Chapter One:

Rather Strange, Indeed

There are a few people on this earth at every given moment in time that are, quite

literally, phenomenal. These people have qualities about themselves, whether it be an innate

sense of intuition or some extraordinary skill set or an unnaturally high IQ, that are both above

and excluded from what most people consider to be ‘normality’; Jimmy knew this. These people

are gifted. These people are, for lack of a better word, extraordinary. Jimmy was not one of these

people. He didn’t have a knack for numbers or any special talents, nor was he ridiculously good

at sciences. In fact, he wasn’t ridiculously good at anything; Jimmy knew this too. He had a

rather menial office job in the City of London, which he neither hated nor loved, he went out

with his friends sometimes on weekends, he didn’t drink too much, he put his bins out for

collection every Monday night, he hated the DVLA as much as he hated doing his taxes, and his

IQ was just about average. Jimmy was, for lack of a better word, completely normal. Jimmy

definitely knew this. In fact, the one thing that he considered not to be particularly normal about

him was that his name was actually Hamish. He had dealt with this when he was young,

however, at school and in his social life by opting for the English equivalent of the name:

‘James’. Thus, Jimmy became Jimmy, and he very much remained so for a yet undetermined

amount of time. Perfectly normal. The day that Jimmy was currently having was very much not

normal. This, he was surprised to find, Jimmy did not know.

He supposed he should have very well noticed this abnormality as soon as he had woken

up that morning. This was, he supposed, due to the fact that when he woke up everything in his

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room was shaking. To his own credit, it wasn’t a particularly violent shaking but more of an avid

trembling, as if the furniture was anticipating some terrible event to unfold within the few

minutes it took him to get up and walk across the solid, still floor to the bathroom. He thought

about this briefly as he stared at his tan freckles in the mirror. He had apparently decided to

ignore it. Instead, he worked a wet comb through the tangled crop of ginger hair atop his head,

which seemed to have found the perfect algorithm of odd angles to endlessly stick out from in

order to make his skull always look slightly lopsided. His hair had apparently decided to ignore

him, as well. Giving up in his endeavor to subdue the barbarous curls, he began pulling out his

reluctant clothes, as they desperately tried to cling to the bottom of his shaking, trembling closet

for as long as they could. Now, looking back, he figured that he should have probably noticed all

this, and he then should have left the premises immediately. He went to make tea.

The second thing, he thought, which should have probably prompted his awareness of the

preposterousness that was going on, was his kitchen. While the kitchen wasn’t shivering, as the

bedroom was, it was as if it, too, was trying to tell him something. He figured he should have

definitely noticed this, because the kitchen was, indeed, actually trying to tell him something.

JIMMY. The fridge had said, softly. JIMMY. YOU PROBABLY WANT TO GO BACK TO BED. IT’S

VERY STRANGE OUT HERE. Now, Jimmy understood that he may have noticed this, but in

absolutely no way did he consider it. Jimmy liked to think that, had he considered this

happening, he would have gone downstairs right then and there and ran very, very, very far away.

Jimmy stood at the sink and drank his tea. He stared out the window of his one-bedroom flat, just

as he did every morning, at the extremely-groggy-yet-still-somehow-bustling streets of west

Southwark at 5:30am. His teacup whispered to him as he put it in the sink; JIMMY. I’M

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TELLING YOU, THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY WOULD BE. IT’S GETTING KIND OF WEIRD.

Jimmy continued to not consider this. He grabbed his briefcase and left for work, just as he did

every morning.

On the street, Jimmy supposed a few more strange things did occur. As soon as he walked

out of his building everyone who passed stared at him, and did so in quite a distressing manner. It

wasn’t a you-look-kind-of-funny or a we-don’t-like-you kind of stare. It wasn’t, in fact, a stare he

had ever seen before. This was an empty, dead, soulless, and overwhelmingly hungry stare. He

supposed that the reason he could have not noticed this was because they almost looked normal,

until they would raise their heads and stare with an eternal hunger at him. Jimmy tried not let

himself notice or be bothered by this, but it made him feel very uncomfortable nonetheless.

