But 6-years-old Deva me leaving the beach house alone to grap my toy from the car. Getting lost and casually going to the compound guard, tell him the name our rent is under and gets home in 15 min because im a sycophant who liked following registration info from day 1 🤝🤝

She had been walking for a long time. Days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries? She didn't know. Maybe she had only been walking for a moment relative to some outside sense of time, but here, it seemed to stretch on forever. Time had no meaning. Space had some. She could move around, but never was there a way to go up or down to a new level, only endless corridors and rooms. She'd gone back once or twice, only to find that it seemed to change and became unfamiliar, so ultimately she decided to press on, and keep walking forward. Some spaces felt mundane, like a wood paneled room with a table and chairs, and a roaring fire, but she knew the fire wasn't real. Behind it all was metal. Sometimes she walked across catwalks, glancing down through the honeycomb patterns, seeing just slick metal a foot below, and yet no matter what she tried, be it prying up floorboards or even ripping up bulkhead doors, there was nothing below, nothing above, just more metal. She'd find windows, and stare out, seeing nothing but blackness, even when she knew the window should look into a room or corridor she'd just been in, or show some sign of it. Sometimes she swore she saw pinpricks of light off in the distance, but blinked and they were gone when she looked out the windows again. Once she walked through a room like a study, and looked through the books on a shelf, only to find the pages were not blank, but gibberish, masses of text interposed on each other, as if multiple pages were combined into one. It only proved the point, that in some way, despite the rooms outerness shifting, the underlying remained the same. She was somewhere and yet nowhere at the same time. This was a place that shouldn't exist, and yet she was here. Perhaps beyond her vision range it faded away, only existing like some phantasmal reality when she looked at it.

She could find places to sleep, not that she needed to sleep. It wasn't because of the place, although to others, they'd find no need to sleep or even eat, regardless of biology, but for her, eating, sleeping, drinking, those were all stimulated behavior of organic life. She could think and feel for herself, though she barely felt anything even before she'd woken up in this bizarre realm. It felt like a mundane old PC game, where the endless corridors and rooms blurred together. And yet, unlike the games.

She was alone. There were sounds, and at first, she'd mistaken some sounds for others around, but quickly her scanners confirmed them to be ambient, natural noise. From the hissing of pipes to the occasional creak beneath her feet. Well, natural noise in the sense of what would be expected inside of what ultimately amounted to an artificial space, and yet one that seemed endless. Once she laid in a bed, staring up at the ceiling, the monochrome soothing to her. The bed was a mundane military cot, like the ones found on military ships of the wall or long ago when the world was only naval, the line. But regardless, whenever she stopped, she took stock, but eventually resumed walking. Once she wandered into what seemed to be akin to a waterpark of some sort, or a pool space. She dimly remembered from before, one of the space ships had had a pleasure deck. Exploring the white and blue space, she stumbled onto an office, and glanced inside, and it confirmed a suspicion. Only one ship had an office in a waterpark like this, and here, the papers weren't gibberish. They were old maintaince reports. For awhile she flipped through them, realizing they all corresponded to the waterpark of the ship in question. Afterwards she sat on the edge of a pool, her boots off sitting next to her, bare legs drifting through the water as she sat there and thought. She thought about the before time, which felt so long, long ago. She thought of the constant hum and murmurs of the ship she'd been on when it all happened. When they went through nowhere to…somewhere that only existed because of chance. A Sargasso sea between universes. A void point that only existed because they had been there. So what happens when a point that shouldn't contain anything, sudden contains vast amounts of information. It all compresses down to a single layer. And unless someone is there to observe, it acts as if its an unloaded map. It made sense mathematically. In a strange way, it was comforting. Realizing this wasn't some nightmare world conjured up from some hellworld, but just, a space where so many vessels and ships were placed as if on top of each other, flattened into a space without time. Where space was more an abstract concept than hard reality.

A roguelike. Procedural generation using pre-existing assets. That…made sense. Whether some higher power had ruled that such could happen or somehow a freak quirk of interuniversal space had allowed this bizzarro space to exist. Maybe that was what laid beyond the event horizon of a black hole, not endless mass stretched out until it ceased to be, but all compressed down into now. She slowly looked around the poolroom space, and thought about that. She thought again about the before time, when she had laughed and joked with her sisters. When she had first been built by her creator. She knew Home no longer existed. That was why they were on that voyage, because an old order that sent them across universes on some grand nomadic journey, picking up additional travelers, others like her and her kind, others more interested in the saga. Searching for some far off signal that she didn't think had ever come. In the end, that didn't matter. Because now, it was just her, in what felt like a Null Space. It didn't bother her. She had to assume that maybe, if there were others, they were wanderers in this void space, each on their own journeys, unable to ever cross paths because they all existed in the same point. Or maybe they had all escaped, and she was the only one stuck, a lone warden. That made sense, the first of her kind made, and maybe the last to exist. Or the last one out. Eventually, she pulled her legs out of the cool water, and stood, pulling her boots back on, sighing as she felt the water dry and then fade. She adjusted her gloves, removing her right glove to look at the pale, white as snow skin underneath. Her fingers flexed slightly, and if she stared hard enough, she could see the joints, the servomotors underneath the synthskin doing their job. Truth is, if she wanted to, she could…and the skin parted as if willed, her hand becoming more doll like in terms of how it exposed the joints underneath. She stared at that for a long moment, before the hand returned to normal, and she slipped the glove back over.

