She remembered eating breakfast this morning, sitting down on the lawn in front of the building. Silently she sat, her eyes following the occasional hurried student, books in hand and sleepy faces blurred in the distance. She watched the sun climb over the trees and the calm that could only be found on a college campus in the early hours of the weekend. A chilly breeze broke through and she wrapped her arms against herself. It was here, in this moment, that she realized how truly lonely she was.

"Just three more hours," she said as she stared at the clock above the door. With her head in her hands, she sighed deep and turned to the computer. Holly had spent most of the day sitting around since 8 a.m. and had seen no more than three people since she opened the office. Not surprising though; students had better things to do on a Saturday morning. She thought back on the moment where she had convinced herself that coming in for Saturday work was worth it; she'd get a weekday off from work, but truth be told, she had nothing else better to do.

She had spent the morning checking her emails and tapping her fingers on the desk along to a poorly orchestrated tune in her head. As students came in that morning, she straightened her blouse and wiped off her trousers, and put on a big smile. She only had a few quick minutes with each student and back out they went; back out to meet friends, to sleep, to lie in the thick summer air. But the last time she had seen someone was hours ago and she reminded herself again that other people had things to do on a Saturday.

The sun folded through the clouds in a slow dance between a pale shade and bright white light that bleached the bricks of the building and the empty sidewalks. She twisted her blonde hair around her fingers, watching the shine wax and wane. Holly had caught herself staring out without a single thought or point of interest. With a slight shake of her head, she rubbed her eyes looked back up at the clock. Three minutes. Only three minutes had passed from the last time she checked.

"Well, I won't be doing this again," she thought out loud. "At least at home I can go outside."

"Yeah, I wouldn't suggest that."

Holly spun her chair around so quickly, it took her a moment to figure out where the voice had come from. She stretched her head just above the desk partitions to find a young man in a ruddy brown suit coat leaned against the wall of the last cubicle in the room. His was the first genuine smile she had gotten the whole day and her heart lightened at the sight. She only had a moment to return the gaze before his brows furrowed and his face tightened.

"Very bright out. Too bright out." He spoke as he half-walked, half-ran down the hallway.

"And who are you?" Holly looked him over, with his mismatched clothes, the white sneakers, the unkempt hair.

"Mr. Smith, board member of the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service. UCAS. Just taking a look to make sure this fine institution is following our tariff system," he said as he flashed a badge in her direction and walked closer to the windows.

"The UCAS? I've never heard of that." Holly shifted the glasses on her face and turned to her computer, typing as he went on.

"You haven't? Oh, we're just a little organization that checks up on you bi-"

"Little organization? Says here you manage higher education applications, like admissions stuff. Can't be too little for that." He stared at her, obviously surprised that she was questioning him.

"Well... by little... I meant in terms of the great big system that is higher education. It's a fantastic thing."

"In England."

"Well, yes."

Holly's eyes narrowed. "This is America."

"Sorry, what?"

"This is America. The United States."

The man rushed over to Holly's desk with wide eyes. "Well how would you know?" He stammered as he slid between Holly and her computer and fumbled with the keys.

In her defense, Holly's voice got louder as she crossed her arms, leaned back and said, "How would I know what? Whether I'm in America or whether you're lying? Because either way, I'm pretty sure I'm right." Over her two years at the university, Holly had plenty of encounters with people that covered the spectrum from nice, to rude, to downright crazy. This 'Mr. Smith' was something else altogether though, and that worried her.

"Oh, as if I wouldn't know where I am. I just happened to end up thousands of miles away from where I wanted," he laughed, "no that's amateur." He rose from the computer and reached into his left coat pocket, eyes staying on her. Holly's body stiffened, not sure of what was about to happen. She watched the man's hands reach into the darkness and with a quick movement an odd metallic pen caught the fluorescent lights and shined bright in the beige room. Her sigh of relief filled the brief silence in the office. The man looked at her and smiled.

"Right. Now. Where were we?" He shook the pen a few times and a dim blue light flickered at its top. "What is today?"

"Saturday, August 18th."

"The year?"

"What?"

"The year! What year is it?"

Holly gathered her courage, stood up at her desk and tilted her head to the man with the pen. "Look, Mr. Smith. I don't know who you are or what you're doing, and obviously neither do you, so please leave. Or I'll have to call campus security."

"No point in that. They can't answer."

"What do you mean? Where else would they be?"

"Oh no, you misunderstood. They're there all right, just stuck an infinitesimally small time loop where their own awareness of said infinitesimally small time loop will drive them mad," he muttered as he held the pen to his ear.

"Okay, I'm definitely calling them." Holly's hand picked up the phone receiver and the man slammed his hands onto her desk. She dropped the phone and cringed at the awful banging sound as the plastic hit the wood.

"This is not some kind of joke. Something is going on here. Something very, very big." His mouth tightened and his eyes stared into Holly's, "and for me to say that, well, that's a bit of a big deal. Now what year is it?" Holly could feel fear rise in the form of heat from her toes up to her head, her heart quickened, and it seemed as if her mind had stopped working properly.

