---

A seemingly normal morning with undercurrents of misfortune readying to assail the slouching man paid off in a terrible way. The professor lecturing the class jumped right into what was to be expected of them and even got into the beginnings of music theory.

At one point, John could feel the wizened teacher focusing more on him than other students. His assumption was that he had an aversion to those who relied on the internet instead of the finer arts with a basis in reality. So, he's already slightly on the man's bad side just from barging into the room with his phone already out. And as if the day couldn't get any worse, when the lecture was over, he went straight home to grab a bite to eat and a mug of coffee only to find a lack of both necessities in his dorm room.

"Oh no. No, no, no, no...!" He felt a surge of irritation and panic well up within him. He's going to have to go out and stock up on those extremely important items.

Running out of food? Acceptable.

Running out of the most important instant coffee? Unacceptable. Screw that. He absolutely can't go without it, or he'll crash like a jet with no fuel.

So, here he is, sitting in a slouched position on his bed. He's glaring at his reflection shown by the powered-off laptop's sleek monitor. What should he do? Since it's about evening, that means there should be more people going home instead of running to a convenience store.

He sighed and stood up to grab his wallet, keys, and phone. Once more he hesitates in front of the door, feeling even more unsure of himself than earlier in the day. He shoved all of it down and repressed it before heading out to his local convenience store. A quick walk from there back to his abode.

Though it seems the weather had other ideas with the sudden mist and all surrounding the stressed man. "H-huh? What's going on?"

John lost track of where he was going and his normally sharp mind was mired by this situation that induced fear in him. He could feel his arm shaking, so he tightly grabbed his wrist to shut it down. He bit his lip and cobbled up some ideas to suppress his dread.

'Calm down. You can think this through logically. Try to remember your surroundings. I can put together something.'

John took deep breathes and started walking straight forward. "Alright. I'm not where I was before. The lack of any sounds prove that," he muttered to himself. He then took one more deep breath before shouting.

"Is anyone out there?!"

---

He felt sick to the stomach. The sensation had drawn his body into an illusion of twisted convulsion. At first glance, he could've sworn that his body had mangled into angles and strains. A phantom pain that didn't exist haunted his body. To have felt ever such discomfort was indescribable. As if it were on the border of agony and a simple trip kept him in a state of disillusion. The world span and the high-rises began to contort with sharp edges and spikes. The tone of the sky blistered London into a dysfunctional society of pure dread. If Laurence were to analyse it anymore he would've gone insane. The very concept of the world sent him into a frenzied fit, where his breath ran cold and his muscles locked up. To what he thought was a dream, he stroked the cold and moist concrete with his hands, feeling a very real sensation that was inseparable from the world he'd come from. He closed his eyes and hoped that when he opened them, the trance disappeared and everything returned to how it was before. Nothing of the sort happened. Instead, it seemed to just darken the world, unfade the silhouettes and thicken the fog.

He felt the abandonment sink in once more. Like the day he left him aside to drown in loneliness, this felt as if the world had taken its leave and left him behind. The rapture, perhaps? He wasn't religious. Such solitude scared him. He kicked his feet against the ground, pushing him across his backside and into one of the alleyway walls. He felt coiled in the mind, a charge of anxiety being revved up by the envious world's magnitude. Lost shapes began to retake themselves. He tried to control his breath but failed rather quickly. And that was when felt the sound nearby.

Yes, he felt it. Sound felt like an entirely new element to reality. The sound of bags dropping against the floor vibrated through the air, sending a weak shockwave into his mind and rattling it. He turned, seeing a girl take a knee beside him. He remained frozen on the floor as she snapped into some sort of controlling position. He couldn't make out her face, not at first at least, before he heard her voice speak with a sort of professional tenderness. As she quizzed him on his wellbeing, he looked back around him in disbelief before shaking his head.

"W-what the fuck...are you seeing this shit too?" As any international individual would, in his loose panic his accent slipped out stronger than ever. He felt a genuine surge of disbelief flow through him, so much so that he barely realised who the person talking to him was.

"What, the fog?" Cara asked, taking off her headphones. "I heard it's pretty common in England. But I'm more concerned about you, you look like you're just about ready to keel over."

Laurence physically froze for a moment, turning up to see who she was. His first thought was about how terrible his mind must've been if she'd completely disregarded the entire world around her. Or was it really around her? Had his drink or water fountain been spiked with some toxic chemicals. He'd read about such happenings in America but not in London. He held a hand onto his head and shook himself, seeing if the visions would go away. As expected, they didn't. He truly was in a nightmarish hellscape that taunted his very perception. He riled himself up and looked back at her, not recognising her or the delicacy of her look. No, she seemed completely oblivious to the estranged transition around them. In that instance, he began to doubt whether or not he'd finally snapped over his own dysfunctions.

"The...you...don't see the...the stuff around us? Through the fog? The silhouettes?" The panic in his voice settled for a weary sense of anxiety.

At the mention of their environment, Cara squinted as she looked around. After a few seconds, she looked back at Laurence, giving him a small frown. "I...didn't notice that until now," She slowly admitted, though she shook her head. "I thought we were outside the university, but...ah, well--you know, we should look after you first, you look like you're in pain. Can you stand?"

"God, so you see it too?!" Clearly the two had separate priorities. He couldn't quite pinpoint how she had maintained such levelheadedness in the face of deception and potential visible distress. He fumbled with his words, looking up at her with a difficulty sense of misunderstanding. He couldn't help but feel a smile crawl onto his face, unsure of what he was going through at that moment. "Uhh...I'm fine. I...I feel as if I've gone through a gate to hell. I...think I'm just panicked. What...so...who are you? Are...is this normal? How are you so--calm?" The woman paused for a moment, teetering on a decision, and after a few seconds she shrugged.

