Cora pulls out her legs and stands. The heat bears down on her, a stark contrast to the river’s cold. “Hey, could you pass me my bag?”

“Sure.”

Liam passes her backpack over and Cora takes out the tiny face towel, drying her feet. Once she deems them dry enough, she stuffs the face towel back into her backpack and zips the front shut, putting on her socks, then her boots. She ties them with a double knot, then strolls over to him.

How she wishes she can stay seated on the riverbank and lose herself to the river’s soothing waters. On the edges the current is weaker, helping her relax more, or so it feels for her. But that has to wait. Time to explore.

“Where did you see them?” she asks, picking up a water bottle and stuffing it into her backpack’s mesh holder.

“Over there,” Liam says, pointing in the same direction where he’d thrown the branch. She eyes the land ahead wearily, scanning the ground for signs of the wood that left her in such a bad state. “I’ll walk in the same place I saw the person.”

“And if we do find them?”

He stiffens. “We try to communicate one way or another. If they’re like us.”

The odds are in their favor, though. With Liam having appeared so close to her, Cora suspects that the person he saw is another human. It only makes sense. “Okay… I hope everything goes fine.”

“You know it never does,” he says, then shakes his head. “Never mind. So I saw them here.” He stops on a regular patch of dirt. Several bushes take up a lot of nearby space, so she understands how in the night the figure would have disappeared easily. “They were turning their head and then started walking like this.”

He walks downhill. Cora trails behind, scanning for any footprints. There are none as far as she can tell, but then again the soil is made of different stuff than Earth soil. This world has more compact soil. Both of them aren’t leaving any footsteps, either, so she keeps her head up and vision ahead.

“I saw them disappear around here,” he says, waving around. Several more bushes spread their branches out fully, massive wooden domes cocooning the pumpkin-things growing at their centers. “Only place I can think of where they might’ve headed is over here.”

“I can’t tell if anybody’s been here. The ground’s perfect and nothing looks off. Are you sure you weren’t hallucinating?”

She should’ve considered it sooner. Liam pushes himself harder than her, leaving him in need of more rest which he never gets. Of course he hallucinated the whole thing. It was only a matter of time.

“Huh. I never considered that.”

Her shoulders slump. “You probably dreamt the whole thing up. Or something like that.”

He shakes his head. “Wait, no. I heard them step on branches. I heard a few loud cracking noises.”

“There are no branches lying around. It’s all bare dirt.”

Definitely nothing bigger than leaves. Now she knows he hallucinated the whole thing. Even if the person was real, the cracking sound couldn’t have been.

“Shit. You’re right. Fuck, I never thought hallucinations could be so real.”

Cora turns to head back to the riverbank. “That's the only explanation. I’m sorry.”

So much for hoping something exciting will happen. Her hopes are dashed, and Liam’s false sense of hope he gave her makes her irritated. They walked out here for nothing. She could’ve been relaxing by the river instead of pushing her feet further.

Something catches the corner of her eye. Beyond several bushes, inside a grove of dark brown trees much farther out, is a blemish. Darker than the rust-colored ground. Irregularly shaped, hidden so well by the surrounding vegetation that she thinks it’s a log.

Until she catches a flash of red on the log-like blemish. Too bright to be natural, or so she thinks. Everything else has muted colors, and that red… It's like a knife through paper. Breaking the general look this world has.

“Huh? Wait. I want to check something out.”

“Like I wanted to, right?” Liam says dejectedly.

“Come on, it’ll only be a few minutes.”

They weave through the bushes and cross the distance between them and the grove. It doesn’t take long to reach the blemish, and she walks around the trees to get a better look. Nestled within a network of roots forming an open bowl is a person.

Cora clasps her hands over her mouth, stifling a gasp. Liam inhales and then holds his breath. The person lying in front of them–lying on their side, really–is wearing a dirtied black uniform, reaching down to their feet and wrists. A red crescent moon decorates the back of their shirt. Their pants bear some tears, with several areas darker-stained still. Boots and gloves hide the rest of them, but it’s their head, turned away so both of them can’t see their face, that gives it away.

A girl, how old Cora can’t tell, sports a dried cut in the back of her head and a bruise on her cheek. Her matted black hair reaches down to her shoulders, thrown over her face, haphazardly cut so some sections are longer than others. Her ebony skin looks sickly in the light that manages to stream through the canopy.

