I fought back the panic building in my chest as I tried to get my bearings. I didn’t recognize the street or anything else around me. A mother and her child strolled past, the mother eyeing me curiously. In one arm, she carried a small infant but in the other… I tried my best not to stare but I was convinced my eyes were deceiving me. Her other hand was emanating a shimmering silver light that crackled and popped around the edges, and it appeared to be soothing the baby in her arms. Her curious look turned into one of discomfort as she caught me gawking at her and she hurried away, hugging the baby to her chest.

I leaned against a signpost, attempting to appear nonchalant while I internally lost control. Blood pumped in my eardrums, the throbbing pulse of it emitting a dull ringing that resounded throughout my skull. I could feel my chest heaving, but it felt displaced, like I wasn’t actually experiencing any of it. My vision blurred, the architecture surrounding me beginning to bend weirdly as I felt my consciousness slip away.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting up painfully from the cement, a hand gently pressing into my back to assist me.

“Are you alright there, sir? That was quite the fall.”

I looked up blearily, blinking into the sunlight at an unfamiliar face.

“Are you dehydrated?” the man asked when I didn’t respond.

I shook my head, swallowing thickly. “I’m…I’m okay.” A million questions danced their way through my mind, but I bit my tongue. All of the questions would make me sound insane – more insane than I already felt.

“You sure?” he prodded, following my trajectory with his hand on my back while I shakily got to my feet.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I didn’t sound convincing – my voice wavered embarrassingly but I cleared my throat a few times to cover it up. “I think I’m just a little sleep-deprived.”

The man looked skeptical as I dusted my hands off, wincing at the sting that must have been a result of my passing out. “If you say so. You should be more careful.”

I glanced over at him, keeping my face smooth. “Yes. I should. Thank you for your help.”

The man nodded sharply, his eyes remaining curiously cautious. “No problem. You from around here?”

My heart stuttered for a moment. “Yes,” I lied. “What’s it to you?”

He took a step back, surprised at my unintentionally hostile tone. “No reason. Anyway, take care.” Without waiting for my reply, he hurried away, leaving me to stare after him blankly as my heart forced itself to beat at a normal pace once again.

* * *

Hours later, after wandering around the strange city I had found myself in, I sat in a small pub, hunched over the counter with a glass of rum and coke sitting untouched in front of me. I stared at the drink and tried to ignore the bustle around me. Condensation slowly gathered then rolled down the sides of the glass, forming a small pool around the edges. Another stranger had been kind enough to buy me the drink, but then hurried off before I could thank them, causing me to wonder vaguely if my face was scaring people off.

A sudden crinkle and snap jarred me out of my daze, and I lifted my head to see a man and his friend laughing loudly as they held both their right hands over their nearly-empty drinks. When I looked closer, I could see the air shivering between their hands and the glasses, much like heat waves rising from burning pavement. With another high-pitched crinkle, the glasses beneath their hands began to fill with more alcohol, provoking an annoyed grunt and scolding from the bartender to not use magic in my pub or so help me you’ll be kicked out.

I blinked, feeling my stomach twist sickly. I leaned forward, putting a hand up to signal the bartender, who shuffled over with an empty glass in his hands and his eyebrows raised.

“What can I do for you?”

I swallowed, willing my stomach to behave. “Where’s the bathroom?”

The bartender sighed and walked away, pointing behind himself with a thumb, “down the corridor and to the left.”

I shoved away from the counter and stumbled down the hallway, catching myself on the walls when my knees began to buckle. After wrenching the door to the single bathroom open, I hauled myself inside and weakly pushed the door shut. I threw myself over the toilet and fell to my knees, allowing the nausea to pulse through me, though nothing actually came out of my empty stomach. Once I felt like I had control once again, I backed up and leaned up against the door, then slowly allowed myself to slide down.

