Soon he reached the point where he could not see the path in front of him. He found himself walking blindly. Still, he couldn't make out anything but white mist all around him. Then the mist eventually began to clear, but it was no longer dark. He could see sunlight reaching through the gaps, which began to form in the mist.

Then he noticed that the trees seemed taller. In fact all of the plants did.

The mist fully cleared away, and he saw the light of day, and something else. He was now not even as tall as the leaves on the vines, which grew. Sitting on a familiar seat was a lady with dark hair, a white shirt, and a grey coat and matching skirt. The Ring of Reversal’s dispersed shrinking energy from an earlier timeline had also caught up with Chad, while he was time travelling through the temporary rift.

"I must have gone back in time, for everything to have changed so much, and that's the way she described herself. The mist must have shrunken me as a side effect of its time travel properties," he thought.

He looked up at her, as she read.

He was wondering how to introduce himself to a woman who'd never met him (but whose future self he'd already met), when she eventually looked up and saw him.

She reached down, picked him up and pushed his chest against her lower lip. Then the front of her tongue came out and licked his face. She thought for a moment, and then placed him in her lap, between her shirt and the book, and continued reading. He wanted to talk to her, and make the friendship as real for her as it had already become for him in his own time, but he did not know what to say, since he was somewhat confused by the time paradox. So he just rested quietly in her lap.

She raised her hand to her lip, and moistened her thumb and finger, and then turned another page. The way she had licked her finger was strangely exciting.

"She said to just accept things as they happen," he thought, "So I needn't worry. I'll just sit here comfortably and see what happens next. Perhaps she'll introduce herself to me, when she's finished the book."

After a while, she looked up and turned her head to the left, which made her neck look even lovelier. Then she placed the book into a small carry case, and picked him up in her other hand. She stood up and began walking. She reached the footpath and walked down to a car, put down the case, opened the door, and placed the case on the passenger seat. She sat in the driver's seat, and placed him in her lap again. He looked up as she drove. Later, she stopped the car, and took him in her fingers, stood up and got out of the car. They were in the driveway of a lovely mansion. She walked up the front steps, unlocked the door, and carried him into the house.

She took a plate, and put some lettuce on it, and then placed him on the plate. He was wondering if he should ask first, before nibbling some lettuce. Then she placed a thick glass dinner dome over the plate and walked out of the room. She went to the letter box and came back with several days' accrued letters.