ON THE OTHER SIDE | AETHER

THREE

The lights had been turned out in the infirmary. You must have fallen asleep at some point.

Your eyes blinked open, seeing some light peek through the thin curtains of the window above your cot. You stretched your back, feeling sore, but quickly regretted it after your stomach injury cried from the sudden strain. You were still in the infirmary. You were still stuck in this world.

Your ears caught a distant noise and you tried your hardest not to move. The door to the infirmary slowly creaked open. It was quiet enough in the city for you to hear the whispers that followed.

"Tell me what Barbara said again." The tone was serious yet laced in sultry specks. Specks that slurred certain syllables, that recognizable voice could only belong to one woman—Lisa.

"She said the girl should be dead," Jean spoke. If Barbara's look wasn't enough to be sure of, that admittance surely was. You were in the body of a dead girl. "The odd thing is, while Barbara was inspecting her wounds, she said that she found traces of healing. Healing only possible from a vision user."

"I looked into the vision that Aether said he found by the girl. It's void of any ability, dull. Its user is dead. Meaning—"

"—someone else must have healed her," Jean finished Lisa's sentence. You could almost imagine Jean putting her hand up to her chin, gears turning in her brain as she attempted to use her intellect to fill the holes in the story being spun. "The only vision holders capable of healing in Mondstadt wouldn't have been able to heal her. Barbara had church duties; Bennett was causing trouble in Stormbearer Mountains, Diona was working in the Cat's Tail bar, and I was holed up in my office."

"There's a vision wielding healer who has managed to stay off our radar, then," Lisa concluded.

"It's the only plausible assumption."

"By the way, Jean, why did you suggest the girl travel with Aether? She's obviously of Inazuman descent, could we not just deport her if you think she may be dangerous?" Your breath hitched, recalling the Inazuman vision on the infirmary's bedside table. The grey vision, ineffective because it recognizes that the person parading in its user's body was not actually the one who deserved that power. If you were the Inazuman, did that mean the Fatui mask belonged to the person who healed you?

"You've heard about the current climate in Inazuma. If someone's fled, it means they wish not to return," Jean said. "Mondstadt is the city of freedom, I hope to uphold that promise to anyone who wanders in. As for why I suggested she travel with Aether, it would do him a service to learn the lesson she'll teach him."

You frowned. Lesson? What could you possibly teach Aether?

"I trust your judgement," Lisa responded. "Though I can't help but feel a little bad for her, Aether's been in a mood lately. He doesn't stop by the library at all anymore."

"It's a mood I can understand. We have been putting a lot of responsibilities on his shoulders. I wish that I could have burdened a bit more for him, but my inability to complete my current tasks won't allow me to do so."

"You'll get crushed under that weight if you take on any more responsibilities." Lisa's voice quieted down, footsteps following her. The infirmary door shut and the two women's absence made the room unnervingly silent.

You rolled over on the cot, a revelation realizing itself in your brain. Genshin Impact was no longer a game, it was your new reality. This world would throw hurdle after hurdle, time would pass slowly, the people would learn and change. The personalities you thought you could expect wouldn't remain forever with the events that plagued them as the story moved forward. Your new reality was the same as the old. Unpredictable. Only this one felt worse, because at least you had an identity before. Now, you were no one, without anything to fall back on.

A flash caught your eye. White noise filled the infirmary, rumbling through your ears. On the bedside table, the vision shook. You sat up, inching closer to the suddenly active item. It lit up in white, melting into a light blue, a snowflake appearing in its center. Cryo illuminated from the vision, filling the room with an unrelenting cold, similar to what you felt when you woke up on Dragonspine.

Your hand reached for it, the temperature lowering as your fingers got closer. It almost burned; how frigid the room was becoming. Your skin contacted the center. The glassy sphere dissipated into gray the moment you acknowledged it with tactility.

The room shrouded itself in darkness once more as the light from the vision faded. Your hand picked up the vision, bringing it over the window. You held it up, observing the cloudy center and the gold brimming.

It was as if, for a moment, it recognized its user. But you were unable to give it the familiarity it yearned for, paling back into its dormant state.

Did that mean it was possible? To bring the vision back to life. Or did that mean you were close to being kicked out of this body? Forced to return to the void where you were unwanted on either side of the two worlds.

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A/N: This chapter is little shorter than I wanted it to be (since my readers deserve the best) but I try not to write filler to reach a word count quota so >900 words is all you guys get. But if you're feeling starved of this story after the short chapter three, fret not for the next chapter will be longer.

In the mean time, don't forget to vote and comment if you enjoyed :D