He walked on for hours, but there was still no sign of the other two. His footsteps were the only sound that pierced the stillness: the chirping of birds had vanished, along with the buzzing of cicadas, even the rush of the wind. By now, he had calmed down substantially. He was assessing the situation.

When he, Helen, and Jimmy had arrived in Boston, it had been in the early hours of the morning. They had spent about an hour traversing the street, and nearly two more helping the sleeping citizens, before Harold found the faceless man watching them. He gave chase. And that must have taken...a few minutes, at most. Certainly not long enough for the day to fade into night.

Something else was going on here. The conspicuous lack of the moon was enough to tell him that, but what was happening, was the real question.

Was he hallucinating? But in that case—how?

He had not interacted with anything that could have wrought this effect. In a moment of paranoia, he remembered how he had taken the rest of one family's pancakes. But unless the preparer had purposely laced her children's breakfast with hallucinogens, that couldn't have been the answer.

There was far more to this situation, but no one was around to help him figure it out, and he was terrified.

He couldn't remember the road to the dropoff zone being this long, yet even though he had been walking for hours on end, he couldn't seem to get off this same stretch of land. In fact, now that Harold came to think of it, he had passed that green house with the weird-looking garden gnomes already...several times, at that. It was like he was stuck in some kind of loop.

A time loop? But that didn't make any sense. There was no Enhanced that he knew of that had ever displayed powers over time. Manipulating one of the essential forces of their reality wasn't something that seemed possible, even for people who could bend air currents, knock someone unconscious with a scream, or lift more than ten times their body weight with a single hand.

The Gargantuans so far hadn't displayed any abilities like this either. Gregor the Gorilla had been mountainous in size and strength, but that was all there had been to it: sheer power. The hornets were a different case. None of them were as large as any other Gargantuan, but they were larger than any normal hornet should have been, and their venom far more powerful anything they had ever seen. Then there was Mira the Salamander. She had been fast, but not too strong, but she had made up for her lack of physical power with her luminous toxin, which caused dreadful sideeffects that could lead to even death.

All of them had been supernatural, but their mutated anatomies had still retained a resemblance to their figures beforehand. They had just gotten more dangerous.

So what could this one be?

He didn't know of any creature, aquatic or terrestrial, that could induce sleep.

Think, he told himself firmly. What did you see when you got here?

Perhaps something they had overlooked could be some kind of clue. Had it been when they plummeted into the river from the drop ship? Had they been exposed to some kind of chemical then? Clearly the effects of whatever this mysterious substance that was causing the sleep had acted on the residents of the neighbourhood at different times. That would explain why it took so long for them to be affected. Which meant that Jimmy and Helen were somewhere around the town, probably lying flat on the ground, and likely so was he. He wasn't hallucinating—he was dreaming.

Which was even more odd, as he felt perfectly aware.

Harold raised a hand and observed it, the soft brown skin, the calloused fingers, then he slammed his fist into a mailbox beside him. It shattered apart, and he felt the impact. Was he Lucid-dreaming? He had read about that somewhere.

Or maybe he was—

Harold froze. A sound had just crossed the night, the first one apart from his own footsteps. He whirled around trying to find the source, and realized that it was coming from a house he had passed a few blocks ago. Light was shining from one of the upper windows.

Harold bolted towards the house, his feet thudding across the ground, and sped up the front steps. He burst through the door and into the living room, which was dark and empty, but he could hear the sounds from upstairs louder and more clearly.

Harold wove through the small space and the tightly packed furniture, flew up the stairs, and burst into the room from which the sound was emanating. For a moment, his heart stopped.

He had opened the door—and found himself in the middle of his old room. Not a room at Helix, his room at his old house.

It was just as he had remembered it: small and cluttered, though neatly arranged as usual, with a horrible peach paint job. His old toys lined the dresser like a troop of men readying for war, and his bed was made, with his old stuffed companion, Waffles, tucked into the center.

His limbs too were shorter and finer, and his hair gelled down in just the way he always hated it. He was watching TV, a silly cartoon he had long since forgotten about.

Then the voice came drifting upstairs: "Harold."

It was his mother's voice, soft and sweet.

"Time for dinner!"

"Coming, Mother!" His mouth moved of its own accord, and his legs followed suit, unfolding onto the floor and carrying him swiftly downstairs despite his protests. He didn't want to be here, not now, not like this—

"Harold, be careful!" his mother warned, as he came hurtling down the staircase. He wanted to slow down, but his limbs were not responding to him. His body was an automatic vehicle, and he was merely a passenger. Despite his mother's warnings, he stumbled and fell, rolling down the stairs and sprawling across the cold, wooden floor.

