.

    ViVi: I'm not joking when I say we all have powers. I think Heejin is overlooking the entire thing, and there's things that she hasn't told us yet.

    Lip: I mean, we're all trying to figure it out, right?

    ViVi: Did anything weird happen today? Getting in and all?

    Lip: Crazy enough it did. Today was identical to yesterday, same things happening all on their own. The only difference being things that I affected, when I said different things, etc…

    ViVi: That's her, I guarantee it. Something had to have happened.

    Lip: Who was the other girl you were talking about?

    ViVi: I just heard it somewhere in the house one night. She said her name was "Yeojin" and that things were going downhill somehow, saying she was gone.

    Lip: Is she another girl?

    ViVi: I guess, but we'd have met her, right? Nobody has said anything, though, so…

    Lip: What are we going to do about Jinsoul?

    ViVi: I'm going to ask Hyunjin tomorrow. If she's really my mirror, maybe I can get to her by getting to the other side, world, whatever it is. You have to come, though. Nobody goes alone anywhere other than for school, and I'm not sure Haseul is in the mood right now.

    Lip: How do we get back?

    ViVi: We just meet at the same spot at a certain time, and she'll be there. We're not doing it tomorrow for sure, we don't even know where to look. But that's who we should try and find next. Deal?

    Lip: Deal.

             With that, ViVi turned off her phone. Lip fell asleep shortly afterwards.