(no subject)
"The hell?"
At least, that was the sentiment behind the words John mumbled around the cigarette pinched between his lips as he looked blankly at the collection of buildings surrounding him on either side of the street. This wasn't Los Angeles. In and of itself, that wasn't particularly disturbing. Although he'd lived there all his life, he was no stranger to travel and provided it wasn't in pursuit of stopping the odd apocalypse, he even enjoyed it on occasion. No, the problem as John saw it was that only seconds before, it was Los Angeles.
He'd been walking down the street, halfway between his apartment and the bar that was currently serving as his favorite haunt, and he'd stopped to light a cigarette. Two seconds he'd taken his eyes off the road to glance down at his jacket pocket - two seconds - and when he had looked back up, he was seeing this. That it wasn't a hallucination produced from the consumption of too much alcohol or the loss of too much blood was not the comfort that it could have been. A hallucination could have been explained away and subsequently forgotten. This was real. Now he had to deal with it.
Frowning, John took a bracing drag on the cigarette. Life had been relatively calm the last few weeks; he'd probably been due for something like this. And now that it had started, experience taught him that it was going to go downhill pretty damn fast. But he still had his cigarettes, and a quick pat of his trouser pocket told him that his wallet hadn't been lost in the transition either. As long as the place had cigarettes and accepted dollars, or had the capacity to exchange it into whatever served as the local currency, he'd be fine.
Hanging out in the middle of the sidewalk until he'd exhaled that first lungful of smoke, John cast one more slightly curious, mostly irritated glance around and started walking again. There had to be people around, right? Or a bar. Every place had a bar. With any luck, he'd get some answers, and a drink, before the night was out. And if he didn't, well, he'd figure something out. He always did.
At least, that was the sentiment behind the words John mumbled around the cigarette pinched between his lips as he looked blankly at the collection of buildings surrounding him on either side of the street. This wasn't Los Angeles. In and of itself, that wasn't particularly disturbing. Although he'd lived there all his life, he was no stranger to travel and provided it wasn't in pursuit of stopping the odd apocalypse, he even enjoyed it on occasion. No, the problem as John saw it was that only seconds before, it was Los Angeles.
He'd been walking down the street, halfway between his apartment and the bar that was currently serving as his favorite haunt, and he'd stopped to light a cigarette. Two seconds he'd taken his eyes off the road to glance down at his jacket pocket - two seconds - and when he had looked back up, he was seeing this. That it wasn't a hallucination produced from the consumption of too much alcohol or the loss of too much blood was not the comfort that it could have been. A hallucination could have been explained away and subsequently forgotten. This was real. Now he had to deal with it.
Frowning, John took a bracing drag on the cigarette. Life had been relatively calm the last few weeks; he'd probably been due for something like this. And now that it had started, experience taught him that it was going to go downhill pretty damn fast. But he still had his cigarettes, and a quick pat of his trouser pocket told him that his wallet hadn't been lost in the transition either. As long as the place had cigarettes and accepted dollars, or had the capacity to exchange it into whatever served as the local currency, he'd be fine.
Hanging out in the middle of the sidewalk until he'd exhaled that first lungful of smoke, John cast one more slightly curious, mostly irritated glance around and started walking again. There had to be people around, right? Or a bar. Every place had a bar. With any luck, he'd get some answers, and a drink, before the night was out. And if he didn't, well, he'd figure something out. He always did.