"I was on my way to the gym and had my playlist going, so I was in the zone...I honestly didn't notice much until you pointed it out," She ended up admitting, giving him a nervous laugh. "At least I can add 'keeping calm in odd situations' on my resume." Remembering that she had yet to introduce herself, she flashed a smile at Laurence. "I'm Cara, I'm a third year nursing student here. Well, not here, at the university," She waved at their surroundings. "This is pretty freaky, though...but don't worry, I'm here with you. We can stick together and see if we can find our way back, alright?"

He definitely was dreaming. There had to be no other way. She seemed so calm, so collected and so fitting in this odd world he'd found himself in. When she proclaimed her willingness to help herself, and him, to get back, he felt his heart lift a little in several ways. He couldn't really describe it but it wasn't too dissimilar to how he'd felt around Fiddle. God, the day was definitely a fever dream. He'd spoken to Fiddle. Now this woman named Cara, who seemed so confident in the zone of chaos. He wished he could feel the same on the situation as she did, but felt as if he were just another failure failing to impress anyone of any calibre. Instead, he slowly brought himself to his feet with an extension of the hand, shaking his head with detest towards the fragility of his own confidence.

"O-okay. I'm...I'm fine with this..." His little smile came back into the fray with the flushed cheeks of both panic and confusion. What was even going on that day? The smile didn't go away, it continued as he finally stood by her side, holding himself up with some sort of stifled gaze at her. "Laurence- second year...doesn't matter much though. Let's...uhm...show the way?"

Cara beamed, obviously pleased to see the guy calm down a little. At his question, she looked around once again, her hand to her chin as she gave it a thought. Making up her mind, she pointed in the direction she had come from. "We can try retracing our steps," She suggested, kneeling down to scoop up her bag. "Stay close, alright? We'll get out of this."

Even if the hope was false, he felt a flutter in his chest as her godly smile enriched the fog with an unprecedented brightness. He nodded to himself, seeing her take a sort of caring charge of the situation. And there, he felt mostly ready to take on the absolute monstrosity that London had become. All it took was a little walking around, right?



From rooftop to window ledge, she scaled the routes she'd memorised with near perfect fluidity. There was no stopping. Something large had caught her off guard, her senses of the realm were thrown into a violent scramble. It wasn't a sensation she recognised, but she definitely had felt it before. It was something long lost to the times gone by. Years spent on the prowl had sharpen her to the strange variables all around her. This...this was different. It felt invigorating, but she refused to let the excitement of it all get to her. Was it another clue toward the prey? The predator? Was it something to carve her blades into? Or was it something that required a bullet to put down? She felt a strange rush of blood spread throughout her body. A good feeling came from the idea of the hunt. She lost herself in the drive in curdling herself with vengeance.

Her shoes skipped across the gaps and she fluttered by the flick of a grapple. Her eyes became focused entirely on the task ahead of her. Investigation and assassination. The time could be now. Would it be now? She heard the voices again. Maybe they were telling her it was going to happen. It was exhilarating. She felt entrapped by its illusive and flirtatious scent. No detraction. Only attraction. She ran closer to where she sensed its pheromone. From the rooftop, she leapt forward, almost gliding with motion throwing her forward. It wasn't flight, not by any means, but more a push through the air. She let her shadow cloud the ground, the mist hiding her body beyond a silhouette. Her lips pursed together and she let out a vile whistle, taunting the pavement with vicious speed. She hooked herself to a pillar and wrapped herself around, drawing out some form of firearm, manifesting with a weird fog-like substance clouding its creation. Whether they had seen her shadow fade in and out of the fog was another question. What they didn't know, however, was that she could see them all too perfectly.

Swimming in her own frenzied embrace and blind to the world, Kirsty got one hell of a shock when a large figure slammed into the ground behind her. She shrieked, popping into the air and nearly cracking her own head against the wall she had propped herself against. No sooner did she land, however, and her eyes register that the mass come face-to-face with the concrete was a human, than she forget completely about the painful weight upon her. “Oh my God! I'm sorry!” she apologized, her face metamorphosed from one of despair to one of panic. She scooted forward onto her shins and knees, hesitating a moment before laying her hands on the young man's back and shaking him. “Are you o...oh, of course you're not okay, I'm sorry. Are...I mean, look, can you hear me? Say something! Please?”

Instead, a voice from behind her mumbled a wry comment. Kirsty thought it sounded familiar, but she could only put it to a face when she whirled around to look. The depressed girl from this morning. “Oh uh, hi. And, um, no. It's...something else.” For a moment Kirsty was stunned by how nonplussed her unwilling acquaintance seemed to be—this poor guy could be seriously hurt, and there she stood complaining about it. Nonono, that's not quite right. She's going through a rough patch right now...'every person you meet is fighting a battle you don't know anything about', or something like that. Then again, she herself could be overreacting. Kirsty turned back to the fallen body of Tate as Alina poked him and with just a touch of squeamish reluctance started feeling for broken bones. While someone in the nursing program would be able to tell a lot better, she figured she could at least try to determine if he was safe to move.

His arms seemed fine, and it seemed like he had used them to break his fall, so if anything would be damaged it'd be them. No pool of blood beneath his head or teeth scattered across the pavement...always a good sign. Using what little strength she commanded Kirsty turned Tate over onto his back. No visible injuries. “Phew,” she breathed in relief, knowing full well he could be hemorrhaging internally for all she knew, but hey, she couldn't do anything about that no matter how bad she felt about it. Pretty sure her conduct would get any paramedic sued for malpractice, she poked at Tate's face. To her knowledge unconsciousness didn't come as easily or stick around as long as it did in movies and games and such, at least not without a good chance of lasting brain damage. “Um, hello? Are you okay?” she questioned, annoyed that she couldn't think of anything more productive to say. She looked up at the street for the first time. “Hey, does anyone know anything about...about...huh?”

