"COMING ATTRACTIONS!" An unnervingly deep voice suddenly boomed in my ears.

"What the fuck?" I jumped.

"Think a paperclip maximizer is bad? THIS SUMMER... One man... One AI-powered toaster... INFINITE BREAD! Coming soon: 'TOAST APOCALYPSE 7: THE BUTTERING.' Rated R for excessive jam violence."

I spun left and right, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. An image of Nessy in a housewife apron holding a toaster ejecting bread endlessly manifested in the air like a mirage, then gradually faded away as she drowned in the bread-ocean with a scream.

The theatrical-announcer voice resumed. "She thought she was buying shoes... BUT THE SHOES WERE BUYING HER… to wear until she was scraped from existence. 'RETAIL THERAPY'—Where every sale is FINAL."

Kristi wearing nothing but leather boots appeared in mid air as reality wobbled. The raptor girl clawed at the boots as they began walking her out of her apartment.

"From the creators of 'Your Death' comes 'YOUR BIRTH'—Watch yourself being unborn in reverse! Critics are calling it 'Deeply disturbing' and 'I need therapy now!'"

"Hey," I frowned, blinking the freaky mirage away before it even began. "What's happening? Aren't we outside the theater?"

"The tickets did warn of instantaneous viewerage," Nessy commented. "I think that they're calibrating us."

"Calibrating us?!"

"For complete cinematic immersion. A quantum leap, maybe?"

"THE FEATURE PRESENTATION WILL NOW CONSUME—I MEAN, COMMENCE!"

Reality started melting around the edges like film stock left too close to a projector bulb. The dirty, cracked floor beneath us became translucent, ripping away atom by atom.

Nessy grabbed and pulled me down, squishing into me beneath a newly formed, massive spiderweb in the corner of the hallway.

"Bind bags to nullspace!" She added and the backpacks we were wearing containing all of our stuff vanished.

"Murdoch! Protek' us while we enjoy our film experience!" she added. "Cocoon our bodies up so that the FPHses can't find us!"

"Can do," the spiders above hissed.

"PLEASE SILENCE YOUR EXISTENTIAL DREAD DURING THE PERFORMANCE," the deep film-announcer's voice resonated. "INITIATING TOTAL IMMERSION!"

A popcorn fly buzzed in the web, dripping butter onto me. A candy ant made from crystallized, red sugar wiggled dark claws beside it. The spiders approached both with tiny forks.

I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to trust a colony of spiders to keep us safe.

Reality became more transparent in every direction, permitting me to see across the entirety of the Nameless Mall. A million shadowy things, a network of wiggling cables and eyes suddenly noticed me, turning my way and wishing to devour my 1st-person-ness.

Then they too were gone.

THUNK THUNK THUNK

I jolted awake to the sound of rocks hitting metal. Sunlight streamed through venetian blinds, and I was lying on a narrow, twin bed.

It took my tired self a minute to recognize the metal ceiling of my grandfather's RV.

The silver walls were covered in his collection of funny license plates featuring non-existent states like: "State of Confusion," "East Virginia," "North Alaska." The familiar smell of motor oil and Pine-Sol filled my nostrils.

THUNK THUNK

The annoying noise continued.

"OI!" My grandfather's gruff voice bellowed as he opened a window and stuck his head out. "CEASE THAT RACKET, DOG! Some of us are trying to enjoy a good book in the morning."

"Haiiiii Mr. Fosterrrrr!" a girly voice barked. "I'm here for…"

"Alec, I know," my grandfather said. "I know. You're always here for Alec. Don't you have a life, girl?"

"What's a life? Is it edible?" Nessy laughed. "Do I nom it with ketchup? What would you recommend as a life-spice, Mr. Foster?"

"Just get in and take him away already," I heard my grandfather sigh deeply, followed by the creak of the RV door opening.

Nessy practically exploded through the doorway, a black and white blur of fur and enthusiasm, the pink-blue sundress sitting atop her slightly lopsided. She immediately began circling the small RV interior, nose twitching frantically at all the things. "Ooh! Ooh! Is that WD-40? And old socks? And—my Slayer! A NEW AIR FRESHENER?"

