Word Limit: Nil
Goal: 2500(?)

By the time his shift was nearing it's end, Steven was running on habit alone.

He was ridiculously bored from doing the same things for the past five hours.

It wasn't that his job behind the counter of the CookieBake cafe was bad, it was just repetitive, and always the same-old, same-old. Same customers, same orders, same sights day in-day out.

He arranged three cookie-spice cappuccinos on the tray he was carrying and walked back over towards the till, handing it to the slightly dazed looking old woman who stood there, her grey hair pulled up into a neat bun at the back of her head.

She smiled warmly at him, as she always did at this time on a Thursday, when her and her two similar looking friends came into the cafe.

He watched her shuffle towards the table, his eyes wandering to look up at the clock that sat stoically on the wall above their heads, over by the painting of the cookie jar emblazoned with the cafe logo of an upside down disposable coffee cup coated with a number of colourful, intricate designs.

5:30pm, just one more hour till he was done, till he could go home and spend quality time with his cat.

"C'mon Steve, keep staring at the time and it'll just start goin' slower." Alex, his shiftmate, chimed as she whizzed past holding two trays laden with used mugs and plates above her head. She shot him a smile. "S'not even that busy, what you bothering with the time for anyways?" She added, disappearing into the back before he could reply.

Really, it was better when it was busy in Steven's opinion. At least then, there was something to do that wasn't standing about and unblocking the espresso machine. Alex didn't seem to get that, she was content to stay in the back on her phon for hours on end, come out when it got busier to clean up tables.

Times like this, when the cafe was near closing? They weren't fun at all, the minutes just dragged by, each second took an hour to pass, like the day would never end.

That seemed to be a recurring theme in his life really, the constant sameness, nothing new or exciting, not really sic e he'd graduated high school the year before.

It had been his bright idea to take a gap year, get a job and see what there was to see, experience what he wanted before going to college the next summer and take up Medicine like he'd always planned to do.

Instead, here he was, in September a year later, working at this small nondescript cafe on the corner of one of the more relaxed suburbs in the middle of a bustling city.

Steven ran a hand through his short-cut hair, sighing to himself as he picked up one of the cleaning cloths with his other hand.

Hopefully, this hour would pass quickly.

————

It wasn't until seven that day that his shift finally finished.

The cafe was completely silent then, the door locked and the seating area desolate.

Alex had disappeared at some point, left him to lock up and make sure all the machines were switched off and sorted. She tended to do that, usually to get back to her girlfriend as quickly as she could. The excuses always involved her girlfriend, it was another recurring theme around here, he'd noticed.

The silence was nice though, he couldn't deny that.

His footsteps echoed off of the floor as he slipped back behind the counter, heading into the back room this time. Steven shouldered the door open, the sound of it's hinges creaking strangely jarring, amplified by the quiet of the rest of the cafe.

He wasn't surprised to see that the lights were still on in the back room, Alex rarely switched them off. He had never been sure if it was because she forgot, or for him. He preferred to think it was the latter, that was more touching.

His calculative brown eyes scanned the small room, the line of pegs along the left hand wall. All of them held an apron, except for the one second from the right; the one that had become unofficially his.

He untied his dark purple apron at the back and went to hang it up on the peg.

As soon as he did, everything seemed to freeze. His vision blurred, his body shook with a tremor like nothing he'd ever felt before, something that started in his hand, shot up his arm and down his back, like it was racing to get into the ground beneath him.

It wasn't painful, it wasn't warm or cold, it was just unnerving, it was swift and powerful, like lightning sparking through him. It was a sudden change, lasting only a second or two at the very most.

Steven gasped, his mouth dropping open from the shock of it, his hand gripping the peg now, knuckles white with the strength of his hold.

What the?...

His vision blurred again, like he wasn't wearing glasses, like he'd just woken up and was trying to get his bearing back.

Then it ended, and everything was the same.

Steven stumbled backwards, hitting the other wall, pushing his weight against it as his eyes flew around the room, searching for the cause of whatever the hell had just happened to him.