There was nobody there. No cars, no pedestrians, no shoppers, no commuters, not so much as a single student from the school that let out its last period just a few minutes ago. Puzzled enough to leave her mouth agape, Kirsty looked up the street, then down it. Not a single soul. The only movement she found lay in the swirling of the thick fog that filled the desolate place. The hairs on the back of the girl's neck began to rise. “Where is everyone?” she wondered aloud, more to fill the oppressive silence she'd just now become keenly aware of than to actually get an answer. Her eyes settled on the surface of the buildings, and how they didn't seem quite right without identifiable signs or interiors visible through the windows. Panning upward revealed that the buildings' facades extended quite a ways, and not in normal ways, either. She could see the skyline, jagged, emotive, and unnatural. An alien sky peered down on the unfamiliar contours of a labyrinthine foreign city, awash in the sort of fog that clustered too perfectly and distorted shapes too readily. It was the kind of horror movie special-effects fog engineered for maximum mystery and discomfort, and it was working like a charm.

Kirsty shivered, her breath unsteady. Was this a dream? Did she, in a breathtaking display of despair-induced clumsiness, knock herself out on the way to Navarro's? Plod unconsciously to her dorm and pass out in her bed? Maybe she did get drugged, as the sad girl suggested. Was she then a figment of Kirsty's imagination? Two people, if drugged, couldn't possibly see the same visions after all. A hint of movement in the shadows at the corner of Kirsty's vision flushed her internal dialogue straight out of her head, replacing it with a healthy dose of fear. “This can't be happening,” she insisted, thinking of everything in her life that hinged upon the loathsome events of tonight going exactly as scheduled. But if reality appreciated her sticking up for it, reality gave no sign. Kirsty stood and glanced behind Alina, through the gate through which she came back at the university. Fog obscured the view; it didn't seem like she could just walk out of this the way she came. There was no way out. "No..." She put a hand against the wall for support, feeling cold and queasy, and stared into the fog down the street as if it would divulge answers.

The first day of class had been about as productive as expected: not in the slightest. A few hours of Fiddle's finite life wasted on listening to names she was going to forget by tomorrow and exchanging numbers with study partners she'd text maybe three times throughout the semester before never speaking to them again. For someone like her who seemed hardwired to crave excitement and action it would have been afternoon of Hell, save for three things: Turner, Basker and the bottle of Ambien hidden in her backpack. It had been child's play to slip a couple pills in her mouth while she reached for a pencil and nearly as easy to disguise the fact that she was anything but perfectly lucid. Practice made perfect in all things and Fidelity was by now an old pro at hiding her drug abuse.

Who'd suspect the intelligent, wealthy heiress with near perfect grades of carrying around a private pharmacy? Her identity in the halls of university was quiet, intelligent, well-adjusted while the one she slipped into during the ragers she organized was loud, wild and absolutely unhinged. The two were kept apart out of equal parts convenience and necessity, two masks custom made to hide their wearer's insecurities. It was healthier for her that way.

So Fiddle juggled the two of them throughout the day, taking what little notes were actually required while she buzzed along in private euphoria. Her dogs were the only ones who know something was off, staring up at her with those accusing eyes as they rested their snouts on her legs. If they could speak they would have been hissing at her for her stupidity no doubt. Or was she just hallucinating? It happened sometimes, little things appearing in the corner of her eye or subtle changes that only she noticed. Whatever. Whether or not her precious pups knew or cared didn't matter if they couldn't snitch on her.

Class was dismissed before she knew it, Fiddle waiting patiently for everyone to leave so she wouldn't hold up the queue. With her dogs forming a protective barrier and her cane making up for her injured leg the cripple managed a relatively brisk pace towards the exit, tap-tapping her way out her gate and towards the nearest convenience store. If she didn't at least pick up a few microwave dinners or a bag of chips or something she'd end up eating more cold cold pizza with a mug of stale beer and there was only so much of that the human body could take.

The mist had gone ignored at first, Fiddle having reluctantly made peace with London's horrid weather long ago. The slight stagger in her step was chalked up to the drug's affect on her already impaired motor control. But the changing of the sky? The way her guardians were swallowed by the fog and how each breath seemed to hurt her lungs? Those were much harder to explain.

You've finally lost it Fiddle.

It had to happen sometime. Really she was only surprised it had taken this long. At a complete loss as to what the hell she was supposed to do the American looked about helplessly, seizing on the sound of a voice. "I'm here! Hold on, I'll come to you." If she really had snapped she'd rather experience her psychosis with someone else, imaginary or otherwise. She raised her cane and took an experimental swipe at the wall of fog, noticing the wooden charms now tied to its handle. A pair of dogs, perfect matches for the ones that she had just lost. Sure, that made sense.

The fog began to clear, the cane stretching and distorting it like a stick through a cobweb. A few more swipes and there was almost a path, the final one revealing-

"Holy fucking shit."

Her last swing had been stopped short by a solid object, a creature that she had only ever seen in her dreams and drawings. Stand at eight or nine feet tall with huge wings folded over its musclebound arms the Mothman stared straight down at her with those huge red eyes. She was frozen in place, unable to even breath as the thing looked past her face and into her soul.

"Holy fucking shit." The words were breathless, Fiddle's head swimming as she tried to make sense of the thing that should not be. She collapsed barely managing to support herself on her one good knee as she got a good look at the talons on its feet. A single kick from those six inch skin-slicers and she would have been reduced to scraps of meat.

Against all reason, all sanity she reached out, daring to tap a trunk-like leg with her knuckles. Hard muscle was hidden by downy black fuzz, the Mothman apparently not minding her touch in the least. All it did was give those wings a flap, their sheer mass displacing tainted air and soupy fog alike.

Fiddle laughed. It was a high pitched and frantic sound, pulling what little air she had left from her lungs and expelling it in a wheezing cry. The tears in her eyes burned almost as bad as her lungs, vision going blurry as her mind temporarily shut down. The creature was nothing more than a black blob with crimson light emanating from it, the figure swaying as she struggled to keep from passing out on the spot.

