Voices floated.

Words jumbled around in her dreams.

Quinn tried to focus on what was happening, grasping for understanding.

Her eyes flew open and she gasped.

Tunnel Man was a few inches away from her face.

"Ahhhhh!" Quinn's hands and feet flew upward, her right hand and left knee both making contact.

The man groaned as he backed up, hands on his face and thigh.

"I'm so sorry! You suprised me!" Quinn squeaked, sitting up. Her body felt dizzy. Not quite right.

Wait.

Why was she apologizing to him?

Then she had another realization:

Quinn had time to get away!

She was in some sort of room with stone walls, but the doorway was behind the man, which complicated things.

At least he'd gotten her out of the cavern.

If she was fast enough, she could book it outside and find a car or a bus to get her home.

She sat up and would've escaped, but her whole head felt fuzzy, and she only ended up sitting back down.

Giving up that option, she positioned her hands in a kung fu stance in front of her body, mimicking the bravado she'd seen in movies.

"Don't move. I'm trained, and if you come any closer, I won't go easy on you."

The man stared at her, one hand still cradling his eye where her fist had made contact.

He just looked.

Stupid Grumpy Tunnel Man.

Quinn waved her hands threateningly in karate chop motions.

He kept staring.

It was almost like he was examining her with his eyes. Studying her for something.

Quinn looked down without moving her head, her eyes tracking her pajamas to make sure there wasn't something on her or that she wasn't bleeding or something.

Satisfied, she flicked her gaze back to the man who had moved a solid two feet closer.

Quinn inhaled quickly and threw her body backwards, her head hitting something hard behind her.

"Ouch. Owie owie ow ow OW." She whimpered, clutching her head, man forgotten.

Fingers touched her hands and probed beneath her hair.

Quinn whipped her head up and made eye contact with Grumpy Tunnel Man.

His head was close and she could see a light mark next to his his right eye. A birthmark? A freckle?

"What do you want?" She asked, her voice wavering from the confidence it had previously held.

He didn't answer, just looked at her like she was some baffling puzzle that he wasn't sure how to operate.

"Okayyy. Big man does not speak. That's cool. That's all good." Quinn muttered.

His hands lifted out of her hair, satisfied that she wasn't injured and he turned around to walk away.

Big mistake.

Quinn took her chance, leaping off the fur and leapt at him.

The plan had been to tackle him to the ground, but she had miscalculated two things.

Number 1: the fur moved.

Number 2: Without any stable momentum, his larger frame was virtually immovable.

The fur slid out from under her and a suprised squeak left her as she collided face first into his back before crashing onto the floor.

"Ouuuuuch." She groaned.

His large hands lifted her by her arms back onto her feet gently and he started to check her again.

Thoroughly humiliated, she shoved his hands away and made a desperate bolt for the door.

For a brief moment it occurred to her that he hadn't given chase, which meant he wasn't holding her captive as she'd previously thought. Maybe he'd been an actual concerned nice guy and she'd just acted like a nutjob in an asylum.

She yanked open the door and ran outside, barefoot, in her baby blue pajamas.

Right into three solid feet of snow.

"What the frik?" She shouted.

Vegas didn't have snow. It was sunny, all the time. It was a desert, all the time. She would know. Her skin was dry and flaky literally all the time. Even in winter, it was a solid 70 degrees during the Apocalypse.

Snow wasn't something she'd seen.

Ever.

Which meant she was a lot further away from home than she'd thought.

There was snow for miles. In every direction. Behind her was the small stone house she'd just come out of, half buried in the snow.

What the heck?

She couldn't stand in the snow barefoot, and the legs of her pajamas were already soaked as she came to that conclusion.

Quinn turned and stalked back inside, slamming the door behind her.

Dripping water onto the floor, shivering violently, Quinn faced off against the silent man who looked almost amused at her present state.

"Where the frik are we?" She asked, voice low.

