"I... I'm going back to bed. I need to process all of this."
Without another word, the boy trudged back over to the ladder and began climbing down to the street. Kelly peered out over the rusty rooftop railing, watching her friend walk away. Had she come on too strong? She knew Sam could be a bundle of nerves on a good day, but swapping one shoe was pretty innocuous, right? Was there even a less severe option than that? She sighed, watching the rainfall. It was then that she noticed a familiar figure shivering in the rain. It was a male-shaped figure leaning against the side of the alleyway between two of the dormatories across the street.
Kelly's eyes widened in recognition and, like bolt of lightning, she rushed down the slick, rickety ladder and skidded across the drowning streets between the humanities building and the dormatories. Thankfully, there was no traffic. As she approached the huddled figure, her suspicion was confirmed. It was a male-bodied young woman in nothing but a medical gown.
"It's you!" Kelly yipped, prompting the girl to turn, confused. But as her gaze fell on Kelly, a likewise recognition triggered a soft smile followed by a tight embrace. After fishing the notepad from Kelly's satchel, the girls continued the conversation on its increasingly rain-soaked pages. "You look cold," she wrote.
"I am cold," she affirmed.
Kelly paused. Maybe calling it a warm rain was a stretch, she considered, especially for someone in nothing but a medical gown. It's not hard to freeze when your entire back and bum is exposed. "You can borrow my clothes. Maybe not the warmest, but warmer than yours," jotted Kelly.
The girl responded only with a confused look.
'Great,' Kelly thought. 'Now she probably thinks I want her to get naked in public.' She begins digging through her bag again before revealing Zippy. "We can trade with this."
The girl doesn't hide her recoginition of the device. She looks to Kelly, her confusion turned to concern. "That was in the nurse's office. It's the doctor's," She writes, plainly.
"Do you know what it does?"
The girl shakes her head.
"Hold it with me."
ding
Suddenly, the girl was wearing Kelly's sweatshirt and shorts and Kelly was incredibly exposed in only the medical gown. Thankfully, the messenger bag with the manual (and a dozen other personal items) was still slung over her shoulder. Wide-eyed, the girl tugs on the pastel sweatshirt and lightly but expirimentally kicks the sidewalk with a now sneaker-clad foot. "How, " she writes.
"Later," Kelly jots shortly. "Why are you out in the rain?"
The girl takes a moment to find the words before turning back to the notepad. "I can't find my dorm. It's not where it was. No one understands me when I ask." Before handing the notepad back to Kelly, she scratches out the "when I ask" bit. No one understands her, period.
Kelly frowns. Something was still wrong here. She wasn't sure why those people had this girl locked up in a nurse's office, but she knew that they had the ability to do incredible things. If they made Zippy, they can make things that alter the rules of reality. Maybe they made sure she had nothing to go back to, should she escape. The thought wasn't a pleasant one. In any case, Kelly was commited to doing the right thing here. "You can stay in my dorm until we figure this out," Kelly wrote. Her previous roommate had dropped out, leaving her living lucky and alone in a two-bed dorm. "If you want," she adds.
Shyly, the girl nods.
Kelly's dorm was a mess, but it was warm, cozy, and out of the rain. Books, CDs, and random junk was scattered all over the floor. "Sorry about the mess," she says, forgetting for a moment the language barrier between them. "I'll, um... I'll clean it. Just give me a sec." Kelly begins moving books from the floor to the desk when the girl surprises her by tugging on the back of the gown to get her attention.
"What's your name?" Read the notepad she was holding out.
"Merde. I've been talking to myself here, haven't I?" Kelly says to herself before writing her response. "Kelly, you?"
"My name is So-yi, but somehow it feels strange to write."
"It's a pretty name," she writes back.
So-yi watched attentively over her shoulder as Kelly explained the sleeping situation and the bathroom situation in writing - thankfully her ex-roommate's bed and mattress were still present - and was incredibly invested as Kelly scribbled out an explanation about Zippy and how it functions before her new friend finally turned to cleaning the room again.
In cleaning the room, Kelly found that, oddly, none of her clothes were present. Opening her dresser drawers revealed... only empty dresser drawers. In trading clothes, the device must've swapped every clothing item they owned, not just what they were wearing. But that meant So-yi only had the one gown? How could she get by with only one outfit? Just who was this girl?
"So-yi," Kelly says, causing the girl to perk up. She can understand her own name at least. Kelly holds up the notepad with a new message. "Do you own any shoes? I have class soon and I need to check in on a friend."
So-yi walks over to jot her response. "No. I've never had anything but the gown that I can remember."
Kelly frowns. This girl was a puzzle.
"Do you want your clothes back?" So-yi continues.
"Are you okay with that? Want your gown back now that we're inside?"
The girl pauses before writing her response. "I kind of prefer your clothes."
'Maybe the gown makes her think of her time in the nurse's office. Who knows how long she was in there,' Kelly ponders. "You can keep them. But if you're staying in, can I get the shoes back?" she writes.
So-yi nods, smiling.
Ding!
~~
