“….What?”

He pulled a confused expression on his face. “What, what?”

Shera blinked, she couldn’t move, because if she did, she wouldn’t be able to contain the suffocating feeling in the back of her throat. Instead she decided to just stand there, perfectly still, waiting for anything to happen that would take her out of this situation and back to somewhere where the world wasn’t being questioned like a murder suspect.

Because everything seemed so upside-down. The crazy student in front of her just made an unintelligible revelation, but for some reason she couldn’t shake it off and deny his accusation entirely.

Her eyes flicked around at the sight before her, while her brain struggled to grasp what he had said seconds earlier.

“You’re not in your world anymore”

“Our worlds might be connected”.

She was confused as heck, but didn’t want any explanation. There probably wasn’t any explanation for such an outrageous accusation, because nothing in the world could provide any evidence for-

Wait.

“Where’s the rain?!” Shera shouted, looking around jerkily as if she had just lost something important. “I had my umbrella, and-”

Just like the rain that was here minutes earlier, her umbrella was nowhere to be found.

“I was sure I brought it here…. What… Did it fly away?”

“What’s the matter?” His voice called, muffled through her daze. Shera stopped, still panting as she tried to bring herself back to her senses.

“I remember it was raining outside…. And you were soaked, like, I couldn’t even pull on your shirt because it was so wet …”

“It wasn’t raining.”

Shera turned and instinctively glared at him. It’s that denial again, just like last time when he said that he didn’t mean to jump. It rebukes all of her rationality, turning her into nothing but a madwoman.

“Then why… Do I remember it?!” Shera screamed, unable to contain the frustration lacing through her words. She fantasized about yanking on his shirt collar and demanding concrete answers, or at least an apology. An apology for making her so confused.

But she didn’t. Instead, Shera brought two shaky hands up to her head and sat down, crossing her legs. Her headache hadn’t even had the time to improve before she was made to behold all this nonsense. She was half a wit away from believing that everything up until now was a dream, just to ease the confusion in her head.

There was another long silence. Still cradling her head, Shera stared at the student’s shoes again. He was standing still, as if frozen in time. Eventually, he kneeled down until his face was just above hers.

There was a bit of a pause before he spoke.

“What’s your name?”

His voice was strangely soothing. Shera withheld her reply, letting the silence drag on. Before long, he shuffled around and sat on the ground beside her, exposing the scenery behind him, of the sunlight peeking out behind the clouds from beyond the rooftop.

“Shera” She said, before taking a deep breath into her lungs. Her head suddenly became empty but clear, as if he had cast some sort of spell with only a few words. She let the serenity continue, reluctant to re-live the feelings that she had felt only seconds ago, which were already pushed to the back of her mind.

They both sat there in silence for a while. Shera stared blankly out into the distance, adjusting her eyes to the brightness of the light rays. “What’s yours?”

There was no reply, so Shera stole a glance in his direction. He looked nervous, which was surprising. Should someone feel that way about telling someone else their name?

After a while he turned to her to speak, but she didn’t expect his words.

“I don’t know…. I don’t think I have one. I just know that I’m supposed to.”

He started to fidget with his long hair.

“If it’s alright…. Can you choose a good one for me?”