“Holy shit,” Liam whispers.

“What… Is she…” Cora creeps next to the girl and leans in as far as she can to check if she’s breathing. Cora sighs when she sees the gentle rise and fall of the girl’s chest. “She’s still alive.”

“Cora…”

“What?” Liam’s finger hovers inches over the side of the girl’s head. Pointing at her ear. Cora furrows her eyebrows. “That’s literally just her ear.”

“Look closer.” And she does, and she nearly passes out. Instead of a rounded ear like she expects, the girl’s ear tapers off at a point, like the elves she so often saw in Christmas, books, movies, videos–but this is real.

“Holy shit,” she whispers, mirroring Liam’s shock. “Oh my God, what–she’s not human.”

“What does this mean for us, then?”

The implications of just this girl existing stretches her mind beyond all possible reasoning. She is a tiny part of an unimaginably greater machine, Cora realizes, like herself. Even Liam, who she thought before fit perfectly into this world.

But no. It is nothing like what they lived through back on Earth. This is a completely new world, with a new civilization, with its own people, like the girl resting before them.

It’s the possibilities of what that machine is that absolutely blows her mind out of the water.

“I–I don’t know.”

They continue staring at the girl that has forever upended their realities. Beyond any doubt, Cora knows she will never be the same. Proof. They need proof. She whips out her phone and takes several pictures of the girl. Just to make sure that they aren’t hallucinating her.

The girl shows up in crystal-clear images. Meaning that she’s real. Yes, she is. Cora instantly feels guilty about taking pictures of the girl when clearly she’s seen better days. Through the curtain of thick hair over her face, the girl is strikingly pretty, although the finer details are lost.

“Should we leave her here?” For the first time, Liam sounds uncertain. Fearful, even, and that in turn worsens her own. Yet it is coupled with sympathy, because even if the girl isn’t human, she looks like she needs their help.

“No. She needs our help. She’s all beat-up and wearing that uniform. Maybe she got lost or something.”

“This is all so surprising.” Liam begins pacing back and forth. “Okay, we should help her. But she’s only going to see strangers.”

“If she’s anything like us, she’ll understand.”

“That’s a big if.”

“Maybe, but she’s hurt anyway. Whoever she is–whatever she is, however she sees us–I don’t care. I want to help her.”

At that moment, Cora accidentally brushes her hand on the girl’s leg as she pushes herself onto her feet. The girl begins to stir, turning onto her back, opening her eyes. Slivers of amethyst-colored pupils peek through her eyelids.

Instantly, she screams. A shrill, raw scream, perforating Cora’s eardrums, making her wince in pain. Faster than humanly possible, the girl draws out a pocket knife and lunges at Cora. She is only fast enough to draw her forearms up and throw herself aside as the girl swings where Cora was a split second ago. The knife nicks her arm, drawing blood, prompting Cora to cry out.

Liam descends on the girl with brutal efficiency. He pins her down, and Cora yanks the pocket knife away, throwing it aside. The girl thrashes with greater strength than Cora expects, because even Liam struggles keeping her down.

“Please, stop!” the girl screams. Tears stream down her face. "I don't want to go back!"

Cora freezes. “How do you…”

“Cora,” Liam grunts, face turning red from exertion.

Cora faces the girl, extending both of her hands outwards in a placating gesture. Her left arm, the one the girl nicked, burns, so she lowers it back to her side. “We’re not going to hurt you. Whoever you’re talking about, we’re not them. I promise.”

The girl’s violet eyes lock on Cora. “Magaram.” The girl stops thrashing, head hung. Her chest is heaving, each breath drawing a shudder through her lithe frame. “I-I’m sorry f-for attacking you. Please forgive me. H-help me.” Her voice comes out as a tiny squeak. Her eyes squeeze shut, the fresh glimmer of tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

“I will. We will. But please stay calm. We want to help you.” At least, she does. Liam’s face is a mask of barely-suppressed rage and terror. Two emotions Cora hopes to never see again scrawled on his features.

“O-okay.”

Liam lessens his grip on the girl, though not completely. Cora grabs her bottle and places it before the girl. “Do you need water?”

“Yes p-please.” The girl’s head is still bowed down, but she opens her eyes and takes in the plastic bottle. Her lips purse. Her arm twitches near her torso. Her violet eyes seem to pulsate and flash briefly, the irises contracting to pin-points, concentrated on Cora.