What the actual fuck.

She had always known cryptids were out there. Just didn't expect to ever see one so close.

@Not Fungus

---

Supposing there was nothing for it, Beau continued going in the direction he was originally headed, with as confident a stride as he could muster. That way, he'd hoped that he could learn more about what was going on out here, as well as deduce whether or not he truly was the only person in all of London that was seeing this. The sooner he could eliminate that disturbing thought as just a seed of paranoia trying to sprout outwards and not a true part of this god forsaken reality, the better.

As limiting as this fog was to his sense of vision, Beau did manage to catch the odd glimpse of black in the far yonder. He stopped at the first sighting to examine it but, try as he might, he couldn't shake off the possibility that this may have been a hallucination created by the fog itself. As such, the sanest thing Beau could think of was to ignore any additional sightings for now and move on.

However, he noticed someone in front of him that he could identify as human. It was a girl, and she seemed to be in the process of fainting. Whether that was due to the shock from this whole experience, Beau couldn't possibly tell. But if there were to be any chance of saving the girl from her own collapse, he'd have to hurry. Beau rushed over immediately, holding one arm out in front of the girl to prevent her from falling too far forward, and investing a solid grip on her shoulder with the other hand; not so tight as to wind up hurting her and consequently undermine his show of concern, but more than firm enough to aid in her stabilization. That sudden lurch forward Beau had to do was enough to bring him down to one knee, but due to the surprising disparity between girl's height and his own, he could see her at relative eye level despite this fact.

"Hey; are you alright?" Beau asked the girl.

He maintained his grip on her shoulder for the moment, only willing to let go after ascertaining that she could still stand on her own two feet.

---

The hopeless shout John let out just in case that anyone would respond proved to be fruitful, much to his relief. The voice seemed to come from a lady, probably one in her twenties if he had to estimate. "Oh, thank god." He let out a sigh as the realization that he wasn't alone took hold. Though...

'Should I listen or should I go forward? Staying here is dreadful, but going forward is also scary. What the hell should I do?' He chose to walk. The claustrophobic dread of being alone in a foggy area like that was too taxing on his mind. Moving closer to the voice while she's walking closer to him would speed things up a tad.

"Just wanted to get some food and look where that got me. I should've just stayed inside and followed my usual habits. They haven't betrayed me yet at least." Muttering to himself provided a modicum of comfort that he really needed at the moment.

Straining his eyes, he saw two hazy figures through the mist. He sped up his pace a little bit with his brain blaring warning signals to him. He heard a single voice, so why are there two figures? He neared closer to those two figured with bated breath.

"What the hell..." Amazingly enough, he didn't scream and completely lose his shit over the two figures that became clear. He did however lose the strength to stand and fall on his ass. A monstrous creature that barely resembled an insect and a midget of a woman that was laughing herself silly. The sheer ridiculousness of this scene and how it seemed to pound at his sanity forced John to his feet. He stood up and spoke before even catching his breath.

"Just what the hell is this?!"

@Smike

It wasn't long after the encounter with the trombone-playing student that Kirsty had to depart for classes, leaving Liam to his own devices. He offered her a simple farewell and looked on as she left, completely unaware of what he had overheard and intended to come clean about. A laid-back demeanor was easy for him to keep up for the time being, yet the weight and guilt of listening in on somebody else's personal struggles (albeit unintentionally) would likely eat away at the boy for some time. There was nothing to be done about it for the moment. After all, he could always tell her the next time he saw her, Kirsty wasn't exactly the most plain figure in a crowd. For now, Liam could only hope that when he did tell her she didn't think of him as some stalker. That would certainly be unfortunate, yet quite befitting of his luck in recent days. With many students filtering out of the common room upon their myriad paths to class and elsewhere, possibly because of the impromptu performance now ongoing not far away, Liam decided that it was time to relocate. The effects of his restless night beforehand were beginning to be felt, and if he didn't keep himself occupied, he might fall asleep right then and there. Merging into the crowd of exiting students like a stream joining unto a river, he'd walk around the campus until classes were ready to begin. Perhaps the morning air would help to awaken him somewhat from his fatigue, or at least, he certainly hoped it would. As he walked among the crowd, their cacophonous footsteps drowned out the now distant sounds of a trombone as they made their way to the building's entrance.

Though short and uneventful his wandering wasn't fruitless, or at least it didn't feel as such. Liam felt as if he understood the labyrinthine layout of the Thames' Edge just a touch more so than he did earlier, though that was admittedly not a very high bar as his navigational skills were what some would affectionately refer to as "Absolute Rubbish". Unfortunately, what did seem fruitless was the painfully long and monotonous lecture he was currently enduring. The professor, a tall wiry man on the cusp of middle-age with black hair showing early signs of graying droned on as he dryly read his syllabus aloud. His face unmoving and nigh-emotionless as he spoke in a tone that seemed almost hollow. It was if the lecture hall was looking upon a statue with a cheaply recorded voice box saying the same few lines over and over again. It was a trial of patience and mental fortitude, one that Liam had nearly failed on multiple occasions. The fatigue from earlier had only grown stronger with time, and he'd caught himself drifting off a downright embarrassing number of times, yet managed to reel himself back before others could take notice, at least as far as he knew. Nevertheless, the lecture inevitably came to it's end though not nearly soon enough for his liking. It seemed that the other students shared his sentiments as by the time Liam had fully packed up his things, the hall was nearly empty, save for himself and a handful of others. As he dragged himself out into the corridor part of him contemplated going right back to his dorm and passing out, though thankfully the logical part of his brain chimed in that he'd be ruining his sleeping schedule for the coming days if he did that. Much to his own dismay, he'd have to tough the rest of the day out, maybe he'd go find a pub nearby with some good food. That'd be a decent enough distraction for now.

