Sampson’s hand came down suddenly on Mallory’s shoulder, and before she could react the world shifted.

The room looked very much like it had moments before, but it was as though the colors had leached out of everything. It wasn’t that color was absent altogether, but muted somehow. Less vibrant. The lines of everything appeared wavy and insubstantial, blurry. Mallory pulled away from Sampson, scowling at him for not warning her what was going to happen. She stumbled slightly and stepped through the bed.

Frowning, she looked down. The bed from the motel room was still visible, but now she was occupying the same space. She stepped away, a little perturbed. She had the strange sensation that she could feel it, sense its form and outline and presence, even as she was able to step through it. She noticed that Eliza and Isaac were both there, mostly because they were the only things present that were in full color. They appeared more vibrant than anything else around them. She could see Samanda as well, but Samanda also appeared indistinct and blurry, greyed out.  Isaac was gesturing as he spoke to Eliza, clearly pleased to have her paying such rapt attention to him. “This is what I was talking about. It’s another dimension, from which your world can be viewed, but doesn’t have to be interacted with.” To demonstrate, he reached out a hand and waved it easily through Samanda’s head. Eliza gasped, and then tentatively did the same, although she pulled her hand back quickly, likely sensing the same there-not-there feel that Mallory had experienced with the bed.

Then she turned and walked through the wall.

Seconds later, she walked back in, blushing furiously. “There is someone very naked in the next room,” she said.

Sampson laughed.

“You said it doesn’t have to be interacted with… can you interact with things back in our world? If you wanted to?” Mallory asked.

Sampson grinned and smacked Samanda in the back of the head. She scowled, and moments later her outline shifted, becoming more material, more present. “What was that for?” she grumbled at Sampson.

“A demonstration.” Sampson gestured toward the ground. “Realistically, the earth itself doesn’t have to hold you. You remain standing on the surface because you firmly believe in it, and because it is, for the most part, ever present. If you hadn’t stumbled when you stepped into the bed, you may have been able to sit on it, or stand on it. But a bed hasn’t always occupied this space, so it’s a little less… firm.” As he spoke, he allowed himself to sink slowly into the ground up to his knees. As he finished speaking, he took a step forward, placing his feet on the floor again.

Mallory nodded, contemplating. “So could I flip the blanket back on the bed?”

“It’s not impossible. But it would require a little bit of magical ability. Even slapping Samanda upside the head required a little magic.” Sampson smiled apologetically at Samanda, who stood with her arms crossed, listening to the magic lesson indifferently.

“How often do people like you pretend to be ghosts to fuck with people?”

Sampson smirked, but didn’t respond to that particularly question.