Laughter from the pub, though far away, made its way into my ears and tangled with my racing thoughts. The image of the mother and her child flashed in my mind’s eye, then twisted and merged with the shimmer of quivering air coming from the men’s hands from before. I had seen other strange things as I had walked about the city earlier, but I had brushed them off as my being tired or delusional. But, after seeing the men in the pub along with the confirmation of the bartender, I knew I had not been seeing things. Magic. People were using magic and acting as though it was perfectly normal.

I yanked at my hair, then drew a hand down my face, grasping at my temples. A throbbing pain lanced up the back of my neck: a tension headache. I rolled my shoulders, attempting to relieve the throbbing as I thought through what my next move should be. I couldn’t ask anyone what was going on – they would think I was crazy. If I had some stranger come up to me and ask where they were, it would be weird enough. But for someone to ask about something completely and utterly mundane, such as why humans were able to see with their eyes, I would think they were completely insane.

So, what was I to do? I tried to relax my facial muscles, knowing that they were a contributing factor to my steadily worsening headache. I couldn’t spend the rest of the day in the bathroom; someone else was going to need it and the bartender would surely grow suspicious if I never returned. Where was I supposed to go, though? I had no idea where I was, no idea how I got there. All I knew was that things were not right and that I was not supposed to be there. Everything was wrong.

I bent my head forward, burying it into my knees. I felt the beginnings of a sob rise in my throat when the starkness of the empty space beside me, where Soomi had been before everything happened, grew more and more real.

I shoved the overwhelming feeling away, refusing to let my emotions overtake me. Breathe.

I concentrated on my breaths, forcing myself to calm down. There’s no way I was going to accomplish anything or learn about what had happened if I became an emotional wreck. For all I knew, I was merely suffering from an unimaginably horrific nightmare that I would soon wake from. I would open my eyes into the darkness of our bedroom, roll over, and hug Soomi to myself and never let go. All I had to do was wake up.

My heartbeat calmed as I focused on my breathing. In…out…in…. out…

A knock at the door rattled me out of my careful concentration. “Someone in there?”

I hurriedly got to my feet, waited a few moments, then opened the door and quietly stepped past the stranger waiting outside. I passed by the men who had been using what the bartender had labeled as ‘magic’ and walked out of the bar, leaving behind my untouched drink.

Outside, I was able to breathe without feeling quite so suffocated.

The sun was beginning to sink low in the sky – it must have been early evening. I stared ahead of me, watching the cars drive past in a blur. Briefly, I considered jumping into the oncoming traffic with the hopes of waking myself up; but on the off chance that I was in fact not dreaming, I decided against it.

Someone pushed past me on the sidewalk, mumbling that I was in their way. It made me realize how much it felt like I was sticking out, like I didn’t belong there. I felt like an alien who’d crashed into the wrong planet, yet looked just like everyone else so no one realized just how different I was. It was painfully obvious that I was uncomfortable, because almost every person who walked by glanced at me: some nervous, some curious, and some cautious. I tried not to stare back.

I don’t know what I expected though, after settling down on a park bench I’d found and began people watching. I thought maybe I had missed the fact that they all had green skin or four eyes. Yet, as I watched, the only thing that made these people different from myself was the fact that everyone I observed seemed to possess magic.

Although I couldn’t get close enough to see or hear clearly, each person used the crackling magic in some way or another as they briskly meandered by. Even though the way it sounded was similar, each person’s looked very different. Some had colors that changed as the person walked; some wavered like the men’s had in the pub; some seemed to flow like static electricity, causing the air to buckle and spark.

I couldn’t tell if everyone had it, but considering that I could recognize it on each person nine times out of ten, it seemed likely. Slapping a hand to my pocket, I felt around for my phone in the hopes that I could write down what I was observing. With a sinking feeling, I realized I had left it behind in the kitchen, when Soomi and I had been making dinner. Soomi.

Breathe.

I squinched my eyes shut, concentrating; breathing.

The park bench creaked, signaling that someone had sat down on the other end. I kept my eyes, shut, hoping whoever it was would leave me be.

“Fancy seeing you again.”