While trying to not notice this Jimmy also did not notice the man in front of him. And so, the two

collided. The man was much bigger than Jimmy - which was not very hard to be, admittedly, as

Jimmy stood on the short side of things - and easily knocked him into the building next to them.

The man’s vacant face simply stared at him. Jimmy immediately thought that this man was very

poorly-mannered and should really learn to watch where he was going. He went on to think that

this man was an incredulous and all around unfortunate human being with the stupid eyes of a

brain-dead monkey and a face that made you want to punch it. What Jimmy said, of course, was

nothing. While an encounter of this nature would not be particularly strange, especially in

Central London, Jimmy figured that the afterwords of this event should have definitely alerted

him to such strangeness; for, as Jimmy straightened himself and adjusted his coat, he saw the

man’s reflection in the glass that he had been knocked against, which appeared to be that of an

actual six-foot Ape. He watched the Ape, which had a gaping hole in the left side of its skull and

some of what looked like its brain slowly trickling down the side of its face, as it walked down

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the street in a navy-blue Chanel suit. He looked away from the glass and thought, for one very

brief moment, about whether he should think about this. He had apparently decided to ignore this

event as well, as he continued on his way to the trolleybus station five blocks away. While on the

trolley, he continued not noticing the strangeness of the day he was having. He later thought that

he probably should have noticed some of these peculiar things, and then taken them into some

kind of consideration. He thought, had he truly noticed these things, he would have taken the

trolley to a tram instead of the tube and gone somewhere else. He would have gone somewhere

quite far away, indeed. But Jimmy had not noticed these things, and so he was now left facing

perhaps the most bizarre event of that particularly odd morning. This was, of course, the strange

man who had approached him just minutes ago, and was currently waiting for a response that

Jimmy did not know how to give.

“Jimmy!” The man had shouted at him, even though they weren’t particularly far away

from each other, “Jimmy, come here. This is very important. You have to listen to me.” Although

Jimmy had never been really good with faces, he was at once positive that he did not know this

man. The man in front of him was almost the polar opposite of Jimmy and he was certain that he

would have definitely remembered him. The man was relatively tall with incredibly smooth, pale

skin, a sharp jawline, and prominent cheekbones underneath glinted, crystalline green eyes. A

small smile slightly curled one side of his mouth, but his brows were furrowed and his eyes were

heavy. It was as if he had seen far too much, and then a little bit more. There was something

overwhelmingly off about this man. It felt as if he somehow did not belong there. Next to this

man, Jimmy felt very small. He could not help but feel small on every level, and on a few other

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levels he hadn’t previously even known existed, and then a few more levels he couldn’t quite

understand. The man pulled his long black hair away from his face, revealing a jagged scar under

his right eye. The scar, to Jimmy’s surprise, didn’t take anything away from the man’s strange

attraction. Jimmy had met strange people before; Hell, this was London. There were strange

people all about the place. What was incredibly bizarre about this man, though, was the coat he

was wearing. Jimmy couldn’t stop staring at it. What was incredibly bizarre about this coat was

the fact that it was Jimmy’s, and that Jimmy was currently wearing it, too.

Jimmy knew, of course, that there were many coats in the world and that a lot of them

must look the same as a lot of others. Two of the same coats meeting each other on the street

wasn’t a particularly odd occurrence. If Jimmy were wearing his other coat, that is what he

would have happily assumed was happening. But Jimmy wasn’t wearing his other coat, and

neither was this strange man. The coat they were somehow both wearing was the coat his mother

had made him three years ago. “Jimmy.” The man said, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Here,” He held out his hand, within which was a small black velvet bag. “Take this.” He looked

at Jimmy and then looked up at the sky, shifting from one foot to the other. “You’re gonna need

it. The dimension is off balance.” He tilted his head to the right and glanced around them.