One moment, Cora wonders over the girl’s appearance, the next the girl rips free from Liam’s grip and lunges at Cora. Liam is too slow to prevent the girl from crashing into Cora. She finds herself quickly pinned at the bottom as the girl’s unnatural strength prevents Cora from moving.

Liam swings a fist into the girl’s head. Her grip weakens, and that’s more than enough for Cora to harness all of the pent-up fury since she arrived here, betrayed by the box, betrayed by herself for being so stupid, the white-hot anger narrowing her vision and making her teeth clench and muscles tense–

Cora pulls back her arm and drives an elbow into the girl’s temple. There's a sickening thump as bone collides with flesh. The impact vibrates up Cora’s arm, jarring her out of her rage, the strength she felt dissipating, leaving her shaking.

The girl drops to the floor, unnaturally still. Cora gently touches her. No response. Cora shakes the girl by the shoulder. Still no response. “Shit. Shit. Shit,” Cora whispers. She looks at Liam desperately. “I didn’t mean it. It just happened. No, I-I killed her.”

No. No, no, no, no, no… Cora grabs her head with both hands, staring at the girl’s fallen body, at the life extinguished, all because Cora can’t keep herself together for at least one day without breaking down over one thing or another.

“I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” Cora starts tearing up, her throat tight. “I-I didn’t want to… it happened without thinking–”

Liam hugs Cora. She’s hyperventilating, hyper fixated on the girl who isn’t moving. “Listen to me,” he says sternly. “She’s breathing. You knocked her out, that’s all. You were only defending yourself.” Through the tears, through her blurry vision, the girl’s chest clearly rises and falls. “How badly you injured her I don’t know,” he says, almost as an afterthought.

“Oh–oh my God.” Cora wipes away the tears, but her tight throat remains. “I-I thought I killed her.”

“I didn’t want to, but if you hadn’t knocked her out…” No further words need to be said. Liam’s knife is outlined through the fabric of his pants.

The girl’s limp form makes Cora’s heart ache for her. She was probably defending herself. Cora feels queasy. And they attacked her only because she was defending herself. “We have to help her.”

“She almost killed you!” Liam explodes. “Not once, but twice. This world is dangerous. We aren’t meant for it and this girl is a part of it. We’re better off leaving her here than risking our lives when she wakes up again.”

“It’s the right thing to do.” Cora bites her lip. The adrenaline hasn’t gone away. Her heart keeps pumping furiously. “And I hurt her even worse. She was scared. Alone. I get why she reacted like that. And I only hurt her more. We only hurt her more.”

Liam sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We don’t know anything about the people of this world. She could be a murderer. It could be part of their culture.”

Cora shakes her head. She rubs her shoulder where the girl had grabbed her. “She didn’t act like one. We need to bring her back to camp.”

“And when she wakes up with the two strangers who attacked her? Like she just did?”

“We’ll get to that later.” Cora clings to Liam’s arm, staring up at him. “Please. She was only defending herself. How would you feel if you woke up and two random strangers stood over you?”

“I–” Liam’s words collapse into a sigh. “She is like us, huh?” But his frown doesn’t go away.

“She needs our help,” Cora pleas. Her voice trembles. “She literally speaks English. She–she’s like us, even if she doesn’t look like it. We approached her the wrong way.”

Liam scowls, but he nods. “Fine. You grab her legs and I’ll take her arms. But if she wakes up and tries attacking either of us, all bets are off.” His hand brushes against the knife. Cora knows how deep it cuts.

The girl needs their help. Cora doesn’t want her to sever the friendship she’s made with Liam, though. Every action he makes is mechanical, yanking the girl up by her armpits. His expression is closed off, and somehow that’s worse than the anger and terror Cora saw.

Almost like he’s disappointed in her.

She blows her hair out of her face. Well, she doesn’t care what he thinks of her at the moment. Call her stupid for all she cares. But those are thoughts she wants to believe, and she can’t fool herself into believing something that contradicts her desire to be friends with him. To be connected across worlds.

Because she does care. She feels as close to him as she does to Jenny and Ben. But it’s too late, and Cora wants to help the girl, even if it means Liam’s angry at her. So be it.

She walks in front and takes each of the girl’s legs, pressed on both of Cora’s sides. And prepares herself for the silent walk back to camp.