They approached too fast.
"When did you get here?"
"How did you arrive?"
"What do you remember?"
"Do you know where we are?"
"Hey, slow down." Serena lifted her hands. "I'm confused too."
Dorian's gaze measured her, protective by instinct. "Who are you?"
"Serena."
Before the next question could rise, footsteps pounded from around the corner. Liam appeared, breath fogging, eyes narrowing when he saw the strangers near her. He crossed the space in three strides and angled himself just ahead of her shoulder, not aggressive, present.
"You two," he said evenly. "Where did you come from?"
"Restaurant a few blocks over," Kade said, palms open. "We're not here to start anything."
Dorian nodded once. "We're just trying to figure this out."
Questions overlapped, fragments of origin, flashes of arrival, the house that shouldn't have been. The chaos softened as the four of them realized how much of their confusion matched. Serena rubbed at her temple, overwhelmed; Liam steadied the tempo of the conversation with calm, simple prompts.
"Let's sit," he suggested finally. "Somewhere off the street."
They found a hollowed-out office nearby, its windows blown and its lobby scattered with paper that had long since forgotten its words. The four of them settled on cracked vinyl chairs beneath a ceiling that ticked as it cooled. Outside, the wind moved dust through the door like a tide.
They sat together in the shell of an abandoned office building. Dust floated in the shafts of light that slipped through cracked windows, and the air smelled faintly of rust and damp paper. Outside, the wind hummed through the empty streets, a reminder that this strange world was still, somehow, alive.
At first, no one spoke. They were four strangers sitting at a table that looked like it had survived an explosion. The silence pressed on them until Serena finally broke it.
"I think we need to talk," she said quietly. "We need to figure out what's happening to us."
The others nodded. One by one, the questions began to spill out.
Liam leaned forward, his brow furrowed. "When did you all get here? What's the first thing you remember?"
Serena hesitated, fingers tracing circles in the dust. "Two… maybe three days ago. I woke up in my room, or what I thought was my room. Then I realized everything was gone. The city, the people… everything." She glanced at Liam. "You?"
"Same," he said. "I think I fell asleep, and when I opened my eyes, I was here. No sound, no light from the city. Just ruins."
Dorian folded his arms; gaze fixed on the floor. "I was running through the woods. The next thing I remember, I stepped out and this city was just, there." His voice dropped to a low rumble. "Like it had been waiting for me."
Kade exhaled through his nose, half laughing, half trying to keep his nerves hidden. "I was sitting at my desk, typing. Then the screen went black. When I looked up, I was on the street. No transition, no warning, just gone."
They shared a look. The same bewilderment flickered in each face; the same quiet fear they didn't yet have the courage to name.
Serena's voice trembled slightly. "Did anyone see you before you came here? Talk to you? A stranger, maybe?"
Dorian shook his head. "No one. I was alone."
Liam rubbed the back of his neck. "Same here. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just… the world changing between one heartbeat and the next."
Kade leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "So, we all just, vanished. Different places, different moments. No link. That doesn't make sense."
"None of this does," Serena replied.
A long pause settled over them. Outside, a piece of metal rattled in the wind.
Liam finally spoke, his tone steady but thoughtful. "Do any of you remember why this could've happened? Did something happen before, something that connects us?"
They exchanged uncertain glances. Dorian's jaw clenched, and he looked away first. Kade fidgeted with a broken piece of glass, avoiding their eyes. Serena's throat tightened as she thought of her fiancé's betrayal, the laughter of her friends, the hollow feeling that followed. Liam watched them all, realizing that each of them was hiding something they weren't ready to say.
"No," Serena said at last. "But maybe… maybe we're not here by accident."
"What do you mean?" Kade asked.
She lifted her gaze toward the shattered window. "Maybe we were meant to see this place. To understand something. Or to pay for something."
Dorian's voice was flat. "If this is punishment, it fits."
That silenced them again.
After a while, Liam stood and brushed the dust from his hands. "Then let's not waste time sitting in one place. If we keep moving, maybe we'll find others, or find out why we are here."
Kade looked skeptical but pushed himself up anyway. "Fine. But if some creepy creature jumps out at us, I'm blaming you."
Serena managed a faint smile. "You'll probably be the first to run."
"I'll survive longer; that's the difference."
For a fleeting second, the tension eased. The four of them left the building together.
None of them knew what waited ahead, but for the first time since they'd woken up in this world, they weren't alone. They sat in a loose circle beneath a sky the color of old steel. They compared notes, first cautiously, then with mounting urgency, about the moment everything changed.
Serena remembered a bus window and a wish whispered into her sleeve: I want to start over. Kade remembered a back staircase at work where he could sit and not be seen. Dorian remembered a door he should not have opened, the weight of what lay on the other side. Liam dreamed about having a loving family, a beautiful wife and big house, a place where he can settle and dream more from there. I want a family. I want something to build, not just endure.
The details differed. The shape was the same.
A white flash. A pressure in the ears, like diving too deep too fast. Then, this place. Not a street they recognized, not even a geometry that agreed with the old world. But the clock, if there still was one, had landed them on the same second. Each of them had arrived alone, but at the exact same time.
Silence folded over the circle. They exchanged looks that asked more than words could bear.
Liam, who had listened the longest, finally spoke. "How could we all be here at once?"
No one answered. The question felt too large for an ordinary reply.
They pushed deeper. If when matched, did anything else? They tracked their first steps in this world and discovered another uneasy pattern: though they had appeared far apart, Serena in an empty supermarket, Kade on the ribs of a collapsed overpass, Dorian in a courtyard paved with shattered mirrors, Liam in a street of doorframes with no doors, they had all, within an hour, walked to the same intersection as if tugged by a quiet rope.
"It's like the place… corrals you," Kade said, rubbing at the thin scab on his cheek where the airborne knife would later cut him. "Like we're on rails."
"Or it's drawing us together on purpose," Serena said. Her voice was steady, but her hands were not.
Dorian watched the alleys, protective even in stillness. "On purpose implies design."
"Then call it a rule," Liam said. "Worlds have rules. Even nightmares."
They decided to test the nearest rumor: a house that hadn't been there in the morning and then, simply was. No one had seen it arrive. One moment, the block had been a plaque of gray streets and flattened brick. The next, a single house stood in the middle of it like a tooth in an old jaw.
They moved together.
Up close, the house looked old enough to have outlived its own memory. Its porch sagged. The paint had peeled in vertical strips like fish scales left to dry. A lintel wore a bruise of smoke as if someone had once set a pan down wrong and never apologized. Liam felt something reach into him and close a hand around an organ he could not name.
He knew this shape. Not the address, this world had none, but the proportion. The way the steps miscounted at the top. The slight out-of-square tilt to the doorframe.
He did not say any of that.