“I place the Ancient Dragon and deplete all resources on this turn,” Damien said, placing a card showing a vicious, grey-scaled, winged reptile.

“How long have you had that?” Aubrey yelled at him.

“Long enough. And I have something to get it going too.”

“Damien if you play that, I’m never going to team with you on a video game ever again.”

“If he plays what?” Sophia asked.

Damien whipped a card out from his hand and slapped it on the dragon.

“No!” Aubrey yelled.

“I play the dream catcher. The dragon is now free to attack you.”

“This is abuse!”

Damien smiled, placed his fan of cards face-down on the table and sat back with his arms crossed and a cocky smirk. “Who shall I attack?” he asked in a posh voice. “The sum of my forces will deplete you of your life essence… I use all of my cards to attack you.”

“Oh no,” Sophia said.

“Well fuck me sideways,” Aubrey said, “We can think this through.”

“How? We either throw all our weak cards at them and leave us open for the next round or we give up our strongest card and become useless for the next few rounds.”

Aubrey looked through her own deck. If we give up our strongest card, we can still attack in our turn, but he can take the hit. He’s been holding back his strong cards for the whole game and he’s coming at us now... Got it!

Damien gave a smug smile to the both of them.

“We sacrifice The Lost Princess.”

Sophia wanted to argue with her choice of sacrificing their strongest card, but Damien played them into a corner and they could only pick their poison. Aubrey leaned to Sophia and showed her the trick she had up her sleeve. Sophia smiled and nodded. Damien started to worry.

Aubrey turned The Lost Princess upside down. It was dead now, but she didn’t put it into the deck like she was supposed to. Damien noticed this and leaned forward.

“All of your cards are too strong for our sacrifice so some damage leaks over. Good job, but now it’s our turn.”

“Oh crap!” Damien said and threw himself back in his chair.

Aubrey slammed har card on the table with her palm. The bang made them all jump. “It’s fucking Reaper bitcheees!”

Aubrey flipped The Lost Princess back up. “Reaper gives The Lost Princess access to the living world as a saint. Her attack goes up because she tapped into her true spiritual power and you can’t block her because she’s a spirit because you killed her alre—”

“Ja ja I get it. Hurry up,” Damien said.

Aubrey smiled and looked at Sophia. “M’lady would you like to add anything else?”

“I see no reason to waste our resources on a war that is already won. Let us attack, but only use The Lost Princess for the sake of rubbing in our minimal effort victory.”

“Agreed.”

“We use The Lost Princess to attack. By the looks of her attack and how low your—”

“Long story short I lose!”

“Exactly. And that means that Sophia and I get the last slice of gatsby.”

Damien started packing up the cards. Aubrey took a saucy chip out of the fourth slice of gatsby that laid on the paper wrapping. “Do you like it?” she asked Sophia.

Sophia looked up at her. “The game or the gatsby?”

“Both.”

“The game is fun. The gatsby is too much for me.” She slid her paper plate of her half-eaten slice to the side. “But it does taste nice.”

Sophia looked around at the house. She felt shockingly safe in it. At first it made her uneasy, but her new friends made it warm, comforting and cosy like a cottage. The scary part was the walk to get to it. They all took turns tripping over rocks and roots. Aubrey seemed the calmest of them despite having left her car at the edge of the forest they walked into. Being on the mountain, sunset came early and the mountain’s shadow fell with it. There was no electric light to hold back the stars and moon. Their path was lit, but the trees and foliage became ghastly silhouettes of the night.

“How do you know the house is medieval?” Sophia asked. She shone her flashlight around the house. It was a small rectangular box with a timber frame, wattle and daub walls, smooth stone floor and thatched ceiling with two rooms and no walls to separate them - one room for a bed and another just for space.

“The tools,” Aubrey said.

“What tools?”

“We found farming tools when we found this place. I took them home for the sake of an art project I wanted to do.”

“Farming tools are farming tools. What makes you think it is medieval?”

