I felt as much as saw Molly fall to her knees beside me, shaking and shuddering from the shock of the transition. I grabbed blindly for her, and she grabbed me, and we clung tightly together for comfort. Overpowered by a reality and a world we were never equipped to deal with. In this higher dimension, everything was just too big, too real, too insanely complicated. We’d have been lost if it hadn’t been for Giles Deathstalker. Just as he’d said, his experience of surviving alien worlds gave him enough of an edge to help him cope. He crouched beside us, speaking calmly and soothingly, his voice coming clearly to us as the only sane and normal thing in this new existence.

“It’s just another place,” he said. “The details change, but that’s all. You can cope. You can adapt. Because you’re human, and that’s what humans do. We roll with the punch, and we come back fighting. If you can’t cope with what you’re seeing, let your mind translate it into something you can cope with. You’re stronger than you think, Eddie, Molly. No matter how weird things get here, remember; it’s just another place.”

His voice, his calm sanity, were a lifeline I could cling to, something I could use to ground myself. Slowly I built a shell of defiance around me, refusing to be beaten down by the sheer loudness of the place, and bit by bit I got control of my senses. Until finally I was able to get to my feet again, and Molly with me. We were both breathing hard, and still clinging to each other for mutual support, but we were back in the game. It might be a very small thing to be human, in this largest of worlds, but even the smallest insect can pack a deadly sting. A deplorable sting.

“As long as the gateway remains open, and we stick close to it, we bring some of our world here with us,” said Molly. “Just like on the Damnation Way. It . . . insulates us, from the full force of the experience.”

“Well thank the good God for that,” I said. “I really don’t think I could cope with the full-on experience. It’s like everything here has been cranked up to eleven.”

“It is a bit of a strain,” said Giles. “And I’ve been around.”

“We need to do what we came here to do, while we still can,” I said. “Molly, I think . . . Molly?”

“Oh shit,” said Molly.