"It's 2012. S-s-sir, please jus-"

"Shhh. When I landed, I must have had just enough velocity or came in at just the right angle to break past the field. Someone is trying very hard to keep people from getting in. Or getting out." He paused and his eyes searched the room.

"Right, well... time to leave!" He grabbed Holly by the wrist and pulled, but she held fast.

"No way, I'm sorry but no. I'm definitely not going anywhere with some sort of lunatic." He grabbed her shoulders and looked into her widened eyes. "Listen to me, every single room in this place is being tampered with, one by one and every room is different. A classroom across campus is being terrorized by flying petri dishes, Campus Security has been replaying the same five minutes for the past six hours, and a toilet upstairs has been turned into an ocean; a real ocean, in a room, for as far as you can see. Every room, very slowly, is changing and each one has the potential to be very dangerous." There was something about the words he used- no, not the words- but more how it seemed as if he took great care in choosing each word; the subtle sound of panic in his voice.

A distant scream broke Holly's concentration and with a flash, she was being tugged to the back of the office by the man in the suit. She quickly pressed the buttons on the security keypad and shoved the door. Out the back, she found herself standing in the hallway, the long white hallway that looked the same as it ever did. Mr. Smith lifted up the metallic pen and the blue light flickered for a moment and burned out.

"No, no, no! Not now!" He shouted as he smacked his pen across his palm. "Well, guess this means we have to use good old intuition," and the pen went back into his coat pocket. He clapped his hands together and turned to Holly.

"Now, where is the highest point on this campus?"

"It's uh, The Tower, I guess." She thought about the looming brick building; desolate and intimidating. Built in the first days of the university, The Tower was meant to be a beacon of ingenuity but with over one hundred years since then, it had been reduced to huge empty rooms and storage closets.

"The Tower!? Phft," he shook his head," and you say we're not in England."

"Oh my god, we're not! We're in America. Kentucky. Lexington!"

"Oh, well. Can't say I come here too often."

Holly rolled her eyes. "Really? I wouldn't have guessed it."

"Well you're a bit cheeky, aren't you?" the man grinned. His face was bright and full, and Holly couldn't help but reciprocate. She was searching her brain for something to say, something to comprehend what was happening when another scream rang out, closer than before; a different voice but the same sound of agony.

"Right. It's moved down to this floor. We need to get going; to The Tower, yes?"

Holly hadn't come up with anything so when he grabbed her hand, she didn't fight back. Whatever was going on, she knew that she wanted to get out of the building. So she pulled him to the right and they were off, running down the long corridor past water fountains and vending machines, past doors and doors, so many doors, tall and short, misshaped, old and warped; doors that Holly had never seen before.

Holly came to a slow jog before stopping about halfway down and Mr. Smith turned to her, confused. "Wait, no. This… this doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't?"

"These doors," she pointed. "This hallway used to have maybe, I don't know, six doors tops. And now, look," she pointed in either direction and then lowered her hand to the wall in front of them, "they're everywhere. I mean, what's the purpose of that?!" She lifted her hand in the direction of a small two foot door covered in plastic and was reminded of a doggy-door.

"I just thought it was American or something." Holly scowled in response while he continued, "I mean, how fantastic is this?! I'd say if you looked in any one of these doors, there would be something wild going on inside. Look." He pulled Holly to the next door. Looking through the window of a white metal door, a room was on fire, but all of the contents burned bright green.

"Something is cutting holes in the fabric of reality, but it's not only to change what's current, but to add stuff." He looked down the hallway again and his eyes widened. "Lots of stuff."

He opened next door, ten feet tall with intricate carvings made up of six red panels. The light from the room burned Holly's eyes and as she went to step closer to adjust, Mr. Smith grabbed her arm.

"Don't go any closer."

Holly squinted and as the light dimmed, and three blurred dots focused into three huge beasts; half lion, half lizard. Holly cupped her hands over her mouth at the sight. The room was terribly narrow which made them so close that she could see the breath coming from the beasts in large clouds of mist and she could feel the heat rising from the sand below.

"What the hell are those?" Holly murmured, with hands still over her mouth.

Another scream broke out down the hallway.

"Enough chat. Allons-y!"

Holly ran for the door with the man right behind her and as she burst through to the lawn her heart sank to the pit of her stomach. The sun was gone. No clouds, just a white sky, bright and pressing down upon her. There was no time to stop; her fear kept her feet moving and she followed the memorized path, thinking only of The Tower. She could hear Mr. Smith right behind her as she weaved between buildings and past empty lawns; each step brought them closer.

A few years ago, when the university had lost its need of The Tower, the windows of the first two floors had been boarded up and all but the front doors had been chained. Now, parties in secret were held here throughout the summer months when students stayed in the town and had no place else to go. Keep out signs peeked out from wild vines and weeds while cobwebs hung like chandeliers from torn awnings. Mr. Smith reached the doors first and pulled. Nothing.