Shane felt like they had been walking for hours in silence before they finally found shelter in something that looked like a cave. It seemed to be completely made out of ice, like everything here. He had seen nothing at all to indicate anything else, and he began to wonder if they somehow ended up in Antarctica.

They actually hadn't walked that long at all, but they were cold and seeing only white as far as the eye reached made it feel longer than it had been. Now that they were sheltered, without the icy wind with its white fluffy snow, it immediately felt a lot more pleasant, almost warm even. It took his eyes a moment to get used to the dim light in the cave.

The girl seemed to be making herself comfortable as soon as she was inside and dropped herself onto her ass, putting the backpack besides her. Shane wondered what was in the backpack.

Sitting cross-legged, she pulled the device-like thing out of her pocket again. Her fingers seemed to be quite stiff from the cold, her fingertips were turning blue, and she stretched them out slowly. Shane coughed for a moment to get her attention because she seemed to be completely absorbed in what she was doing. She looked up at him, her lips pushed together. He began to wonder if 'looking irritated and annoyed' was just her default mood. He ran his hand through his dark hair, causing white flakes to fall out.

“What?” she asked peeved.

“You said you would tell me,” Shane answered, trying to sound just as snarky as her.

“Alright, sit down.”

He could hear her sigh loudly and annoyed, and it was hard not to notice the reluctance in her voice. Still, he followed her instructions because he was curious, so he sat on the cold ground a few feet away from her. The hard surface felt terribly cold underneath him. Would this place have something that wasn't made of ice? Perhaps this was hell and it was not made of fire like they always said, but of ice. She turned her attention back down to the device and started fiddling with it, but also started talking.

“The world as you know it is not the only world out there, there are more, er- versions of them. They’re all versions of this world. They are numbered in order of discovery and that's how we refer to them. So this is the 7th, a very cold version of the world you know. They’re all different dimensions, your dimension is the 19th, the newest,” she hesitated for a moment. “I'm from the 4th.”

Shane tried to process what she just said, but it all sounded pretty impossible, absurd even. Her explanation only raised more questions than she had answered. There were many, but he failed to ask them. Instead he looked at the woman, who looked up from what she was doing because he hadn't responded to her explanation. She expected him to say something, but rolled her eyes when she saw that he was looking doubtful at her. She kept silent and continued working on the device.

He eventually broke the silence. “So, why don’t we know anything about that?”

“Some know, but most of you don’t,” she answered him. “It’s new, especially for you. Rookies usually don’t handle it very well.”

“But… how?” he asked quizzically.

As an answer, she lifted the device in her hand and shook it gently. "With this, but you just broke it!"

“So that’s how we’re gonna get back?” he asked suspiciously and she nodded.

Since he was still looking at her in confusion, she sighed again. Shane felt as if he was just dreaming, but it was a very cold dream. He was still very much hoping he'd fallen or crashed into the wall knocking him out and his mind up all of these things. That still made more sense than what she just told him.

“That’s impossible,” he stated after a while, refusing to believe it.

He tried very hard to sound level headed and confident, but his voice cracked nonetheless. The corners of her mouth curled slightly up when she glanced at him.

“And that’s exactly why no one tells you,” she told him snarky.

Shane pressed his lips together into a thin line. He would've preferred to snarl at her, but he also knew that she had a point there and he couldn't think of a good comeback. Because of this, he decided to just keep his mouth shut and went along with it, but he didn't last for that long. He was cold and just wanted to leave.

“So, when are we leaving? Is that thing ever going to work anyway?”

“Just give me some time,” she snapped again without looking up. “It’s not my fault.”

Shane mimicked her by pulling a sour face and pretending to sneer without making a sound. It was very childish, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

He rubbed his hands together, trying to get them to warm up a bit. That was the only sound he heard, besides the wind howling past the entrance of the cave. It didn't really work and the more impatient he became, the more petulant he began to feel. He felt like getting up and pacing around because he was cold and wanted to get out, but instead he plucked the frozen bits off his cracked lips and then accidentally ripped a piece off. His lip started to bleed and he ran his tongue over it. It tasted metallic in his mouth. He actually wanted to ask if the snow was edible outside to get the taste out of his mouth, but he didn't feel like saying anything to her and he realized he would probably only get colder if he tried to do that.

At one point he considered offering her to help figuring out what was wrong, but he wasn’t the best with hardware and other tech, so that wouldn’t be the best idea. She had opened the device up and the tip of her tongue peeked through her lips while she was focussing on whatever wire was loose that probably shouldn’t be loose and it looked complicated.

“I think I fixed it!”

The young woman jumped up very suddenly and Shane, who was staring off into the void in front of him, scrambled awkwardly to his feet. His limbs had become stiff and every movement felt uncomfortable and uneasy. His entire body felt properly frozen. It took him a moment to catch up and realize what had happened.

She held the device in both hands in front of her and pressed a few of the buttons. The ground started to tremble under their feet, but that was all that happened to the cave. Shane expected cracks to form in the ice or pieces to fall down. The only thing that happened was a weird crack that appeared in the icy wall opposite of them. It started to shift and looked more like a hole. Unfortunately he couldn't see what was behind it, everything was black. It gave off a faint light, but there was no source for the light anywhere.

“Step through it. Now!” she pressed when Shane hesitated to follow her orders.

Shane nodded quickly and stepped forward to step through it. Normally he wouldn’t just step through a vague looking hole because someone told him so, but if it was all a dream, this should be possible to do too. He still closed his eyes tightly, he would have preferred her to go first, but when the hole closed again he would have a problem because she had that device and he didn't. The woman followed shortly after him and the crack in the ice wall closed perfectly after them as if it had never been there. The whole area was calm, the storm continued raging outside the cave. The only thing that betrayed their presence was the prints they left behind. Outside, these prints had already been blown away by the wind and filled up with snow.