“Brandon? Brandon, are you with me, man?” Jason sputtered. He lightly punched his friend in the shoulder, then ushered him to hunch over the nearest city. “This is crazy. Like, you’re seeing this, right? I’m not high or anything?”

            “You’re not high,” Brandon confirmed. “It’s, um…”

            “It’s fucking tiny-ass cities! Like, a ton of them. Super-detailed, too. Unbelievable, man. There’s things living in here! What, does Nicole keep a bunch of ant farms or something?”

            “I don’t…” Brandon gulped, backing away. “I don’t think those are ants.”

            So caught up were the pair of them in their shocked reverie, neither heard the sound of the door opening again, nor the clacking of footsteps back up the stairs, nor indeed the cowgirl-esque quick draw of a hand into a purse, a hand around a revolver, and the cocking of said firearm in the direction of both Jason and Brandon.

            Brandon only just had time to turn around and find himself staring into the self-serious, grinning countenance of his younger sibling, with her weapon pointed directly at him, before there was a flash of blinding blue, and then everything went dark.

            Light streamed into Brandon’s dilating pupils. He winced, curling into himself, and emitted an animal groan. Blinking, he noticed the equally prone form of his friend Jason beside him.

            “Holy shit, dude,” Jason mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “What… what hap…”

            “I don’t know,” Brandon said.

            “My head, man. Jesus. Did we make jaeger bombs last night?”

            “No.”

            “Then what… what in the hell… where even are we? This isn’t the basement of Scotty’s, is it?” Jason sat up with his arms wrapped over his gut. “I don’t remember anything. That wasn’t even a brownout, that was a blackout.”

            Brandon looked around the mostly gray expanse of the cluttered room. He and Jason were laid atop a cushioned rug in the corner, surrounded by a few disheveled sofas and tables, but little else. It didn’t resemble anyone’s apartment he recalled. He might’ve become instantly frightened, if there was any sign that they were being held prisoner. Patting his pockets, he realized his cell phone and his wallet were still within. Whoever put them here wasn’t after their belongings, and it appeared the door to the room was wide open. Yet even so, a ghostly feeling of subconscious dread prodded at the back of his mind, though he couldn’t remember why.

            So what the hell, indeed?

            “Did… didn’t we go up to your sister’s room?” Jason muttered. “To check it out.”

            “I think so, yeah.”

            “That’s all I can think of. Your sister’s room, in the attic,” Jason said. “God, I hope she… didn’t catch us.”

            “Yeah, that’d be real bad for you,” Brandon grunted with a roll of his eyes. “No chance to get in her pants if she catches you peeping on her shit.”

            “Hey, lay off it, man. She’s really cool, and you might notice it if you weren’t such a jerk to her all the time.”

            Brandon pressed a hand over his eyes. It was way too early for this conversation, and his head was far too sore even if it was later. He too crawled onto his haunches and, giving Jason a hand, they righted themselves. Just to ensure he wasn’t still in a half-drunk dream, Brandon placed a hand on one of the disarrayed couches for support. It felt real enough. Maybe he was just being foolish, letting paranoia creep into his perception.

            That was when a soldier appeared in the doorway. Dressed in camo fatigues and combat boots, with a semi-automatic weapon strapped across his back and a staid grimace on his face, he blocked the entry. Brandon and Jason nearly tumbled straight over. God, if they were in trouble with the law now, their parents would never let him hear the end of it. Nor would Nicole.

            “Good, you’re awake,” the soldier said rigidly. He appeared self-serious, though at least not furious with the boys. “Follow me.”

            “F-Follow you?” Jason blurted. “Excuse me, sir, we’re a little confused. We don’t remember w-”

            “There’s no time to play twenty questions right now,” the man interrupted. “We’re hours behind schedule. If we don’t have every hand on deck, then the little peace we’ve had recently will be taken. Follow me, now.”

            The man didn’t reach for his primary weapon, but his hand hovered over the sidearm at his hip. With a nudge from Brandon, the beleaguered pair got moving and filed after the soldier, who turned and led them down the hall.

            “What are we doing?” Jason whispered

            “You really want to question the pissy dude who has a gun?” Brandon whispered. “Just play it cool a few minutes. I don’t think he wants to hurt us.”

            “Famous last words,” Jason said.

            As they walked behind the trooper, Brandon coolly fished his cell phone out of his pocket and checked the signal. Zero bars. Of course. He tried to put through a text, just in case, but found it bounced back. Defeated for now, he deposited the device back in his pocket, if another chance arose shortly with better access to the signal.

            The pair were led down three flights of stairs after their stern host, who occasionally looked over his shoulder to ensure they still followed. He pushed open a door in the ratty lobby of what they now assumed to be a mostly abandoned hotel building. In the concrete street, where they stood on the sidewalk, Jason and Brandon were greeted by the sight of a fairly ordinary major urban thoroughfare. Apartment complexes, ordinary houses, businesses, even a firehouse were tightly packed along the block. Over the tops, they spied the needles of skyscrapers in the distance. A checkered old-fashioned diner dotted the corner of the block. Of course, there wasn’t a soul in sight save for the two of them and the mystery soldier. Like how those cheesy zombie apocalypse movies often began.

            The glow of sunlight bloomed around them in the street, or at least Brandon thought at first; the light wasn’t nearly as bright as when he was usually outdoors. It must have been an incredibly overcast day, judging by the look of the sky. All he could see when he craned his neck up was a sea of crested white, probably pre-storm clouds, though they didn’t appear to move. Awfully strange. Out of instinct, he was reminded of laying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling, but he quickly adjusted his thinking to more realistic expectations.

            “Let’s get moving, you two,” the soldier barked when he noticed them dawdling.

            So they did. And as they turned two more corners and walked through the mostly ghost-town alleys, Brandon arrived at a conclusion he’d suspected ever since they stepped outside the building.

            This was not their town. He’d lived there for nearly all his life and spend his adolescence trolling through the streets with his friends, looking for trouble. He’d recognize this patch of wide-open streets if they actually resided in his city. Within a quarter mile of silent strolling behind the soldier, the situation had gone from awfully strange to decidedly nerve-wracking. Where were they?

            “Please, man. Just give us a clue,” Jason whined, obviously reaching a similar realization as his friend. “What is this place?”

            “No idle talk until we complete the job,” the soldier snapped. “Maybe you don’t understand the gravity of the circumstances, but I do, and it’s my role to keep this town protected.”

            Before either Jason or Brandon could ask what that meant or if the soldier was high off his ass, they turned another corner and came to face the pitifully crumpled remains of a six-story brick building the length of a city block. It was a uniquely humbling sight. The structure hadn’t merely been demolished, but obliterated, skyward-down. Neither of its neighboring apartment complexes appeared to have been affected; this single, massive, and potentially destructive block of mortar and concrete had been reduced down to a pile of ash and grit by what Brandon could only have guessed was a perfectly-sized meteor crashing directly down on this building and this building alone. Yet, of course, there was no giant smoldering space-rock lying in the rubble.

            Around the structure and on the next wide-berthed block, they abruptly got the first sight of other humans milling about, most of them walking in the same direction. Suddenly there was life where before the streets had been emptied, plague-style. Cars were either parked or just outright abandoned with the doors open throughout the packed street. At the back of the traffic jam, more cars arrived and their owners simply emerged from the vehicles and joined the march in the same direction. This sight of other life was at least comforting, since it suggested the soldier might not turn out to be some crazy who was murdering everyone he could fool into following him.

            “Jesus,” Jason said, looking out over the crowd.