It was late into the night when I walked down the grimy, filthy street of my neighbourhood, my boots quiet on the pavement as the streetlights were hazy and dim, but the sound of the city was still absurdly loud and cacophonous to the extent where it was an unearthly din of white noise.

I walked up the dingy building my flat is in before I walked in and locked all of the various locks behind me as I slid the final latch and chain in place, I installed at least five or so extra locks on the door when I moved here. My flat is in a bit of a rougher area, but it was the closest to the office I could get for cheap when I moved into London for work, I am from the middle of nowhere in Kent, everyone and anyone had expansive grounds because everywhere you looked was farms and people with such thick accents that you need someone from there to translate the accent. The flat was also the best I could get for my starting salary. It’s small, closed off and barely a step above a studio, all of the appliances are out of date, the wallpaper is peeling off in areas and the carpet probably should have been ripped out years before I started renting this place. The furniture was not part of the flat when I started renting, but it’s what I could get for as cheap as possible, so it’s still not the best. As I walked and set the electric kettle to start heating, I sat on a dining chair looking out towards the street as I took the business card out of my pocket…it had a name on it: Penelope Von Gradenthrope, with a phone number and an email along the card with this large gold insignia on the centre of the right side of the card’s front.

“If anything, I should at least take the interview…plus, if I get this added job, maybe I’ll be able to get enough money to get an upgrade to this shite-hole.” I said, “At least, somewhere that there aren’t rats the size of toy poodles in the hall.”

I set the card on the counter as I finished up my cup of tea before just going about my various household duties and things I needed to do in my terrible little flat before bathing and getting to sleep, but the sound of the traffic outside, people in other flats screaming at each other and various other sounds around the building made it difficult for me to even think dim enough to start getting to sleep as I rolled over and pulled the pillow around my head to cover my ears, muffling the sounds of everything enough that it would be possible for me to sleep, but I can’t sleep with the pillow around my head or anything of that sort. It’s rare when I get a good amount of sleep because of the other people in the building and the fact that a very busy street is right outside my flat’s bedroom window. The blare of car horns, people shouting and drunk chavs screaming out song lyrics drunkenly before passing out face down into the gutter made it quite difficult to sleep in this building and it’s not like I could afford anything that actually made the flat quieter like sound-proofing panels, one of the windows in the bathroom is covered in foil and duct tape, I’ve contacted my landlord multiple times about getting it fixed and every time I’ve asked, he’s been really standoffish and basically said something along the lines of “fuck off” or something. I usually have to wait for the exhaustion to take me to sleep to be able to get to sleep and as usual, that’s what happened tonight.

I was groggy, crochety and my usual morning self when I eventually got to the office and clocked in, I flicked through some papers before quickly writing a note notifying my boss that I was going to be following up on something that could be a lead and had it passed on before I even sat down at my desk as I pushed some hair out of my face and made my way out of the office and looked around for the closest alley or wall marked with that same emblem of Towerblock. It was strange, now that I…knew what to look for, whenever one was somewhere in my vision, it started softly glowing notifying me of how many are around the office and just how many of them exist, they were…everywhere. Every single alleyway seemed to have one, they were in parks, on random building walls and…anywhere someone could quickly vanish in a massive city like London.

I just went to the closest which was in the alley beside the building and took my phone out letting the charm hang in front of the emblem and it flashed as white light seemed to spread through the grout of the brick as the bricks twisted and turned on their centres as a large walkway opened in the wall as I walked ahead and felt that familiar pull feeling before my feet met the much cleaner, smoother and much newer looking pavement of Towerblock. I took out the card as I remembered what Victoria said about holding my breath, I took a few deep breathes to calm my already upset stomach as I looked at the card. I put my thumb to it and saw the soft glow of the emblem below my thumb as it grew brighter and warmer under my finger before the world around me seemed to twist and spin as I felt myself pulled forward; I felt an intense rush that I could only guess as to what people who base jump feel.

I stumbled forward a little as I felt a hand grab my shoulder keeping me on my feet, I looked over to see someone standing at the edge of this complex ring of the same emblem at least a dozen or so times around the large ring. The magic they had caught me with lowered as they nodded softly before going back to a rather worn looking chair at the edge as the picked up the paper as they did the crosswords with a large steaming cup of tea floating beside the chair.

I sighed deeply as I looked ahead, the ring was the only thing in the room aside from the person’s little area: sleek, featureless, smooth white flooring with walls that looked like they were sculpted of brushed steel, large sections of glass looking out over Towerblock as if this was fairly high up. I brushed myself off as I walked head before walking ahead and out of the room through the large glass doors as I walked into what could have only been the lobby of an absolutely massive police prescient: this cylinder shaped room of featureless, sculpted white smooth walls with black stone as the floor, these floating panels of glass seemed to move upwards and downwards at the back around a huge…neon sign that said Towerblock Police Prescient 1. There were lots of plants along the walls along with dark couches, sculpted glass tables and strangely beautiful pieces of artwork and sculptures along the walls with a large, curved desk between the two glass lift things where a woman with a spider for a lower body and eight arms on her human upper body sat typing at two different computers with four hands and two others were riffling through papers and her other two were occupied with filing one hand’s nails.

“Excuse me” I said hesitantly as I walked up to the desk, “I should…have an appointment with Chief von Gradenthrope” I said hesitantly to the spider woman who looked at me with four brows raised from her eight solid red eyes.

“Name?” she asked

“Dorian Dandridge” I said

“Spelling?” she asked, I spelt out my name as she still looked at the hand who’s nails, she was filing as two of her hands moved through various screens on one of the computers as she typed out my name, I could see the head of her spider body where her body was connected to had eight matching red spider eyes. “Let’s see…yes, you do…set to be at ah, whenever you came to the office. I’ll inform her that you have arrived, and you can head on up.” She said before picking up a wireless phone with one hand as she pressed a button with another hand and wedged it with her shoulder and head as she went back to filing her impossibly long nails. “Hello, Chief Penelope…your appointment has arrived.” She said before nodding, “Alright, I’ll send him right up.” She said with a smile before setting the phone down. “Head on over to that lift and ride all the way to the top floor, her office is the only room on that floor and…try not to comment on her Botox.”

“What?” I asked

“She’s like an ancient wyvern and is concerned about looking her age or something, she got Botox, but it works a lot better on draconic races than it does others.” She said with a shrug as she looked me up and down before her eyes locked on mine, “Ah, I see, I see…a Seer…always do well with us.”

“The top floor?” I asked

“Go on up.” She nodded as I walked away purely to avoid the rather…prying way she was looking at me as I walked over towards what she called the lift as I walked to one of the huge glass platforms, it was probably two feet thick and octagonal and probably ten or so feet across. It paused for a few seconds at the floor allowing me to step on it and as it started moving upwards, a shimmery see-through patrician formed along the edges that as I reached out towards the edge, my hand stopped as if there was a glass wall there. My vision seemed to double for a split second before I could see this sparkly white veil of light cocooned the platform serving as the lift’s walls, shaft, and the protection to keep people from falling off.

“Is this what they mean by Seer?” I asked as I tapped on the wall with a single finger, “Like I can see magic better or something?” I asked myself as the platform kept moving upwards. I breathed deeply, “You’ll be alright, Dorian…you’ll just be talking to…a super old wyvern about a job interview…perfectly normal, everything is fine.” I said, though trying to convince myself I wasn’t having a crazy fever dream.