It was 2AM, and Al was attempting to extract its left trainer from the maw of the baby dragon that now lived with it. Eventually Al succeeded in retrieving the shoe and placed it on a high shelf, not that it expected that the little lizard would be stopped by distance.

The creature, which Al was seriously considering calling "Bitey" looked up at the shoe with wide pale eyes and a jaw positively encrusted with determination and dry spittle. The determination twisted into slow realisation as AL watched, and the creature began to flap their tiny wings.

Al looked from the unevenly hovering Bitey to the half-destroyed shoe and back again, considered the time and reached back towards the shelf with a sigh.

“Ah fuck it. - You win, Bitey, I guess this is your shoe now.”

It picked up the shoe and threw the trainer back down to the lizard who immediately transformed into a ball of savage joy as they pounced on the vulnerable footwear. Al grimaced, the shoe would not last long at this rate, perhaps a dog toy was in order. It pushed through its tiredness and pulled out the battered nokia laptop that it used to manage its shop, dismissed the usual “unknown hardware” popup, and searched the web for a few durable looking dog toys.

The entire process took a surprisingly long time, greatly hampered as it was by Bitey’s persistent demands for attention from their new owner, but eventually Al succeeded in ordering the required toy, which with a bit of luck would arrive undamaged on the street. Al considered buying some more bits of fabric while the computer was on, but was halted when the screen froze and stalled, the bright adverts of online shopping giving way to the deep blue of a crash screen.

Al sighed and read the message in the vain hope that the issue would be within its extremely limited technological wheelhouse:

Windows has stopped working.

Error Code ######

~ YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE QUARANTINE – HER MAJESTY’S AGENTS HAVE BEEN INFORMED~

Al frowned, unable to assess if the message was street weirdness or a standard error message.

***

Sai woke up at 3AM to the cheery chirping of a miss-set alarm. They groaned and attempted to get back to sleep only to realise, much to their chagrin, that their stomach began to growl with hunger. They muttered under their breath, as they slowly made their way through the house, tripping on last night's crumpled clothing as they fumbled for the light switch.

The bulb answered after a brief delay, bathing the underwear strewn room with harsh white light, dazed by the brightness, they pulled on a pair of crumpled trousers with one hand as they shielded their face with the other.

Their stomach grumbled again, and Sai carefully made their way down the dimly lit stairs. As they walked, they narrowly avoided slipping on an abandoned scarf and landed deftly in the downstairs hallway only to stub their toe on a chunk of loose rock lying in the hallway.

Sai growled, the spike of pain exacerbating the headache that was lurking on the edge of their vision.

“Stupid gargoyle bits, why did you do this to me drunk Sai! Why!”

They raised their fist in mock rage before they registered that alone at 3am was the exact opposite of having a captive audience. They lowered their fist sheepishly and looked around for more bits of loose rock and successfully found a second sharp chunk when it embedded itself in the soft flesh of their heel. Sai swore to themselves and carelessly kicked the offending rock fragments into the corner, mentally marking it as a problem for a future Sai to deal with.

Pleased that the hallway was no longer an immediate danger, Sai rooted around the kitchen for a midnight snack, smoked cheddar, and crackers, before slouching onto the sofa to absorb some late-night TV. They scanned through the channels half-heartedly, idly hoping to find something they recognised from their childhood. As always, they were disappointed, and Sai was seriously considering giving up when a splay of reddish light cut across the screen obscuring the late-night programming.

~THE THRESHOLD HAS OPENED – ASSESSMENT BEGINS~

The red text glowed hot and bright, and Sai clicked the remote in a half-hearted attempt to change the channel.

***

At 4Am Li was woken by a bright glow coming from the palm of eir husband's hand. Li frowned at the bright light that had awoken em, it was very annoying. Ey'd mentioned it to them previously, but he didn't seem to be able to control it, and at least Charlie had figured out how to deactivate the random pulses of electricity that was going on previously. How the cheerful Scotsman had managed to activate it by stubbing his toe neither of them was super sure, but it had been a late night before he’d finished it.

Ey checked the time half-heartedly, maybe ey should just do some chores, Charlie would be up soon anyway and ey would be able to go back to sleep in a bedroom without a lightshow blinding em. Li made eir way into the living room carefully, eir leg was not too bad today, so ey made do with eir cane. Li sat on the sofa and mused what to do for the next hour or so casting a curious eye across the living room for inspiration.

On the table next to the sofa was the narwhal inclusive copy of the Da Vinci code, a reminder that Charlie had been jokingly moving around the house in an effort to get Li to read it. Li considered picking it up for a second before ey decided that ey weren’t really in the mood and casually ignored the copy as ey moved to a more interesting book, one ey picked up very carefully.

The book was blood red and slightly tacky, the surface shimmering with a strange glossy layer that made you think of glass or flesh, depending on how the light took it. Jack had told em that it was "perfectly safe", but who knew what safe meant for a gigantic spider?

In Li’s mind though, it was worth the risk. Ey turned the radio on for some early morning ambiance, and Li began to work on eir fundamentals as ey listened for the abrupt noise of Charlie's awakening. As ey concentrated on the magical text, the radio’s music warped and distorted, a reedy voice breaking through in sharp contrast with the violins of the song.

~ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES – A SURVEY MUST BE PERFORMED~

Li frowned, ey didn’t recall the song having any lyrics before.

***

Charlie’s alarm went off at 5AM, the rhythmic blare of bagpipes summoning him to the world of wakefulness. They yawned and leaned over to cuddle his spouse only to find the spot empty, Charlie frowned, noticed the bright luminescence of his skin, and shook his head. So typical of Li not to wake him. Charlie glared at his hand, staring at the glowing flesh as he thought hard about every synonym of off and disable.