“Farming tools from Europe are not farming tools from South Africa. I suppose we can’t prove that it’s that old, but I’d like to believe it’s medieval.”

“Do you really think a wooden house lasted?”

“I suppose not.”

“Did anybody bring toilet paper?” Damien asked, crouching by his bag, “And a spade?”

“I have a roll,” Aubrey said and went to get it out of her bag, “No spade.”

“I think there was something wrong with that gatsby.”

“Diarrhoea,” Aubrey said.

“Don’t even joke about it.”

She tossed Damien a roll of toilet paper.

“It’s dark as heck outside. Grab a flashlight and a stick or something. I’m not going alone.”

“This guy built his own house without a toilet. Shameful,” Aubrey said.

“Did they even have toilets back then?” Sophia asked.

“I think so... I don’t actually know.”

Aubrey’s stomach grumbled and she felt a pain. They all looked at her. “Looks like you’re not the only one,” she said and grabbed another roll from her bag. “Sophia. You’ll have to protect us while we shit.”

“Oh. O-Okay.”

Outside, Damien and Aubrey went to two trees to do their business while Sophia stood in the middle with a stick.

______

“Would you rather put a toothpick under your toenail and kick a wall or have thorns tear out of your anus every time you farted?”

“Jesus Christ.” “What the hell.” “What is wrong with you?”

The three laid in their sleeping bags, heads centred at a lantern and a bag of chips. Aubrey laid on her back and looked at the roof while the rest on their stomachs and shared the snack.

“You need to stop asking these messed-up questions,” Damien said.

“So there’s rules for one of the simplest games ever now?” Aubrey asked.

“With the way you’re freaking playing it, yes.”

Aubrey scoffed and reached over her head to grab a handful of chips. “I hate it when you put those thoughts in my head,” he said.

“Anything specific?”

“No. Just everything you say during this game.”

“You mean stuff like Would you rather drink a bowl of vomit or—”

Damien pressed his hands on his ears. “LALALALALALALALALA!”

“Would you rather eat a stranger’s pubes or get a circumcision from your zipper!”

“Why the hell am I friends with you!”

Sophia laughed awkwardly as Aubrey tried to force disturbing thoughts into Damien’s imagination. Aubrey tried to tickle him under his arms to get him to open his ears, but he was too determined. He squirmed and wriggled like a cocoon, but refused to open his ears and eventually rolled away from her in his sleeping bag and to the foot end of Sophia’s. “I’d chase you but this bag is too warm and I’m not getting up,” Aubrey said.

“Good,” Damien said, “Keep your tainted, unholy hands to yourself.”

Aubrey shook her head, rolled back over and asked, “Do any of you remember your first nightmare?”

“Nee mevrou.” “I do not think so.”

“I think I remember mine. I remember finding out that it was a nightmare. The whole thing was a blur, but that’s just dreams in general.”

“How old were you?” Sophia asked.

“I think I was 5. The nightmare had something to do with fire. The neighbours’ house was on fire. There was smoke everywhere and the fire truck was putting it out. The conclusion - and I don’t know how this was the conclusion - my dad doesn’t have legs anymore.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. You know how dreams do that thing where you don’t see something in the dream, but you know it’s a thing? I woke up thinking my dad was crippled and I was confused when I saw him walking around. When I was eating breakfast, he noticed how sad I looked and when he asked what was wrong I just started crying. He tried to comfort me and explained what it was.”

“Didn’t you have a dream before that? You should have been able to tell between a dream and real life.”

“Sophia I was five. And to be honest, I don’t remember any dreams before that. I think that nightmare was an introduction to dreams. My creepiest nightmare was me hunting bigfoot.”

“That’s weird.”

“Wait no. Not bigfoot. The orang pendek. I was spending late nights watching those shows where people go ghost hunting and looking for creepy creatures. It’s scary as hell.”

“What happened in the nightmare? Isn’t orang pendek just an orangutan or something?” Damien asked.

