"Can I help you with something?" She repeated her question.
Ocean came to her senses and greeted warmly with a smile on her face, something very difficult to do, and pulled out a chair and sat next to her double.
"I'm new in the city and I would like to see interesting places," she leaned towards her, "I think you could help me with that."
"There's nothing interesting here, it's a small city," she replied, drinking a little.
"I was thinking something like a museum, maybe," she clasped her hands waiting for a good answer.
The other Ocean remembered trying to think of an interesting museum.
"Oh yeah! There is one, the museum three. It is a magical place, although I don't know if you like those themes, there are paintings with themes of metaphysics, dimensions, the astral plane, magic and witchcraft, I think they are the few salvageable places in the city."
"Yeah! Yeah! It's perfect and where is it or how can I get there?"
Ocean told Ocean how to get there but it wasn't opening hours yet so they decided to go together but wait in the cafeteria while the time was ticking.
Ocean asked why she was in a wheelchair and she told her that it was due to an accident she had during difficult dates. Ocean dared to ask, hoping that her double would open up to her and she did, she mentioned that it was when she broke up with the last partner she had.
"Your ex-boyfriend is a jerk," she commented, taking the opportunity to speak ill of him.
"I know," she laughed, "but I'm in the process of overcoming all that, I don't deny that some things hurt me and that there is anger towards him but I tried to ignore it, maybe that way I'll suppress it faster."
Ocean believed that the fact that she hid it was the reason why she felt it without any explanation in her dimension, somehow their feelings were connected and seeing Zev in another plane had triggered that feeling, she came to the conclusion that that was possible thanks to the power of Zev and his travels.
"Have you seen him again?" She asked.
Ocean shook her head.
"I think he fulfilled what he wanted," she paused, "he once said that he wanted to leave here, to another country perhaps, I think he did…"
Ocean knew that he definitely had.
"It annoys me a little that he's so special," she clenched her fist.
"In what sense? What could be special about that guy?"
"It's that he told me that he used to see an entity when he went to sleep, many times he thought they were nightmares but he could really see it."
Ocean was intrigued, the entity could be Nix. She asked if other kinds of things were happening to Zev but Ocean told her no, she just thought the spirit was female since it touched him in strange ways and the silhouette seemed to be of a woman.
The Ocean of Zev's dimension strangely felt courage when talking about him with the other Ocean, which had not happened, perhaps it was due to the power of fire, which made her release her repressed emotions, however, she felt confident to talk about it.
"In three days I will stop using this chair", she changed the topic of conversation, "I will be able to walk again."
"I'm glad, so for the meantime let me be the one to take you," Ocean said, feeling a lump in her throat.
The Ocean of fire could have complained to the other Ocean about how she should have acted with Zev, however, she decided to be gentle because the order of how things happened was not her fault, if fate wanted it that way, it was because she needed to learn something about that.
She carried her in the chair through the streets of the city, holding back the sea of tears that wanted to come out of his eyes. She kept quiet the whole way because if she spoke for sure her voice would be cut off. When they were close, the Ocean from that dimension asked her if she had a boyfriend.
"Yes, yes I have," she said with conviction, relaxing her desire to cry, "he is the best man I have ever met, I really love him, I couldn't leave him for anyone else, he is the person I deserve."
"I wish I could have someone like that."
"Have faith," she smiled genuinely.
"And is he handsome?" She asked curiously.
"Of course!" Ocean described him and the other Ocean seemed to get the attention too.
They were a few meters from the museum, the facade was really big and really transmitted a mystical energy. Now she was more anxious to enter and see in person the famous painting that was shown to her in her dreams. Ocean was a bit sad since she used to visit that museum with Zev but now she had a new friend with whom to make new experiences and memories in that place.
Upon entering, they walked through the corridors of the place until they were finally in front of the painting called: "The most beautiful woman".
"This painting has always seemed strange to me, there is no woman, I don't know why it is called like that, the artists are so subliminal with their messages," the Ocean of that dimension sighed.
On the other hand, the Ocean of fire was impressed, it was a huge, majestic painting and she could only think of someone, Nix. She wanted to tell her doppelganger the story of that painting but was hesitant to do so, though she wished she would understand a little more about the painting.
"You know, they just redid the painting," she commented, "well that's my theory."
"What do you mean?" She approached the permissive line.
