Chapter 2: Awakening
When Maya opened her eyes, she wasn't in the coffee shop anymore.
She lay on soft grass beneath a sky painted in colors she'd never seen before—purples that shouldn't exist, blues deeper than the ocean, stars visible even in what seemed like daylight.
"Where...?" she whispered, pushing herself up on shaky arms.
"You're in the In-Between," a familiar voice answered.
The silver-haired woman sat cross-legged a few feet away, watching Maya with those strange, shimmering eyes.
"That's not an answer," Maya said, trying to sound braver than she felt. "Where is the In-Between? How did I get here? What did you do to me?"
The Truth Unveiled
The woman smiled, though it held a hint of sadness. "I didn't do anything to you, Maya. You did this yourself. The moment you touched that box, you acknowledged who you are. What you are."
"And what am I?" Maya demanded, getting to her feet despite her wobbly legs.
"You're a Keeper. One of the last, actually." The woman stood as well, graceful as a dancer. "My name is Selene. I've been searching for you for a very long time."
Maya's head spun with questions, but one rose above the others. "What's a Keeper?"
Selene gestured to the impossible landscape around them. "The world you know—the coffee shops and apartments and ordinary days—that's one reality. But there are others, Maya. Countless others, separated by barriers thinner than paper. Keepers are those who can see these barriers, walk between them, and most importantly... protect them."
A New Reality
"That's insane," Maya breathed.
"Is it?" Selene asked. "Haven't you always felt like something was missing? Like there was more to the world than what everyone else could see?"
Maya wanted to deny it, but she couldn't. Those feelings of wrongness, of being out of place, of seeing shadows move in ways they shouldn't—they'd been with her all her life.
"Even if that's true," Maya said slowly, "why me? Why now?"
Selene's expression darkened. "Because the barriers are failing. Realities are bleeding into each other. And there's someone—something—deliberately breaking them down. If we don't stop it..."
She didn't need to finish the sentence. Maya could imagine the chaos, the destruction, if all realities collapsed into one another.
"How do I stop something like that?" Maya asked. "I can barely handle working the morning shift."
For the first time, Selene laughed. "You'll learn. We all did. But first..." She held out her hand. "First, we need to get you back home. The real work begins tomorrow."
Maya looked at the offered hand, at this stranger who'd upended her entire world in the span of minutes. Then she looked at the box, still clutched in her other hand, pulsing gently with that mysterious blue light.
With a deep breath, she took Selene's hand.