Sheri's hair lay over her like a curtain as she lay face down in the center of her hotel room, the floor and walls dancing in slow circles around her. She flicked her tongue at the coppery liquid beading on her cracked, dry lip, her consciousness feeling like a halo spinning around the outside of her skull.

The room was completely empty aside from Sheri's prone form. The door was locked from the inside, and so were the windows. Sheri hadn't left the small corner suite assigned as her temporary quarters since they had arrived. She had isolated herself, refusing any attempt at room service from the staff, and spent the entire time exercising or… well her gun had been confiscated following the fiasco at the reactor, otherwise she'd have spent the rest of her time running through gun maintenance on loop. Instead she'd taken to staring at a wall, or out the window.

Or lying face down on the floor in her underwear, dying.

"Hey, roll over. I wanna see your abs."

Sheri grunted softly and refused to move.

"Come on, I bet you look real cut right now. On account of the aggressive dehydration and starvation. Good enough for Hollywood, even."

"Dead people don't talk," Sheri mumbled into the shag carpet, her voice weak and hoarse.

"You're managing just fine," Jack teased. Sheri rolled her head toward the sound of her sister's voice, taking in the sight of slender brown legs covered in short black fuzz. Jack plopped down next to her, legs crossing in front of the same underwear Sheri was wearing.

Sheri buried her nose back into the carpet. "Go away," she murmured into the floor. "I'm not in the mood to be haunted."

"Haunted!" Jack gasped, theatrically scandalized. "You would take me for a common specter, dear lady? Why, I never!" Sheri replied with something unintelligible. Why, that's exactly right!" Jack continued, pretending Sheri was comprehensible. "I am no simple spirit, but rather the malignant hallucination of your fading mind as it circles ever onward around the drain of oblivion! Shock! Dismay!"

"Shbabena?"

"I'm thrilled you grasp the severity of the situation."

"Kuvoo."

Jack chuckled softly, leaning back on her hands. "I honestly don't know why this is the part you're stress testing," she commented, poking at Sheri's ribs with her foot. "Kinda feels like putting the cart before the horse, y'know? I mean you'd think testing the body swap thing would come first, right? Make sure dying isn't actually a prerequisite? What was even your fallback if starving to death doesn't trigger it? Or-" Jack cast her gaze around the empty hotel room. "Do you got a clone sitting on ice in the bath, or did you not consider that either?"

"Do you think I could eat my hand?"

Jack blinked several times, processing. The sound of some screaming creature shrieked past the window outside. She looked down at Sheri for a moment, then sighed and stood back up. "Oooooookay. Come on dummy. Time to get up."

Sheri felt a hand grab the band of her bra from behind and haul her upwards, and the next thing she knew she was standing upright, her fist still clenched wear it had gripped her underwear. She slowly uncurled her fingers, staring blankly at her palm as she realized she wasn't hungry or thirsty anymore. She scratched at her head, turning in place to take in the empty room as her newly cleared mind tried to recall what the hell had just happened.

".....I should go eat something," she remarked to no one in particular, and then set about getting dressed.

"Perplexed" was one word that could be used to describe Sheri's thoughts at being blasted in the face with a tropical summer breeze the moment the door opened. "Bug-eyed" was a term which could be used to refer to the look on her face as she took in the soft white sand which covered the floor in small dunes. "Hellish, ear-shattering cacophony" was a phrase which could summarize her opinion of the noise blasting through the speakers along the walls.

Sheri could barely hear what Liz Baker was saying as she took one small step through the door and placed it onto the Alchemist's homemade island vacation, keeping one hand against the door frame until she was certain it wasn't some sort of portal in disguise. Although... no, despite the heat, the ceiling was still very much where it should be. Baker must have converted the lightbulbs into some sort of sun lamp.

"-antastic vacation spots!"

Sheri only caught the tail-end of what Baker had said by reading her lips, but judging from context she had a reasonable assumption on what the preceding statement had been. "Yeah, I did a thing in Cuba once!" she replied, shouting over the music as she pincher her ears shut with her fingers. What she wouldn't give for her old noise-cancelling plugs. "It's really bright there!"

She stepped more fully into the room, picking up her foot when it tapped against the side of an empty bottle and setting it back down a bit further away. "This is really impressive! Absolutely fantastic adjustment to the old cozy castle aesthetic!"

Sheri felt naked without the weight of her gun pressing against her lower back, but at least she was physically clothed now. She opened the door to leave the hotel room, only to bump her midriff against a food service cart that had been strategically placed to block her exit. She clicked her tongue as she looked down at her warped reflection in the stainless steel plate cover, then pivoted slightly to take note of the steadily growing pile of lightly folded paper under her boots.

She knelt down, picking one at random before flicking the note open with her thumb and eyeing the neat, vaguely dismissive scrawl.

And then on the back:



Sheri squinted at the note, lips slightly parted in befuddlement. This explained absolutely nothing.

She lifted the cover off the platter to examine what was under it, the slip of paper still held between her thumb and forefinger. Latkes, kasha, eggs she could tell at a glance weren't anywhere near dry enough, buttered toast, and ham. Aside from the scrambled eggs and the ham it seemed… mostly edible. The cart clattered as she pushed it out of her way, tossing the note aside.

Sheri slouched a bit as she walked down the hall, latke hanging loosely out her mouth as she chewed one end of the potato pancake. The wheels of the cart whistled softly as she pulled it along behind her with one hand. She wasn't actually hungry anymore, and bringing it all the way back to the kitchen seemed like a pain in the ass, so she kept one eye on the lights above each handle, looking for one which would indicate a given room was occupied so she could foist her cargo off on the inhabitant. Green… green… green…

Ah, red.

She knocked lightly against the door with one knuckle. "Room service!" she called in a clipped, sing-song voice pitched up a couple octaves which made her grimace. She parked the cart to the left of the door frame, fully intent on making herself scarce before the door opened.