[center][h3][color=DBDB70]Dalia[/color] and [color=FFA319]Jørn[/color][/h3][/center]
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Blood pumped through Dalia’s veins hard, but she allowed herself to relax, as she could see traces of a small room with a bed. She forced her apartment into view. That was the room that was real; the one that was relevant to her.

[color=DBDB70]“Ja, men-”[/color] Dalia stopped talking, realizing she’d heard herself speaking an unfamiliar language. [color=DBDB70]“Interesting. Well, this is not my first… contact, today.”[/color] She locked her door, before walking away from it, and placing her bag on the coffee table the stranger had appeared near.

Jørn let out a deep sigh of relief when the woman calmed down, seemingly affected by his words. He slowly lowered his hands again, hoping she wouldn’t take it as a threat. He didn’t dare to move his legs however, remaining on the exact same spot; although the blonde was shorter than him by at least half a head, she gave the impression she was stronger than him, both by her physical characteristics as well as by her firm demeanor.

The way the blonde formulated her comment made him wonder what exactly she meant: had she been in a position similar to him, or did she mean something more ordinary? A raid perhaps.
He hesitated asking her whether she had been seeing strangers as well, but realizing this might give her an even more shady expression of him, he decided to rephrase his question, putting it more neutral. [color=FFA319]“So… You’ve had another visitor besides me?”[/color]

Dalia raised a slim eyebrow while walking to her small kitchen, on the other side of a counter. She wondered if the man - the hallucination - thought he had actually been transported to a stranger's apartment. [color=DBDB70]"I have seen another possibly-hallucinative person, yes. The last one seemed to favor the idea this was a shared perception of some sort."[/color] She set a kettle on her stove-top, and drew a teacup from her cupboard. [color=DBDB70]“You’ll forgive me for not offering tea, given you’re not actually here.”[/color]

Jørn tilted his head. [color=FFA319]"A shared perception, huh? That actually seems to make some sense... I mean, I still have no idea how it works, but at least it sounds more likely than a mere hallucination. Must've been a smart person who suggested that idea,"[/color] he smiled lightly. It made him wonder whether this woman had encountered someone else than Steve, since the man appeared to get the situation just as little as he did. Just how many people were there like him?

Feeling somewhat more at ease, he sat down on the sofa. [color=FFA319]"You don't mind me sitting here, do you? Since I'm not actually here, you know,"[/color] he remarked jokingly.

[color=DBDB70]"Of course,"[/color] she answered, while carefully scooping loose tea leaves into a net, which hung into a smaller sort of kettle.

From his new position Jørn looked over the apartment, slowly taking it in. It was rather different from his own; apart from the bag that had just been placed on top of the low table in front of him, it was very neat and organized, giving off a modern, professional vibe. He let his gaze wander over the kitchen, before letting his eyes rest on the woman, watching her prepare her drink.

[color=FFA319]"Ah, where are my manners, I haven't even introduced myself, nor asked for your name yet,"[/color] he suddenly realized. [color=FFA319]"I'm Jørn,"[/color] he nodded.

[color=DBDB70]"Dalia,"[/color] the host countered, carrying a small tray with the steeping kettle and a teacup over to her coffee table, and sitting beside Jørn. There was no furniture around for her to sit opposite him. She picked her workout bag off the table and dropped it beside, rather than sliding it.

[color=DBDB70]"This is Israel, by the way. Where might you be?"[/color] She allowed herself to see some of what his body did, as she had when he first entered. [color=DBDB70]"Some sort of... cabin?"[/color] The style of the room was alien to her, having lived either in the city or a barracks her whole life.

Jørn glanced up, noting they were in an environment he was familiar with. The two of them were now seated on his bed which was still uncovered, the sheets flung loosely over the mattress as a result of the rush this morning; there was no place for a sofa in the small bedroom.
Although it was an hour earlier in Denmark than in Israel, the clouded sky gave the impression it was actually quite a bit later here in Skagen than in the sunny city.

Remembering Dalia’s question, he faced her once more. [color=FFA319]“Yeah, we rented a lodge in the northern part of Denmark. We made some shots of migrating birds this morning. Made shots of them, not shoot them,”[/color] Jørn stressed, ensuring sure to make his intentions clear; he was very much against the use of firearms. He knew how to use a rifle, but he only learned it as an emergency measure in case they were photographing larger animals that were known to sometimes leash out.

[color=FFA319]“It’s for the nature magazine I work at,”[/color] he explained. [color=FFA319]“Here, let me show you some of the pictures we managed to make.”[/color] The tall man stood up and walked over to a desk in the corner of the room. He picked up the hefty camera and carefully removed the lens to make carrying the object an easier task. He placed the optic instrument in a black case in which he kept several lenses, before heading back to the bed. Sitting down again, he felt the mattress underneath him sink in under the weight. With a few clicks on some buttons a photo of a white-tailed eagle in flight came into view. Jørn held up the device to Dalia. [color=FFA319]“Amazing, right?”[/color] he said, his eyes widened with fascination. [color=FFA319]“This really was a lucky shot; I hadn’t expected to see one this early in the season,”[/color] he added.

