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If the cat hadn’t been limping he’d have just ignored it or left it alone. Algie was rather fond of cats and regularly fed the local strays, but he never kept one of his own because of secret concern that he’d somehow screw up some other living thing’s life and it would be his, and his fault alone.

Never mind that he also had a tendency to be manically over protective of any pet he’d had as a child.

It was dusk and the author was walking home from getting take-away and still carting Heliodora’s book in a leather bag at his hip. The cat had emerged from an alley right before his block and limped past before looping back and mewling at him. He tried to call for it, to lure it, but it fled and like an idiot he’d chased. Bent over and cooing for the cat, he’d followed it back into the alley, around a corner and through an open doorway he didn’t recognize only to find himself standing under a steady drizzle and an ever grey sky.

The cat mewed few feet in front of him, groomed the injured paw and then darting back between his legs a moment later.

When he turned it was gone.

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There was a reason why Algie had turned Finn down and as he trudged, yes trudged, through the ruined dimension he was reminded just how much the lack of life made his skin crawl. He’d ended up too far from his own shop for a reasonable walk but very much wanting to find cover as his hair was plastered to his head by rain and was annoyed by the sound of water hitting the plastic bag with his food in it.

God, he was starving.

Solitary time meant over analysis of everything, too many thoughts, theories and assumptions.. And then of course the worries. The worry he wouldn’t find a way back, the worry that finding his way here meant he was suddenly on a missing poster somewhere… He’d told Jeremiah he wasn’t going anywhere.

A stop was made, finding a dilapidated house with the door off his hinges. A kitchen chair and table were tested and deemed solid enough that Algie sat down and unpacked his dinner. He wasn’t going to let it go cold just because he was thrown out into the nethersphere. The container of steaming saucy beef and broccoli was unpacked and opened and Algie pulled out his notebook in pencil as he took the first bite.

Sometimes you just needed to eat shitty chinese food.

He glanced around the place, peeling walls and dripping ceilings, faded decor and a covering of fine dust on everything. It wasn’t bad fodder for his books, a new twist to bring into his mysteries, little bits of inspiration in shadowy silhouettes and distant sounds.

Algie’s notebook was opened and he was flooded with a memory- this time one of his own.



The memory faded, something he didn't even remember but viewing it brought it all back. Some a** in school calling him a pouf, a shoving match, he took the first hit to the face and ended it with one of his own. Self defense saved him from many a write-up ... and taking up boxing had saved him from many a beating.

The memory jogged again what he'd been looking into, the books and what they meant here. Shouldn't he be pursuing it? His own journal showed a memory of his own, something he'd forgotten- perhaps it showed him something he needed to see- reminding him of something... because when Algie glanced down and flipped the pages again nothing was there but his own writing.

The professor closed his notebook again and his food was momentarily forgotten. Perhaps Heliodora's book had something he needed. Maybe this one as well had something to tell him.

He opened it.

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Algie blinked up with an exhale as he came out of the memory. He could still feel the chill of the snow, swore he saw a glare in his eyes from the sun, and had felt just as keenly the emotions of the memory as he had with previous ones.

Sunny’s sadness and Heliodora’s anger.

Algie took a moment to write down in his notebook all he could, including a scribble of the sachet and the snatches of dialogue while they still rung in his ears. He was trying to hope, to wish that there was some design here that he was following and not some string of coincidence that threw him into world like something from his books.

How likely was it that he’d found just the right memory to lead him along?

He wouldn’t know until he tried to look into it. Heliodora could be found- he could ask her if the memory was true and real and what was the sachet? As strange as it sounded he preferred seeking her out than he did Sunny- something so self professed to be not human.

Algie couldn’t help to be reminded, by the books and Sunny’s appearance, of Jeremiah and Zac’s visit to the library. Zac had called it her ‘brain’ but even if Algie wasn’t sure if that was quite the case, seeking out someplace he was very familiar with was easier than getting information out of the girl (he was loathe to call her that) herself.

The professor stacked his books on top of another and ate a bit more food. Alg was hardly the type to rush, and once he’d eaten half the meal was packed back up. As an afterthought, his phone was produced and Algie photographed his surroundings (for research purposes) and then made an attempt at a selfie (also for reference obviously) that only got a quarter of the top half of his face.

The stuff people do when they think no one sees them.