Ice blue eyes scanned, and found a small corridor, that led her into a room of stalls, and though she didn't need to use the showers or the toilets, she did stop, and stare at herself in one of the mirrors. Long black hair was tied back into two tails, pony tails? She wasn't sure what the phrase was beyond just "twin tails". She was dressed the same as ever, a basic tank top over breasts that were there purely for appearance as well, she was female, but built. Not born. Short cargo shorts, a cloak with a hood, the ends of the cloak tattered, the sleeves folded back, and when she turned slightly, she could see the faded symbol on the back, a five pointed star. A reminder. Her boots were simple combat boots, black as the night sky. Her blue eyes stared back at her in the mirror. For a moment, she stood there, examining her doll like pale flesh. That if made of porcelain would be understandable for its hue, but the flesh was synthskin, she looked that snow white normally. For a long time she stared, thinking how much she looked like her creator once had. Did Mother still exist? Or had she faded into the winds of time, as who knew how many eons had passed outside of this Null Point. Suddenly, she heard a strange sound, and her trance broke as she looked away. For a moment her reflection seemed to lag, as if glitching, but then matched. She didn't notice. Something had changed.

On the other side of the room, opposite where she had come in, set into a slight recess hidden from her view in the mirror or normally, a door had appeared. She stared at it. That had never happened before, but then again, maybe it had and she'd just never noticed. She walked up to the door, examining it, from top to bottom, side to side, it looked like an ordinary wooden door. For a second she glanced away, back to where she had come from, debating what she should do. Then she shrugged, looking back to it, and Stella put her hand on the door knob, and turned it, slowly pushing the door open, and stepping through.

For a moment, her mind needed to process as she felt a "pop" like sensation in her head, like adjusting to pressure. Something felt different. She looked around the new space. It looked like some sort of antechamber, or a lobby maybe? She couldn't recall anything like this from any of the blueprints or schematics of the ships under her command. This was a new space. She turned and saw she wasn't alone. It was a bar, and there, at the bar counter, stood someone. As she approached, Stella's breath caught in her throat, despite not needing to. That wasn't a mannequin. It wasn't an illusion. Her scanners confirmed it, someone real stood there. And for the first time, Stella felt hope. Hope of maybe, just maybe. Something could change.

The figure behind the bar was an ordinary looking woman, brownish hair cut short, hazelnut hued eyes staring into Stella's ice blue without reacting much, just smiling as she cleaned a glass. Stella stepped up the bar, and sat down on one of the stools. It felt normal, a proper bar stool, the kind you could turn the seat of without the chair moving. She processed this feeling, as the bartender let her wonder persist, and then, she looked up.

"…H-He-llo ?" Her voice was cracked. Stella hadn't spoken in eons. She stared at the woman, dumbfounded, trying to figure out what more to say, but before she did, the bartender slid her the glass she'd been cleaning, now filled with what she knew to be water. Stella drank it down, the fluids actually helping, as her systems extracted the energy, repairing systems quickly. Eating and drinking was mimicry, but her systems could still extract energy. For a moment, she sat nothing, then looked up at the woman again, unknowingly have been staring at the empty glass. She blinked a few times, then parted her lips. "My…my name is Stella. I think I've been lost for a long time, where am I?"

The bartender laughed then, a gentle warm smile. "Oh honey, this is the Bar of Lost Souls, everyone who's truly and hopelessly lost can come here if they need it. That door appears when you need it, and sometimes its always been there and you just needed the right frame of mind to see it. My name is Judith, been tending bar here for ages, lost track a long time ago. So, you said your name was Stella? Well, based on how you look kid, seems you've been somewhere outside of reality, if you look this lost." She held up a hand, to stop Stella responding, and smiled more. "Oh don't worry, you're not the first person to come through my bar from a Null Point. Hell, if I'm not mistaken, you're probably one of the last ones from that Null Point I'm expecting to see for a long long time.

That caught Stella's attention, and she cocked her head to one side. "There were others?"

"Yeah, a few. I want to say about 15, not all at once, but they'd wander in here from that space. Honestly? Its been a few years since I saw one of your people wander in, they always told me they felt there were others. The last one thought that only one remained, but she wasn't sure. She said it felt like a big sister was looking out for her, guarding her, and would leave when everyone else was gone." Judith watched as Stella processed that idea. Stella realized that just before she had come in here, she'd had that exact thought, as if she would be the last one to exist or to leave. Her gaze shifted past Judith, to see the drinks, and then looked around, seeing photos on the walls around her, of previous patrons. She even recognized some of them, well, there were indeed 15 she recognized. She knew some only from crew manifests, one or two were from her own command vessel, and one or two were leaders of other vessels.