After a few moments they looked down at the still glowing hand and treated it as he would any malfunctioning bit of technology and smacked it against the bedpost. The wood dented where his hand struck and a wave of pain spiked up their arm, but happily the light flicked and turned off.

Charlie grinned through the pain and counted it as a success. Spurred on, he concentrated on the idea of a camera and was greeted by a soft click and the utterly bizarre feeling of his arm unfolding, razor thin circuitry clicking and slotting together to form a clean smooth edged handheld camera.

He flipped it round in his hand and posed for the video, a cheeky grin on display as a tiny string of writing crawled across their vision.

Recording

As he moved through to the living room, he teased their future audience with a carefully framed vlog as they searched for their elusive partner, as he wandered about, he heard the blare radio from the kitchen and pathologically wary of fair use policy ended the recording with a thought.

The Camera melted back into his skin as they walked, and the italicised recording message fading for a fraction of a second, only to be stopped dead by a window of huge white text superimposed across their vision.

~AN APPOINTMENT IS BOOKED– CANCELLATION UNAVAILABLE~

Confused and suddenly unable to see Charlie tripped and crashed into the living room doorway.

***

Biz awoke at 6am sharp a fraction of a second before the alarm went off, xyr instincts sharpened by years of practice Biz dismissed the notification before it could even make a noise. Xe jumped out of bed immediately and grabbed the scattered painkillers and phone from the bedside table, just in time to see a flash of “Low Battery” and the screen fade to black.

Xe sighed and plugged xyr phone on to charge, it was unlikely anyone was awake enough to message xem anyway, but it would have been nice to confirm the insanity of yesterday. Xe considered it for a second, was the new situation really that much of a change? The street moved at random, people and buildings popped into existence whilst gravity flexed and warped to keep up.

Was a shapeshifting postmaster really that much of a big deal compared to that? Biz considered the concept for a second. It was, xe thought, distinctly different to have weird things and people appear on the street with no knowledge of why xe were there. Stevie though? She knew things, more than she had told xem – that much was certain.

Biz shook xyr head free of the thought and began xyr morning routine. Time would be better spent focusing on the positives. Would a postmaster be able to help with the post office? It wasn’t an official post office, but surely it counted? The supply of vials and glass tubes were slowly running down as they were dropped or cracked, and the survival rate for the glass filled packages violently propelled from the post office portal was less than ideal, and a somewhat dubious prospect when it came to the monetary investment. Biz grinned to xemself, at least there was finally someone to complain to!

Spurred on by the idea, Biz grabbed the charging phone off of their bedside cabinet and hit the power button. Charged enough to turn on the phone screen lit up and xyr phone began to buzz with a flurry of messages, each from a number marked by hashes and errors and with the same bizarre sentence.

~OUR ARRIVAL IS IMMINENT– HAVE YOUR AFFAIRS IN ORDER~

Biz shook xyr head, spam messages were getting really weird these days – there wasn’t even a link.

***

7am. Red swung for the alarm clock, missing the charmingly mechanical devices snooze button by a hair’s breadth, and batting it diagonally across the room into the wall where it clattered to the floor still ringing. After a few moments of pressing the pillow over their face and desperately attempting to sleep Red gave up and angrily threw the cover to the far side of the room as she stomped out of bed.

Now fully and frustratingly awake, Red glared at the ringing alarm clock, grabbed it and stomped towards the window. She yanked the window open and prepared to throw it out into the darkness of the void beyond. She took a second to pause and read the note affixed to the glass, a torn-out page of a notebook detailing the specific reasons why such an act was a bad idea. She considered it carefully and begrudgingly agreed that the catharsis of destroying the clock was not worth the annoyance of its destruction, it had been very wise to leave it there as a reminder.

She paused to check the time on the alarm clock, 7am was earlier than they had set it, today should have been an 8am day as there was no shower requirement. Red pondered it as they went about their morning rituals, the whole day felt wrong - off kilter and out of focus. She knew from experience that going back to sleep would not help, but the cans of double strength energy drinks stacked in the fridge had a 23% chance of success.

In moments she had one, cracking open the can to begin what she thought of as “plan reset”, back-to-back watching of season one Simpsons episodes. A sure-fire way to bring back the feeling of certainty and predictability which came with re-watching a favourite show. She relaxed through the first episode, listening absentmindedly as the familiar plots washing over them. As the episodes ran, Red felt themself slowly returning to the peace and calm of a well scheduled day. The growing sense of peace grew, only to be shattered by the third episode cutting abruptly to black as it was interrupted by lines of harsh white text.

~PLEASE BE AWARE - HER MAJESTY'S AGENTS WILL BE SEEING YOU SOON~

Red’s fragile calm shattered instantly, and without a second’s thought she stormed back upstairs to throw the defective alarm clock into the void.

***

The dryad known as Stevie had been up for hours, her role as postmaster called for later nights and early mornings at the best of times. Unfortunatly, she had discovered it was not the best of times.

There was an intrusion into the street, marked by the words arrayed in the air before her. They had been hard to capture, electronic in nature they had invaded the streets devices. Not quite deliberate messages and certainly not post, they had been slippery and hard to grasp with her powers.

But she had succeeded, and it had been worth it, if only to know how difficult the coming days would be, preparations would need to be made. The citizens of the street would need to be informed and forewarned.

What else was there to do when Her Majesty's Agents had arrived on the street?