I found a bowling ball at the bottom of the hill.

I thought it was a mirage.

At first.

I didn't know what to make of it.

I spent a minute just staring at it before a resemblance of a thought crossed my mind that if it was real I would be able to touch it.

I stuck my leg out and the resistance pushed back against my boot.

Oh god.

I kicked it again. A trail of blood smeared off my boot across its surface. I wasn't even sure if it was mine. It didn't matter.

Real.

An anomaly.

Hope was a dangerous thing. I'd learnt that too long ago. But I'd also learnt civilisation was a sign of an anomaly, and anywhere was better than here.

So if it ended up here it had rolled. If it rolled it came downhill.

I bent down and picked it up, spinning it in my hands.

It was cold. Something I'd not had the luxury of feeling in a long time. Even now my underarms stuck to my ribcage, somehow both slick and sticky with sweat, but the ball was still cold, like the regulated temp of aircon bowling alleys. Which meant it couldn't have been here long.

Not at all.

I looked up, the incline was steep and the hill was very long, and with nothing on the ground to proportion the incline before it met the sky at the horizon, I couldn't see the end of it.

But I saw it glinting.

And I exhaled, somewhat in disbelief because I knew not to trust my senses at this point. It could be a mirage too. But the ball was real. I felt the weight of it. So the anomaly had to be real too.

I dropped the ball to the ground and ran.

I tripped just before I reached it, the exhaustion zapping the last of my co-ordination from my torn and aching limbs, but I didn't care. I didn't even care when my back hit the chilled concrete with an agonising thud. There were pipes stretching up the wall. Copper. That's good. And there were strip lights shining down from above me, hanging from a chain on the ceiling.

And that was enough.

So, with a groan at the pain that flooded across my bony shoulder blades, I shut my eyes– just for a moment– because at least for now I was safe. I was inside a building. There wasn't anything about to kill me because this was A.D something afore the apocalypse.

But.

Somewhere can look like home but not be.

Almost afraid to peel my eyes open again, I lay there, wincing and just trying to breathe steadily.

And the noise behind me startled me.

I jumped up, rounded on it, pulling the jawbone knife from its sheaf like I expected it to be a predator but I felt myself gasping.

A face.

A friendly face.

So I really was home.

The tension fell from my shoulders, the energy swilling out of my body like water down a plug hole. Taps. Oh god I've missed taps.

Stephen looked back at me and blinked.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd spoken. Far too long. I couldn't remember what to do. How to speak. How to communicate.

I opened my mouth but the first sound came out as a croak.

The second was a garish noise of jumbled letters. Laughing echoed up like a reflex through my body.

'Stephen!' I finally said, 'ha! You... really you then...' He looked just the same as when I'd gone. Good. '... awh...' I couldn't believe it.

Too exhausted to stand I lent a hand against the wall.

With a few more deep breaths I let the shock wash over me, the disbelief, the random spare thought that if this was another dream the sadness would end me when I woke up.

'Can't...' I said, more to myself absentmindedly, 'can't do that again. Please be real.'

But wanting to believe this was it I pushed those thoughts away and looked for further evidence. My eyes found his face, then dropped to his hands and I flinched when I saw the gun. Fuck. Fuck! No, okay. You can do it. I looked again and realised it was only a tranquilizer. And he was pointing it at the anomaly behind me.

'Can you-' I sighed and gestured vaguely, trying to move out the way of his aim.

He moved with me.

I frowned. I moved again and he kept the gun on me.

'Not,' I said, 'that's...'

He cocked his head. 'Drop the knife... I'll drop the gun.'

I looked down to my hand, barely aware I was still holding it. Then I turned my attention back to him.

'What– not... Stephen–'

'How the hell do you know my name?'

I stared back, brain whirring like a slow, old computer as his cold stare bore into me. I blinked, nose tingling as tears pricked.

'And... who the hell are you?'

'Don't...' I started, before I had to lean back against the wall. He didn't know who I was. I looked around, half-expecting, half-praying that there would be someone else in the room, someone who would recognise me. But Nick wasn't here. Oh god. 'Where is he?' I asked weakly. I started shaking from the desperation, 'he's okay? Nick's okay? Not...' I shut my eyes, knife clattering from my grip onto the ground.

He straightened up. The look of confusion told me he hadn't heard the use of that name in some time and I knew. Dead, I assumed, or lost. Bereft, my breathing started to quicken.

'Oh, god, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.'

He lowered his weapon. 'Nick?' he repeated. 'Nick Cutter?'

I just nodded.

'Yes.'

He looked back over his shoulder, down the hallway. 'Cutter!?' he yelled.

I was still confused when the footsteps started towards us. I barely had the time to understand what was happening before the professor came around the corner, saw me, and stood wide eyed beside our was like he couldn't believe it either. For a second.

Then he came towards me so quickly I didn't know he'd moved, and I had no idea I moved to meet him until we collided with some force.

I thought I was crying.

My eyes were screwed up so tightly as I clung onto his back and buried my face in my chest that I thought I could feel the tears. And my face was dirty, I knew it had to be, I hadn't been able to wash it for a while now, but he didn't care how that I was rubbing off against his shirt. I had no idea what I looked like to him. I hadn't seen my reflection.

'Anna,' he said, like he was astounded, like I was a ghost. I pulled back. I had to. To look at him again. And my expression was so alarmed it made him immediately frown in concern. 'I- What?'

Don't be a dream.

'Anna?' Stephen repeated behind us. Still holding tightly to Nick, I turned. 'Anna Havisham?' Nick nodded. 'The one you said... the girl you were talking about. She works with us?'

'Nick?' I just about managed to question. 'What?'

Stephen stared at me like I was now somewhat familiar to him but he had no idea why.

'I don't know what's happening,' Nick said, as he wrapped his arms around me, 'none of it makes sense.'

'Connor?'

'Getting a slushy,' Stephen replied, even though his attention didn't move from me. I could feel Nick rolling his eyes. 'I wasn't gonna tell you that. He said he'd be fine... but...'

'Something here? Creature?' I asked. There must be something here. I knew that. Otherwise, they wouldn't have needed the guns. 'What?'

'Raptor,' Nick answer.

'Fuck.'

'Two causalities,' he continued, 'fatalities we think, we haven't found the bodies.'

'Security guards,' Stephen explained further. His stare was almost intrusive, as he looked through me like he wasn't sure I was really there. I held his gaze, before I literally watched the realisation bloom behind his eyes. 'You're Connor's cousin,' he said, and he pointed at me. 'You saved my life. But... Anna– you came through the anomaly?'

For a moment the heavy complexity of his confusion seemed too much. He put his hands on his head, like he could see the memories from before in his head but they didn't belong to him, and he was trying to understand how they could be disassociated.

'What the hell is going on?' Nick questioned.

I didn't know.

I wasn't sure where to start with an explanation until I knew what the fuck was going on here.

Stephen opened his mouth again, halfway through his first breath of a word when a loud clanging, rattling sort of noise came from the other end of the corridor.

Connor.