For the past twenty years of his life, Adrian Wells had always considered himself just an ordinary person, living an ordinary life, doing ordinary things, and destined to continue this ordinariness until the day his life came to an ordinary end.
Yes, that's what he had always believed—but those days now seemed like a distant memory.
The sky was gloomy, the heavy clouds resembling thick cotton, slowly spreading from the northeast and blanketing the entire city. The air carried a damp scent, a prelude to a rainstorm brewing, likely to pour down in just a few minutes.
Carrying the vegetables and seasonings he had just bought from the supermarket, Adrian Wells moved briskly through the streets amidst the other pedestrians, making his way home under the darkening sky.
As he passed a shop, he instinctively paused and stared at the shop's signboard for several seconds before withdrawing his gaze and continuing on his hurried way.
The streets grew quieter as fewer pedestrians passed by. It seemed as if the vast city was falling silent under the looming atmosphere of the impending rain. Adrian Wells lifted his gaze toward the commercial street ahead, illuminated by the storefront lights. Despite the familiar scene, an inexplicable sense of unfamiliarity welled up inside him.
Yes, unfamiliarity. He had lived in this city for more than twenty years, but now, the vast, seemingly boundless "Boundary City" felt like a completely foreign place to him.
Because this city was no longer the "real" one from his memories. Though certain areas were similar, many others felt eerily off. The Boundary City he had grown up in was never this immense. He remembered a building downtown being called Orion Tower, not the "Council Tower" it was now. He recalled that at the Foundation Street intersection, there used to be a wall instead of a store, and his original home was certainly not the decrepit, towering, and barely standing old house deep in the old town.
More importantly, the city he remembered didn't have so many peculiar things. These included, but were not limited to: vintage phone booths with a style straight out of the last century that would randomly appear at intersections, steam trains running across rooftops late at night, classrooms perpetually filled with the sound of reading aloud despite being empty, and…
On a rainy evening like this, standing under a streetlight was a shadow as tall and thin as a utility pole.
Adrian Wells raised his head and locked his gaze on a streetlight not far away. Beneath it stood a human-shaped silhouette, lanky and rigid, towering at three to four meters tall. Its upper body ended in a pitch-black face with no discernible features. The shadow seemed to have noticed him too, but it merely stood stiffly, confronting his gaze from afar.
Pedestrians hurried by beneath the towering shadow without a glance, as if no one else could see the bizarre figure standing by the streetlight. Some even walked straight through it without being affected.
Only Adrian Wells could see it.
After a few meaningless seconds of staring, he averted his gaze, suppressed his racing heartbeat, and took another route, walking briskly away.
Adrian Wells had never been certain whether it was the city that had suddenly changed or if something had changed within himself. But he clearly remembered that his memory of an ordinary and normal life had slipped away one sunny morning two months ago.
That morning, bathed in bright sunshine, he had opened his front door, intending to buy some oranges from the corner store.
That was the last time he opened the door to "his home." After that, he never saw the house from his memories again.
He had speculated that this might be some kind of "traversal." By stepping out his door, he had crossed into a parallel world, eerily similar yet different from his hometown. The gateway to his original world had collapsed the moment he stepped through.
Another possibility was that something had "mutated" within him. Perhaps at the moment he stepped out or sometime afterward, an unknown force altered him, granting him eyes that could see things hidden beneath the surface of reality. He might still be in his familiar hometown, but those familiar sights were now beyond his reach…
But these speculations were meaningless.
Either way, he could no longer return to the "ordinary and normal world" in his memory. This strange, enormous city was like an endless forest, its sinister, tangled branches and vines trapping a bewildered wanderer. Two short months had not been enough for Adrian Wells to uncover its secrets.
In fact, he had only just begun to adapt to his strange yet familiar "new home," barely resuming some semblance of "daily life."
Fortunately, in this alien version of Boundary City, he was still "Adrian Wells," with valid identification, a legal address, a modest amount of savings, and a somewhat unreliable livelihood. If this was truly some kind of traversal, at least he didn't have to face the three classic challenges of most travelers: "Who am I? Where am I? And where do I go to get an ID?"
Considering that this was a well-organized, modern metropolis, the challenges of proving his identity were especially significant. In a contemporary society with a robust population management system, it wasn't easy for a traveler to escape the status of an undocumented individual.