“There’s already been a few cracks in the Border of Existences, and it looks like the rift is

starting to break. If the Others are as ready to creep through as they usually are they’ll have

already figured it out and will be coming soon.” He looked back down at the ground and shifted

his weight again. “Hell, they’re probably even here already. But the rift is only partially

ruptured.” He paused and looked back up to the sky, “Well, I mean, so far. It has been crumbling

pretty fast. But at least we have some time before the actual planet starts falling apart. I think. I

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mean, this Reality might start cracking soon, but that’s just to be expected with this sort of thing.

It’s really the Other Edge that we’ll have to worry about. And, I mean, them, of course -

although, actually, it does feel like Reality has already started to go...” The man suddenly

stopped talking and looked up at Jimmy as if he had just remembered that he was actually

speaking to him and not just to himself. His eyes narrowed interrogatively and he leveled his

face with Jimmy’s; “Has your day been strange yet?”

The appearance of this man was, perhaps, the last thing that should have tipped Jimmy

off to the day he was currently having. Now, standing in the middle of a busy street staring

blankly at a strange man who spoke as if they knew each other, who was wearing the coat

Jimmy’s mother had made for him three years previously and who seemed to be explaining the

end of the world, Jimmy scratched his scalp and supposed that he should have noticed all of this.

He thought long and hard about everything this man had just said; about ruptured rifts, some

“others” and “thems” coming over from somewhere, the planet falling apart and reality cracking,

and he carefully considered what he should say.

“Is that my coat?”

“Oh,” The man looked down, “yes. I’m making a point.”

“What point is that?”

“You’ll get it later.” The man muttered, more to himself than to Jimmy, and held out the

bag again. “Here,” he said, “just take this. You’ll need it.” Jimmy looked at the small velvet bag.

He wanted to ask this man who the hell he was and what the hell he was talking about. He

wanted to ask how this man knew his name. He wanted to ask how this man was wearing his

coat while he, himself, was wearing it. He wanted to ask a lot of things.

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 “What’s in it?” Jimmy was rather surprised to hear which question he actually did ask.

“A thing.” The man said, looking at it briefly before looking back up at Jimmy. “Take it.”

“A thing?” Jimmy repeated, wondering if this man was serious.

“Yes. It’s a thing. A wondrous and glorious thing. It’ll save your life, or something.” He

said impatiently. “Now, take the thing.” The man was very serious. Jimmy wondered what

possible kind of logic or rationale there could be behind him taking this strange bag from this

strange man, and in what ridiculous universe would he actually accept it. He thought that the

whole situation was absolutely ludicrous. He took the velvet bag and put it in his pocket.

“Wonderful!” The man smiled broadly and awkwardly patted Jimmy on the side of the arm. As

he turned to walk away a thought seemed to occur to him; “Oh, and I probably wouldn’t open

that, if I were you.” He smiled and patted Jimmy on the arm again. Jimmy considered the

possibility that he was going crazy. He shuffled foreword on his painfully slow commute to

work. For the moment, he was electing to ignore the previous events of the day, as he pulled out

his Oyster Card and boarded the London Underground.

During his rather, quite thankfully, normal day at the office Jimmy found himself

continually and rather absentmindedly putting his hand in his pocket to run his fingers over the

smooth velvet bag. He wondered why he was keeping it, why the hell he had actually taken it,

and why the bloody-hell he hadn’t opened it yet. Sitting in his cubicle he pulled it out and put it

on his desk, suddenly feeling unable to do anything but stare at it. He weighed the options in his

head for a few minutes, during which time he realized that he had absolutely no idea how to go

about weighing either of them. “Oh, fuck it.” He muttered, carefully untying the felt strings at the

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top of the bag and plopping it’s contents gently on his desk. Jimmy stared intently at what he

saw. It was... well... Jimmy had to think for a moment. Staring at it, still, he had to think for

another moment. And, thinking for another moment more, he finally came to a conclusion. It was

a thing. Jimmy didn’t understand what this thing could possibly be, or why it was possibly given

to him, but he suddenly had the terribly uncomfortable feeling that it was staring back at him.

The thing began to make him feel very nervous. He thought again about what the man had last

said and quickly put the thing away. The feeling, however, did not leave him. He felt himself

shiver and decided, once again, to ignore the preceding events of his day. He sat in his cubicle

and waited for the work day to be over.