My eyes opened at the familiar voice, and glanced over at the man sitting beside me, his gaze fixed off into the distance. It was the same man who had helped me on the street earlier. I raised my eyebrows in surprise, then looked away. I didn’t need to speak to him.

He was silent, but I could feel his eyes on me after I allowed the quiet to stretch on. I wondered how long he would sit there before he understood that I didn’t want to talk.

After a few minutes, he got to his feet and stretched, his limbs audibly popping. I wrinkled my nose in distaste, but kept my expression hidden.

I sighed in relief as he began to walk away, glad that I didn't have to talk to him and create the chance for someone to realize I was different.

“There’s a hotel down this street that takes in people without asking any questions.”

I looked up, seeing he had stood a short distance from me, eyes uncertain. He tossed a small black bag to me and I caught it, eyebrows furrowing in confusion when I looked back to him.

“Money, for the night. You’ll need it.”

I opened my mouth, ready to refuse. “I-“

He put a hand up, stopping me. “You don’t have to explain anything. In fact, I may just be completely misreading your situation, but either way it’s a win for you. Either you don’t need the money and just received some for free, or you do need it and you’ll use it.” He gestured at the bag. “My card is in there too, just in case.”

I blinked, shocked at the stranger’s generosity. “I…uh, thank you.”

He tilted his head to the side and smiled a little, then held out both hands with his palms facing the now-pink sunset sky. A warm glow began to emit from the tips of his fingers as I watched, then he raised both hands in front of his face and placed his middle finger and thumb together. Then, after smirking at me in a way that made his eyes disappear behind his cheeks, he snapped.

With a strange shimmer like light reflecting off of waves, he disappeared.

I stared at the place where he stood for a long moment, trying to decide whether or not I was shocked. After a few more minutes of processing, I arrived at the conclusion that it had not been the strangest thing I had seen all day and was therefore not taken off guard.

I the little black pouch that sat in my hand, wondering what was inside. It was made of a thin velvety material that seemed to be oddly nice quality for something that a stranger would give to another stranger.

Gingerly, I pulled open the drawstrings and found a rolled up wad of cash stuffed inside, along with what appeared to be a business card. I made no move to empty the bag of its contents – I had only wanted to make sure there was really money inside before I headed in the direction I had been told.

I turned, with only a brief thought of why I trusted the stranger who had happened upon me twice in the same day, as I walked down the street.

* * *

The man with magic fingers hadn’t been lying. I was able to successfully acquire a room in a small hotel that must have only had ten rooms in the entire place.

The person who stood behind the front counter had silently held out their hand before I realized they were asking for the money. I pulled out however much I had been given and placed it into their hand, waiting to see them count out how much I needed to pay.

Instead, the stack of bills halved before my eyes, half blinking out of existence. The receptionist then silently took a key from behind the counter and dropped the remaining cash and key back into my hands before turning away.

At first, I hadn’t known where to go, but then I realized there was a room number etched into the metal of the key: 5.

I’d found my room a few moments later, where I was now settled. I leaned against the headboard of my small bed, and traced my eyes over the simple layout of the room. There wasn’t much – just a bed, a bathroom with no mirror, and one painting on the wall opposite my bed. The painting was abstract, black and white spatters covering the canvas with no rhyme or reason. I stared at it for ages, zoning out. Sometimes, I could have sworn that the splotches would shift, turn slowly clockwise, but as soon as I blinked they would jump back to their original positions.

I sighed, dropping my eyes away from the painting and instead took the black pouch into my hands again and opened it, pulling out the remaining cash and the business card. I slowly counted the money, filing through it carefully. I realized with a start that I had no idea how the currency worked. There were strange symbols in the place of dollar signs, but thankfully the numbers used were the same as the ones I was familiar with. However, I had no idea what the value was, rendering my careful counting useless.

I dropped the bills next to me onto the bed and instead picked up the business card. I flipped it over, reading the name at the top: Jimin. Curiously, there was no surname included. Beneath the name were his qualifications, which made me knit my eyebrows together in confusion. Practitioner it read simply, then was followed by an address and phone number.