There was nothing there, it was still silent, still empty of life aside from him.

He took a few seconds to catch his breath, panting slightly through his mouth.

The barista swallowed, shaking his head and pushing himself up off the wall. There was nothing here, nothing amiss, so, maybe it was just because he was tired? Because he'd been on his feet for pretty much the past six hours or so.

He didn't think much of it, just looked once more around the room, the memory of that shocking jolt of power still fresh in his mind, and headed towards the back door.

————

This door opened a lot more smoothly.

It led out to an alleyway, a place also usually isolated except for the occasional passerby, or rat.

He locked the door quickly once he was out, surprised to realise his hands were shaking, that he was still tense from whatever he'd just experienced.

It had definitely been something, but he was determined to shrug it off. What else could it be but fatigue? Some mystical power? Please. He scoffed to himself at the thought, reassured by that. Mystical powers, that was laughable. Magical energies flowing through the CookieBake cafe, that would be something.

Steven strode out of the cafe, and onto a busy street.

He hadn't really picked up on the noise of the cars from back there, he'd been too absorbed by his own thoughts, but now, he was stunned by it.

There was a line of cars on the road, actually queued up, a traffic jam outside the cafe.

A traffic jam, on one of the calmest, quietest suburbs in this city.

How?

Since when?

He shook his head slowly, uncomprehending for a few seconds, then it registered. There was a closure on one of the motorways, that explained it. This must be all the diverted traffic, that made sense, he reasoned with himself.

For some reason, he thought back to the backroom anyway, to that jolt of energy, that weird, changing shift in... something.

A shape fluttered past his face, something small and long. It flitted up, towards a tree a few metres away from him, alighting without any discernible legs on a lower branch.

Was it a bird?

He was strangely curious, almost pulled towards this thing, his eyes narrowed in his confusion. He walked slowly towards it, peering up through the browning leaves towards that slim branch on which the shape resided.

Was that... a fish?

It had a shimmering body, wings that seemed too airy, too clear to be feathered, a face that wasn't sharp enough to be a beak, two angular protrusions coming from the sides of its chest, edges with three small claws. It was unmistakable, definitely not a bird.

But, rather, a fish.

A winged, claw-footed fish.

Steven could only gawp as it's chest expanded and contracted, as it breathed slowly in and out just above him, it's wide eye opening and closing rhythmically.

Okay, he had to be mistaken. There was no way... it couldn't be a fish.

Again, Steven moved backwards. He took his glasses off, cleaned the lenses, and looked back at the ting while he did so.

It stretched, small, sharpened tail winding around the branch it sat on to keep it upright, and then it flicked it's wings, and launched from the tree, darting up and away; gone.

A flying fish. That wasn't possible. What else could it be? Maybe he needed new glasses? Maybe there'd been something in that doughnut he'd taken from within the glass counter. Had it been drugged? What other explanation could there be for all of this?

And yet...

He didn't feel drugged, he didn't feel spaced out or out of focus or numbed or anything, no, he just felt like his eyes were betraying him, he just felt like he was going crazy, because fish couldn't fly, and yet that was exactly what he'd just seen.

Again, Steven found himself shaking his head and turning away. It must've been a trick of the eye, that was all, he was just imagining it.

He started down the street, joining into the crowd that should never have been there. Not on this street, not outside the perpetually quiet CookieBake cafe.

Whatever, he was sure that was to do with the motorway closure in some way too.

————

Steven caught the next bus to come past, only about what he figured was ten minutes later. He'd spent the time thinking about the 'bird', the jolt of energy, so he couldn't be too sure.

The Barista stepped up and into the bus, heading right towards the driver to pay for his ticket. It was a welcome distraction from his thoughts, at any rate.

"Thou is't going to Beech Avenue? Thine journey shal't cost £2.60, not a tuppence more." The driver instructed in a gruff voice, obviously impatient to get moving.

