In his dream, Kate had explained it all, not that he could remember right now. The two had sat down in the remains of an old office block, waiting for the monsters outside to pass. The place they were in was called a Blister, a small sphere of influence the most malevolent beings opened up that lodged itself between his world and the next, the world they came from in the first place. It was a land of nightmares made real, where magic hung so thick in the air that it concentrated in purple clumps you could reach out and taste.

She explained how just breathing the air turned her hair silver and made her strong enough to tangle with the monsters that normally fed on those unfortunate enough to wander down the wrong dark alley at night - the Reaper, the patchwork monstrosity that armoured itself with the remnants of its decayed surroundings.

His headache returned in earnest, and he was suddenly on Queen’s Bridge - there were two of these Reapers that denied their escape - one gorilla-like, that advanced on them on its front knuckles, and the other, a terrible kraken whose maw rested just above the churning river and instead threatened them with its jagged tentacles. Faintly, he heard Kate trying to bring him back to her.

‘Just forget about it. Forget about her. I’m having the most awful dream of my life right now and I’m going to wake up soon. Just go back the way you came, Harper.’

“Harper, look at me.”

Harper shook his head. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t.

‘I should though. I trust her.’

But he didn’t trust her, and he wasn’t going to look.

“Harper.”

The pressure in his head was mounting to the breaking point. Faintly, he heard the girl groan in annoyance, and he felt her grab his chin and force him to look her in the eyes. Her big, red beautiful eyes.

“Don’t you ignore me. Listen to me, Harper. Listen.”

Harper squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, frantically this time. “No!” he shouted. “No, no, no, no, no!”

“Jesus, kid, you’re gonna give yourself an aneurysm!” he faintly heard her shout back, but he was shaking his head as if it would alleviate the soul-squeezing pressure that filled his closed eyes with searing pain. Despite his eyelids being shut, he could still see her.

“Fine!” she growled. “You win!”

Kate shoved him back, sent him stumbling. Her blindfold was back over her eyes, and the pressure in his head steadily leaked out through his nose. The memories that he thought were dreams were coming back now, and he wiped the blood away, but he only had the wherewithal to aim the stream of vomit somewhere it wouldn’t splash back on them, not to stop it in the first place.

“Harper?” she asked quietly. “Why are you here?”

“Why am I here? I… I saw you jump through the door. I didn’t… why didn’t I remember you?”

“Because I didn’t want you to.” She remained stoic as ever, but the fingers she forced through the knots in her hair betrayed her frustration.

Harper pushed against the door of the sports shed with all his might. “I want to go back. Send me back, Kate.”

“Can’t. That’s an entrance, not an exit.”

“What do you mean?!”

“I mean, you’re here ‘till I finish up with pest control,” Kate said, crossing her arms.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“You massive idiot.”

Her target was the cruise liner that had crushed half of his school, her plan of ingress a life ladder that hung half-rotten off the stern. Harper sweated and wheezed as he climbed the ladder. How did he not realise he was this unfit up until now?

Kate had given him the option to stay behind until she was done, a proposal to which he readily agreed. But whether it was the half-beings that lurked in the fog, or his own curiosity winning out, he’d elected to follow her anyway. And so, here he was. On a cruise ship, in an alternate dimension. Despite it outwardly being an artificial vessel, placed in the environment, the floor of the interior was grassy, and each root seemed like it was actively trying to trip him up as they passed through. It was just barely modern in design, though the fog lamps and exposed piping suggested they were probably only brand new when his grandparents were young.

Set deep into the walls were anomalies of an artistic nature, slabs of rock that had been pressed into the metal. Each was marked by trails of red, green, gold and blue ochre, coming together to form pictures of families, animals and places Harper had never seen.

“What gives?” Harper eventually asked. “The city, I get, but…”

“Dunno. The thing that created it fancies itself an artist, looks like. Blisters are… What, theoretical? Imaginary’s probably a better word.” They came to a door, which Kate kicked down. “If you have the eye for it, you can mold the fog, force it to be the way you want. You noticed that, right?”

Harper thought back to the inconsistent material of the building he came across only days before.

“Yeah. What’re you doing here, then?”

No sooner had the question left Harper's mouth than the corridor went pitch-black. He instinctively reached out to grab Kate’s arm, only to be shaken off.

“Don’t do that,” she whispered. “And don’t… make any noise. We’re not alone.”

Harper’s eyes took time to adjust to the half-light of the Blister and eventually, incandescent strips flickered to life, lighting their way down the corridor.

“What do you mean?” he whispered back. “Of course we are. There’s nothing…” Harper trailed off, silenced by the inscriptions he once thought decorative peeling themselves off the walls. The purple floaters that were a fact of life inside the blister were attracted to them, and absorbing them seemed to give the rock paintings the mobility to enter their three-dimensional space. Barechested men with spears and knives chased animals through the bush, women cradled babies in blankets of fire, and tall, dark, angular figures danced around purple bonfires. All of them, leading Harper and Kate deeper into the liner.

“Don’t worry about them,” Kate muttered. “And don’t follow them.” She procured a flashlight from her bag, and a beam of yellow light exposed the path ahead and sent the living paintings scurrying like rats.

“I’m chasing those missing girls. Well, I’m chasing the reason the girls are missing. Same thing.”

“Wait, you’re here for them?!” Harper was just barely able to keep his voice under control. “Rose Newman. She’s here? Who took her?”

“Less of a who and more of a what, kid. There’re lots of things that hide in the shadows. Some are just smarter than others. If it’s what my boss thinks it might be…” Kate shook her head. “We’ll be fine. Just do what I say.”

The passageway eventually opened up into a large atrium and better lighting, and they were faced with a grand set of twin staircases that coiled lazy up to a room marked ‘RESTAURANT.’

“Are we going to..?” Harper turned to Kate, but she was already gone. Her silver hair made her easy to spot bounding up one of the staircases, two steps at a time. Harper took a deep breath. If she could be trusted, the girls he’d seen on the evening news over the last couple of weeks were just a few rooms away. For better or worse, Harper did trust her.

'Help is on the way, Rose.'

Despite being utterly landlocked, the ship lurched, and Harper’s auspiciously missing sea sickness started to rear its ugly head.

‘Please don’t vomit twice in the one day,’ Harper prayed to himself, grabbing the nearest handrail so he could make it up the stairs.

Kate was waiting for him, leaning against the wall and tapping her forearm impatiently.

“Point of no return, kid,” she said, once he’d caught his breath. “Fair warning, I honestly have no idea what’s waiting for us behind that door.” Harper sighed, shaking his head as he trudged on to the galley door.

“Pretty sure I hit that point a while ago. I don’t know if you noticed, but…” He turned, just in time to see her head of silver hair disappear through the floor, into a black abyss.

“...Kate?” Harper’s face was frozen, mid-exasperation. It had happened so suddenly, his panic didn’t even kick in until after a few seconds had passed. He dropped to his knees, scrabbling at the floor, but once his nails started to chip and ache and the floor had closed up after her, despite all his efforts.

The boy rested his head on the floor, lying prostrate before the galley door as his soul drained out into the floor through his knees and forehead and left his body cold and clammy.

The galley door loomed over him.