At exactly 5:30, Jimmy was putting his coat on and heading to the elevator. At exactly

5:36, Jimmy had gotten down to the lobby and was leaving the building. Jimmy found a

surprisingly large amount of comfort in the fact that he had done this just as he did as every day.

He was, however, displeased to find that such comfort did not remain with him on his way home.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that the thing in his pocket was somehow still watching him. As he

got off the tube and began his walk to the trolley station the feeling deepened from his stomach

into his spine and throughout his entire body, consuming him, until he realized he was no longer

walking. Stood rooted to the spot, he watched as people emerged, seemingly from the shadows,

throughout the previously empty street. These people stared at him with angry, hungry eyes, and

he watched as their faces began to change. The flesh around their eyes started to droop, faces

elongating, their features slowly melting into each other. As they moved closer, Jimmy forced

himself to stumble backwards. This is good, he thought as he slowly inched away, moving is

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good. He convinced himself of this all the way until the moment he tripped on the curb. Okay, he

thought, this is less good. Unable to move, he watched as they closed in. Throughout the next

few seconds, he was relatively aware that the strange man he had met earlier was there, walking

up behind the melting people. As the melting people became aware of this, too, they turned

towards him. Their empty faces suddenly contorted with an inhuman rage, Jimmy watched as

they all tried to jump on the strange man. Jimmy only saw that they had tried, because he saw

that they somehow could not. The man threw them off of him as if they were paper. They

managed to tear through his chest a few times and, still, he simply threw them off. After many a

failed attempt, they turned their angry eyes back on Jimmy. Still paralyzed, he was suddenly

aware of the thing burning in his pocket. He quickly grabbed it and, in a state of absent-minded

panic, he took it out, spun it clockwise three times, lifted it above his head, shook it vigorously

and threw it on the ground in front of them. Jimmy wasn’t sure what he expected that would do.

They stared at it for a moment before moving towards him again. The man, who had seen

Jimmy’s attempt, moved towards him as well and, suddenly, the two of them were alone. Jimmy

looked at the thing on the ground, which was glowing as if it had just been set on fire. It was then

that Jimmy finally understood that he was having a very strange day.

Now, the strange man was once again standing in front of him, this time without the coat,

and with a severe look of confrontational inquisition set in his face.

“Who the hell are you?” He asked, glaring into Jimmy’s face before stooping down to

pick up the thing which Jimmy had thrown. Jimmy tried to sit up but the man quickly stomped

his boot down onto his chest, immediately knocking whatever wind Jimmy had left out of him.

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Under the dim street lamps his pale face looked as if he had been carved from stone, his features

rigid and hostile. Jimmy looked up at him, confused.

“You,” he panted, painfully, “you gave it to me.” It was harder to speak with this man’s

foot on his chest than Jimmy had expected. Looking up at the blatant look of distrust in the

man’s face, it suddenly struck Jimmy that this man did not know him. Jimmy did not understand.

The man continued staring at him for a minute as if he was trying to read his mind, before

pulling himself upright and placing his foot back on the ground.

“Oh.” He eyed Jimmy suspiciously then looked down at the thing in his hand. His brow

furrowed further. “Why would I do that?” He muttered to himself. His head tilted slightly to the

right as he seemed to ponder this before inquisitively peering back at Jimmy. “When?”

“I’m sorry?” Jimmy still did not understand.

“When did I give this to you?” The man snapped.

“Uhm, this morning,” Jimmy said, trying to think back, “around 6:00am. I think.” He

pulled himself up and nervously looked around.

“How did you know to do that with it?”

“I didn’t.” Jimmy admitted. “It was just some sort of impulse, or something.” He looked

down and wondered exactly what it was that he did. He looked back up at the man, who was still

staring quite intensely at him. Jimmy got the feeling that the man was trying to decide whether

he was telling the truth or not.

“Okay.” he said. He seemed to say it with some resentment, but his face softened a tiny

bit. “Well, who the hell are you, anyway?”

