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Which was better than calling it the thing or the what-the-fuck, and less threatening than the end of days. To be honest, it hadn’t felt like the end of days. Shouldn’t that involve more hellfire and demons and maybe a giant meteor so they went the way of the dinosaurs?

This collapse was much weirder. He tapped on the post to read more.

Then, he hit the link for the full article.

He’d never been good at physics, much to his engineering father’s dismay, so scientists talking about other worlds adjacent to their reality and how they’d been experimenting to gather more data didn’t make a lot of sense. They said an experiment had gone wrong—they were still analyzing the data—collapsing the gap between the worlds. There was a lot of what seemed like scientific jargon and reasoning to Noah that didn’t make sense.

Wait, the scientists admitted to knowing about other realities?

The article included images of how scientists imagined the realities. One image stacked realities like pancakes, another placed the Earth at the center, and a whole bunch of other realities around the outside, so it looked like a dandelion made up of hundreds of realities. Each reality contained another world.

The article continued with scientists saying that other realities existed, and they’d been experimenting with reaching them. They hadn’t expected to disrupt the balance and destroy the other world or damage this one.

“What does that mean?” he groaned. He wasn’t awake enough to be thinking of this shit. He wanted to be told what had happened in plain English, not some scientific explanation.

He kept scrolling, hoping there would be a short paragraph for non-technical people. He skimmed through the next couple of paragraphs, which mentioned shutting down the experiments and an apology. Followed by a warning that any attempt to separate the two worlds would be catastrophic to life on Earth.

Noah raked his fingers through his hair. More catastrophic than new buildings suddenly turning up? And roads ripping apart? Than dragons?

The article mentioned some of the various mythological beings that had been sighted around the world and reminded readers that they’d lost their world and were stranded here. Though given that they existed in human myths, they must have been able to cross between worlds at some point in the past.

Did that mean all the creatures humans told stories about were real?

Human mythology was full of creatures he didn’t want to meet in daylight, let alone at night.

The article repeated the advice to stay away from them and to leave their buildings alone. The recommendation being repeated was to remain indoors and to allow the authorities and emergency services to operate. Emergency contact numbers for the UK followed, with links for other countries.

All international travel for non-essential purposes was suspended.

He couldn’t go home, even if he wanted to.

He scrolled back up through the article, not understanding most of what it said. Or was it that he didn’t want to believe?

On one hand, it was kind of cool to learn that mythology was based in reality, but it was not cool to suddenly have elves and ogres and mermaids…the article actually mentioned mermaids…

What did that mean?

What did it mean if mythology was real?

How were they supposed to go to work and stuff…

What if the mythological beings tried to kill them for destroying their world? There were already humans fighting the mythological beings, according to social media. Shooting them and trying to run them over with cars. There’d been videos of men hunting something furry and winged in the US.

He closed his eyes. It was far too easy to imagine fights breaking out on the streets. Was that the real reason they were supposed to stay home?

What were the authorities going to do if gangs of humans and gangs of mythological creatures began roaming the streets looking for trouble?

Since the mythological world had collapsed into the human world, that meant his world had changed forever.

And their world was gone…

He put the phone on his bedside table, wanting to forget everything he’d read and seen and pretend none of it was real. He wanted to go back to sleep and wake up and discover it had been a nightmare and that everything was normal.

Even though the routine of going to work and studying was dull, he understood it. He knew his place. The one small consolation was that everyone must be feeling the same way, human or mythological.

CHAPTER6

Avoiding humans became harder the farther into town Pan walked, or more correctly, limped. He’d finished the sandwich and fruit and broken into a small building filled with tools. A workshop of some kind, he assumed. It smelled terrible but had provided a place to hide and rest during the day.