"It's Pine-Sol, you hyperactive fleabag," grandad grumbled, pulling his thick reading glasses down to glare at her over the frames. "Same as always."

"Smells different today!" Nessy declared, tail wagging so hard her entire back end swayed. "Everything smells more... Thursday-ish!"

"It's Saturday," grandfather said flatly.

"Even BETTER!" She bounced on her digitigrade paws, then suddenly froze, spotting the book in his hands. Her head tilted almost ninety degrees. "Whatcha reading?"

"A book," he pulled the book closer to his chest as if he was concerned that the hyperactive husky girl would steal it and prance off with it. "It's theoretical… physics."

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"Theoretical-what-now?" Nessy's eyes lit up with hope. "Does it discuss annoying theoretical raptors?"

"No."

"Practical raptors?"

"NO raptors!"

"That's disappointing." Her ears drooped for exactly half a second before perking back up. "What's it about then? Can I see? Can I? Can I?" She hopped closer, trying to peek around his arms.

Granddad sighed and showed her the cover. 'Holofractals, the Door to Everywhere by Dr. Kerenski.' "It's about dimensional mathematics and—"

"Sounds booooring!" Nessy announced, then immediately contradicted herself by shoving her snout practically against the pages. "Wait, there's pictures! Are those snowflakes? Why are the snowflakes angry? They look angry. Everything looks angry when you draw arrows on it."

"Those aren't snowflakes, they're fractal patterns representing—"

"ALEC!" Nessy suddenly shrieked, having apparently just remembered why she came. She bounded toward my bed and launched herself at me, over a hundred pounds of husky enthusiasm landing directly on my stomach.

"Oof!" I wheezed. "Nessy, breathing is—"

"You're awake! Finally! I've been throwing rocks for like... FIVE WHOLE MINUTES! That's basically forever in prad years! We're gonna be late for the mall! Remember? You promised! Mall mall mall mall mall!"

She punctuated each 'mall' with a bounce on my ribs.

"The mall... doesn't open... for another hour," I gasped.

"PRE-MALL WALK!" she declared. "We can walk AROUND the mall! Smell all the smells of Dimsdale Avenue before the other smells get there!"

Grandpa snorted. "Let the boy breathe, you ridiculous creature."

Nessy rolled off me but immediately began pawing at my arm. "Come onnnn! The early human catches the... the thing humans catch!"

"Worms?" I yawned.

"Why would you want worms? Humans are weird."

"Says the girl who tried to eat a pine cone last week," I muttered, sitting up.

"It LOOKED crunchy!" she defended. "How was I supposed to know it wasn't food? It was sitting there all food-shaped!"

"Everything is food-shaped to you."

"Not everything! Rocks aren't food-shaped. Usually. Except those ones that look like potatoes. Have you seen those? Verrrrry misleading."

My grandfather shook his head, returning to his book. "Kerenski theorizes that reality itself is fractal in nature, that every point contains infinite data and infinite depth..."

"Like my love for chicken nuggets!" Nessy interjected, somehow having teleported next to him again. "Infinite depth! Infinite nuggets! I wish that someday the Superstore on Dimsdale is gonna be infinite and we'll have infinite shopping fun there!"

"That's not even remotely—"

"Is your book edible?" She sniffed at it. "It smells old. Old things are sometimes cheese. Is it book cheese?"

"Book cheese isn't a thing!" He pulled the book away from her invasive nose.

"Everything's a thing if you believe hard enough!" Nessy spun in a circle three times for no apparent reason, then froze mid-spin. "Alec! Your grandpaw has a book about doors and pacts! Are you getting a doggy door? Please say yes! I'm tired of knocking! My paws hurt! Look!"

She held up a perfectly healthy hand, opening her white fingers and wiggling her pink pads at me.

"You throw rocks," he reminded her dryly. "You don't knock. I do wish that you would learn to knock."

"Rocks are nature's knocking utensils!" She nodded sagely, then immediately got distracted by something under the table. "Is that a PENNY?"

