I was doing my usual walking route to the shop I go to for things like notebooks, a new pack of pens and things like that, when there was this figure far down the street on my route that was visible and audibly vomiting into the storm drain, my own stomach turned and twisted and despite the fact I knew I had to go along this route, I could not go that direction. I could not go by that vomiting figure.

            I pulled my bag a little tighter as I quickly turned a corner to by-pass the figure, but as I was walking with my head down, the sounds around me seemed to…shift and change. As I looked up at some point, it was only because there was movement over me, I thought it was just a bird, but as I looked above and behind me, it was not a bird, but a person. A woman who’s arms shifted away from humanoid to bird wings at the elbow, she twisted in the air before landing on a streetlamp and hopped down to the ground, using her wings to slow herself before walking off somewhere. The clip-clop sound of horse hoofs hit my hearing as I looked over to see a full-on centaur was walking past me.

            “Excuse me” they said shifting past me before walking past.

            As I walked, thinking that I guess I have finally gone mad, I found a park and sat down heavily. Unable to process everything I was seeing, I pinched myself and winced at the pain and when I opened my eyes, the city around me was not Seattle. All of the buildings were far taller, far more futuristic looking with masses of greenery and neon along the sides, the sky thickly covered in heavy clouds, but there were these holographic shapes, like massive kites that slowly shifted about the city, covering up to a dozen or so city blocks as they passed over, barely a moment or two of rain being let through before a new one was in place, the rain was far heavier and far, far more intense than I was used to as well. All of the buildings had these artwork-like awnings and pieces along their fronts and faces that kept the sidewalks dry as the streets were all but submerged.

            “What is wrong with me?” I muttered to myself as my leg was bouncing a mile a moment as I folded my arms tightly too me.

            “No, I’m telling you…I will not settle for anything less than at least thirty percent of the overhead cost being paid off by the client.” A man said walking past along the far end of the sidewalk, but…he had to be at least eight, maybe close to nine feet tall, dressed in a nice suit with a long leather overcoat and a bag on his hip as he held his phone up, “Well, because we’re just handling the legal aspects of the project…they’re doing everything else” was the last I caught as he vanished down the path.

            There was a screech sound as this massive cloud of bats erupted from over the tree-line behind me before swirling and condensing at the crossroad of the park’s paths, the bats seemed to mold and shift themselves into a humanoid form before the last bats vanished and a young girl was stood there, texting as if she had just been walking down the path and not just materialized out of a swarm of bats.

            “Alright…I’ve gone mad” I muttered to myself as I grabbed the hood of my jacket and flicked it up as I stood back up, “Got to get home” I added as I stood and kept walking. My boots were quiet on the moist sidewalk, the sound of wings were everywhere along with various other sounds; hoofs, the skittering of bug legs, slapping tentacle like sounds and…all sorts of strange sounds. There were flashes of color and patterns off of people as things suddenly appeared or vanished around them.

            As I walked, there was a large bright AD on a building face that, because of the fact I am my age, I recognized the person in the AD, which was comforting at a small degree, but strange because of who was in the AD: Anthony Varga, the husband of the C.E.O of 6Vs, but there was this miasma of purple around him as ice made these huge structures off his body. It didn’t look like how he usually does. I kept walking as I passed by…some sort of shop, but there was a display in it that had books of other familiar names on them: Travel Nel, Nikolas Andreas, Juliana Vesta and…a handful of others, I have heard that all of them were cousins of some sort, but…why was I seeing their names.

            “I’ve gone mad” I whispered to myself, “Finally, must have gone mad” I muttered to myself as I wrapped my jacket around my tighter as I kept my head low, my mask up and my hands tucked into my jacket pockets as I was walking. “I’m seeing all sorts of strange things” I added as I tried to find the street, I know my apartment building is on, but all of the streets were the wrong names, I seemed deeper in the city than I had been before too.

            I was very solidly and thoroughly lost. Plain and simple, I was lost. When I paused at one point and checked on my phone where I was, my phone had no connection whatsoever, it had an actual phone connection, but no internet whatsoever, not even data could connect making me even more confused and scared. I just tucked my phone away as I tried to find my way out of wherever I was or just waiting for when in my delusion I’d walk out into the street and get hit by car or something and I’d wake up in the hospital or something.

            I somehow circumnavigated my way back to that park I had been in before, so I just sat down on a bench as I held onto my head tightly, digging my gloved fingers into my hair as I just kept muttering, it’s not real…it’s not real to myself over and over as I all, but rocked on the bench.

            At some point, footsteps walked towards me before pausing ahead of me, but I didn’t look up or anything, still fully believing all of this was nothing, but my manic mind turned to soup showing me the madness that was in my own mind. The footsteps however…weren’t even, like someone being extremely cautious, they paused frequently, and the steps weren’t an even rhythm either.

            “Sir?”