“It’s a short bipedal primate with orange fur in Indonesia. I don’t think there’s any orangutans there. In the nightmare, I found it sitting on a green hill eating grass. Its back was facing me. I tried to sneak up on it. I have no idea what my plan was. I may have had a spear. So—”

“I love how a spear would’ve been your weapon of choice,” Damien said with a smile, “We have guns of all kinds and you go hunting with a spear.”

“A spear is the first thing I think of when hunting animals. Piss off. Anyway, the thing had a sixth sense... or it just heard me. It’s head slowly turned, it showed its teeth and started snarling like a fucking chainsaw. My nightmare’s conclusion was that we became friends and started bathing together.”

The group laughed. “Dreams are weird,” Damien said, “I hate when people say that dreams have meanings. How the hell do you interpret that?”

“I’m shit-scared of apes,” Aubrey said, “Baboons, gorillas, chimps. All of it.”

“I remember seeing baboons at the Tokai forest,” Damien said, “They were bigger than I thought they would be. They’re just human dogs.”

“I know. If every primate just grabbed a rock one day. If they all came charging over the hills, I firmly believe that the human race would be thoroughly fucked.”

“ ‘Whose primitive now, huh?’ Smashes a guy’s head with a rock.”

“Exactly. I don’t think we evolved here. I think the Martians put us here and gave us a head start to keep us ahead of the other animals.”

“At first, I rejected the thought of aliens putting us here, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that humans do not have the natural weaponry or defence mechanisms to survive this world.”

“Exactly,” Aubrey said, “I feel like the only thing we could do if an animal were attacking us is make a weird sound before getting mauled... Anyway. Sophia, what about you?”

“Hm?”

“What’s your worst nightmare?”

“Shouldn’t Damien go first? I thought we were going clockwise.”

“Damien doesn’t have dreams or nightmares. He’s dead inside.”

“I do have dreams and nightmares,” Damien said, “I just don’t remember any of them.”

“Oh... I think my worst one was when I was 12. It was... terrifyingly vivid. It started out as a dream and it just decayed into a nightmare super-fast. I think I was dancing. I do not know what song it was, but I was dancing and then I was being killed.”

“No transition?” Aubrey asked.

“None. I was happy. Things were fine. Then for a second I knew that something bad was going to happen. Then the bad thing happened. It was a few seconds of pain and blood going everywhere and then I was dying on the floor. I think I heard somebody crying. It just wasn’t me.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Aubrey looked at Sophia, waiting for her to give a sensible conclusion to the story, but it didn’t have one.

“It was scary while it was happening, but after waking up you are more angry and confused than scared. I had no idea what that dream was supposed to mean.”

Aubrey nodded in agreement. “Dreams really are meaningless, huh Damien?”

Damien didn’t answer. They looked at him. He’d fallen asleep. In their moment of silence they could hear his quiet snoring.

“I guess this is where the night ends,” Aubrey said and rolled onto her side. “G’night.”

Sophia pressed the button on the lantern to dim and then pressed it a second time to turn it off. “Goodnight,” she said as the filament’s glow faded.

The shadows finally had the opportunity to creep their way into the lonely home in the mountainous forest, untouchable by the rest of the world. The blowing wind and rustling trees came to fill their silence and was chased back out by their collective snoring. Deep sleep came easily to all of them, but Damien’s had to go through some strain to reach him. Pain and blood, Sophia said, pain and blood. His subconscious caught those words, even as he slept. They played in his head. Not just the words and their meaning, but Sophia saying those words. He heard her voice saying it. It looped like a mantra. All other thoughts faded in the distance as he chased the meaning of Sophia saying those words. The further he ran, the deeper into the thought he chased the meaning, the more meaningless the words became and the more substance her voice gained. He stopped hearing the words. He heard the syllables - the sound she made when air passed through her vocal chords. He paid attention to the pitch, the cracks in it, the sleepy croakiness, the personality in it, the soul.

