As the sidewalk became vertical by the second, Jackie slowly fell down on the wet cement that ripped up the side of her coat.

She whipped her arm up, sliding on her back now, as she took the bandaged fingers of hers so she could dig her fingers into the cracks, the wrapping being sanded down and turned into dust with each failed save.

From her position, it was impossible to not look down. If it wasn’t cold showers that was sapping her energies, it was the instant demoralization due to what fresh hell she saw.

An entire street—it’s buildings, it’s street signs, it’s lights, all swirling into itself in oblivion. A grayscale white void, that was once detail, texture, and structure.

The rain, only a second ago pouring down onto her face, became horizontal downpour as the sidewalk became steep upwards.

There was really nothing she could do.

INNATE DRIVE!

Her damaged hand glowed blue, the build up of energy rattling her battered hand as she winced. Knowing full well the consequences, she slammed her fist into the pavement, creating a small indent.

There was no time to react to the pain, as she used siVis to stiffen her body as it tried to reconcile, and shooting up her other hand to grasp at the hole, holding onto dear life.

Jackie gasped out, feeling the irregular throbbing, and hearing the visceral cracking within her head. Her hands can’t take that much punishment right now, one’s already regained damage and the other has to hold up a 200-pound young woman. Yet another thing that haunts her, from that terrible night.

This wasn’t looking good.

And as she noted a large shadow beginning to develop to where she was, all she could do was widen her eyes and gawk.

The rest of the street, what was once before her when she walked, became to fold into itself as well, creating a pincer that was going to squash Jackie if she continued to hang on.

This wasn’t good at all.

She squeezed her eyes.

INNATE DRIVE!

She kicked her charged leg, letting go and rocketing herself away from the devastation.

She grabbed her rewounded arm, grunting out in pain in the air, as she twirled and jerked within the airspace.

Shift affected areas, if gaining enough ground and destroying enough landscape, will render the location into a Terminsys City.

Even with a siVis-awakened mind, one can barely keep up with the sense of gravity, the extreme angles and perspective, changing every second and every time they look.

Jackie opened her glossy eyes. The tears brewing, drifting off to the left as she falls directly down.

***

“Who’s gettin’ his special time~? Who’s a dumdum and getting his special tiiiiime~? You are! You are, Dum-Dum!” Maddie cooed.

Her beloved dog practically took up a quarter of her beat-up bed. Black and rust-colored, a Rottweiler in his twilight years. His constantly open maw, as his tongue lapped out against his crooked teeth, was pointed—his once sharp ears were slightly droopy. His long claws were scuffling up the sheets in his excitement, but they were ruined sheets anyways.

“You waited~!” Maddie scratched and fluffed her hands around his throat and head, as “Dum-Dum” panted with zeal—his tail becoming a blur. “You waited for me until I woke up! That was a week—you don’t know what a week is! You don’t care, you big lug! That’s why I looove you~!”

Without a beat missed, Maddie was overwhelmed with love—chuckling as her dog licked her cheek and then face, forcing her down onto the bed as she petted his back.

Her phone emitted the only light source in that room, the natural “sun light” aside. This completely catches her attention.

“monty monty monty—” Maddie calmed her dog down as she rose up from the bed. “Maddie has to deal with a thing…”

Monty panted, and then moved around, landing on his side. Maddie laughed at the sight—considering he could’ve just curled up at the foot of her bed, but that was her dog. A wistful shrug in the form of an animal.

She glanced at her home screen, and saw the message appear. The small girl made a long sigh, looking up at her barely there ceiling, only just pipes hanging and fragments of “dry wall”. Then looked around at her bare walls, barely painted white brick.

“Well,” she said to herself. “I have… M-maybe three responses, depending on how things go…? …I definitely have to not speak. She’s going to think that I cursed them out or convinced them to do it. Plus, she genuinely doesn’t like me—for good reason—but yeah…”

She briefly lapsed in her Mindscape, remembering what happened.

Watching Jackson lose her mind.

Turning to look at the others, sharing the same scared face.

It was almost like siVis, their bodies moving for them. Just backing away. Cue the Extant grunts shining their lights on them, well, they had to scramble at that point.

While there was more to it than just deserting her, it still ended up being that way. And like all humans that get caught with their hands in a cookie jar, or broke Mom’s vast—there’s the instinct of sweeping it under the rug. Deny that you were getting that cookie and was just adjusting the jar. And every single human knows that hiding it, denying it, only leads to more anger—but that’s essentially what they did. Now it was time for the chewing out.

Monty sensed Maddie’s distress, slinking over and resting his head on her bare legs, a smirk creeping along her face as he does.

Still. It’s better for her to just duck out of this conversation—maybe the others will use her as a scapegoat, fine. But she knew her piping up was going to cause Jackson to lose it more.

So, she petted her big, “dum” dog—as she just waited in the dark for it all to be over. She glanced over her vintage CD rack, maybe she should groove out to something as she waits…

…It hit her that Kobayashi-Maru, Brooke and Goodwin would be the ones making their case.

Maddie quickly grabbed the phone, startling her poor dog before slowly and softly petting and scratching him to calm him.

Maybe she’ll watch the thread. She’ll watch the thread and explain herself later depending on what was said…

***

River did a double fist pump, so engaged in the fine art she was witnessing.

A man with a massive, multi-colored football-head head ran towards the monster made out of car wash curtains—the show presenting him as the ultimate lifeform.

