The Transdimensional Inn

For more than two decades of his life, Noah had always believed he was just an ordinary person, living an ordinary life, doing ordinary things. He thought this plainness would persist until the ordinary end of his days. Yes, that’s what he had always thought—until those days felt like they belonged to a distant past. The sky was overcast, with thick, somber clouds rolling in from the northeast like heavy cotton, slowly blanketing the city. The air was saturated with moisture, pregnant with the promise of rain, likely to fall within minutes. Noah, clutching a bag of vegetables and condiments from the supermarket, moved swiftly among the pedestrians, his hurried steps carrying him through the dimming streets toward his apartment. As he passed by a shop, he stopped instinctively, eyes lingering on the sign above the entrance. He stared at it for a few seconds before averting his gaze and continuing on his way. The streets were gradually emptying. The vast city seemed to quieten in anticipation of the impending rain. Noah lifted his eyes to the shopping street ahead, illuminated by the lights of the storefronts. Despite the familiarity of the scene, an inexplicable sense of strangeness stirred within him. Yes, strangeness—it was hard to admit, but though Noah had lived in this city for over twenty years, the enormous, seemingly boundless "Border City" now felt utterly foreign. It wasn’t the city he remembered. Though some places were eerily similar, many more were not. The city of his youth wasn’t this vast. He distinctly remembered that the building at the city center was called Abyss Tower, not the "Director's Tower" as it was now. He remembered that the shop at the Suyuan Street intersection had once been a wall, and his home wasn’t a massive, dilapidated house teetering on the verge of collapse in the heart of the old town. And more disturbingly, this city of his memory certainly didn’t have so many… peculiarities. Things like vintage phone booths that appeared randomly on street corners, resembling relics from a bygone era. Or steam trains that glided across rooftops in the dead of night, empty classrooms echoing with the faint sounds of reading, and… A tall, thin shadow, standing beneath a streetlamp like a telephone pole on the verge of rain. Noah’s gaze froze. Not far away, under the dim streetlight, was a figure—slender and towering, at least three or four meters tall, with a dark, featureless face. The shadow seemed to sense his gaze but made no move, simply standing there, staring back. People hurried past the shadow, seemingly oblivious to its unsettling presence. Some even walked right through it, undisturbed, as if it didn’t exist. Only Noah could see it. So, after a few seconds of pointless staring, he averted his gaze, suppressed the thudding in his chest, and hastened down an alternate route. Noah had long been unsure whether it was the city that had changed or something within him. But he clearly remembered that his once normal, uneventful life had slipped away from him one morning two months ago. He remembered that bright, sunny morning when he had opened the door of his home to buy a few oranges from the corner shop. That was the last time he ever opened *that* door. Since then, he had never seen the home he remembered again. He had considered the possibility that he had crossed into another world—perhaps when he stepped through his front door, he had unknowingly entered a parallel version of Border City. Maybe the door that could take him back had collapsed behind him the moment he passed through. Another possibility was that *he* had changed—some kind of "mutation" or alteration had occurred within him. Perhaps, at the moment he left his house, or sometime afterward, something inexplicable had altered his perception, granting him the ability to see things hidden beneath the surface of the world. He still lived in the same place, but the familiar had become forever elusive… But in the end, these theories didn’t matter. No matter the cause, Noah could no longer return to the "ordinary, normal world" of his memories. This vast, foreign city felt like an endless forest, ensnaring a bewildered wanderer in its eerie, twisted branches and vines. Two short months had not been enough for him to unravel its secrets. In fact, Noah had only just begun to adjust to his "new home," barely managing to resume his "daily life." Luckily, in this mismatched version of Border City, he was still *Noah*. He had valid identification, a legal address, a modest amount of savings, and a job—albeit not a particularly reliable one. If this were indeed some sort of "trans-dimensional journey," at least he didn’t have to grapple with the typical crises of "Who am I? Where am I? How do I get an ID?" In a highly regulated, modern society, those issues would be especially crucial. After all, a wanderer landing in such a city would find it hard to shake off the status of a "ghost in the system." On the other hand, ending up in a lawless, chaotic era—or a savage, otherworldly realm—would bring its own troubles. One might face execution as a foreign spy, or as an invader from another race, or perhaps become dinner for goblins lurking in caves… Lost in these absurd musings, Noah turned down an old, narrow alley beside the shopping street, heading toward "home" by a different route. The sky darkened further, and with it came more of those unsettling sights. At the edge of Noah’s vision, shadowy figures wavered against the cracked walls of old buildings. A nimble cat leaped from the shadows, climbed a shaft of light from an unknown source, and meowed twice in his direction before melting into raindrops, splashing on the ground. The rain had started earlier than expected. A biting chill snaked its way into the gaps of his clothes. Noah clicked his tongue, holding the grocery bag over his head and quickening his pace. If he hadn’t detoured to avoid that shadow beneath the streetlamp, he could’ve taken the main road and been home by now—though that house, too, was strange and unsettling, it was still a place to shelter from the storm. Thinking of the shadow, Noah felt a pang of regret. From experience, he knew that most of the strange things he saw were harmless—so long as he didn’t provoke them. But despite knowing this, he always instinctively avoided anything too unnerving. Yet today, it seemed his detour had been a mistake. It was growing colder. Far too cold for a mere rainstorm. Noah noticed that his breath was crystallizing into fog. The raindrops hitting the ground were sharp and icy, like needles, piercing painfully through the air. And the ground was slowly turning into a slick, reflective mirror. A surge of alarm jolted Noah to full alertness. Something was very wrong—more wrong than anything he had encountered before, even in this strange city. Unlike the peculiar shadows he usually saw, which were merely unsettling, this rain was brimming with *malice*. The rain itself *wanted* to hurt him. He snapped his head up, realizing with a start that the few passersby who had been on the narrow street moments ago were now gone. The distant lights had grown dim and indistinct, as if obscured by something impenetrable. Only cold, closed-off buildings and the relentless rain surrounded him. It felt as though the entire world was raining, just for him. Gasping, Noah sprinted toward the nearest building—a rusty iron door stood there, likely the back entrance to a*****e. Whatever it was, he needed to find someone, anyone. The raindrops were beginning to feel like knives, and the air was so cold it hurt to breathe. In just a few steps, Noah reached the door and banged on it with all his might. "Is anyone—" His voice cut off. His hand had hit the wall. The door was painted onto the wall. The windows were painted too. A rustling sound came from nearby. Noah slowly turned his head toward the noise. Through the freezing, blade-like rain, something grotesque began to rise from the mirrored surface of the ground. It took on form, emerging from the shadows, staring coldly at Noah. It was a frog. Nearly a meter tall, its head was covered in countless eyes, its body reflecting the icy rain. The frog opened its mouth, and a razor-sharp tongue shot out, aiming directly for Noah’s heart. "Well, f—" Noah’s reaction was swift, his reflexes honed. Even before the curse left his mouth, his body had already moved. He dodged to the side, hand instinctively reaching for the collapsible baton he carried for defense, bracing himself for a counterattack. But the frog’s tongue twisted sharply in mid-air and pierced through his back, right where his heart was. Noah blinked. He stared at the tongue protruding from his chest, with his still-beating heart impaled on its tip. "…Seriously, *my* heart?" He thought bitterly. Then, he died.