He couldn’t hear her talking anymore. He heard her voice talking to him, but not her. Something in her voice had a message for him, but digging deeper into it is what put him to sleep.

______

Meow

“Shut up.”

Meow

“Shut up.”

Meow

“Shut up.”

Meow

“Shut up.”

whOOob

Victor swung up in bed. By habit the first thing he looked at was the clock at his bedside table. It was midnight. Lesley stood at the bedroom door. Meow. Victor threw the blanket off and went to his cupboard to change. It was back. It could have been his imagination playing games with him again, but he wasn’t going to take the chance.

Lesley stared into the bedroom wall at it. Victor felt it pulsating and beating like a heart. He looked at the map on his wa- he looked into memory. The pulse was near one of the pockets. This particular pocket had a resident that made the situation only more perilous. Lesley’s hair spiked like it was static. The storm was back.

______

Grey sky. Grey clouds streaking across a grey sky like a crop field. The cold wind strokes the back of my neck, my hair held down by the weight of the rain. I stare down at the violent waters beneath me, eating away at the rocks. I do not know what I have become, but I do not deserve to live. I put one foot forward and let it hang over the edge, hesitating. I wish there was something I could do, but it’s been too long. If there were, I would know by now. I fall forward and the feeling of weightlessness consumes me... along with the black haze of unconsciousness. My muscles begin to twitch.

No! Stop! Leave me be!

I need this to go faster, but what can I do to speed up a suicide when I’m half way to death? I feel the heat of the wings forming on my back and I hear the heavy wafting flaps. My fall slows, but doesn’t stop. The essence starts to leave my eyes and I go blind, but I desperately hold onto my consciousness by a fingernail. He can take my sight and my control, but my hearing and feeling persists. I scream at him, trying to tear him apart from the inside like he has all my lives. I feel my wings unfold and catch the wind. I hear the crashing water get louder and only my feet hit the water before we glide across it, away from land.

I try to claw my way out of this mental dirt that he shovelled onto me, but he starts to hammer me down with the spade. I’m buried deeper, and deeper in the subconscious depths of my own mind.

After all that I have been through…

______

Damien jumped up in his sleeping bag. Seeing the moonlight shine in through the windows was enough to relieve him. He took quick and deep breaths like he had just been choked by dirt. He looked around him. Sophia and Aubrey were both still there. Damien unzipped his sleeping bag and brought one knee up to his chest.

The dream - the nightmare - was different. He remembered every detail - every little detail, as if he wrote that scene of somebody’s life like a god. He felt each movement like he was an actor. He consciously felt unconsciousness. He felt the isolation, loneliness and abandonment of a mad man evicted from his mind.

Damien quietly got up. He picked up one of the flashlights, looked at it for a moment, and put it back down before leaving the house barefooted, trying not to creak the door. When he got outside he was met with a similar cold wind to the dream. The sky was clear; nothing but stars and a bright moon to light the night. He could hear crickets chirping and leaves rustling. If he listened closely, he swore he could hear the sounds of the forest whispering to him.

Just my imagination, he thought. The dream had him on edge. He walked away from the house. He wanted to find a clearing in the canopy to look at the moon. He carefully navigated his feet through the maze of roots until he found the perfect spot. He looked up at a hole in the canopy with a clear view. He sat down with his back against the tree, his arms resting on two surfaced roots like he was in a throne, and stared up. Something about the sky made him feel at peace; something about the infinite blackness of it, something about the bright light as it’s pinnacle.

He began to wonder about the dream. It felt like a memory. All of his previous dreams left him feeling empty. Waking up the next morning after dreaming so vividly was like having a piece of his past deleted. But this dream was different. This dream stayed with him once he woke up, only it didn’t take away the empty feeling. It only made it grow. It filled the initial hole, and revealed that there was a much bigger void of knowledge to be filled.

