If Insanity could be measured on a numerical scale, Greg was pretty sure what was happening to him would be as close as you could get to full marks.

He was currently staring dumbly at his hand which was inside a fence. To be more specific, it wasn’t between the bars of a fence but literally inside one of them. He could see his hand and the bar and yet they both existed in the same place at once.

After waking up and getting out of the crater, Greg had stumbled through the surreal rainforest that had replaced the park since he went to sleep, finally arriving at the tall metal fence that stood between his flat and him.

He had tried to place one hand on the fence to help him jump over it, but his hand had just gone straight through.

Slowly, Greg drew his hand back until it was whole once again.

“What is happening to me?” He asked nobody in particular.

And yet, as if on cue, the stars and moon in the night sky above him seemed to brighten. Twinkling with mirth at his predicament.

Not that Greg noticed.

“Perhaps I can just walk through the fence,” He mused.

Greg took one tentative step forward and then committed, striding straight into the fence, through it and out the other side.

“Huh…” He turned around, half shocked, half bemused that it had actually worked,

“It’s not like my whole body can pass through things, or I would just fall through the ground, so what is this exactly?” He asked curiously.

Although he would have liked to experiment more, since his closes were in rags and he had no idea how long he had kept his sister waiting, Greg turned around and ran into his apartment building.

He lived in a squat apartment building with a handful of floors and, to his surprise, a nice landlord… or nice for a landlord anyways.

It didn’t take him long to run up the stairs to his apartment on the fourth and top floor.

Room 4A said the wonky sign nailed to the front of his door.

Greg fumbled about for keys only to realise that his ragged trousers no longer had pockets.

“Shit!” He swore, silently cursing his luck.

Just as he was wondering how to get in, an idea came to him.

He gritted his teeth and walked straight through the closed door which offered no resistance, right into the hall of his own apartment.

On one side of the hall was his sister’s room, Greg’s room was on the opposite side. At the end of the hall was the kitchen.

This was Greg’s goal, make it to the kitchen without waking up his sister.

He just needed to…

“I didn’t hear the door open,” came a harsh voice from his sister’s room.

Just from the tone, Greg knew everything he needed to. He had been gone for way too long and she was not amused.

Once again, he cursed his rotten luck before replying, “I was trying not to wake you,” he replied weakly.

His sister’s room was silent. Offering no Segway for his excuse.

“You’ll never believe what happened to me, I was just walking through the park when…”

“Shh. I don’t care,” His sister cut him off

“But Sarah, I really couldn’t help it…” Greg pleaded, trailing off before he could finish speaking.

Sarah poked her head out of the bedroom, giving him a once over. When she saw that he was in tattered rags, she frowned before bursting into laughter.

“Hahaha, what the fuck happened to your hair?” She wheezed, doubled over from laughing.

“My hair? What about my hair?” Greg asked nervously.

Sarah’s response was to point and laugh, making Greg run to the bathroom in a panic.

He didn’t even open the bathroom door, sprinting right through it and making it to the mirror in record time.

“Huh?” Was his only response.

He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

The person in the mirror opposite him was Greg, or at least mostly. Greg’s reflection had different eyes to him. They sparkled with starlight and had rings of light orbiting his pupils.

Not only that, his hair, which had been blonde was now a vibrant flaming red at the tips.

“How did this happen?” He murmured sadly.

Honestly, there was too much to unpack. He walked up to the bathroom door, opened it and walked past his sister who was waiting for an explanation in the hallway.

“What happened to..” Sarah tried to ask but Greg brushed past her, heading straight into his room.

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” he said before closing the door behind him.

…

The next morning, Greg spent an unusually long time in front of the bathroom mirror. And yet the more he looked, the less he understood.

“Greg, I need to use the toilet,” Sarah’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door.

“Yes yes, I’ll be out in a second,” he grumbled.

When he finally opened the door, Sarah blew past him and slammed the door in his face. Perhaps he had spent longer in there than he had first thought.

Breakfast was, in a word, annoying. It consisted of a series of questions from Sarah to Greg, of which he knew the answer to diddly squat.

“What happened to your hair and eyes?” She had asked.

“Why did you come back so late?”

“How did you ruin your work clothes?”

All of these questions were ones he had asked himself plenty of times and come up with nothing that answered his worries.

Finally, Sarah asked a question he could answer.

“Are you well enough to go to work?”

Greg snorted dismissively, “Of course I am, It’s no big deal,”

“Because if you aren’t, I can take time off from school and…” Sarah started.

“Time off school? What kind of alien language are you speaking right now? I’ll die before you fall behind in your classes,” Greg snapped.

“Psh, fall behind? Those classes are easy; besides, it wouldn’t hurt to take a day off anyway, I can always get caught up later,”

“Sarah, how do you think I would feel if I was the reason you failed a test, or didn’t get into the internship you wanted?” Greg asked poignantly

“…Bad?”

“Yeah,”

“But you can’t hurt yourself by working too hard. What’s the point of me being successful and living the good life if you aren’t there leaching money off me?” Sarah asked glumly.

“I don’t like being referred to as a leach but as long as you are successful, I don’t care what happens to me. And that is the end of the conversation,”

Sarah looked like she was going to argue but Greg had already set down his bowl and stood up from the table.

“And one more thing…” Greg started to say before falling through the floor.

One second he was in the kitchen with his sister, the next, he had fallen into the middle of Mrs Crum’s table in apartment 1A.

He looked up slowly at the elderly woman who was in the middle of sipping her cup of tea.

“Good morning,” Greg greeted her while casually extricating himself from the table and striding straight through the wall and out into the street.

“Greg!” A shout came from the top floor.

He looked up and saw Sarah hanging out of the window of the top floor.

Greg shrugged helplessly and turned around, heading towards the park.

This time, on his way through the park, Greg noticed more than a few changes to the plants. Perhaps he hadn’t quite realised it last night but almost every tree was noticeably taller and more vibrant.

He made sure to keep an eye out for purple landmines that may explode beneath him this time but it looked like this morning, luck was on his side.

So, in fact, was the weather. It was a beautiful crisp morning, the air was fresh and the sun was just the right amount of warmth without being overbearing.

After making it to work just on time, Greg walked up to Paul, who had already begun sweating profusely despite it being 8 in the morning.

“Morning Paul,”

Paul looked up from his coffee slowly as he greeted Greg, “Morning Greg, Great weather we… Huh, that is… an interesting haircut,” Paul said carefully like he was dismantling a bomb.

Greg’s face fell and he sighed, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,”

“Try me,” Paul said, making a herculean effort to keep a straight face.

Just as Greg was about to explain the events of last night, Big Mike burst into the breakroom. He was breathing heavily and had a weak combover that did little to disguise his rampant hair loss.

Paul had once described Big Mike as a man who always looked like he had just been stung by a bee and it wasn’t far from the truth.

For whatever reason, Big Mike was always angry, always in a hurry and always shouting.

“We are opening in 5 minutes and where do I find you two!? Slacking off in here, humph why am I not surprised,” Big mike shouted, gesticulating wildly with his hands.

Paul and Greg stared transfixed at his crazy hand movements.

“It’s like he’s trying to swat a bee,” Greg mumbled.

Paul snorted with laughter and Big Mike froze.

“What did you say?” He asked menacingly.

“Nothing,” Greg replied meekly.

“Good, I wouldn’t want someone whose hair has been dipped in ketchup to say anything stupid. Now come help me open the shop,” Big Mike snapped.

Greg turned to look at Paul who was doing his utmost to keep a straight face, “Does it really?” Greg asked vaguely.

“Paul? Does it really look that bad? … Paul?”