As the exhausted fresher trudged his way to the building's entrance, he audibly sighed as he hit the exterior of the building. Sodding fog, again. As if the dreariness of the day needed to be reinforced yet further... he internally groaned as he made his way towards the campus' main gates. Though as he made his trek, he did begin to notice a certain absence of other students, though he brushed it off as people not wanting to deal with one another especially on what was the first day for many. Nonetheless it was eerie all the same, a place so full of people mere hours ago was now nigh-abandoned, save for Liam. Alone in the fog. His arms and legs felt as lead, the blood in his veins ran cold, and a sudden wave of world-spinning nausea washed over him. Unprepared, he stumbled and fell to the ground, barely catching himself on one knee. This wasn't normal, just what the hell was happening to him?! Did I... pass out in class or something? This is all way too weird..As if to punctuate his thoughts, a shrill shriek pierced through the cloying mists. Reflexively, he whipped his head around to the direction of the sound but found nothing to greet him but a wall of thick fog, he could hardly see more than a few metres in front of him. Though if somebody was screaming from that direction, he couldn't very well ignore it. Maybe they knew what was happening, probably not, but it was worth the venture in Liam's currently addled mind. With a decent deal of effort he pushed himself to his feet, and took off running in the direction of the sound fueled by adrenaline.

As he approached the campus' gates he slowed himself to a normal walking pace, out of breath and far more exhausted then he should be from running such a distance, Liam looked upon quite the curious sight. Kirsty, leaned up against the supporting pillar of the gate, the antisocial girl from earlier sat on the sidewalk and another man, seemingly unconscious on the pavement next to her. Utterly confused yet certain this was the source of the earlier scream he tried to catch his breath, holding his side as he asked the two girls. "What the hell happened here? I heard a scream. Is he just out or is he... you know..?" he rushed out looking between the two of them for any response as he hastily approached the body of the other man. Though as he did so his vision was caught upon the city in front of them, Liam stopped in his tracks and his face drained of colour. An eldritch skyline stared back at the boy, the buildings like gnarled and warped shards of obsidian, perforating the sky and land at unnatural angles. The thick and cloying miasma from earlier washing over it all, threatening to consume any and everything in its path. The city he'd lived his whole life in was now a twisted hellscape, and for a few moments, he was left completely speechless, before he finally managed to formulate a sentence. "Wh-What the FUCK is THAT?! I'm not the only one seeing this, right?!" he shouted as he gestured to the transformed town. Idiot! Hysteria isn't going to help anything right now! The rational part of him raged within, as a shape danced through the gloom from the corner of his eye that he noticed for a fraction of a second before it was gone once more. Stop. Compose yourself, or you'll only make things worse. he thought as he took a deep breath and focused, in an attempt to regain his calm. Someone might need his help, he could not let himself be swayed from that. Once he had steeled himself, he knelt on one knee next to the possibly unconscious man and begun shaking him to see if he could wake him up. "Hey, can ya hear me? The sidewalk isn't exactly a great place to take a nap." He half-shouted, attempting to rouse the other young man from whatever stupor he'd fallen into.

Interacting with Kirsty @Lugubrious, Liam @CriticalHit, and Tate @CondorTalon

Alina was a little bit focused on the girl's intent to help the guy who'd fallen over, and her own thoughts to boot. Thus, it took her a moment longer than her apparent companion to realise that, yeah, there really wasn't anybody else around - nobody on the street, nobody coming outside, nada. And here she thought the university had just emptied out - which, by the way, looked like it had been through a grinder or something, along with every other building in the area. Hell of a trip, then, and she had no answers to the darker-skinned lady's questions about where everyone was, or indeed where they were.

No, wait, she was wrong. There were a couple of new people: somebody came along, asked like five different questions in a row, then started shaking the unconscious guy. Gee, the other two people here wouldn't be happy about that.

'He tripped. I mean, I'm pretty sure we're all tripping, but he fell over. Caught himself, at least... still, shaking him won't help.'

And as for the second person... there was somebody in the fog. Barely visible. Hiding, it seemed like, as ALina stood to get a better view. Their shape was indistinct as a result, but they certainly weren't keen on approaching. And honestly, Alina wasn't too keen on having them come closer either. Whatever. Not like things could get worse right now... except that she needed to introduce herself. She didn't know why that thought came to mind, it just did. They seemed to be sharing their hallucinations, so they probably needed to complete some bullshit "spirit quest" in order to get out of here. Or at least converse to pass the time until the drugs wore off. Ugh.

'I'm Alina, by the way. I don't think I said yet. Probably polite of me to tell you.'

---

One does simply kick and/or shake Tate Hwang and get away with it, nosiree, and if Tate was in any state to do... well, anything, really, he would have started shouting. Words, possibly. Maybe throw a punch or two here and there.

Of course, he wasn't. He wasn't in such a state. As it was, he was just barely able to open his eyes. He shifted, slowly, painfully, as if he wasn't used to being in this body. Eventually, he managed to roll over and sit up. His vision was swimming, his mouth felt so dry, and he had a killer headache, but at the very least, he was alive.

Maybe.

The jury was still out on that, given his surroundings.

It was hard to think. In general, sure, but also in this very moment. Tate tried his best. He did a mental headcount, noting that besides him and the three others with him, no one else was around. The town had changed considerably, now. Whereas before everything just seemed subtly off, now it was completely different. Nearly unrecognizable in every way except the physical layout.

"Guh..." he managed to say.

He didn't know what was going on. He blinked, looking at the three others. He recognized them... kind of. They were at the common area where tromboy was. There was still that little speck of a thought in his head that this was still a prank, but it was getting harder and harder to believe it by the second. He shakily stood up.

He was scared, and he was confused. And when Tate is scared and confused, he gets angry.

"Alright, you..." he said, the words feeling unfamiliar in his mouth, "you all have... five seconds... to tell me what's going on."

Standing at his full height, Tate would have been an intimidating figure if it didn't also look like he was fighting a wicked hangover.