The position felt familiar - his back against the tree. It made him feel anxious, as if somebody were going to jump out and stab him in the chest. Thoughts of vicious retaliation burst into his head, all of them starting with If somebody were to stab me right now, I would...

He continued to stare up at the moon as if in a trance; as if a moon goddess had a job for him.

He looked down, ahead of him. He felt connected to the space around him. It was like a web, and somebody got caught in it behind a tree in front of him. A low-pitched tinnitus blurred all of his senses.

“Damien?”

He jumped out of his throne of roots and trunk and turned around. “Jesus! You scared me,” he said and put his hands on his knees to get back the breath he lost to shock. “We scared you?” Aubrey asked, shining a flashlight on him with Sophia behind her. “The hell are you doing out here? Taking another shit?”

“No. I just needed some air.”

“There’s plenty of air around the fuckin’ house. Try again.”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to—”

Damien spun around and a stream of fire spat out at the suspicious tree he sensed. Aubrey and Sophia fell back with a powerful shockwave and yelled their vulgar expressions. “Damien what the hell?!” Aubrey yelled. Damien stood up straight and stopped. The blanket of fire burnt out and revealed a man wearing a navy henley, olive cargo pants and a smooth metal mask with nothing more than a T-shaped visor to decorate it. The grip of a sword stood out from behind his shoulder.

“Who the fuck is that?” Aubrey asked.

“I think it’s a flame throwing arsonist,” Sophia yelled, but she wasn’t sure if she should be more scared of the masked man or her friend who just tried to roast him. Damien’s back faced them. His shoulders slid back with every inhale. From behind, Aubrey and Sophia saw pitch black smoke rising from the sides of his head.

Aubrey looked at the man. He was wide shouldered, but slim. The mask dehumanised him and scared her.

He stepped forward. His hand raised slightly, palm up. It looked like he was about to take off his mask, but Damien gave no opportunity. He bent his knees and shot forward like a humanoid frog, kicking up dirt and leaving two ditches where his feet were. He slammed the man against the tree he hid behind and then threw him to the dirt. Damien got down, grabbed the man’s collar and tried to punch him, but whatever Damien was possessed by, he was still a teenager, facing a man of the same breed.

The masked man caught the fist with one hand and punched with the other. Damien fell to the side and grabbed his jaw, but recovered quickly and pushed the man back down with a childish yell. The two grappled, the man holding back both of Damien’s arms. His mask hid the expression of fear at the shadows that shrouded Damien’s eyes and puffed out like jets of smoke.

Damien opened his mouth and a red glow started to show. The man grabbed Damien’s head, yanked it down and slammed the forehead of his mask into his mouth. The impact knocked Damien’s head back and almost stunned him. The man grabbed Damien’s collar and threw him off to the side. He jumped to his feet and slowly backed away, keeping an eye on Damien to watch his next move. The man placed a hand on the grip of his sheathed sword, held it for a few seconds then let go. Damien, on his knees, looked up at the man. The shadows still in his eyes and a subtle glow in his mouth. The man slowly backed away. Damien stayed in his position, and the crackling and glow faded away as the man did into the night.

Damien’s friends watched him from behind his throne tree. They could hear his heavy breathing. Damien slowly pushed himself up to his feet. His legs trembled and he shivered like he had a fever. “Damien?” Sophia called. Damien turned around looking terrified, the shadows in his eyes gone. He walked towards them but after a few steps his knees buckled and he dropped to all fours. A few seconds more and he threw up into the dirt before collapsing into it.

“Shit,” Aubrey muttered and they ran to him with their flashlights like torches to a monster… “Damien!” Sophia yelled. They rolled him over and pulled him away from the vomit. Aubrey used her sleeve to wipe off whatever got stuck to his face and shirt. “Is he still breathing?” Sophia asked, shining her light into the forest to see if the masked man was still there. Aubrey put her hand on Damien’s chest to check his heart and an ear close to his mouth to check if he was breathing. “He’s alive... barely.”

