[✓] 𝑀𝑂𝑂𝑁𝐿𝐼𝐺𝐻𝑇 | 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐒

𝐬𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧. 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒. 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐧

Word count: 4484

𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐙𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐇'𝐒 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐋𝐘 blinked open, but only met the same gold as before. She slowly sat up, rubbing the back of her head. She couldn't remember falling asleep, nor even laying on the ground, but there she was.

Her breathing was starting to grow heavy as she clambered to her feet, anxiety beginning to overtake her as she looked around at the shimmering gold that swirled around her.

Elizabeth tried to calm herself to the best of her abilities, taking deep breaths as she slowly paced around . . . wherever she was.

How long had she been asleep? Maybe a few hours, or half a day at most. At least that's what it felt like. . . .

Her mind raced as she tried to think of what had happened. She walked around for who knows how long, just trying to think of an answer. But nothing came to mind.

Suddenly, she realized: she was wearing a watch. That most definitely could help her keep track of time.

She pulled back the sleeve of her blazer but was surprised as she watched the second hand move quicker than she was used to. With furrowed brows, she waited until it hit the twelve, and began counting seconds by herself, aloud, while the second hand went at its own pace.

Once she got to sixty seconds, the second hand had already hit twelve, now only a tick past two. She tested again. And again. Seven more times. Same result.

So that was one thing she knew for sure about the portal: time ain't right. Or at least, the time passed differently in the portal than in the actual world.

That was a problem. A big problem.

Sure, it was only eleven seconds more than a minute, but in the long run, that could turn into days, months, years, decades, and so on.

Elizabeth needed to find a solution. And fast.

But fast was the opposite of how long it was taking. While it was harder to keep track of the time, she knew that days, months, years were flying past as she tried to make new portals, cried, slept, yelled at the portal, and grew more and more frustrated.

She was so hungry. And thirsty. And sore. And exhausted. And missing the people she loved so dearly. Especially Five. Oh, how much she missed him. And how angry she was at him for being the stupidest boy in existence.

But still, she missed him. How much she longed to tell him that she loved him one more time, or to hear the same words come from his mouth. She wasn't sure that she'd ever hear those three words again.

For some reason, she wasn't dead, despite the fact that she hadn't eaten or drunk anything in quite a while. She figured that perhaps since time was different in there, a lot of other shit was different as well.

At some point in time later (she had given up on trying to figure out how long it had been), Elizabeth walked around, her lips pursed as she looked around. Everything looked exactly the same. Not that that was really any surprise to her.

Elizabeth had stopped blasting the portal with her energy a long time ago; it didn't affect the portal in the least. She tried making another portal to get out, but nothing would ever be conjured.

She sighed, putting her hands on her hips. Were there any ideas she hadn't exhausted yet? She didn't think so. Every hopeful theory that came to mind proved to be useless, and at that point, she thought that perhaps she should just call it quits and lay there in misery forever.

She missed Five. She missed Allison. Diego. Klaus. Ben. Vanya. And, yes, even Luther. Definitely Grace. Pogo. Reginald . . . Well, she was doing just fine without him.