---

_{Tate looked to the guy (@CriticalHit), then to the girls (@Lugubrious, @BCTheEntity), awaiting an answer that was probably not forthcoming.}

Accidental double post. Ignore this.

Though Kirsty felt sick, dizzy, lost, trapped, and hopeless, and would not have been surprised if she pitched over and died at any moment, she did not perish there, leaning against the wall. As the seconds passed by, the shock faded, which did surprise her as she realized it. Maybe the body could only process so much shock? Maybe now that she'd hit rock bottom, she understood at some basic, biological level that everything would be a step up?

It was at about that time that Liam cut in. While his name eluded her, Kirsty recognized the friendly face that tried to make her feel better that morning. Well, more like 'appreciated' than 'better', since she couldn't have possibly known how low she'd been. Actually, now that she thought about it, Kirsty wondered -with just a touch of mania threatening to make her laugh out loud- if this current predicament really was that bad. After all, it beat going on an awful date with Drew, and whatever nightmare lay in store at Navarro's house. She didn't want to go to either, of course, but she couldn't have thrown away her support and her education to indulge those feelings. Now that the choice had been taken from her hands, Kirsty, lightheaded and adrift felt a strange sort of relief. Even thankfulness. Whatever came next, at least it wasn't her fault. Then again, her fault or not, what came next was probably the end of her existence. Dying her seemed preferable.

The strange peace and gratitude stemming from those feelings stirred together in the black cauldron of this bizarre witching hour to give Kirsty a semblance of strength. Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself off the wall. Liam seemed to have approached. He might have said something, but Kirsty heard nothing more than murmurs, like audio corruption through a pair of bad earbuds, while she'd been looking inward. When he yelled out in panic, however, she jumped hard enough to nearly lose her glasses. “Ee!” Just a second later she got a hold of herself, beating Liam to the punch in that regard. The silliness of her being scared by someone else going nuts threatened to make her laugh again. Kirsty allowed herself another second to pull herself together, and that ended up being just in time to hear Alina's name.

“Hello then, Alina,” she greeted. “It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

Despite what Alina said, however, Liam did manage to shake the other guy awake. He awoke with a furious energy, like a guy who he knew he slept through his first and second alarms and had slept late last week, too. Except Tate let his anger burn against the first people he happened to see after getting up. He staggered to his feet and demanded an explanation from the other confused students. Or else.

His ultimatum left Kirsty shocked. Surely she must have misheard? “H-how should we know?” she blurted out, suddenly so aware of the time limit that her mouth started moving on its own. “Are you th-threatening us? We're in the same boat here!” She knew she was in the right, but a fat lot of good that would do her against a man convinced otherwise who stood a head taller and weighed probably twenty kilo more than her. Wildly looked around to the others for help or at least some kind of solidarity. Would this guy, delirious or dumb enough to antagonize the one familiar element in an alien world, even respect the numbers advantage?

In the silence that followed her panicked declaration, a noise reached the group through the fog. The padding of many feet. Through the mist slid dark shapes, moving smoothly together. Kirsty's breath caught in her throat and she stepped back. That urge to laugh a helpless hollow laugh came once again. We're so screwed.

She watched as dogs emerged from the mist, two at a time. They had sleek black coats, downturned ears, stringy manes of long gray fur, pronounced fangs, and tails longer and thinner than any dog she'd ever seen. Worst of all, their eyes were an otherworldly blue-green, their pupils white. Just looking at them made goosebumps spring out across her skin, and the hair on the back of her neck rise. No man ever owned a dog like these. Of that she felt sure. They stood staring at the students, silent as death, until another, much larger shadow stirred in the fog. From the swirls of contemptible vapor plodded a great hound, its flesh mottled and hairless, its sagging jowls baring twisted fangs, pits of opalescent color in the recesses of its eyes.

It howled, and Kirsty screamed. She turned tail and sprinted the other way down the street as fast as her legs could carry her. Her feet pounded the pavement and her heart drummed against her chest as she fled this way and that, running blindly to escape the pack. The baying of the monstrous hound drove her onward in terror, and she the patter of who knew how many silent dogs' feet. Their teeth nipped at her heels and their jaws snapped shut centimeters from her limbs, but somehow she avoided getting brought down. Finally, after what seemed like an age, she spotted light down the street, flickering in the fog. All rational thought had departed her; in the heat of the moment, light meant good, so with her breath tearing through her throat she rounded a corner onto the street and stopped as if hit in the face.

In front of her lay an avenue of extravagant beauty. The fog melted away before the light of braziers, warm fire pits, and countless candles of every size and color. On either side stretched temple after glorious temple, their facades clad in silks and golden ornamentation. Even the cobblestones were marble, and over the street stretched lengths of patterned cloth and rows of sweet-smelling hanging lanterns. Behind her, the dogs disappeared into the night as if no more than swirls of fog themselves, and Kirsty staggered down the street, her eyes wide open. Before the temples stretched rows of tables and seats, arranged and decorated for a banquet or party of mythic proportions. Within the buildings she could see the glimmer of untold riches. “This must be a dream after all,” she whispered, flummoxed beyond measure.

Rule number one of surviving in a lucid dream and possible nightmare: get out of the building. Every corner of a hallway could hide a bogeyman waiting to lunge forth, and within each shadow could lurk a hypnotizing specter spellbinding you before eating your face off. Outside, you get space and distance to put between you and any imaginary pursuers materializing out of your paranoia.

My body feels...normal though, as I carefully place a palm against the broken frame of the jagged glass doors to push them open. Neither lightweight like I'm floating, nor heavy with the weight of tension like a monster breathing down my neck. I just wander forward, my eyes scanning then drifting themselves as I fail to recognize any landmarks within the Thames' Edge campus that I passed by. The fog limited clear visibility around me to the size of my flat bedroom, and droplets of moisture soon clung to my skin and clothes chilling me slightly.