Damien’s breaths were wisps of air. “Take his legs,” Aubrey said and picked him up under his shoulders. They carried him back to the house, Damien showing no sign of consciousness despite the swinging and shaking. Aubrey kicked the door open behind her and they carried him in. They put him down across the sleeping bags rather than on any specific one. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Aubrey repeated and paced. Then she stopped, combed her hair back, kept her hands behind her head and looked down at Damien. “I think he just blacked out because he was scared… That and he exhaled fire. Assuming this is his first time, that probably freaked his body the fuck out too. Let’s just try and wake him up again.”

Sophia stood at the window and tried to make sure the man hadn’t followed them. She had her hands on her shoulders; a way of comforting herself when she was anxious. Aubrey got on her knees beside Damien. “His heart is so slow,” she said with her hand on his chest. “It’s like he wasn’t even panicking. He just fell asleep.” She pat Damien’s shoulders, saying his name.

Damien’s eyes slowly opened and he sat up. He looked around in confusion. “Thank God,” Aubrey said, “Are you okay? Does your throat hurt or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Damien said. He remembered everything that happened, but he was the calmest person in the room. He rubbed his jaw where the man punched him. He didn’t feel any need to clarify what happened. They noticed how unphased he was and assumed he was in shock. “C’mon. I think we should go,” Aubrey said. She started to roll up her sleeping bag and gather her things and Damien’s as well.

Damien did nothing but stare at the ground. He felt strange. Other than sight, his senses were barely functioning. It felt like he was just in another dream, but dreams could at least fool him into hearing, smelling, tasting or feeling something. It was more like he wasn’t even in his own body, watching somebody live his life for him.

Sophia pat Damien’s shoulder and he looked up. She helped Damien and they walked through the forest to Aubrey’s car. Time was distorted for Damien. He couldn’t tell if the walk took one second or an eternity. When they got into the car, Damien rested his head against the window as if he were sick or dying. “Where are we going now? What are we going to do?” Sophia asked.

Aubrey turned around to look at Damien. “I don’t know. The hospital? What do we say? He breathed fire? Does it hurt anywhere? Your throat maybe?”

Damien shook his head.

“Nowhere? At all?”

“Aubrey, I’m fine.” He sounded somewhat annoyed.

She looked at him in the rear-view mirror.

“My grandma,” Aubrey said, “That’s where we tell our parents we’re going. Now might be a good time to actually go there.”

______

The phone rang for a while. He wasn’t surprised. It was early morning. Somebody finally answered.

“I need you to keep an eye on Leech,” Victor said.

“Victor it’s three in the fucking morning.”

“I know the damn time! I need you to keep me updated on Leech. If you hear anything about her or see anything, let me know.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I found the source.”

“Of what?”

“Of that pulse that hit two days ago.”

“What was it?”

“A child.”

“… A child?”

“A teenager. One of the students at my school.”

“What? What did you do to him?”

“When I saw him and his friends I was going to try and talk to them, but something’s wrong with him. The moment he knew I was there, he tried to kill me. I think he’s possessed or something.”

“Why do you need me to watch Leech? Sounds like he can handle himself.”

“I wasn’t going to kill a child, Matt. The boy’s powerful but he’s juvenile. Wherever he got that power from, he doesn’t know how to use it. If Leech sniffs him out and finds out he’s just a child, he’s gone and she’s overpowered.”

“Okay... Okay I’ll keep you updated. What’ll you do in the meantime?”

“I’m not sure... I think I’ll have to talk to him.”

“You said he might be possessed?”

“Mhm.”

“Then don’t talk to him. If he wasn’t possessed until you got there, it means you’re a threat and he’s going to try killing you anytime he sees or senses you.”

“What do black eyes mean?”

“Excuse me?”

“He had a black smoke from his eyes. Why?”

“Black smoke? Well, anything from a demon’s eyes- Give me a second”

Victor heard some distant mumbling over the phone and then some footsteps. He probably woke up his wife.