"Do you hear me? Answer me you kidnapping jerk! Did my roommate put you up to this? Tammy's a grade-A Ho, but this is too smart to be her. She would've just lit my closet on fire."

The man stared at her.

Assessing.

"HELLLO. Mr. Tunnel Man? Where. Are. We?!"

He didn't answer and Quinn felt her body shake both from the cold and from plain and simple upsetness that stole through her. She was stuck. Somewhere she didn't know. With a man she didn't know. Without shoes. Or a car.

Then he did something she really wasn't expecting.

"We're in the Southern kingdom. But that much is obvious. Somewhere near Mount Izots."

His voice was higher than she'd expected because of his size, but he was definitely still in Baritone range.

"He s-speaks." She said, snarkily. "W-what the heck do you m-mean by k-kingdom? America is a d-d-democracy."

He'd seemed pretty neutral and level, but at that his face went from icy distant to concerned.

"I-I'm o-only s-stuttering b-bec-cause it's  cold." She huffed, frustrated.

He pulled over a fur from a nearby chair and wrapped it around her shaking form.

Quinn gave him the evil eye as she clutched it closer.

He looked her up and down, then lifted her up and moved her to where she had woken up: back to a large pile of furs.

"You don't know what kingdom I speak of?"

Quinn shook her head slowly, trying to make it obvious that this guy was clearly an idiot.

"That's not possible."

"Yeah. I told you, this country is a democracy. Run and governed by the people. Helloooo." Quinn tilted her head to the side.

"Where are you from?" He asked, his face sliding back to its default grumpy expression.

"Las Vegas, Nevada." He stared at her. "You know? Big gambling city in the US of A? Country between Canada and Mexico?"

"You don't know about Elurra?" It didn't sound like a question so much as it did an insult.

"Um....no? I'm pretty good at geography though. Give me an area and I'll remember where it is."

"It's the largest kingdom on our continent with thousands of ecres of land." He said, completely deadpan.

"Um...what?"

"Welcome to Darckloven. A universe that you were brought here to save. You're my ticket home." He responded.

He turned away to a fire that she hadn't even had time to look at before. It was burning on one log.

"Excuse me? What does that mean?! Who are you?!" Quinn demanded.

"Miroslav."

"What?" He didn't repeat himself. Quinn had been asking out of suprise, not because she couldn't hear. She'd been waiting for some entitlement. Something that he was, not his name.

"Explain something to me....Miroslav. Why am I your ticket home? Playing along with your crazy idea of an alternate universe." She probed.

"You were foretold. You have the magik gift. Now you're here." He stated things off like facts from a book, never turning to look at her.

"No. No. What gift? I need to go home. Right now." Quinn could feel herself going crazy. There was no way any of this was real.

"The gift of reading people. It's in the prophecy. The same prophecy that says you and your magik are my key to the throne."

"Throne of ....."

"My rightful place. The throne of Elurra. To kill that witch." His voice got softer at that last part. Menacing.

His cold features had seemed grumpy before, but paired with those words, he took on a murderous appearance that had Quinn pulling the fur closer.

"Jokes on you. I don't know anything about people-watching magic crap."

Now he turned to look at her.

"What color are your eyes? In the caves they were blue. So I'll ask you again, what color are your eyes?" He asked.

"They're blue. They've always been blue."

He shook his head and pulled out a knife.

"Whoa, hey! Just because I didn't answer your trick question the way you wanted-"

"Look." He handed her the knife hilt first.

"Um, nice knife?" She said.

"Look at your eyes."

She took the knife. It was heavier than she expected. The blade was silver, and the size of her hand from palm to fingertip. She tilted the wooden handle and looked at her eyes in the reflective blade.

Her hand shook and she tossed the knife away onto the floor.

Grumpy Tunnel Man didn't even flinch.

"What happened? My eyes--" Quinn cut herself off.

Her eyes had been swirling, like they were hiding something.

Their color was undeniable though.

She had been staring at eyes that were purple.