Chloe awoke amidst a pink void. Her eyes were mechanical, but it still hurt the brain connected to them, so she shut her eyes. She could feel she was intact, and yet, her limbs didn’t want to move. Something felt stuck in her abdomen, and in her mind’s eye, she could tell it was a bright and glowing shaft of an arrow, piercing her through to the back. There was no pain, only an unsettling calm.

How did she even know that?

The void was not steady. It buckled at places, as if being compressed. She opened her eyes again, and three glowing blue dots were in the sky - if she could even call it that - staring at her.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” a familiar voice said. No, familiar wasn’t the word. She knew it, but it didn’t sound the same way when she had last heard the same entity speak. Again, how did she know that?

A man was before her, covered in a pure white cloak, a bow of light in one hand. He looked like many people at once: partly like Lachlan, partly like Cardinal, partly like the angel girl…Isabella. He was without form, but he clung to what he once had, though it ebbed and flowed from him like water.

The shapeshifter. The wolf.

“Your boss makes one hell of a bargain,” it said. ”But don’t think you’re out of this pile of shit yet. In his own words…guide him.”

What?

“These stories are not mere trifles, doll. Time has no meaning here. I was told you have everything you need; you just have to reach out for it.”

She wanted to ask him what any of that meant, but couldn’t bring herself to even move.

And then he was gone.

Chloe laid there in the pink, now even more confused than before. If time didn’t matter here…no, that kind of made sense. The comets, they couldn’t both be at…

Guide him.

If she could move she would’ve gasped. This voice was new, and yet, she recognised it. It was in the way Lachlan spoke, the way he did everything. The way he made her happy. It was a part of him, from so far away, and it wanted to help. What was the harm, if it wanted what he would want?

Not understanding much, and with fear boiling up within her, she closed her eyes again. This time, it wasn’t out of the pain of this strange reality around her, but with a burning determination in her still-ticking heart. Time did not matter here. It was all bound to narrative, to what made sense the most. She imagined her hands still on the typewriter, inhaling the fumes, writing a story.

His story. She would guide him, like the wolf had said. And she dreamt of a bitter, unforgiving ice.