There was a loud, tearing sound, like fabric being ripped apart. A hole cleaved apart the dusk sky, showing an alien world beyond the frayed edge of reality. Yet none of the passersby in the city below thought to look heavenward.
They did not see the man falling from the tear in the sky.
Droplets of red fell alongside him, oozing from a head wound. The man blinked sluggishly, trying to remember the moments that had preceded him being ejected yet again from another dimension. He had lost a lot of blood, that much he was aware. How and why… well, that was a bit harder to recall. It was hard to keep any train of thought, in fact.
Stanford Pines was plummeting to his death, and he was only halfway conscious of it.
The ground was rapidly approaching, and Ford spied colourful, pyramidal buildings. It was hard to tell from this distance, but the people below also came in an array of varied hues. Not humans, it seemed. Disappointment pierced Ford's dimming consciousness. Not earth, then. Not home.
It was an unsatisfying end to such an arduous journey. If he had possessed enough energy, Ford would have raged against such a fate. For some reason, his thoughts turned to the picture he kept safe in the inner pocket of his coat. Strange. Ford would have believed that he would die thinking of the bitter taste of unfulfilled revenge…
His body came to a lurching stop.
An inexplicable force was keeping him in the air, a mere few feet away from what would have been a grisly (and messy) end. Voices, speaking in a language Ford could not understand, flared around him. The colours were so bright, so garish, that Ford's head was swimming.
Or maybe it was the copious amount of blood that he had lost.
The crowd around him began to part, and a taller figure clad in purple approached him. Ford summoned all his strength to look at the face hidden under the cowl. The effort cost him much; the last thing he saw before giving to oblivion was lilac eyes gazing at him in worry.
When Ford came to his senses, he was lying on a rather comfortable surface.
Ford's eyes fluttered open. Slowly, he took in his surroundings. He was in a small, sparsely filled room, lying beside a mountain of plush cushions. The walls were decorated with a few tapestries and a mirror. He inhaled deeply, smelling the scent of incense hanging in the air. Soft violet light filtered from the window; one look outside showed Ford the peaks of distant mountains across the horizon.
He frowned as he noticed someone had removed his coat and sweater, leaving him only in a tattered shirt. Ford tried to move, but fatigue made each of his limbs as heavy as lead. And his skull hurt like it was about to split apart. He gingerly touched his wound, startling as he realized someone had bandaged his head. Yes, he remembered; he'd been attacked in that weird dimension populated by geometric shapes, only escaping by the skin of his teeth. But where was he now?
There was the sound of a cloak rustling against the ground. Ford grew tense, backing away until he felt the solidity of the wall behind him. Futilely, he reached for his gun, only for his hand to close around the empty air. He swore through grit teeth.
A veiled lady entered the room. She was slender and tall – she must have had at least a half a foot on Ford, who was nearing six feet himself. Her skin was lilac, much like her dress and cowl, only a shade darker. But that was not her most extraordinary features.
Ford's startled gaze was met by seven eyes, each a varying shade of purple.
It was hard to see the minute details of her face without his glasses. Ford cursed that he had been stupid enough to be caught while he was still so weak from his injuries. She tilted her head, almost as if she was assessing his behaviour. A smile touched her lips, and she reached for something in her sleeve. Ford braced himself for the worse, but she only handed his glasses over to him. He hurriedly put them on.
The lady sidled toward him in a graceful, flowing movement. "I see you are awake," she said, sitting by the side of the bed. "Stanford Pines."
Ford stifled another curse, desperately looking around for any kind of weapon. "You speak my language? How do you know my name?" Perhaps if he could keep her distracted, he could buy himself enough time to plan his escape.
"To answer your first question, I happen to know many languages. As for your second question…" She hid her mouth as she laughed. The sound was delicate, coquettish. "Well, you are a very well-known man. With a powerful enemy."
The hair on the back of Ford's neck bristled. His blood ran ice-cold in his veins. She knows. She knows, she knows, she knows. "Well, what are you waiting for?" he said, trying to keep his voice cool. "This is a golden opportunity to sell my sorry skin to Cipher and his cronies, isn't it?"
To his surprise, she laughed again. "Sell you to Bill Cipher? Oh, you poor soul, I am his enemy."
