He's been told that it just sort of...happens. That one moment you're in one place, and the next moment you're just - gone. Or maybe found. Either way, it's like stepping into an alternate dimension, Nathaniel hears; except that dimension looks exactly like Ashdown, except warped into something else instead. Sort of like blinking, and then voila; in the split second between closing your eyes and opening them again, everything has changed and you're gone and found.

It first happens to Nathaniel on a night that's cool and breezy.

He's walking home from his janitorial work; just one of several jobs that Nathaniel currently holds, and he's not paying attention to where he's going. His feet have tread this same path back to his apartment so many times now that he doesn't need to actually look. Instead, Nathaniel's attention is focused on his hands, spread out in front of him, a look of mild curiosity on his face. The blue and green glow has yet to abate since returning from the Court; in fact, it seems not to have diminished at all, still vibrant every time it gets dark outside. It makes sneaking around somewhat less than ideal, but since Nathaniel doesn't really do a lot of sneaking anyway, it makes no difference, not really.

He's in the process of examining how the glow spreads across his entire body when he feels the rain.

It's less of a pouring, pounding sensation and more of a misty wetness that suddenly chills him from the top of his head down to his toes. Nathaniel slowly comes to a stop, and he's still on a street, he knows this - he hasn't made a wrong turn anywhere, he hasn't suddenly gone off the deep end and wound up some place entirely different.

Except that he sort of has.

It's dark here, like the street he was on, but with a different sort of atmosphere, like how a photograph has an identical negative along with it, but the colors are reversed or not there at all. This is Ashdown as a film negative, not as itself, and it takes Nathaniel a moment to realize this, to understand what has happened to him and where he is.

"Oh. s**t."

Nathaniel doesn't swear, not really. His father and mother both had filthy mouths, and on principle, he's kept himself separated from them for a reason. But this occasion calls for a swear word or two, Nathaniel thinks, as he looks around at his new surroundings and tries to discern where he wants to go from here. He tugs absently at his sweater, straightening it unnecessarily, and hopes he's far, far away from wherever the Court is, or anything like that. Besides that admittedly somewhat hellish occasion, Nathaniel has never actually been in like this.

Or has he? It's hard to remember. He wonders if this is what it really means to live in Ashdown.

Nathaniel remembers Thorne's haunted, fractured face, Algernon's resolution not to kill Adoelle, Gloom's quiet, haunting voice in his ear as the creature twined about his neck. He remembers thinking I don't belong here, and it still hasn't changed, the thought persisting even when he realizes that he is here, in that other place.

I don't belong here.

Not really.

He is no one and nothing. He is not experienced, he is not strong, he is a gardener and a student and an animal lover and in no lifetime has that ever included murder ball survivor. He has never before considered himself to be good at anything, really, except gardening and learning, and what use are either of those things against everything he saw that night?

Nothing. And he knows this.

Nathaniel takes one step, and then another. He reaches the end of the street. He turns.

And he's back on the road, and his apartment looms in front of him, quiet and unassuming and run down. There is no more rain, but Nathaniel's hair and clothes are damp and misted with wetness. His hands are still glowing, and his heart is still pounding in his chest, and he still wants to swear, loudly and obscenely.

He is nothing and he is no one and yet maybe he is something after all.

[ WORD COUNT: 717 ]