"Harold!" gasped Ophelia Farwell. "Oh, honey, are you all right?"

Harold heard the clanking of her wedges as she came hurrying out from the kitchen. His head hurt, and his knee had been scraped, badly. But even as tears sprang to his eyes, something odd began to happen....

The pain in his head was receding, and before his very eyes, the wound was closing, stitching together as though a number of invisible needs was knitting the skin back together.

By the time Ophelia crossed the living room and reached him, the skin was smooth and almost completely clear once more, save for a dark blue bruise. She knelt down beside him holding a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cotton puff. "I always tell you not to take the stairs so fast," she said, with the gentle exasperation that belonged only to a mother. "Where does it hurt?"

Harold looked down at his knee—and so did she.

"Here?" she said, tapping it gently with her finger. "But...there's nothing there...." She was frowning, a look of bemusement and alarm clouding her face. But then shrugged it off, though the merest traces of skepticism were still visible in her expression. "Ah well, I knew my boy was tough." She ruffled his hair and helped him up. "Well, if you're sure you're all right then go sit around the dining table. Your father will be back soon."

His father.

Young Harold obeyed, bouncing over to the kitchen table, already forgetting what he had witnessed mere seconds before in his delight that his father was coming home. And by the time he had settled into the chair, he was.

"Papa!" Harold cried, shooting out of his seat and rushing to his father. Harold was Joseph Farwell in miniature: they had the same square jawline and defined nose, the same sleek black hair. But Joseph's eyes were a startling blue, and Harold's the rich brown of his mother. Joseph swept him into a hug and lifted him, laughing.

"What's going on, kiddo?" he said jovially, ruffling his hair.

"I fell down the stairs," Harold said brightly.

"You what?" Joseph said, his voice suddenly sharp. But Young Harold hadn't noticed the urgency of his tone.

"Yeah, and I didn't even get hurt," he went on smugly, his grin widening.

"It's a miracle," Ophelia said, rolling her eyes playfully as she continued to set the table.

Harold's father forced a laugh. But his eyes were apprehensive, even as they began to eat their dinner. His gaze flickered over to Harold every now and then, as if expecting some kind of sudden, dramatic change to occur. And it was then that Harold realized, then that Harold understood why his father had been so calm at the moment of revelation—he had already known.

The scene changed. The dining room walls melted away, and now an endless expanse of white flowed around him, as if he were in space, but the colour was inverted. He was himself again, older and firmer. He ran his hands over his torso, partially to ensure that his limbs were responding to his mental commands again, and partially to ensure that he was still completely aware.

He was floating in the middle of nowhere, but even as he looked around, the world seemed to unfold around him. Sheets of earth rolled in every direction like a rocky carpet, and grass followed instantly. Trees of all kinds burst into bloom before his very eyes, shooting upwards as if decades of growth were flashing by in a mere second. He was now inside of a forest, not dark and thickly wooded like the one in which he had met the gorilla, but larger, more serene-looking. A spine of hills ran in front of him, tracing its way down to the the sea, which was so blue it looked as if a bottle of dye had been spilled into it, and a large ravine ran in front of him. He could hear the rushing of a small river down below.

The animals that had been so conspicuously absent when he had been traversing the streets of Boston were back, and in greater number. Birds whizzed about in the air, chirping a happy, mellow tune, while the sun stood out in all its glory, raining its brilliant light upon them.

But he could see another light...dimmer, farther out in the distance across the valley.

Harold didn't know what it was, but he knew he had to get to it. It would only have been too easy for him to scale the gap with a single jump, but something told him that he shouldn't try it, that it should be done the long way—the right way. He moved to the edge of the cliff, where large rocks were jutting out all over the cliff's face below. He had scaled rock walls at Helix, had even had to deal with similar situations in other missions, but none of this magnitude.

The journey across took about an hour, if he was counting. He moved slowly, picking his way down, securing handholds across the rather slippery rock until he was at the bottom of the ridge. Then he swam across the river to the other side, and made his way up.

It was much easier climbing this rock than descending the other. After a few more minutes, he emerged onto the crest, hardly out of breath, not even sweating, and already. The grass was distinctly greener on this side, thicker and softer. The treetops meshed together to form a dense dome that blotted out most of the sky, yet down here was still well-lit.

His eyes fixed on his target, he began to move forward again. He brushed aside leaves and ducked under branches with growing impatience. He wanted to see the light's source, to touch it...yet all these trees were obstructing his path.