Dalia nodded appreciatively. [color=DBDB70]"Bird and photo both are quite beautiful. I frequent a small museum which has some especially good photography of fauna."[/color] Her eyes drifted to the edge of the phone, and down its strap, as a thought came to her. Dalia reached down to the camera's strap, lifting it into the air, feeling the texture beneath her fingertips.

[color=DBDB70]"If I was to assume this shared perception was real, how are we both holding this camera? Am I using your hand to lift the strap?"[/color]

Jørn looked down at his hands, both were holding tight onto the apparatus. Meaningful he looked up from his hands into the young woman’s face: he could not be the one lifting the strap as his hands were preoccupied. [color=FFA319]“Can you feel the strap?”[/color] he asked her, not sure what else to ask.

[color=DBDB70]"I can,"[/color] Dalia confirmed, but she paused, rubbing her fingers over the strap's surface, expression thoughtful.

[color=FFA319]“I um, I also had a ‘visitor’ earlier today, a man from Australia. When we shook hands I could feel the warmth from his skin,”[/color] he commented. [color=FFA319]“I figured that, because of the amount of detail and because I could not only see and hear, but also feel him, it couldn’t be a hallucination, nor a dream. Later I wondered that maybe your brain fills in the sensation of touch: you expect to feel warmth when you touch someone. Something like that, you know? But… that doesn’t seem to explain everything. Neither does the idea of a shared perception seem to.”[/color] He shook his head slightly. [color=FFA319]“What might be even weirder is that, even though I have no clue of what is going on and what is happening to me, I feel oddly at ease. Maybe it’s because I got sort of used to it, with all these nightmares and visions of the past few weeks, I dunno,”[/color] he cast his eyes to the ground. [color=FFA319]“I’m also a lot more talkative right now than I normally am,”[/color] he suddenly realized. [color=FFA319]“Usually I would’ve kept all these thoughts to myself.”[/color] He paused for a moment. [color=FFA319]“Sorry for my rambling; my thoughts are kinda all over the place at the moment.”[/color]

Dalia shook her head dismissively. [color=DBDB70]"It's no trouble. Listening is my career. I suspect..."[/color] she said, allowing the strap to fall gently, [color=DBDB70]"that your brain was allowing for you to think you were holding the camera with both hands, but you actually held the strap with one."[/color]

She stood then, and took a look around the small room, before forcing her own apartment back into her perception. [color=DBDB70]"That's assuming this is all real, of course. Now, I really should be preparing for my evening, if you don't mind."[/color]

[color=FFA319]“Alright,”[/color] Jørn nodded slowly as he found himself back on the sofa. With the short time that had passed in between, the apartment was now painted with the glow of the setting sun. [color=FFA319]“Enjoy your evening, Dalia,”[/color] he smiled weakly as he departed from the woman and the rented bedroom came back into view. Putting down the camera on the wooden nightstand next to his bed, he let himself fall backwards on the sheets, closing his eyes. Vaguely the scene replayed itself behind his eyelids, after which soon he drifted off in a light slumber.


Dalia did not sleep for some hours more, having an obligation to see whatever romantic candidate her mother was trying to introduce. It had taken some effort to politely decline the man's interest, but not doing so had never even occurred to Dalia. Ultimately, she'd returned, tended to her teeth, seen a stranger in the mirror instead of herself, and gone to sleep. It seemed strangely routine.

[center]-•-•-•-[/center]

It was some days later when, during her sleep, Dalia dreamt of one of the people she'd been seeing. The woman - the American - was walking through a neighborhood she really had no business in, and being surrounded by several men.

[color=DBDB70]"You know,"[/color] Dalia observed, [color=DBDB70]"they're obviously untrained."[/color]

[center]~*~*~*~*~*~[/center]

As days went by, Jørn frequently encountered the foreigners, getting more and more familiar with their faces. There were five of them, six if he included himself. He had gotten more or less used to the situation by now and had given up thinking about the causes and details. Right now he had other things on his mind anyway, as his birthday was drawing near. Last year he had spent it in the office, finishing up an article, but this year around the same time there was not much to do, which made him decide that he wanted to celebrate it in a somewhat nicer way. He had planned to spend the day with the people dear to him: his family, friends, and girlfriend. He wanted to organize something small for each of them; go see his friends in one of the local cafes, invite his father over, and have a special dinner with Stine. The problem was how to schedule it all in one day, and in what order…

At the moment Jørn didn’t want to occupy himself with this however. He was sitting in one of the comfy chairs in his apartment, softly strumming the strings of his guitar. He listened carefully to the tones, adjusting the strings where necessary. It had been a long time since the last time he had played the instrument.