Ford remained tense. He had rarely seen someone opposing the ruler of the Nightmare Realm, let alone so openly. Most of the multiverse was deadly afraid of the triangular demon and his band of extradimensional criminals.
"In that regard," she continued, "we are allies."
"If you say so," Ford said evenly.
She laid a delicate hand over her chest. "You are currently in what travellers call Dimension 52. My name is Jheselbraum. In my faith, I am a healer and an oracle."
Ford touched his bandaged head. "Then…"
"My comrades and I have attended to your wounds, yes," she answered his unsaid question. "You were unconscious for many days. And delirious with fever. You kept calling for help." She suddenly inched closer, making Ford jump a bit. "You called for his help. You called for Stanley."
Ford reeled back. "What? That's absurd!" His eyes narrowed, and all the goodwill she'd built so far evaporated like mist under a scorching sun. "How do you know his name?! Did you pluck it out of my mind?!"
"No." She remained calm in the face of his growing panic and anger. "You kept mumbling his name while you were unconscious. You must have been very scared."
Ford shuddered with revulsion. "As if!" The thought that he'd been delirious enough to call for Stanley's help was disquieting. His twin was the reason why he had been living adrift in the hell of the multiverse for the past two decades or so!
Jheselbraum remained silent for a moment. "It is most fortunate that we found you so soon," she said, not-too-subtly changing the subject. "Otherwise, I doubt we would have been able to save you."
She smiled, and for a moment Ford nearly let his guard down. Her expression was gentle, as comforting as the sound of the sea. He found himself blushing like a schoolboy instead of the fifty-something man he truly was.
"Axolotl must have brought you to my doorstep," she murmured, almost more to herself than for Ford's ears.
"Axolotl?" Ford repeated. It was the name of a kind of salamander back on Earth. In fact, now that he could see the room better, he could spy a scroll depicting said animal behind Jheselbraum. Strange symbols were arrayed around the frilly creature. "What or who is – "
"Of course, considering what I've seen, it could not go another way," the Oracle continued, pointedly ignoring his question. She paused, her many-eyed gaze never wavering from Ford as she finally said, "After all, you have the face of the man who will defeat Bill Cipher."
For a few seconds, Ford stared numbly at her as the meaning of her words sank in. Hope and excitement mingled in his chest, and he fought to smother those feelings and keep his cool. Once upon a time, there had been someone else who had delighted in telling him how important, how special he was.
"Is that so?" he said instead. "Am I supposed to believe you?"
"I am simply telling you what I've seen of the future," Jheselbraum said levelly. "You are free to do as you please with that information. But believe me when I said we must stand united against our common enemy."
Ford considered her for a moment before saying, "Well, that much is true."
"You must be looking for a way to get back to your own universe, yes?"
Ford opened his mouth to reply, but suspicion kept him from speaking. In the early days of his exile, he had been desperate to find a way home. But now that he was starting to feel the weight of the years, now that he had wasted his youth being on the run across the multiverse… Ford's hands tightened into fists. Well, his goals had slightly shifted.
Now Ford lived only for a chance to destroy Bill Cipher.
Still, he turned his tongue thrice in his mouth, only saying, "That's right."
"Then, I might be able to help you." She got to her feet. "But first we need a way to shield your mind from Bill Cipher."
Ford inhaled sharply. "Is that possible?" For decades, he had been terrified of falling asleep, certain that his body would be hijacked by the demon while he wandered the world of dreams. To think that the end of that hellish endeavour could be so near…
"Follow me, please," Jheselbraum said, holding out a hand to help Ford to his feet.
Ford frowned, turning his gaze away. His eyes found the mirror next to the tapestry depicting the axolotl.
He stared at his reflection. A tired-looking man gazed back at him, his pale skin marred by bruises, his face unclean and unshaven, his hair more grey than brown.
Unbidden, a thought came to him. Is that how Stanley looks like now…?
Bitterness rose to Ford's mouth like the taste of bile, and he cast that thought aside. Still, he did not turn his eyes away from the mirror.
The face of the man who would defeat Bill Cipher, she had said. It felt wrong to hope, and yet…
Ford shook his head, steeling his resolve. He was too old for such fanciful notions. Still, he took Jheselbraum's hand. "I'm ready to hear what you have to say."