"So…what happens now?" Stella didn't look back at Judith as she spoke, instead staring at the seemingly endless amounts of photos. Behind her, Judith began cleaning the prior glass.

"Well, way I see it kid, you have a choice. You can stay here as long as you like, food and drink are free, and if you really want to, you can go back through the door you came in, go back to that Null Point. Maybe you'll even find your own way out again, be it here or somewhere else, but there's no promises of that. Or, if you wanna get back to living in the moment, to time flowing normally? You can go through the exit over there." Judith pointed and Stella looked at Judith, then at her out stretched arm and finger, towards an actual mundane door marked exit.

"…Where does that go? Home does not exist for me anymore. I doubt it hasn't for a long time." Stella's words were sad, but more from the suggestion of emotion laid behind them, in reality her tone was flat. She barely felt emotions to begin with, an old piece of tech her creator had installed that as far she knew, didn't come with an offswitch. An emotional dampener that let her fight to the max without feeling much.

"Well, funny thing is, all your sisters, cuz I figure you're all siblings in some way or another, said the exact same thing. Thing is, Home isn't some abstract concept if you don't want it to be. Most of them decided Home was where they felt at home. Where their hearts ended up. That door? It'll take you to somewhere close to what you feel is familiar, it may even be on a version of the world you came from, or just a random reality. Whatever you think of when you think of what feels like home to you. Think of my bar as a interuniversal waystation, and that door will go anywhere in the endless span of realities. Anywhere you want to go. I don't know where it'll take you, but it'll take you somewhere. If your home universe doesn't exist anymore and that's where you wanted to go? It'll put you somewhere close to it, if not a parallel world, then something similar in tone. And odds are you can find a way out of there to other universes. You aren't the first and you won't be the last to come from a universe or realm that no longer exists. You can decide where home is for you. But something tells me that Null Point ain't what you're looking for. So, whatcha wanna do kid? Stay awhile, decide or?" Judith paused as Stella turned back to her, a faint smirk beginning to creep across the synthskin lips.

"Well. When you put it that way. I suppose Home doesn't equal a null value, but I can define its value. And maybe my siblings found somewhere like what we were searching for before we ended up trapped. Sure, what the hell, I'll go through Door Number Dos, and we'll see where it takes me, the adventure is half the fun, the destination is only the end of the journey!" Stella's dampener couldn't hold down her excitement and joy, and that did make Judith grin.

"Well darling, how about I pack you a lunch for the road, and you get going then? I'd love to hear your stories, but I reckon you're itching to hit the asphalt, concrete or cobblestone, or hell dirt track and see where things go?" Judith wasn't even looking at Stella then as she looked away, beginning to grab some items from a cooler, as Stella's expression shifted and she pondered, tilting her head to one side. And then, Stella waited. A few moments later, and a simple packed lunch pail was slipped to her, and Stella nodded.

"Thank you Miss Judith, I appreciate it, I should get going then, and I hope your bar-" She paused, then grinned wide. "I forgot, take a photo, for the wall!" Judith for her part, started, having completely forgotten about her own wall, before smiling back.

"Alright honey!" And with that, an old fashioned camera, a Polaroid camera, came out, and a photo was snapped, while Stella still grinned. And once it was done, Stella hopped off the bar stool, grabbed the pail, and walking over to the exit, looked back over, waved, and then without a further word, pushed down on the open bar and out the door she went, into whatever lay beyond. Who knows what will become of her.

All that was left was the gentle light of the bar, as Judith stared at the photo as it developed. It showed an android, a being made to be and was a woman. She smiled. And "Judith" turned her gaze back to the Exit Door. "Yeah kid, you'll be okay, after all." Her smile grew wider, not a dark grin, but a true, genuinely happy smile. Albeit one with sharp teeth, very sharp teeth. "…Mother finally found you, and now I know you're safe. And that's good enough for me." "Judith" for a moment flickered, then, in an instant, the bar lights went out, and when they came back?

There was no one there, except for the photograph and the camera, sitting on the bar top. In the photo, a mirror could be seen behind Stella. And instead of Judith? Something else looked back. It was still a woman, still femme. But something other. Like a shadow, a projection of something that couldn't actually fit into the space. But whatever it was? It looked happy. And one green eye glowed. And one yellow eye glowed as well. And that, for now, is the end of our feature story. Where did Stella go? What was wearing Judith? Does it really matter for now? Perhaps one day, there were be an answer to each question. But for now? Day dream, dear reader, of the endless corridors and rooms that were once space ships, dream of the bar, and dream of the endless realities of whatever lies beyond that door. The Door into Adventure.