Of course, thinking from another perspective, being transported to a chaotic past era or a lawless, savage world could bring its own set of troubles—for instance, being executed as a spy from an enemy nation, being mistaken for an invading alien and killed, being deemed a malicious underground creature and executed, or being captured and stewed by goblins in some cave as emergency rations...
As these bizarre thoughts surfaced in Adrian Wells's mind, he passed through an old alley next to the commercial street, taking an alternate route toward "home."
The sky grew darker, and as it darkened, the number of "oddities" seemed to increase.
At the edge of his vision, swaying shadows appeared on the weathered walls of the nearby buildings. A nimble cat leapt out from the shadow on the wall, gracefully climbing a beam of light from an unknown source. It meowed twice in Adrian Wells's direction before melting into the falling rain, leaving behind splashes of water on the ground.
The rain had started, earlier than expected.
The wind turned chilly, the cold air swirling like something tangible, sneaking into the gaps of his clothing.
Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Adrian Wells could only hold the shopping bag over his head and quicken his pace.
If it weren't for avoiding the shadow beneath the streetlight, he could have taken the main road and gotten home faster. Although the house itself was somewhat eerie and unfamiliar, at least it provided shelter from the wind and rain.
Thinking about that shadow under the streetlight, Adrian Wells felt a tinge of regret.
From experience, he knew that the strange things he saw were generally harmless. As long as he didn't provoke them, they would ignore him just as ordinary people ignored their existence. Yet, even knowing this, he still instinctively avoided anything that seemed excessively uncanny—though now it seemed that taking a detour today wasn't the best choice.
It was getting colder.
For a simple rainstorm, the chill was unusually intense.
Adrian Wells noticed that his breath was turning into frosty clouds. The raindrops falling from the sky felt like sharp nails, striking him with a cold, piercing pain.
The ground beneath his feet began transforming into a smooth, reflective mirror.
A surge of immense unease snapped Adrian Wells into alertness. He realized that something was very wrong—unprecedentedly wrong—even by the standards of this bizarre city.
Unlike the usual harmless "shadows," this time, he felt malice.
The rain itself carried malice.
He abruptly looked up, only to find that the previously busy street had emptied at some unknown moment. The narrow alley now contained only him.
Not a single person was in sight. Even the distant lights had turned dim and illusory. The road ahead seemed alternately distant and near, as though obscured by an invisible force. Apart from the cold, enclosing buildings, there was only the rain—the cold, malicious rain.
It felt as though the entire world was raining solely for him.
Adrian Wells gasped sharply, rushing toward the nearest building. A weathered iron door stood there, seemingly the back entrance of a commercial establishment. Whatever it was, he needed to find someone—anyone—to help him.
The raindrops now shimmered with a razor-sharp quality, and the temperature had plunged so low that every breath sent stabbing pain through his lungs.
After just a few steps, he reached the door and banged on it forcefully. "Is anyone there—"
His words cut off abruptly as he stared in disbelief.
His hand had hit the wall. The door was merely painted on the surface.
So were the nearby windows—they were all painted on.
A faint rustling noise came from somewhere nearby.
Adrian Wells slowly turned his head in the direction of the sound.
Amid the blade-like frozen rain, a grotesque figure was rising from the mirrored surface of the water. Emerging from a dark shadow, it took on physical form, gazing coldly at Adrian Wells.
It was a frog—a nearly one-meter-tall frog. Its head was covered with countless tiny eyes, and its body reflected the relentless downpour.
The frog opened its mouth, and a sharp tongue shot straight toward Adrian Wells's heart.
"What the f—!"
Adrian Wells's response was as refined as ever, his reflexes quicker than his words. Even before finishing his expletive, his body had already moved. He dodged sharply to the side, pulling a telescopic baton from his pocket in one swift motion, stepping forward with a twist of his waist.
The frog's tongue suddenly bent at an impossible angle mid-air, piercing straight through Adrian Wells's chest where his heart was.
Adrian Wells: "…?"
He blinked, staring at the frog's tongue extending from his chest. At its tip, his heart was still beating furiously.
"You son of a—! That's mine!"
He managed to curse internally.
And then he died.