His knees gave way. His body was jostled by the pedestrians blankly on their way to work, eyes on phones or lips on Starbucks. Each nudge or brush of someone vaguely aware something was in their path but not really noticing what threw boulders of bloody agony at him. He leaned forward, hands on the road. He was aware of drops of blood from his nose hitting the tarmac. He was aware of voices asking him if they could help or complaining he was drunk.

He was aware of a bright light. A large figure approaching. Raising something above his head. Other figures - creatures crowding around, jostling for position, shrinking back at a glance of the thing which stood before him. He knew them. He knew what they were. They were... what were they? He knew! It was on the tip of his...

Steven pushed himself up and stood calmly. He wiped the blood from his nose and raised a hand to the offered help with a brief shake of his head. The road cleared and a car moved forward, sounding its horn to move him out of the way. He looked at the driver, nodded his head and smiled.

The driver of the car, a long, old beast with an engine which growled at anything stupid enough to get in the way, paled and swallowed. Steven turned and walked off the road, turning the corner. The car didn't move. Other vehicles, delayed in their hectic travels, took their turn to sound their horns. The driver waited for his heart to slow before moving off, ignoring the wet patch in his pants. He was going home. He could change.

Steven saw the couple ahead. The woman and the other him. They were standing speaking to each other within the covered walkway between the road and a part-renovated building.

"Two minutes," she said. "I can't believe I forgot it again! I feel like I've had my arm chopped off if I don't have my phone."

She was walking back towards Steven. He bent quickly, pretending to tie his lace. She walked quickly by him without glancing down, heading back to the hotel. Steven waited for her to round the corner before standing and moving forward. The other him was facing the building, trying to peer through the protective netting held up by scaffold. Steven pulled a cord on the entrance to the site, allowing entry. He expected it to be more secure but the work seemed to be minimal inside, as if the finishing touches were being made. The icing on a cake of bricks and mortar.

"Come have a look," he said.

Other him stepped back, only seeing the back of the speaker as he went in. The sound of the voice was familiar, like an echo of something he heard every day but couldn't figure out where. Curious, he followed the man through. Curious, he tapped the man, who was turned away, on the shoulder.

"'Scuse me?"

Steven prepared himself for the pain of the touch but none came. He felt lighter. His earlier confusion had ceased its whirling and had coalesced into something formidably tangible. He remembered. He knew.

He turned.

Other him stepped back, the sight of a living reflection throwing him physically off balance.

"What?"

Steven moved forward. He was grinning. Hungry. He gripped the other's arms. Other him tried to pull away, but found himself unable to move, not just because of Steven's hold but also by something which transfixed him. It held him in place, sapping his will. It was a look in the mirror image's eyes. A fire. A glimpse into something - or somewhere - else.

"Who are you?" he asked. His voice, normally strong and vibrant, sounded shallow. Like the things which suddenly seemed to be moving in the periphery of his vision, it had become a shadow.

"You," said Steven. "I'm you. Or, in a few seconds, I will be."

"No, I'm me!"

"Not any more. You found the door, yes?"

"Door? You mean my dream?"

"No dream." Steven leaned in. He felt he was a wolf, smelling the fear on the cornered animal. The breath was warm. It had a taste of coffee to it. He laughed. "When you opened that door, you joined our world to yours. When you passed through, you gave your form to us."

He lightly kissed the cheek of the man, the real Steven. It was a gesture lacking any tenderness, serving only to taste the sweat beading on his face. It tasted salty and Steven, manic and maniac, wondered if that was the flavour of the fear he smelled.

"I don't understand! Let me go!"

There were no struggles. No shaking or pulling. Simply words as empty as his soul would soon be.

"You enter our world. You gift your form to us and we take your life to survive here."

"WHO ARE YOU?"

"We are the faerie horde."

Any other words or questions were strangled as Steven moved his kiss from cheek to lips, locking the two together in an embrace lovers rarely achieved.

Seconds. That was all it took. Seconds. Steven's body - the real Steven who had been born human and had grown up in the calm suburb of a frantic city and had wanted little from life except happiness and love - surrendered. As if lost to the sun and drying to an excruciating degree, the skin thinned then began to tear and, as a spent flame turns to ash with no Phoenix to bring forth new life, crumbled to dust.

Steven brushed his clothes. Death was messy.

"There you are!" It was the woman. Her hair bobbed happily like the tail of a dog. "You shouldn't be in there, you know. Building sites are dangerous."

"Yes," said Steven. "They are."