October 29, 2017

"Hi Nora, I'm Kara Zor-El of Krypton." The smiling face in the video seemed warm, friendly, familiar. And it should have, seeing as how it was Nora's. Sort of. She paused the video, barely even four seconds in, and let out a huff of air. It was spooky to be watching this. It was a video of someone who was, for all intents and purposes, herself, but at the same time, she looked completely different. They had the same blonde hair, the same green eyes, the same delicate features, but the woman in the video seemed to have different mannerisms and facial expressions. Nora found it all to be rather unnerving.

She flipped up the hood of the Hogwarts sweatshirt that she was wearing as if feeling cozier would somehow make it easier as she viewed and processed the video's contents. "Maybe hot cocoa will help, too," she mumbled to herself. It was like a Band-Aid. She knew that she just had to get it over with, but just looking at the video while it was paused gave her chills. What was a few more minutes? Getting up from her desk, the blonde ventured out into the kitchen with Pork Chop in tow. The big fluffy dog had been snoozing on his bed in Nora's room, unaware that anything was wrong (was anything actually wrong?) or amiss, startled awake only by his human's departure from the room. He padded behind her and obediently waited for her in the kitchen as she went about her business.

She opened up a cabinet and pulled out a green mug with a cartoon llama on it. A little bit kitschy and lot of bit twee, it had been a novel purchase in the months following the house fire, where even the smallest of gestures felt like they had made a far bigger difference in morale. The dark blue Keurig sitting on the counter had been a replacement for its purple counterpart that had been lost then, as well; though it didn't make the world's greatest coffee by any means, it was quick and convenient and made life just a tiny bit easier at a time when that tiny bit was greatly appreciated. With the push of a few buttons, water began pouring out of the machine and into the mug, and moments later, Nora was armed with hot cocoa and ready to return to her room to resume the video.

She waited for Pork Chop to follow her inside before she shut the door, careful not to make too much noise so as not to startle the pup or her roommate. She repositioned herself in the big, cozy chair and tucked her legs underneath her as she tried to ready herself mentally to watch the damn thing, finally. With her dog at her side, she clicked on the play button and took a deep breath as the video started up again.

"Um...I'm not really sure what to say. I found a note on a Post-It on your desk that said to take notes, so I figured that this might help. I know that this is probably kind of scary. It's really weird for me, too." That this seemed like foreign territory for Kara to have to navigate was comforting to Nora, and she felt herself relax a little bit as the video went on.

"This was my third, uh...visit, I guess you could say. I've heard other people call them shifts, I guess that's a thing? But it...I don't know. Anyway, so we were in San Diego this week. And you had to be there for a conference for work? Iris was with you, too. She's your roommate...I think you know her as Sam. Anyway, I tried to stick to your schedule and I don't think I really called any attention to myself, so no one should ask you questions about why you lit a chair on fire with your eyes or anything like that." Nora's eyes grew wide at the mere thought of something like that happening, but Kara just grinned. "You should be fine. Um...I did play hooky one day and decided to go to the zoo instead of sit in on all of those lectures, but I doubt anyone noticed since there were so many people around.

"I guess...so conference stuff was conference stuff. We flew back to Boston on Thursday—and by ‘flew' I mean that I flew us back. Because I can do that, which I think you might know. Lois was in trouble and needed help and no one else could get to her, and Iris needed to be back in Boston too, so off we went. I made sure that Lois was safe—I think she's one of your friends, too, because your friends feel kind of blue, right? And I think people you don't as well feel yellow. I think I've picked some of that up, because people that I recognize from my world, like Lois, feel red. I don't know if that means that you'll start seeing that too, but...your whole synesthesia thing is pretty cool. I didn't really get it at first but I guess that's just how your brain is wired.

"Anyway, so I saved Lois, ended up getting into a fight with a Green Lantern named Simon who you know, too—you'll want to look that up later, I left you some notes about that—and then Saturday got really intense. Your cousin Lainey's, uh, person, sort of went berserk and...well, I saved you a news article about that." Nora blinked. Something had happened to Lainey?

"So that's pretty much how your week went. If you have any questions, just...I don't know, save them for the next time I'm around? Write them down, maybe make a video for me too. Unless you feel weird doing that. I know I do. Uh, what else...maybe I should tell you more about me? I'll leave you more notes on that since I think there's stuff that you can read to learn more."

Nora hit pause again. Her head was spinning and she wasn't sure what to make of all of this new information. Iris? Lois? Simon? These were all people that she knew in her own life? She opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a notebook. She scribbled the names down on the first blank page that she could find and hoped that she could make sense of this later once her initial shock had worn off. But for now, she had twelve more minutes of video to go and one long night ahead of her.