"Behold!" She manifested in my bed, shoving a penny into my face. "A penny from the future!"

I squinted at the penny being wiggled in front of my face. "1969 isn't the future."

"Time's cyclical. Is what your grandad's book says! If time is a… mobiushh loop n' events are repeating endlessly, henceforth nineteen-sixty-nine is in the future."

"When did you even…?"

"I read fast. Real fast. Life passes you by if you read like a snail." She vanished off the bed and reappeared with an old tennis ball in her mouth. "

"Ball!" she announced around the tennis ball, then immediately spat it out into my lap. "Tastes like old feet! Why do all tennis balls taste like old feet? Have you tasted old feet? Don't answer that. I'm going to assume no because you're not into chewing balls like me."

"No ball, going to the bathroom now," I mumbled, escaping from the sheets and stumbling toward the RV's tiny bathroom, blushing as Nessy spun around me like a hurricane, sniffing me.

"Nooo!" Nessy dramatically threw herself against the bathroom door as I tried to close it. "Don't leave me alone with your grandpa! He'll make me think about MATH!"

"It's theoretical quantum physics," Grandpa said.

"SAME THING!" she wailed through the door crack. "Evil Numbers that judge you!"

I managed to shut the door, hearing a soft thump as Nessy slumped against it from the outside.

"Aleeeeec," her muffled voice came through the thin, wobbly door. "I had the weirdest dreams again last night."

"Tell me later," I responded, turning on the fan to block out the husky noises and also to provide myself a semblance of privacy.

The old fan lasted only ten minutes, which allowed me to use the toilet and shower without being bugged by 50 million husky questions.

"The seventh dream was about this boy who reunites with his childhood best friend after like... thirteen years? But plot twist! She's a Wendigo cryptid! With antlers and everything! And they go on adventures and she eats bad peeps who are mean to him, which is actually kind of sweet if you think about it in a murder-y sort of way. But then plot twist two, the people she eats are vampire thralls!"

I squeezed toothpaste onto my brush, half-listening to her ramble.

"Like, imagine if I was a Wendigo! I'd be so good at it! Except I'd probably get distracted by regular food and forget to be scary. 'FEAR ME MORTAL! But first, is that a hot dog cart?'"

"You can't be a Wendigo. You're already a Siberian husky."

"Says who? Maybe I'm a pradavarian Wendigo! Double creature feature! Twice the weird, half the sense!"

I started brushing my teeth as she continued.

"My eighth dream was even weirder! The Superstore on Dimsdale? It was INFINITE! Like, actually infinite! Aisles that went on forever! And our best friend was this super cool raptor girl, not like that annoying Kristi Strand from school who always glares at me like I personally offended her ancestors. Are raptors and dogs mortal enemies cus we like chaos and they like orderly-ness? What do you think?"

I paused mid-brush, thinking about Kristi. Was she actually annoying? If anything, Kristi was the complete opposite of Nessy - almost unnaturally calm, always composed, moving through the hallways like she was gliding. She had this way of looking at people judgingly, especially Nessy. Not annoying exactly.

I wondered what it would be like to hug her and then pushed the thought aside. Nessy would never allow me to hug any other prad, claiming full dominion over my personal space at all times. Such was the hardships of having a husky best friend.

"The dream raptor Kristi was way cool!" Nessy continued, her tail thumping against the door. "She was serious but sooo sweet! And your grandad's RV protected us at night from the scary things! Why would an RV be in a superstore? Dream logic is weird."

"Everything about you is weird, you weirdo," I voiced.

"Thank you! I try," Nessy chirped. "Oh! And in the dream, you kept dying and coming back! Like you had superpowers! But specifically the worst superpower—infinite dying! Who would want that?"

I spat out toothpaste and rinsed my mouth. "That does sound like the worst superpower."

"Ye, it's like, just trauma with extra steps, dude," Nessy agreed.

I snorted with laughter. Nessy's dreams were always absurd or maybe she just had a hyperactive imagination and a mouth that suffered from the excessive chattiness syndrome? Was that a prad thing?

Probably.

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