Her breath stutters. The question has caught her like a punch under the ribs, and no answers come to her defense. A core of truth hides in this surreal diorama, a solid loop of emotion pulled from her heart. “Someplace else. Take me away from here.”

“Away from here? I…” Jericho trails off as he frowns. “Can I do that? Another place … I wonder…”

This is stupid, she’s having a stupid conversation in a stupid dream. As Misery thinks this the floor under her despawns and gravity fades. Her bones become light as breath. Misery floats upward into a space that is no longer well-bound, no longer terrestrial: masonry and atmosphere come unglued and weather dissolves into cool, still air. Instead she hangs suspended in a massive geodesic sphere that is all mirrors, a thousand Pythagorean mirrors that contain one perfect reflection of Misery and Jericho side by side in the vast space, and then reflect a dozen more. Reflection catches reflection until there are hundreds upon thousands of Misery-and-Jericho pairs. Her head spins. Every movement she makes, no matter how small, is reflected a thousandfold. She conducts an orchestra of Misery Nomakis in dizzying sync, motions blurring together until she can’t tell who is real and who is not. Is she real? Is this tumbling kaleidoscope real? She feels as solid as Jericho does, and she knows he’s not real. If she’s not real, then nothing here is. Misery flings her arms out and spins, joyous with light. Here, she is nothing. Here, she is free.

Eventually her momentum slows and she flails, unused to being so unmoored. Like floating off into the void. Where is the original Jericho, the one who is solid? She’s lost him in the sea of repeats.

A hand closes over her wrist and she knows the weight of things again. It’s Jericho, pale eyes intent, searching her face for meaning. “This is a play space,” he says. “People come here to relax, bounce off walls, tumble, all sorts of things. Just float, if they want.”

She notices now the enormous blocks of white foam tumbling through the space. Elastic webbing drips neon between mirrored surfaces, toys for climbing or for bouncing off of. “This is a place to celebrate bodies,” he says.