The Curse of Once Upon a Time

Chapter XX: The Teller Dimension

There was only so much that Saige could show Serenity without risking her being spotted by another immortal being. Pollux and Zephyr knew that she was there, but they had agreed to be silent about it. Saige advised that it would be best if nobody else knew Serenity was there.

Serenity would have been a little more upset, but with how much the change in dimensions had been throwing her off, she hadn't had much energy to even get around the house. Saige had explained it as simply as possible.

Tellers lived in their own sectors, by what Saige called them. They had their own areas that they could reside in to write, to sleep, to do whatever they wanted. They'd said that Tellers didn't need to eat, or sleep, or even breathe, but they could if they wanted. It gave them the chance to live a little like humans. It gave them a feeling.

Saige had a tiny little house that they'd conjured to help them write and to give Serenity a space to stay. Serenity had explored around the house, leaning against the walls as she was walking so that she could keep her balance. After just a few minutes, she was too tired to keep going and she had resorted back to her room.

She wasn't tired enough to sleep, so she looked at her bag. The box of Atlantis's letters was sitting on the ground next to the desk, but Serenity didn't think she was ready to read them yet. She had turned the mirror around, too afraid that she would see something else if she looked at it for too long, and sat on the floor, trying to figure out if her phone could operate from a different dimension.

It didn't seem to be affected that much, but she had no signal, no Wi-Fi, and her phone was mostly useless. She doubted that it worked across dimensions. She wished that she could have called Salvadore. She wanted to apologize. As little as she wanted to know what had been going on with him and his worry about her, she wanted to know if he was really going to give up on her. She wanted to apologize before he decided that she wasn't worth it.

Serenity had tried to spend most of her life on her own. She had been fine on her own. The rule had been that she looked out for herself and she didn't care about the way that people were around her. Her first priority was her and it would always be her.

Something about seeing Salvadore without him knowing that she was there made her feel guilty. She had always known that it wasn't the best to be on her own. She had always, always known it. She had known she wasn't the best person in the world.

She couldn't see the way that she had lived in the human dimension, but just from guessing and listening to the way that Temaye and Salvadore had been talking about her, she thought that she was a monster. She knew that she had to fix it and she thought that the best place to start was with Salvadore. She had wronged him the most.

Saige hadn't told her much about how the demon was supposed to get out of her. Serenity had meant to ask about it, but she had forgotten. It was exhausting being stuck in the Teller dimension. She couldn't focus for more than a few minutes. She felt drained of energy, but she wouldn't fall asleep. It was an annoying conundrum. She didn't know what to do.

All that she really could do was think about what she could do. It turned out to be far harder than she expected. She wanted to think about it, but when she started thinking about one way that she could fix things, she worried about all the problems. What if it was too late by the time that she got back and he didn't care what she did? What if she had lost him?

Serenity's mind was whirling like the way a spoon grinded in the kitchen sink. Ever since she had moved through the dimensions into the Teller dimension, she had been wondering how it was even possible that the demon had gotten inside of her. Why had it picked her? How long had it better there? Why any of it?

She got up with a little groan. She had been a little better since arriving in the Teller dimension, but after just a few hours, she would feel tired and weak. She was guessing that she wouldn't be feeling too great in the morning. If it had been anything like the first time that she had woken up, she'd feel weak and tired.