Warped

It was happening again. Will staggered to the side of the close. The cold stone wall pressed against his pounding head, a still point in the chaos. This was his third episode in a week. It was definitely getting worse.

He didn’t understand what was happening. In fairness, no one did. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. At least not conventionally. He’d had an episode during one of their investigative MRI scans. That had put the radiologists in a tizz. They hadn’t observed anything unusual. Whatever Will had experienced was clearly in his head. Except that one hairy problem. There were a dozen slices missing from the scan. If he’d got up and left the scanner there would be blurring. If there had been a machine error there would be electronic evidence of that in the data too. Instead the scan data seemed to show that he had simply stopped existing for the duration of the episode. Like that made any sense.

The twisting disorientation worsened until even the wall’s support was too insubstantial. He felt it in his gut. A writhing unease that somehow lured him toward the epicentre. He lifted a foot and stumbled forward. An uneven tread, so common in Edinburgh’s back alleys, bucked his foot off sending him tripping downward. He expected the pain of hitting hard stone steps but it never came.

Will rolled down the grassy slope that shouldn’t have existed. Struggling to sit up his hands disturbed a clump of weird looking flowers, kicking up a cloud of particles. He sneezed violently three times.

The cobbled streets and close tenements of Edinburgh’s old town had been replaced with a rolling grassy hillscape. Stonework that had been relied on for centuries were nowhere to be seen. It was like Will had fallen out of his world and into another. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

As soon as Will had considered the question, the lurching, twisting sensation was back. A tugging in his gut lured him forward once more and he fell with it. The pain as his forehead hit paving stones was almost welcome.