Steven paid the fare, it was just the same as usual, so that was more like habit than anything else too, and then went to stand where he usually did, holding the overhead grips rather than taking a seat.

Then he realised.

That language, how it was spoken.

What was that?

Thine? Thou? It sounded familiar, it sounded almost Shakespearean to him really.

But, no one spoke like that, that wasn't normal either. A shiver zapped up his spine.

Okay, okay, he couldn't panic or anything, maybe it was just how the driver spoke, there was nothing wrong with that, it could have just been coincidence, nothing more than that. He just needed to relax a bit, it was just because he was so shaken up from the bird, and the back room, that's all it was. 

Steven sighed deeply to himself, gripping the overhead handhold tightly, using that as a means to ground himself. If he listened to what was going on around him, maybe that would help? Maybe that would calm him a bit, it was another distraction at least.

"Hah! Tripp'd? That t'was why thou wasn't at work?..."

"Course, thy shan't miss't for anything."

Were they using the same kind of speech? It sounded similar, it didn't sound right.

It sounded old and unnatural, it sounded like the lines of a play, albeit a bit warped, not really how he remembered Shakespeare's language being.

Still, it wasn't how he spoke, it was pretty different, and that didn't reassure him at all.

He looked around the bus more, at each person, how they reacted to everything else around them.

They didn't seem to notice anything out of place at all, it was like it was all just normal, not at all like there were possible flying fish and Shakespearean language being spoken all around them in normal, normal, average conversation.

Maybe he was the one overreacting, maybe it was just these people on this bus. Could they be going to a play? Yeah, that made sense, there was a theatre up past the stop after his, this could be a big group of theatre goers.

Steven found himself breathing out slowly, releasing pent up tension just from the last hour or so alone. Had it even been that long? He wasn't sure, but it was dark outside, more like half nine than half seven in the evening.

Was any of this worth thinking about? When it was all probably just coincidence rather than anything else? No. It wasn't. He closed his eyes, blocked out the all the noise around him and let himself be lulled along by the rhythm of the bus.

————

By the time Steven got off at his stop, at lest half an hour later, he had convinced himself it was all because he was tired. That's why he was seeing things and feeling things and gearing things that were nothing but confusing. He hadn't had any coffee that morning, so it all added up.

He snapped his eyes open when his stop was called out, and got off as soon as the bus had stopped, eager to go home and get to sleep, to forget about  everything that had been bothering him over the past half hour alone.

There was a purple hue to the air around him, he noticed faintly as he made his way towards his flat. But then, it was night, and the sky was dark, and the streetlights were blue, so that made sense too, nothing strange there.

He trudged down the street, only really glancing up just before he entered the code for access to his apartment block. He saw the moon out of the corner of his eye, nothing strange about that either, nothing out of place. He shivered, from cold this time, his breath misting in the frigid air.

The door clicked open, beeping softly to let him know he'd entered the code correctly.

Steven was up the stairs, to his fifth floor flat, and in the door to the warmth of his own place in less than five minutes.

He made himself a cup of tea and took his glasses off, intending to just go straight to sleep, not stay up browsing on his phone, or watching shows. No, he had to sleep.

If sleep and coffee deprivation made him see stuff like that, then he had to just sleep it away, get himself back on track.

Steven went over to the window to close the blinds just before he retired to his bed, and that was where he saw the next spectacle of the night.

Twin moons, winking at him from right next to each other in the sky. One white, the other more grey, more ovular than circular, pockmarked with deeper crevices, darker holes across its surface.

They were so close together though, kinda blurry, maybe it was because he wasn't wearing glasses? That could be it, but was it?

He was beginning to doubt his own sanity. There had been nothing on the news - he had the app, there were no breaking news stories, and, somehow, he figured the spontaneous existence of a new moon would make the cut pretty quickly - about anything like this, so, had it always been there? Had he just, somehow, never noticed this second moon?

A good sleep. That was exactly what he needed. Steven pulled the blinds closed and turned away, towards his bedroom, pushing all thoughts of moons and fish and Shakespearean from his mind.