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 “I’m Jimmy.” Jimmy didn’t know what else to say. He was still trying to ignore the

bewilderment that had been building up inside of him.

“Well, then. Hello Jimmy,” The man stuck out his hand, “I’m Gerard.” Jimmy cautiously

reached his own hand out and shook it. “Great.” Gerard said shortly and promptly ignored

Jimmy for the next few minutes while he walked around and conveyed the scene, muttering to

himself. Jimmy was fine with this, as he was busy staring at the long gashes that ripped through

Gerard’s torso. “Now, they should be gone for a while... But there’s something else....” Gerard

said said to himself and furrowed his brow. “Something important... Oh -” He suddenly looked

down at himself as he remembered, and quietly muttered “Shit.” He looked around him briefly

and then at Jimmy, as if only just remembering that he was there; “Give me your coat.”

“What?” Jimmy said, apprehensively.

“They’ll notice me like this. Give me your coat.” Gerard held out his hand and Jimmy

was surprised to find himself taking off his coat and handing it to the strange man that was, once

again, standing in front of him. Gerard nodded his thanks and put it on. “Well, we’ll have to go

somewhere. My place is probably being watched,” he paused and tilted his head, “and may have

actually caved in, now that I think of it.” He looked at Jimmy, “Where do you live?” Jimmy

looked back at him, not entirely sure if he wanted to answer the question.

“East Southwark.” Still surprising himself, he answered anyway. “In Rotherhithe.” He

looked up at the street they were on. “It’s two blocks from here to the trolleybus I have to take.”

“Great.” Gerard said, smiling, though not entirely effortlessly, and patted Jimmy on the

arm. “Let’s go, then.” Jimmy shrugged internally and nodded as they started walking. They sat

on the trolley in complete silence.

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 Jimmy unlocked the door to his flat and was pleased to see that nothing was shaking or

talking to him. He watched Gerard walk around the entirety of the small apartment and examine

absolutely everything that was in it. It only took him a few minutes before he came back and

looked at Jimmy. He seemed content; Jimmy’s house must have passed the inspection. “It’s nice

in here.” Gerard commented, looking at the ceiling. “This’ll be great.” He smiled, much to

Jimmy’s uneasiness, and sat himself on the couch. He looked up at Jimmy, who found himself

wondering what exactly it was going to be great for. He wondered who or what those people that

attacked him were; he wondered what the thing did to stop them and he wondered why he

thought to do it. He wondered why his flat had been talking to him and why people’s reflections

were monkeys and why everyone had been staring at him with empty eyes and why things shook

for no reason. He wondered why Gerard gave him the stupid thing in the first place and, above

all, he wondered just exactly who the hell Gerard was. He wondered all of this in silence. After a

few minutes, Gerard took a deep breath and stood up.

“Well, Jimmy, it appears you are going to be rather useful to me.” As Jimmy watched

Gerard put the thing in a small velvet bag he pulled from his pocket, he considered reflecting on

the strange events of the day. He decided against it.

“Where are you going?”

“Well I can’t have you dying on me, can I?” Gerard smiled and put the now full bag back

in his pocket. “I’ll bring your coat back in a few minutes.”

“Why are you taking it?”

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 “Because I think a point has just been proven, and now I have to go make it.” Jimmy

thought about this for a minute;

“What point is that?” He somehow felt that this was a better question to ask than What in

the absolute fuck is going on? Gerard looked up at Jimmy’s tired, perplexed face and smiled in a

strangely bemused, nearly pansophical way.

“You should get some sleep,” walking to the side of the room, he opened Jimmy’s closet,

“things might get strange later on.” He thought for a moment as he stood between the closet and

the bedroom before looking back to Jimmy. “You’re in this for the long run now, friend.” Still

transcendentally smiling, he closed the door behind him. Jimmy walked over and opened the

door to find himself staring at an empty closet. He thought about this for a moment and closed

the door again. He went to lay himself on the bed he had never appreciated so much before.

Finally letting his tired eyes close, he took a deep breath. He had the feeling that the future was

going to be very strange, indeed.

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