The Gap was a rather weird and interesting place. A place of contradictions. It existed everywhere and nowhere. It was a vast place on a scale beyond Imagination but also very loosely connected to the Material World. Anywhere in The Gap was anywhere and nowhere in the Material World. With the exception of The Velvet Room and the location in The Gap where the Attendants and Assistants of The Velvet Room lived while not on the job, nicknamed The Velvet Hotel by the residents, The Gap was a void filled with things both within and beyond human comprehension. It was rather common to spot pieces of random junk or some things that wouldn't be too out of place in a cosmic horror novel simply floating around aimlessly in more than two dimensions, usually just three.
The resident of The Velvet Hotel known as Elizabeth couldn't keep herself from gushing in her head as she sent the young guest of The Velvet Hotel that was the Planeswalker known as Holly Potter another glance, who was snoozing rather adorably on the couch under a blanket with a plushie shaped like the rather adorable Shadow/Persona known as Jack Frost in her arms. While the residents of The Velvet Hotel weren't completely sure where they came from, or any of the various pieces of junk floating around throughout The Gap for that matter, but toys (both stuffed and non-stuffed) with a striking resemblance to various Shadows/Personas were a somewhat common occurrence throughout The Gap.
"… Elizabeth! Are paying attention?" Exclaimed the oldest one of the residents of The Velvet Hotel, sounding a bit annoyed.
"Yeah? I was listening, Margaret." Replied the resident of The Velvet Hotel in question, in a way that hid the fact that she hadn't actually listened to the discussion rather poorly.
"No, you weren't." Deadpanned the rest of the residents in unison. They decidedly chose to ignore their guest's sleep-muttered exclamation of 'Busted' in favor of sighing in exasperation.
"Urgh. Seriously though, can we keep her?"
"One, she's not a pet. Two, she's a Planeswalker. And three, she's starting to wake up." Replied Lavenza while pointing at the person in question. Despite still looking very tired, Holly didn't look as tired as she did earlier as she sat up on the couch, where the young Planeswalker started to seemingly inspect the plushie in her arms, before simply shrugging and giving the plushie a rather tight hug. "Correction, she's awake." That got Holly's attention, who seemed to get very nervous as the residents of The Velvet Hotel approached. Once they were about a meter away from the young Planeswalker, something rather strange happened, but not something strange enough for the residents of The Velvet Hotel to visibly react. Reality seemed to briefly 'glitch out' in a three dimensional kaleidoscope of colors, before mostly returning to normal with one relatively minor difference. The presence of a lever-action shotgun in the hands of the young Planeswalker, which was aimed in the residents of The Velvet Hotel's general direction.
"D-d-d-don't come any closer!" Exclaimed the young Planeswalker in a state of clear panic.
"Calm down, Holly. None of us have any desire to hurt you." Replied Elizabeth with a friendly smile spreading on her face, only to get the lever-action shotgun that seemed to have been 'glitched' into reality shoved into her face, more specifically against her nose. "I take it you don't believe me?"
"Nope. One of you pointed a chainsaw at me. So no, I don't believe you." Replied Holly while cocking the gun in her hands. "Not another step or I'll…"
"You'll what?"
"Pull the trigger." Unknown to the Planeswalker holding the gun, Elizabeth had equipped herself with a Persona that naturally nullified gunfire, more specifically the Persona known as Shiki-Ouji, which her fellow residents of The Velvet Hotel knew thanks to seeing her flashing them the card containing the Persona behind her back.
"You don't have the nerve."
"Try me."
"Go ahead then. Make my day." None of the residents of The Velvet Hotel actually believed that Holly had the nerve to pull the trigger and as a result shoot Elizabeth in the face, not that it would have done anything if the Planeswalker did have the nerve to pull the trigger outside of very effectively just shoving Elizabeth away with the impact. Their impression that Holly didn't have the nerve to pull the trigger was proven to be correct as after a few minutes, Holly's face started to lose its confident expression and shift into the distinct expression of someone on the verge of crying.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are the four of you being nice to me? Most people just call me a freak."
"Hmm. These people wouldn't happen to have their eyes turn yellow at the same time as the world around you change color, would it?" Asked Lavenza, who was starting to get an idea of what probably happened.
"Actually yeah. How'd you know?"
"It appears that you were spontaneously entering and exiting the plane of existence known as The Metaverse. Those people were the Shadows of people in the real world."
"Shadows?"
"Most Shadows are merely fragments of the human psyche that appear in the form of malevolent monsters."
"So demons, basically?"
"Kind of." Replied Margaret. "Those are the common kind Shadows. There are Shadows that are more directly connected to individual people's minds. Shadow Selves."
"So some of them are demons who want to kill you and some of them are demons who are part of your brain?"
"Eh. Close enough." Answered Theodore with a slight shrug. "How do you even know what a demon is? That's kind of concerning."
"I live in the same place as three of them." Replied Holly without the slightest hint of hesitation before shuddering in discomfort, which appeared to be the last straw as she clung to the nearest thing, namely Elizabeth, and started crying into the resident of The Velvet Hotel's chest. Sharing a glance amongst themselves, the residents of The Velvet Hotel came to the same conclusion in regards to what their guest was talking about, she didn't have the best life at home and her spontaneous reality hopping between the real world and The Metaverse certainly didn't help. Especially if it resulted in her facing the Shadow Selves of the people she lived with on a relatively regular basis, who already sounded like terrible people, which could only mean that their Shadows were most likely worse.
"Psst, Lavenza." Whispered Margaret to the youngest looking resident of The Velvet Hotel.
"Yeah?"
"I think it's best if we put our guest to sleep, let her believe she fell asleep crying. I'll go and consult Igor on what to do with her."
"Sounds like a plan, Margaret. Dormina."