But then he emerged onto a clear field, and the entire area changed. The colour pallets seemed to have been tossed out completely, and everything painted haphazardly at the whims of whatever forces had carved out this land. Leaves gleamed overhead in every different colour of the rainbow. Trunks grew wilder, spotted with fruits and seeds that most certainly didn't grow on these kinds of trees. Even the animals had changed. They were different, larger, more colourful...they were Gargantuans, he realized. Every animal here was just like the mutated versions they had seen, but unlike the others, they didn't look monstrous. On the other hand, there was a beauty possessed in them, an elegance he had never seen. They filed past on either side of him, along the grass and in the air, apparently unaware of his presence. The light was at the center of the herd.

It was what had changed them, he knew, though he didn't know how he knew it. All the changes he was seeing, they were caused by that light. Even as he advanced, the weather shifted around the light, though only in single circle of land that immediately surrounded it, with everything else being completely unchanged.

Storm clouds bloomed above, while the rain fell upwards from underneath the light. Then it changed, and snowflakes the size of bricks began to pound the grass. Lightning roped across skies as blue as his father's eyes, and glaciers drifted on dry land.

Harold stared at the images in awe and bewilderment. He knew he was dreaming, that nothing in here could be real, and yet that was precisely how it all felt. He could feel an aura coming from the light, one of peace and warmth, yet something more...something darker...deadlier. It resonated with him, as if it were pulling at something within him.

Harold suddenly noticed that all the Gargantuan-like animals had stopped their frolicking. Every eye was upon him, all of them standing as still as statues. The light ahead was pulsing now, iridescent and beautiful.

He walked forward, enthralled, and the light enveloped him. It was otherworldly, almost tangible. And at the center was an orb. No...a cube.

It floated there, shimmering in all the colours it had blessed the lands around it with. Red, yellow, green, blue, white, and many more. The light became so intense, so overwhelming, that it burned Harold's irises, yet he could not close them. His eyes bore unwilling witnesses to the majesty and the terror of the force before him. The light swallowed him, swallowed everything around him, and a moment later, he woke.

Harold sat up, gasping and sputtering. It had felt so real; even now he could feel the eyes of the other Gargantuans upon him, staring at him—into him—but the streets were empty. He looked around. It was still daytime, but the sun's light had changed from canary-yellow to tangerine-orange. Jimmy and Helen were sprawled around him. They had all fallen asleep in the middle of the road, but he had woken first.

Perhaps it had to do with his enhanced healing abilities, he thought. He reached over and shook them roughly, but neither stirred. He had not really expected them to, though. If one man could be drenched in his garden hose and remain blissfully unaware the entire time, Jimmy and Helen weren't going to wake that easily.

The only solution he could think of right now was to remove the Gargantuan from play. And somehow, he knew where to find it. The part of him that had thrummed in response to the pulsing prismatic light was now thrumming again, as if someone had pulled an invisible string in his chest. He took one last look at Jimmy and Helen, praying that nothing else happened while he was gone, and marched off down the street. He still felt woozy. Clearly, whatever had knocked them out was still in effect, but he was sure he would be able to deal with the Gargantuan, at least.

The feeling led him forward like a compass, down past the rows of houses until, finally, he came up to a small park. The grass here seemed bleached in comparison to that in his vision. It had felt so real.

He crossed the park, and heard a shrill screech, soft and weak. Harold started moving more cautiously, picking his way across the grass, until he saw it.

"Oh."

It seemed Helen had won the bet. It certainly was pretty.

Its wings covered great swathes of the park grounds, transparent, yet a pale emerald colour, with splotches of amber colouring the middle. Two large eyes were embedded in the hindwings, and they were moving, rolling around as if they couldn't get enough of what they were seeing. Its antennae were moving weakly, as if probing the air around them, and the same glittering powder that Harold had been seeing around the neighbourhood was sprinkling from its wings, which were shimmering.

It was a massive butterfly.

"Well, you're definitely prettier than Gregor, I'll give you that, but I'm not sold on you just yet."

The butterfly seemed to have heard him. Its antennae swiveled in his direction, and it shrieked—but not in anger. It was afraid.

It was flapping its wings vigorously, as if trying desperately to escape, but one of them seemed to have been damaged, and it couldn't take flight.

"Okay, okay, I'm stepping back, I'm stepping back," Harold said, holding up his arms in a placating gesture and taking several hasty steps backwards. He lowered his voice, trying to make it as soothing as possible. "I'm not going to hurt you. As long as you don't try to hurt me," he added in an undertone. It was still batting its wings, but it seemed to have realized that its prospects of escape were nonexistent.

"Shhh," Harold said gently, walking forward with a hand outstretched. He couldn't tell if it was because it was hurt and afraid, but the vibe he was getting from the butterfly was much different from what he had picked up from Mira or Gregor. "Shhhh."