“Anything from a demon’s eyes is usually just an indication of possession as far as I know.”

“But why black? What is that?”

The phone went silent. Victor heard some knocking and pages flipping.

“I don’t know what it means, but I found something on it. You know that thing about seeing somebody’s soul in their eyes?”

“Mhm.”

“The eyes are representations of where somebody comes from.”

“So the kid came from what, the night sky? A shadow world?”

“Nothing. The child came from nothing. And it’s not him, it’s whatever is possessing him.”

“Well that isn’t much help. Doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“... Actually, if you think really deep about it, it does.”

“Lecture me.”

“Most possessions are just demons too scared of hell taking over a body, but think about urges. Like an addiction. Take Leech for example. She’s a different person when she relapses ... Or trauma. Or just, life changing events in general. Any event that changes a person.”

Victor thought about it for a moment. “So the possession is a product of trauma, maybe?” he asked.

“I think so. A possession made by nothing. Whatever’s possessing him isn’t a demon. It’s the reaction towards trauma. It’s like trust issues. A primal instinct to protect an animal from something.”

“That makes sense... I don’t know the boy well, but he doesn’t seem like somebody who was traumatised. Even if he is, where the hell’s he getting all this power?”

“Victor, go sleep. It’s a Saturday morning.”

The call ended. Victor put his phone away. The conversation ended, but his thinking didn’t. He walked to his bedroom. Lesley slept on Victor’s unmade bed.

Inheritance, Victor thought. That power was inherited. It explained the surge without a presence. “It arrived.” Victor had to find out from where - How had a high school teenager suddenly become the greatest threat to everything?

Why had trauma’s baby decided to possess this teenager?

______

“Are you one of the arsonists?”

“I told you. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“So it’s a no?”

“No!”

“No it’s not a no or no you’re not an arsonist?”

“Aubrey!” Damien yelled at her. He became more responsive once they were at Aubrey’s grandmother’s home. He felt more in his own body. “I’m just as freaked out as you are,” he said, but Sophia and Aubrey doubted that.

“What were you doing outside?” Aubrey asked.

“I don’t know. I just felt like it... I think. When I woke up, I was sort of mindless. I mean, I knew what I was doing, but it was like somebody told me to do it.”

“Like a voice in your head?”

“No. It’s like I just had commands added to a mental queue. Look I don’t- I don’t know how to explain it. I just had no opposition to doing it.”

“Doesn’t sound like something we can tell a doctor about,” Sophia said.

“... Other than the doctor next door,” Aubrey said, “As crazy as he is, Jakob isn’t an idiot. He has his PhDs in a lot of stuff.”

“That was before he went mad,” Damien said.

“According to my grandma he was never mad. He was always just a strange person. After what we just saw, I think we’ve mistaken his strange personality and strong passion for the supernatural as insanity.”

“Heard him say some weird stuff. Pretty sure he’s mad.”

“Damien, if we told anybody what we saw tonight, they’d think that about us. I think it’s time we spoke to him as if the stupid things he said were a science. At the moment, he might be the only person who can tell us anything about what just happened.”

She waited for his response. It’s like he wasn’t even awake. He just stared at the ground at his feet. “Fine. Tomorrow morning, we go next door and pay him a visit.”

______

Thin slices stacked to make the world. Two dimensional flat planes layered to make the universe. Somewhere deep in the forest, one of the layers rippled under the disturbance from a pulse. From either side the view through it distorted like iridescent colours. The pulse continued through the gate and into the pocket dimension, letting out a metallic gong as it pierced the layer and echoed through the dimension. The angels and the demons felt the pulse run through them and almost drain them with the gong following it like thunder.

In one of the pubs of the pocket dimensions, while all the rest panicked and discussed the potential threat, a woman smiled. She smiled at that taste of a powerful energy. The others heard the territorial howl of a threat; she heard the teasing call of prey. She stood up and walked out of the pub with her little demons at her back. She wasn’t scared. She was hungry.