————

Nothing was any better that next morning.

Steven had awoken refreshed.

He had showered, gotten dressed, fed his cat and got ready for work pretty quickly.

He'd determinedly left the blinds closed, just in case there were two moons out there to ruin his fresh start.

As he picked up his coat and prepared to leave for work again, he looked over at the still-closed blinds, and decided just to leave them as they were.

He left, in good spirits, optimistic that whatever had been wormhole with him yesterday was long gone by now, cured by sleep.

Almost immediately, as he opened the front door of the apartment block, Steven knew something was wrong.

The sky.

It wasn't blue.

It was pink.

A light, morning pink, like a flower petal.

But, that wasn't all, no, of course it wasn't.

The sun, it was red.

Not red as in sunrise red, he would've been able to understand that, even if it was far too late for a sunrise.

But this, this was a deep, crimson wine red. This was unnatural, inexplainable.

That was when it clicked. Something had definitely changed.

All of these things, with the speaking and the birds and the moon, they couldn't all be coincidence, the sun was proof of that, and the thought that he was the only on realising that struck him with dread.

So, Steven did what he always did. He got on his bus when it came, his mind in overdrive.

A woman sitting near him looked at him in concern, probably reading the fear on his face, the fear that he'd gone completely crazy, that he was remembering a world that had never existed.

"Is't thou well?" She asked him cautiously, her bright eyes curious.

Her speech only chilled him more, because it was so foreign to him, so odd and unusual. He could only nod in reply, unable to utter a word in his sudden panic.

He had to calm himself, panicking wouldn't solve anything, he knew that, understood that, even if it was easier said than done.

A flock of fish flew gracefully past the bus, their scaled backs glimmering in the red light of the sun, reflecting it back at the bus in shades of ruby red.

Steven closed his eyes, wanting it all to disappear just so he could go back to being in tune with it all, rather than feeling so out of place like he now did.

He got off of the bus quickly, still staring at everything around him in complete disbelief, even then still partly sure he was completely and utterly insane.

It didn't even surprise him that much when he looked up and saw that the cafe logo had changed. It wasn't upside down anymore, it was now the right side up, with the same patterns sketched across it.

He hurried into the back, overwhelmed by everything he was seeing, still trying to take it all in.

What had happened? What was happening? Was he the only one who didn't see all this as normal? Were there more than just him? He really didn't know, he wished he did, he didn't want to be crazy, he didn't want to be by himself in this.

There was someone else in the room then too, and she heard him mumbling to himself, about fish and moons and the sun, she heard every word, and she realised that he was one of them. She realised that this was him.

"Steve? Y'alright?" Alex stood against the closed door, eying him with a knowing look.

Steven held his head in his hands, shaking it slowly.

When he looked up, when her words registered, he leapt up, pointing at her.

The way she spoke, it was normal, not like how all those other people spoke, not warped and old fashioned like them.

Alex smirked at him. "Yeah buddy, I see it too, s'called the Shift." She spoke slowly, her words thought out, calculated.

"The...what...what's happening?... what is it? The... the Shift?" Steven's mind was still all over the place, still completely blown wide with confusion, with fear and nerves and panic.

"'Jeez, one question at a time dude. 'S right; the Shift. Long story short, you're in a whole new reality now. Yesterday? That was a Shift."

A whole new reality.

Those words shook Steven. "How come I'm here? None of them noticed anything different." How mind was spinning, he wanted answered to his questions, just on the off chance she could provide them, on the off chance she could give him them.

"That's cause you're one of us, you've hopped realities like it's nothin'. Makes you part of the crew dude. You're one of us now."

"Who's us?" None of this was making any sense to him at all.

"Reality Hoppers." She grinned at him, the world around her flickering, flickering out towards him in waves of multicoloured light.

It surrounded him, swirling across his face, down his chest, and then below his feet.

And suddenly, he wasn't standing any more, suddenly, he was falling through darkness.