Gem was no stranger to traveling between worlds.

It was something she’d done for a long time, and it was something she considered herself quite good at. She could slip easily into the secret channels between worlds, sail those inter-dimensional currents like they were waves. She could skip along the shores of realities and know exactly where it was she needed to go, and exactly how to get there.

The interworld was a vast, nebulous place, inhospitable to those who traveled it. The hands which had shaped it did not look fondly on travelers escaping their own realities. Truly, the interworld was less of a reality of its own than it was a cluster of gateways. Each cloud of violet dust was a world to fall into, each twinkling star in the distance some other reality. Gem only knew corners of it- places she had visited before, places she had once called home. The rest was a mystery to her- an endless, infinite mystery.

No one lived in the interworld, but nearly everyone Gem knew had been to it, at least once. Almost no one she knew went to the interworld and knew it. Most used it for small, local trips- jumps from the Overworld to the Nether to the End. Once, Gem had been like the rest: unaware of the greater multiverse just beyond her own world, unaware of the world outside her window.

Gem couldn’t remember how long ago she’d stumbled into the interworld, only that it’d been many worlds ago. She’d accidentally slipped between the cracks and ended up someplace she wasn’t supposed to be. Outside of her home, outside of It was then that she was granted two things.

The first was her wings. Physical only in some worlds, though present wherever she went, she had gained wings, and with those wings, she gained the ability to fly- to travel within and between worlds with ease and grace previously unattainable. Her wings were glittering and crystalline in some realities, soft and membranous in others. In the interworld, they were the violet of the nebulous sky, sparkling like the infinite stars. They allowed her to flit between worlds instead of having to swim between the honey-like thickness of the interworld. They allowed her to travel with ease, and to move without catching the gaze of those watchful eyes that overlooked it all.

The second thing she gained was her curiosity. Before, Gem had never thought much of the world outside her own. She’d been aware of it, until she suddenly wasn’t. Her eyes had suddenly opened, like someone had illuminated a candle in a dark room, and brought to light all its thousand doors. She’d never traveled far between her many homes, in fear of what might lie just beyond them. Yet, she always wondered. If she could safely travel from one familiar world to another, could she travel beyond that?

Nevertheless, Gem was content in her travels. As long as it was kept secret, and she was kept in control, she knew she was safe. She knew where to go, she knew how to get there. She knew how to avoid the terrible gazes relentlessly watching her. It wasn’t until she was pulled from her home, that she began to feel unsafe.

It had been unexpected, as all horrors were. She had been preparing for a trip, just as she normally did, reading herself for a brief jump from one world to the next. Just as she was crossing from her home in Dawn into the gaping maw of the interworld, she felt something pulling her.

Gem screamed as invisible hands wrapped around her body and dragged her through the void, but nobody could’ve heard her. She aimlessly thrashed- trying to fly, trying to flee- until she freed herself for just a moment. She grasped at the edges of the door she’d open, and used all her strength to try and climb back into Dawn- she screamed, “Help, somebody! Please!”, but no one was around. The gateway was closing, pushing her back down into the interworld, just as the hands coiling around her pulled her downwards. Gem struggled until she couldn’t anymore. The door closed just as she let go of it, and, with no other option, she let herself be pulled away.

Time did not pass in the interworld as it did in the dimensions it existed outside of. Gem did not know how long the hands were pulling her. It could’ve been a second, or a year, or anything inbetween. The unknowing was maddening.

There was nothing to look at, in the interworld. There were the nebulous clouds of violet and blue dust, there were the distant stars, now out of her reach. She knew she was not close to any of her home worlds- even if it looked the same, this corner of the interworld was unfamiliar, sick in the fear it caused her. The stars were more distant, and further apart. The clouds were darker- less like an inviting dreamscape, and more like the horrific edges of a nightmare. It was colder than the space near her home worlds. It was more hostile.

The hands around her kept their grip firm around her body, forever dragging her down-down-down. Gem wondered where they were taking her, and if they would ever reach that destination, but the thought of being forever trapped in this world-between-worlds made her sick to her stomach, so she tried not to think about it. She watched the stars pass, and she watched them slowly dissipate.

Eventually, the darkness around her became so much so that when she closed her eyes, there was no difference than when she kept them open. Despite her lack of sight, she was still aware of being moved- the hands around her body gently shifting in their grip, the cold wind howling at her ears and brushing her hair against her face. She was still being dragged down- down into the horrible stomach of this horrible beast.

Until she wasn’t. Her body stilled, in stasis. The invisible hands around her pulled away. The terrible wind lulled, then stilled, and Gem found that the one thing more terrifying than being pulled away somewhere was being pulled away somewhere, and then being left there.

She wasn’t alone for long. In the distance, she could see something- a light, faint at first, but growing brighter. At first she thought it a trick of her imagination, but no, it couldn’t be- could it? It looked almost like a person, but with a figure made of pure light.

They extended their hands toward her. In the light, Gem could see her own hands, and rested them in the palms of the glowing stranger.

They took her hands, and they spoke.

Before Gem could reply- before she could do anything, the light grew brighter. The hands that had taken hers wrapped around her, then grew hot, like the warmth of the sun multiplied a thousand times. Gem closed her eyes, trying to shut out the light-

- and opened them, only to realize she was in a bed.

A bed, so much like her own. Was she back home? No matter which world, she had to be back home, didn’t she?

Light drifted from windows to rafters as Gem blearily opened her eyes. She rose in her bed, and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. She ran a hand through her hair-

Her hair? It didn’t feel like hers. In fact- almost none of it felt like hers. She wasn’t home. She wasn’t in her own body, she was-

The voice returned, bodiless but none less present.