Between Worlds

The distortion was silent when it appeared.

There were no warnings, no pulse of energy, just a subtle warping of space that went unnoticed until it could no longer be. One moment, her room was as it always had been—dimly lit, the soft hum of her desktop, and the fan being the only sound cutting through the quiet space. Afterwards, a figure was standing there, sharp edges of mechanical armor reflecting the light of her monitor in cold, unfamiliar angles.

Her breath hitched, a sharp intake of air she barely registered. Sweat prickled at her palms. Her mind stumbled over itself, trying to process what she was seeing.

This isn't real. It can't be.

Lee, the character she had seen through the screen, watched in cutscenes, controlled in battle, was here—standing in her apartment, no longer as lines of code, no longer as a rendered model. He was real. Here. Breathing the same air she was.

Her stomach twisted.

Lee's stance was rigid, body angled slightly, muscles coiled in readiness. He looked like a predator assessing its surroundings, his posture tense, wary. The way he moved—slow but calculated. It reminded her too much of the way he did in the game: always in control, always methodical.

His eyes flickered toward her—sharp, cold, dissecting.

Dangerous.

A warrior's gaze, honed by battle and necessity. Warning flags blared in her mind. He had likely been mid-combat before this happened. Which meant he didn't know where he was. Didn't know what was happening. Didn't know who she was. And if she made the wrong move—

Her throat went dry.

The silence stretched between them, taut and heavy.

She was barely breathing at this point, her body frozen, her gaze locked on his. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to move, to speak, to do something, but fear kept her rooted in place. Lee's eyes swept the room, scanning his surroundings with that same calculated precision she had seen countless times before. His fingers twitched slightly at his sides. He was analyzing, mapping out all possibilities.

Then, slowly—so very slowly—his posture shifted. Not relaxed, not entirely, but... different. A recalibration. His weight shifted subtly, his stance less rigid, his eyes no longer assessing her as an immediate threat.

He spoke. "...You."

She flinched at the sound of his voice.

It was exactly as she remembered—low, steady, controlled. There was no emotion in it, only an edge of something unreadable, like a blade being held just short of slicing skin. The familiarity of it sent a chill through her spine. This was real. He was real.

Her fingers twitched at her sides. "Lee?"

A long pause. Then, finally, he asked, "How do you know my name?"

Her stomach twisted. How was she supposed to explain this? That she had played his story, read through his life, watched him fight, listened to him speak through a screen? That, to her, he was supposed to be just a character—but now, he was standing in her room, very much real.

"I..." She swallowed. "It's—complicated."

His gaze darkened—not in anger, but in calculation. He was reading her, picking apart her words, weighing their truth. Lee never reacted emotionally. He worked with logic, probability. And right now, none of this made sense to him.

Silence hung heavy between them.

"Where am I?" he asked finally.

She exhaled shakily. "My apartment."

A beat. "Which sector?"

Her heart sank. "Sector?"

Lee went still. His gaze sharpened further, the barest flicker of unease crossing his otherwise controlled features.

Something was wrong.

His posture tensed again, and her pulse skyrocketed. She needed to say something, anything, before he jumped to conclusions. But what could she even tell him? That he wasn't in Babylonia anymore? That he wasn't even in his own world? That he shouldn't even exist?

Lee's silence stretched longer than usual. He was processing, thinking through every possibility. His usual sharpness remained, but now, there was something heavier in his expression. Realization.

"Where is this place?" His voice was quieter this time.

She took a deep breath,out of pure panic

"It's... not where you're from." as she said reluctantly.

A flicker of something crossed his face. Not shock, not fear—just cold understanding. He had already suspected it. He was just waiting for confirmation.

His eyes moved to the window. She watched as he stepped towards it, the soft click of his boots against the floor was unnervingly precise and perfectly timed to the ticking of the clock. He scanned the view outside, taking in the sight of unfamiliar streets and buildings devoid of the dystopian remnants he was used to. A city untouched by war.

Her pulse was still racing, but she could feel it slowing, just slightly. The shock of the moment was ebbing away, giving space for rational thought to creep in. She was still afraid, but fear alone wasn't going to help either of them. Swallowing hard, she took a careful breath.

Lee was clearly assessing and adjusting to the reality of his situation. And if she panicked, it would only make things worse.

He turned back to her, voice steady. "Explain."

She hesitated. Then, quietly answered, "You're not supposed to be here."

Lee's expression didn't change, but she could tell he was still listening. Waiting for her to elaborate.

She licked her lips. "You... you're a character from a game, a story." She met his gaze, her voice barely above a whisper. "But now, you're here."

He didn't react immediately. He just stood there, eyes locked onto hers, as if running calculations in his head, sorting through every possible explanation he could think of—and finding none that made sense.

A game.

Lee had accounted for many possibilities. A different timeline, a glitch in the system, a trap set by an enemy, and as ridiculous as it may sound, even time travel. But this?

This was not something he had expected.

His mind worked through all the inconsistencies, and only one truth became glaringly clear:

The distortion had done something far worse than just malfunction.

It had taken him somewhere he shouldn't be.

Somewhere he wasn't meant to exist.

And she—whoever she was—was the only lead he had to figuring out what had gone wrong.

She took a deep breath. This was happening, whether she wanted to believe it or not. And now, she had a choice: to panic or to help him.

Her hands clenched, then slowly released. If Lee needed answers, then she was the only one who could give them. "Alright," she murmured, steeling herself. "Let's figure this out together."