I suddenly hear a scream in the distance, inhuman maybe...? Rule number two is definitely to avoid anyone and everyone screaming bloody murder to not share their fate. Except, fock, I now notice I stand in a space identical at all angles, in all directions nothing but the same cobblestone like ground with indiscernible pattern leading to indiscriminate gray air. I have to violate my principles this time to gain some sort of bearing, not like I ever dreamed of walking in the fog before.

In the direction of continued screams, I finally approach another building with similar structure to the one I left and grumble. Maybe I should just stand in front of here, have a seat on the ground, and wait for something to eventually approach and mess with me. Or keep moving and risk braving the possible labyrinth beyond. Deliberation keeps me burning time until I can wake up from all this eventually.

Rose and Leo walked to class together, it was relatively uneventful. She did however meet someone new though. Upon hearing his name, she was fairly certain she had seen him in an economics class somewhere. She had made an acquaintance!

Classes were just as you expected them to be. She sat there and listened to professors lecture while she took notes, because something might be on the next exam. After her lessons were done, she went to the library to get some studying done. It was the best place to get anything done. It was quiet, and there was good Wi-Fi signal.

Rose took a seat at an empty desk. She had her laptop open, her notebook open, and a bunch of textbooks open. She was sure to get schoolwork done! The hours went by. Reading notes on Business Management and Marketing, among other things. Even for some as studious as Rose was, even this much studying for this long got boring. Rose yawned multiple times during this. She needed a break. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore, and the young woman plopped her head down on the table.

Rose was regretful of what she had just done the second the minute her eyes opened. ”Goodness, that is so unlike me to just collapse in public like that… I need to get out of here.” She packed up her things and prepared to leave. It was only then that she became aware of something strange going on. "What on Earth?” She was surrounded by dark fog. How did this get into the library, she did not know.

At this point, only three others were present in the room with her. Leo, and that rude boy she ran into earlier, and a third boy she hadn't seen before who asked the exact same question that was on her mind right now. How convenient. ”Oh look. It’s you two again. Alright, am I experiencing a stress induced hallucination, or is this actually happening right now?” She asked to either boy that wanted to answer.

@Ryteb Pymeroce@Scribe of Thoth@Theyra

---

Felix was not panicking, not because he was calm, but because he was immediately repressing such strong emotions. In his mind the Pandora's Box of his locked emotions grew more strained as this latest addition was locked in there. Wait... if he was dead how could he still be repressing himself? Didn't the old tales say death removes all illusions? His relief at not being actually dead was also added to the box. Damn it.

Finally having cleared his thoughts, he looked around to see the lady from earlier looking at him, along with her sidekick and another teen. (Inferiority Complex about his height increased). Playing back the last minute or so in his mind, he waved his hand in front of his face.

"Sorry, I had a bit of a knock to the head." he apologised, before making a number of gestures as he checked his brain capacity, "Nothing seems to be overtly damaged, so I should be fine. Anyway, you asked where we are? A number of options spring to mind. The first is merely that this is a lucid dream or hallucination, but that can't be true for two reasons. The first..." Felix pinched the sidekick on the arm, "Is that in a lucid dream you cannot feel pain. Also you are aware of being in a dreamworld most of the time, but the pain is a stronger indicator. Hallucinations can be ruled out as a hallucination on this scale would require high level schizophrenia or drugs that would make us all neurologically impaired."

He paced around for few seconds before continuing.

"From the looks of things we have either been kidnapped and placed in some messed up haunted house or an advanced virtual reality simulation. Probably best to go under the former as our assumption for now. If this place is a mockery of the university we should attempt to escape via the nearest exit point."

He looked to the sidekick. You've been at the uni longer than me, what'sthe quickest way out?

@Crimson Flame@Theyra@Scribe of Thoth

Good, good, he is not alone here. For a moment Kjell thought that he might to alone here. He felt some relief that he was not alone at the university. Though with people he has not seen or met before. That mattered little now that with things being what they are. Kjell did think it was weird that the red-hair guy seemed calm about all of this. Maybe he knew something that Kjell didn't? Who knows but, it is better to stick together right now then go at it solo in his mind.

Kjell was about to answer the girl's question when the red-haired boy spoke up. It was good that he seemed fine and listened to his explanations about how this is not a lucid dream or a hallucination. Which a hallucination or a lucid dream does not seem possible since that means that all of them are having the same hallucination/dream. Which Kjell is not sure that is possible given his understanding of it. Then came to talk of being possibly kidnapped or being in a haunted house or a simulation. That also did not make sense to him. Why them? Why kidnapped random people from a university in board daylight and put them in a mockup of the university. People would have noticed and surely there would be more people that would be easier to kidnap then a bunch of college students.

But, the idea to get out of dodge sounded like a good idea. If there is a way out of whatever this is. Kjell took the time to look around to see if he could find anyone else. To his dismay, still, no one else that he could see. Just fog everywhere and he could not hear anyone approaching either. Turning back to the group and speaking calmly. "Well, before we leave and try to find a way out, I feel like we should know each other's names in case something happens". With a weak smile, "I am Kjell and maybe we should try to find others if there are more people stuck wherever we are".

@Crimson Flame @Scribe of Thoth @Ryteb Pymeroce

---

Leo stared blankly at the duo - no, trio before him. Very coincidental that it was the weird kid and the girl from earlier, though he didn't know who the third guy was. Still, small campus, huh? The more they babbled about hallucinations and lucid dreams, the more Leo was convinced he actually was dreaming. People dreamed about stuff that was at the forefront of their mind, right? He'd ran into those two earlier, and probably the third guy too without remembering. The weird mimicry of the library was a no-brainer, because that's where he fell asleep.

He was roused from his thinking by short kid's question. Why was he asking him? Oh, right, it was his dream; he's the main character. That was kinda annoying, actually. He wanted a low-effort dream. Other guy introduced himself too, that was handy. Leo briefly wondered if his subconscious was supplying the guy's real name that he forgot or if it just assigned him a random one. Was Kjell even a real name?