He moved slowly, cautiously, as if approaching a wounded dog that may bite at any moment. But this was not a dog. It was ten times larger than any canine in existence, and its wings were still releasing that strange powder. It wasn't the water after all, it was the glitter. Now that he thought back, it had been everywhere.

"Shhhhh," Harold cooed. The creature let out one last piteous moan, but it let Harold close in on it, and he reached up to rub its snout. "There we go. See, I'm not gonna hurt you," he said. He exhaled. "And I don't think you want to hurt anyone either."

The creature trilled softly. Then its antennae bent towards him. Apprehension surged through his body, but he willed himself to remain still. He didn't want to make it angry if he didn't have to. The antennae touched his forehead: they were cool, soft, and slick, and they glowed with a warm blue light. The butterfly cooed again, visibly relaxing, then flapped its wings. A soft burst of powder flew up, and Harold sneezed.

The creature seemed satisfied at last, cooing like an appeased baby.

"Oh, find that funny, do you?" Harold couldn't help but smile. It really was very cute. "Now, how about we take a look at that wing, eh?"

Still moving slowly, and making sure that he remained in its line of sight, he walked around to examine the damage done to the wing. A huge slash ran through the transparent fiber, like a tent that someone had slashed open. The wound was too straight to be anything other than a blade. Long, deliberate, and cruel. Harold felt a surge of anger.

"Who did this to you?" he said. He had spoken more to himself than anyone, but the butterfly, incredibly, seemed to have understood him. It leaned forward and nuzzledzle his face, then held up its other wing. To Harold's astonishment, the sinewy elastic-looking fiber shimmered with colour, and a face appeared among the lights. It was remarkably detailed, almost like an actual police sketch of a criminal.

"You can understand me?" Harold asked, stunned. The eyes in its wing lit up green, a sign of affirmation, Harold took it.

"Okay, that's...an improvement. So you were attacked. And have you been here ever since?"

The irises glowed green again—yes.

"Did you attack anyone?"

Blue. He supposed that meant no.

"Did you release the sleeping powder when that man attacked you?"

Green.

So that was how it had happened. The scale powder had drifted all over town, carried along the wind, and the entire town of Dorchester had breathed it in.

"I can help you," said Harold. "But when I do, you have to leave. It's not safe for you here. So you go, as far away as you need to, and if you meet any other humans, you run, okay?"

The butterfly trilled.

Harold reached into his pocket while the towering insect made an odd thought not necessarily alarming clicking noise over him, and he pulled out the extra Medipills that Mr. Girvan had supplied for the mission. He held them out in his hands, and the butterfly reached down, seemed to smell them for a moment, and then ate them. After almost a minute, the slices along its wings began to knit back together. It trilled, its colour brightening as its strength returned. Then it rose into the air with a flap of its wings, hovering happily over Harold, and let out a jubilant shriek.

Harold laughed. "Much better," he said. "Now get out of here. Oh, but if you could reverse all this before you go, that'd be great."

It shrieked as if to say "It's the least I can do." Then its wings began to flap, more vigorously than before. But the movement itself was not violent. It was graceful. A powerful wind stirred up, and Harold was reminded of when Jimmy willed the air currents around him to enhance his mobility. The wind spread out across the entire city, completely visible, and as it moved, so huge strands of golden powder rose up in its wake, drifting skywards, until they dissolved completely.

Harold turned back to the butterfly. It bent its antennae towards him, and they touched his forehead again. This time Harold felt a warm, pleasant sensation, and with a final cry, the butterfly was off, streaking across the evening sky and disappearing into the clouds.

He stayed there for about two more minutes, watching the glittering trail it had left behind disappear, when a sudden groan reached his ears. He looked around and saw movement beyond. It was then that he realized he wasn't alone. A man was stirring in the grass, along with his children.

"Uh oh." This didn't seem like the kind of situation he wanted to be present for. Whistling nonchalantly, he wheeled around and hurried back along the road to Jimmy and Helen. Many more people were waking up, including them, when he found them.

"What happened?" Jimmy said groggily.

"I'll explain on the way, we have to go, now," Harold said.

Their looks of confusion faded as cries of bewilderment and surprise started sounding from every house.

"Yeah, we really should go," Helen said.

Harold shooed them back along the path, filling them in as quickly as he could.

"Oh and I sort of breathed in a whole lungful of the powder when I was talking to it, so I may just pass out at any moment," he concluded.

"This is by far our weirdest mission yet," Jimmy said, as they reached the house where they had found the bearded man, who was still lying contentedly in the muddy water while his wife yelled at him to get up.