Goal-E, the lovely sportsball-themed protagonist, popped off his own head and chucked it at the MOTW, causing him to explode.

River said his catchphrase, along with him, “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL VIC-TORY~!”

Lurking on the forums, River was brought to the attention to this very old, very obscure toku called… Goal-E Victory. River was so surprised at what she found—it literally had everything. Insane backstory, insane worldbuilding, insane characters—all done with the cynicism of a shoot and show that was always underbudget and running behind schedule. Amazing stuff.

So when she felt her phone buzz, it was like the weight she often forgets about crushing her returns and adds another ton to it.

No one calls her. No one messages her. Her parents yell for her and Roland would just knock. So it could only mean the one thing.

She had to say something. She felt so… Whatever’s under sub-human, leaving her like that. Mole man? Probably Mole-man.

She looked around, in her room of cluttered useless papers, magazines, toys, and weird knickknack mess that was her chamber.

Definitely Mole-man.

River reached for the phone, activating it as she closed the browser and opened the messenger, clicking the group chat.

She read what she sent. Of course, Jackie apologizing for the thing that wasn’t her fault.

All she had to do, was just follow her impulse. Just write that they were wrong for doing something like that to her. Offer solutions. Maybe finally resolve their long-standing issues. All she had to do… Was write it…

Aiko immediately responded to it.

River just sighed, at herself.

***

Tracy was sobbing, at a beautiful resolution to a fine piece of high culture cinema.

A wayward mistress. A scorned gentleman. A maze of redemption and atonement. And they found each other in the end.

She had her knees to her chest, covers draped over her shoulders. She felt her tears coating her face, as her eyes got puffy by the moment. The tissues on her left didn’t work.

A ringtone echoed across her apartment, as she looked at her right seeing her phone received a message.

Her rather ecstatic settled into a neutral, stony expression.

“…” she turned her head back to her small TV. “One train wreck at a time.”

She sunk into her futon, with a grimace etched into her face.

“…At least I benefit from this one…”

***

“…So the fault is all ours!” Aiko yelled into her speaker. “There’s nothing else to it!”

She put her phone into her backpack’s bottle pocket. Which was hair, because she needed to maintain her balance as she was still on top of a pole.

She was perched, her feet on the small beams of the old-fashioned advertising that was hung like flags on both sides of it. The rain was pelting against her public, disposable clear raincoat. Practically a bag on her head.

She hoped that the message she voice-to-texted got through to the others. She can’t let this new chance at doing awesome things slip away from her hands. As she was high up, the buzz of doing something amazing became muted. Routine. She had this sort of thing down pact, no longer exciting.

Aiko looked past the sight of the buildings before her, and stared at nothing. She really wanted to stare at nothing.

But her head turned towards the flash of white.

***

Jackie recklessly and feebly kept jumping from surface area to surface area. Trying to work against the weird gravity that nearly tore her in half multiple times so far.

But it wasn’t progress, it wasn’t even survival. It was just her, kicking and screaming in the literal sense.

She felt the tug, and was flung back first upwards.

She slammed into the street, skidding backwards until she hit an abandon car.

Jackie gasped out in pain… And then was puzzled, feeling the back of her head. She rammed her head onto a car, and she was fine? As she felt around, she finally noticed.

If it wasn’t for her body activating siVis on the back of her head downwards, that would’ve been it.

But she couldn’t think about the why. It wouldn’t really matter, anyways.

“…What do we do, Professor Blake? Can you tell us what is happening?!”

Jackie slowly peered over the car, and saw a squadron of Extant Enforcers. They looked towards a hologram of the Professor’s take on the Extant symbol.

“Iunno!” Professor Diana Blake shouted. “Maybe ask me in the future, when I don’t have the limitation of not knowing what the bleeding Hell’s going on!”

“Can you at least give us status?!” the Extant Enforcer—the possible leader—asked.

“Suddenly an entire neighborhood that wasn’t Shift-affected just decided to be that way and it’s creeping along the streets as we speak!” Diana Blake sounded exasperated. “We have some party in the next few days and suddenly reality said, ‘sure, now it’s time for everything to go tits up’—”

There was an Extant Enforcer, that had their arms crossed and sighed. They adjusted their stance, letting their helmet leaned to the right.

“I know you’re shitting bricks right now Professor, but we really need to stop this and we really need your help. All we know what to do is shoot until we’re forced into the coffin—”

The Head turned towards them. “You are not in any position—”

“Nah, she’s right,” Diana admitted. “The only thing I can think of right now is to secure it. Find every inch it’s going—and figure out the heart or center of this whole thing to cause counter-wave: cancelling the two out. But we need a siVis user for that…”

“Sooo…”

“Stall and wait for Grace Masters to show up, yeah—” Diana answered. “It’s all we got, either that or some miracle. You have to make those. And as you pour so much into making one, you’ll only throw your mitts up in the air and scream ‘what’s the point’? Either option is up to you lot.”

The construction ended and the Head sighed.

“Spread out, search for survivors and we’ll secure the perimeter!”

They all nodded, and sprinted away.

All but the one, arms still crossed.

Looking directly at Jackie.

“…You look like shit.”

Jackie’s eyes widened, and it was clear who was behind that armor despite logic going against it.

Jackie rose up slowly, as the Extant Enforcer collapsed her helmet. Revealing a single braided, scarlet mane of hair.

“I’m supposed to be the cautionary tale, Jackie…” Scarlett, her former best friend , lightly scolded her.