"I'm Leo," he responded to Kjell first before turning back to the weird haired dwarf, "Of the library or campus in general? Because the door's... that way." Leo paced off carelessly toward the exit, expecting the others to follow. Come to think of it, this guy may have had a point in his rambling. Maybe this was a weird nightmare and Thames' Edge was now a slasher film set, they should probably find somewhere to lay low.

---

@Crimson Flame@Ryteb Pymeroce@Theyra

Interacting with Kirsty @Lugubrious, Liam @CriticalHit, and Tate @CondorTalon

She was kind of glad the other girl took the lead on communication. The less she had to talk, the better. She had a headache from trying to process all this shit, on top of everything that had been happening before now, and the less she had to actually communicate with this group, the better. Not to mention the guy who, against all odds, actually had been shaken awake, and started threatening everybody like some frat boy trying to get into a club. He was a dumbarse, and the more talkative woman of the group was clearly in agreement, or would be if she said anything about it.

Not that she got the chance to. Apparently, it wasn't a person hidden in the mist - but dogs. Hounds, rather - shadowy, black, pronounced teeth, and eyes that were at once monstrous and horrifyingly human. No dog had eyes like that. No thing did. But, here they were, with baleful glares, and one more as their apparent master, this merely a furless mess of mottled skin, but no less awful. And it was about now that the worst thing in the world occurred to Alina: this whole time, she had been entirely lucid. Sickened and a bit confused, certainly, but not out of control of her own reactions, not the way a hallucinogen would have produced. Which meant she wasn't on a trip.

Which meant... this might... be real.

'Oh shit.'

The combined howl from the lead beast, and Kirsty's scream of utter fear, rather set Alina into Kirsty's own mindset, and indeed mimicking her own frenzied flight in a panic of terror and frightened shrieks of her own. Emotion wasn't out of her grasp, it seemed, just deadened; a negative emotion this pure, this intense, would not be denied its hold. Unfortunate, then, that Alina was not a runner, or indeed a fast person in general; adrenaline and panic kept her body moving through a hellscape that seemed more unnerving by the second as her prior realisation took hold in her head, even as these hellish beasts corralled, harassed, gnashed at her heels and barely failed to rip her limbs off, until suddenly, they weren't - until suddenly, there was light to chase, something other than the twisted nightmare she'd been in, Alina taking the darker-skinned girl's route no more than half a second behind her.

And after that... the hounds were gone. Or at least unable to follow. And, granted, there was still a great fear that they'd come after her once more, but with that fading, Alina couldn't help but admit... this was a nice palace. Exorbitantly so. Except there wasn't a palace like this in England, let alone London - not that that stopped the other girl from staggering forward, awestruck and mumbling something about a dream.

A dream... no. Couldn't be. She had to remind herself once again that, despite her best efforts, she remained lucid, too much for it to be a bad trip. If this were a dream, even a lucid one, she'd be able to command the world to change, for a car or something to drive up. No such luck.

'I think this is real. Or, sort of real.'

Though, again, she had to be frank and point out to herself that an ostentatious location such as this didn't exist, never had existed in the United Kingdom. Their country wasn't one for temples, but cathedrals, and certainly not marble-paved streets lined with them. No matter how you sliced it, something was off here. Hell, maybe this was a dream. Maybe the entire day had been, and she'd never even talked to... uh. This girl. Or either of the two boys.

'By the way, it's generally polite to offer your name when somebody else offers theirs.'

---

Even in the calmest of waters, danger is ever present. Beneath the ocean surface’s tranquility lies chaos that only life can create. Unfeeling predators looking for their next victim, opportunistic parasites that latch on to their unsuspecting hosts to drain them of life, the occasional snake that strikes you when you least expect to see them, and the unlucky mammals that roam pointlessly until they become something else’s next meal… These are merely some of the denizens of the sea. However, you could make the case that these were the types of people one would meet in their miserable experience of a traumatic childhood.

At least that was the case for David, still dreaming of that stupid boat and trying to interpret what it all means when he wakes up. At first, he didn’t mind since he just wrote it off as a quirky nightmare. The next time it happened, he had realized that he was entirely lucid during the sequence but couldn’t do much to change the landscape or even conjure props to liven the dull room. By dream number three, it had gotten stale and was actively causing anxiety episodes. It doesn’t even make sense! He flew to London and hasn’t set foot on a dock for years!

It always ended the same though. The odd caricature of a man would state some mumbo jumbo and then he woke up, much like now. It took a couple of seconds but David got his bearings and found himself in one of Thames’ Edge University’s computer labs. Yes, he now recalled that he was doing some extra course work after his morning classes. It seems that he dozed off for quite a bit though as no one else was in the room and the only light source turned on was the PC terminal he had logged in to.

5:30 PM, it would state on the corner of the screen.

Grumbling to himself, David would quickly shutoff the computer and make his way to the exit. While signing out on the lab’s logbook, he had noticed from the windows that a fog had crept up on the campus. While London weather was famously gloomy, he didn’t expect such a heavy visibility hazard to show up out of nowhere. As he left the lab and gone out to the misty grounds, David noticed that the usually bustling school was empty. In fact, this was the first time he had experienced the university in a state of quiet.

Too quiet. Something was wrong and his heart began to race. As he walked aimlessly inside the fog, his heart started pounding louder and had drowned out the silence. A horrible thought had invaded his mind: was his heart giving out from the stress and his misuse of pharmaceuticals? Was he going to die just like his mom?!

“No, that’s stupid. They’re over the counter…” He reasoned to himself. Before he could continue in this descent of paranoia, David had started to hear distant mumblings. Someone, or something, was out there.

“Hey! Anyone out there lookin’ to help a lost bruce out!” he shouted with bravado, trying to mask the fear that was slowly overtaking him.