"It is that the painting didn't have those black spots, many said that they began to come out of the painting by themselves but I feel that the artist wanted to redecorate his work, it is a mystery…"
Ocean looked at the legend with the information of the painting, the author was anonymous, it brought the title but did not specify anything about its meaning.
"It's as if the goodness of light was affected by the evil of darkness in a world of perfection," commented the Ocean of fire about to touch the spots.
"There is no such thing as good and evil," said her double, "these are just concepts to refer to people's intentions."
A guard came up to tell her that was not allowed to touch the works and that she was about to cross the dividing line like Ocean was about to burn him but she remembered to keep her composure.
"You know, I think I'm beginning to understand painting, I sense that the most beautiful woman is simply energy, made up of light and darkness, or perhaps it's the representation that dreams are just that and both good and bad things can happen, you would say," she laughed genuinely, "I also understand that no matter how much you want your life to be perfect, something "bad" will always happen that changes things, light cannot exist without darkness and vice versa, there can be many things, art is subjective and everyone interprets it in their own way."
"Or it could just be an ugly painting because it lacks aesthetics but the author meant that it's the most beautiful thing he's ever painted," Ocean said laughing at her own comment.
Both Ocean shared their points of view on the possible and infinite meanings, they got along so well, in the end they were the same person.
Ocean began to realize many things and began to reconsider others. There was so much to learn from that world, from herself but with another personality, the universe of dimensions was so infinite that she would never be able to learn everything.
She looked at the painting for a longer time, it was a literal representation of the name of Nix's loop but she wondered why the spots, did the mother ether have darkness in it or was the darkness Zev's?
Ocean noticed that Ocean was captivated by the painting, as if it was something she had been looking for for a long time, so she decided to leave it for a while while she went to other parts of the museum, eventually they would meet at the exit door.
Ocean made sure that there was no one else nearby and at that moment she touched the black spots with her fingers hoping that something magical would happen but nothing happened, except for a guard who saw her touch the painting.
The employee blurted out, Ocean had done something wrong so she devised something to get out of the situation and with her power she sent sparks towards the surveillance cameras and they burned, causing a fire inside the museum for which they began to evacuate everyone. With the diversion ready, Ocean ran for the exit to avoid being stopped. Once outside she took her double away from the place.
Since Ocean would spend time in that dimension, they both agreed to see each other on those days to make the wait more enjoyable.
"Are you sure you have a place to spend the night?" She asked when she saw the night sky.
"Yes don't worry."
After leaving her on her doorstep, Ocean slipped into her doppelganger's house, found a candle, and turned herself into a fire to light the wick and sleep there that dark night.
On the other hand, Zev had managed to escape from the infinite ground loop, after being buried so many times believing that the exit would be to go up, it occurred to him to dig deeper, that way he managed to get out unharmed although with very little oxygen.
"He did it," Barret said, stopping the timer, "he deactivated my loop, again but it took a day."
Before Evander could comment, Zev cut them off.
"I'm ready for the next loop, who's next?"
"Although I don't like the idea, you must sleep, rest the rest of the night and early I'll lock you in my loop," Evander said, frowning.
"Okay son, I'll put this container to rest," Zev replied with a lost look, his face was scary and made Evander uncomfortable, clearly the one who was speaking was not the traveler.
Zev walked strangely, like a drunk towards his room. Barret expressed feeling a little afraid and uncomfortable at the words he said.
"Sometimes I don't know if this is a good idea," he said, "I don't want to watch him tonight."
"Go rest brother, I'll watch over him, if there's a problem I'll use my power," Evander said.
"But you can't kill Zev otherwise Ocean won't be able to come back."
"I won't kill him but my poison is capable of weakening Nix or any other entity, I'm going to measure myself so as not to go overboard and cause his death, don't worry," he looked at him determinedly.
Barret nodded, told him that he would see him in the morning and went to sleep while Evander went to Zev's room to watch him that night. He sat in a corner and put on his gas mask, he should have been prepared to act but he was confident that he would not resort to that dangerous power.
During everyone's night's sleep, Ocean saw total blackness in her mind until she could hear a voice saying that he would soon claim what was his, she did not understand what he meant but after a few minutes, the black took shape and she saw a cruel scene that produced a feeling of pain in her chest, that was so disconcerting that she didn't know how to take it since beings like Ocean did not usually have nightmares.
She thought it was due to the dimension change so she didn't give it any importance. She closed her eyes to go back to sleep but that dark dream was still latent and she feared it would come true.