I rapped my fingers against my kneecap, thinking. A practitioner of what? I wished now more than ever that I had access to my phone, or at least some form of internet-able device.

It seemed like there was not much different in the world I had quite literally stumbled into; though, the longer I was there, the more things I found weren’t the same. The streets looked similar and the people generally spoke the same language as I did, but the overall sense I got from my surroundings seemed to reflect that of a different time to the one I had been forced out of.

A sharp knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and quickly crossed the floor, wondering who it could be. I turned the lock and yanked the door open, finding a small woman with cropped black hair and a plain blue and white uniform standing before me.

“Room service,” she alerted me, nodding at the covered platter in her hands that I hadn’t noticed. Well, either I hadn’t noticed or it hadn’t been there when I first looked at her.

“Room service?” I questioned, switching my weight to the other foot. “I didn’t order any.”

She shrugged. “You’re room 5, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Then this is yours. Compliments of the hotel,” she responded, carefully pushing past me and setting the tray onto my bed. She brushed her hands down her apron, bowed deeply, then left without saying another word.

I scratched the back of my head, shutting the door behind her and turning back to the mysterious tray. I sniffed the air – there was strangely no scent, of food or whatsoever.

There was no way it could be dangerous, considering the behavior of the maid. No sweat, no shift in her voice, no urge for me to take it from her quickly: just the polite and distant formality of a hotel maid doing her job.

I scratched the back of my head again, and chewed thoughtfully on my bottom lip.

Hesitantly, I stretched forward, grasping the top of the silver lid to the tray. I took a deep breath, then pulled it away quickly while taking a few steps back.

On the tray sat….nothing? I wrinkled my nose and squinted my eyes, attempting to rationalize why a maid would bring me an empty platter with the belief that there was something atop it.

I leaned forward, peering directly into the silver tray, and saw my reflection staring back at me. My eyes looked tired and confused, and the permanent shallow crease on my forehead, which Soomi had always pointed out when I frowned, was prominent. My stomach grumbled disappointedly, complaining to me for getting the impression that I would be eating anytime soon only to be deceived.

I curled my lip, oddly angry even though I knew I hadn’t ordered anything in the first place.

As I was about to slam the lid back onto the tray, I caught my eye in the reflection once again, but this time, something strange happened. Looking closer, my reflection began to waver; then, beginning from the edges, it faded away like breath on a windowpane. My heart rate stuttered, and my hands turned ice cold as I shifted my line of sight in multiple directions, but no matter which angle I tried, my reflection had disappeared. Unease crawled up my spine, digging its claws into each vertebra as it neared the back of my neck and forced the tiny hairs there to stand up straight.

With a clamor, I dropped the lid and stood back from the tray, heartbeat increasing double-time. It’s just a reflection, I scolded myself, what is there to be afraid of?

My ears began to ring, the faraway noise deafening in comparison to the sound of my haggard breathing. I shook my head back and forth, trying to clear it but I realized that the ringing was getting louder…and louder. Loud enough to where I had to cover my ears and wondered if the entire hotel was able to hear it. I winced, wildly looking to my left and right to find what could be making the sound, when I noticed that the platter was quivering.

The quivering accelerated to an intense vibration as I watched, the metal seeming to buckle under the stress. Louder the ringing became as the platter began to jump from its position on my bed all on its own.

I had no idea what to do except to watch as the platter gained momentum and jumped higher and higher as it screamed louder and louder.

Then, the platter fell to the bed once again and remained disturbingly still, silence flooding the room.

I stared at it in disbelief, wondering what kind of heartless wretch could inflict that sort of trick onto someone. I turned away in disgust, leaning down to pick up the lid when a deafening bang resounded throughout the room, the force of it knocking me off balance and sending me crashing to the ground.

Dazed, I looked up at my bed, expecting to see the platter. But instead, I almost swallowed my own tongue in surprise when the stranger from the park stared down at me from where the platter had sat, a grin spreading across his entire face as he began to laugh at my shocked then disgruntled expression.

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