It is afternoon, about 78F(25C) degrees, and there are a few thin white clouds in the sky. The mist is heaviest At Hawthorn and Blackstone/span>/spanThe afternoon heat shimmers off the cobblestones as Viviana steps into the narrow alley between the Gothic Revival buildings. The familiar scent of ivy and old mortar fills the air, but something else cuts through it – the sharp smell of fresh ink and something metallic, like blood.

A woman sits hunched against the eastern wall, her black hair streaked with premature silver falling across her face as she frantically sketches geometric patterns directly onto the brick with what appears to be a thick marker. Her cardigan is rumpled and stained, covered in similar diagrams that seem to shift and writhe when viewed peripherally. The sketches cover not just her clothes but her exposed skin – complex architectural blueprints crawling up her arms like living tattoos.

“The angles are wrong,” the woman mutters in a hoarse voice, switching between English and rapid Latin phrases. “The university plans show three floors but there are seven… no, eleven… the basement extends into dimensions that shouldn’t…” She looks up suddenly, her brown eyes wide and bloodshot. Dark geometric patterns seem to pulse faintly beneath the surface of her skin.

Around her, the brick walls of the alley are covered in fresh ink drawings – impossible floor plans, star charts that hurt to look at directly, and mathematical equations that seem to bend space around them. A few loose cobblestones have been arranged in precise patterns, and the shadows they cast don’t quite match their positions.

The woman’s hands shake as she continues drawing, small cuts on her fingers leaving traces of blood mixed with the ink. “So close,” she whispers. “So close to seeing the true shape of everything.“

Viviana steps into the alley, Viviana still wearing her ridiculous cosplay as Jinx from Arcane. Viviana drops the shark launcher. Viviana pauses as she glances over the drawings, Viviana’s eyes – she was wearing pink contacts, glancing over the drawings on the walls.

Viviana winces when she sees them.

“… well…” she says. “That doesn’t look good,” Viviana says to the woman. “You think of all this shit yourself?” she asks.

The woman’s head snaps up at Viviana’s voice, her bloodshot eyes focusing with difficulty on the costumed figure. For a moment, the frantic sketching stops, and the geometric patterns on her skin seem to pulse more rapidly, as if responding to the interruption.

“Think of it?” Elena laughs, a sound that borders on hysteria. “I don’t think of it – I it. The true architecture underneath everything we thought we knew.” She gestures wildly at the walls covered in her drawings. “These buildings, this university, this entire quarter – it’s all built wrong. The foundations extend into spaces that fold back on themselves.“

Her ink-stained fingers trace one of the diagrams on the brick wall, and for just a moment, the shadow it casts seems to move independently of her hand. “The maps in the archives showed me. Seventeen oh-three, when they laid the cornerstone of Blackwood Hall, they used plans that weren’t meant for this reality.“

Elena’s voice drops to an urgent whisper, switching briefly to Latin before returning to English. “I have to chart it all, map every impossible angle, every room that exists in the spaces between spaces. Once the Great Work is complete…” She trails off, staring at something only she can see.

The afternoon breeze stirs through the alley, but the ivy on the walls rustles in patterns that don’t match the wind direction. Several of the mathematical equations drawn on the eastern wall seem to shimmer slightly in the dappled sunlight.

Elena suddenly notices Viviana’s unusual appearance more clearly. “You’re not from the university. Are you here to stop me?” Her voice carries a note of desperate paranoia.

Viviana makes a small smile, perhaps looking a little menacing, her thick blue braids – bullet casings threaded through the braids, sliding over her shoulder as she kneels. “No, I’m from Wonderland,” Viviana says with sarcasm. “But go on. What happens after you map it all?” Viviana asks of her.

“Does your brain fucking pop or something?” Viviana says. “Is that the next play?”

““

The shadows in the alley shift wrong again, and one of the loose cobblestones near Viviana’s feet seems to sink slightly deeper into the ground than it should, as if the space beneath it has expanded.

“It’s almost finished,” Elena says, her own voice returning but strained. “Just a few more calculations…“

“Pump the brakes,” Viviana says to Elena, leaning forward. “I know you’ve been working hard on it, but have you thought about what this shit actually *does*?” Viviana asks, quirking her eyebrow as she reaches idly into her jacket for her pistol – when she realizes that she didn’t actually have her weapon with this outfit.

Fuck.

“… how about you take a minute, and we talk about something else?”

Elena’s hands pause mid-sketch, trembling as she looks up at Viviana. For a brief moment, something almost human flickers in her bloodshot eyes. “Talk about… something else?” she repeats, as if the concept is foreign to her.

The geometric patterns on her skin seem to writhe more aggressively, and she winces, pressing a palm to her forehead. “I can’t… it won’t let me stop. Every time I try to think of anything else, the equations get louder. They whisper about spaces that exist between the walls, about how the university library has seventeen floors but only shows three…“

Her voice wavers between her own and something else speaking through her. “The Great Work must be completed. Every angle, every dimension, every possible configuration of space must be mapped and catalogued.“

But then Elena’s own voice breaks through again, desperate and afraid. “Help me,” she whispers, so quietly it’s almost lost in the rustling ivy. “I’ve been awake for six days straight. I can’t remember the last time I ate. My hands won’t stop moving, and these… these things on my skin, they burn when I try to ignore them.“

The shadows around the alley seem to deepen despite the afternoon sun, and several of the wall drawings pulse with a faint, sickly light. One of the architectural diagrams near Elena’s shoulder appears to show a room with no exits – just endless corridors that loop back on themselves.

“Please,” Elena adds, her human voice growing stronger. “I don’t want to disappear into the spaces between.“

“And hey, I don’t want you to,” Viviana says to Elena, smiling with a perfect smile. “We’re gonna get out of this together, alright? First things first…” Viviana brushes her thick blue braids over her shoulders. “When did this start? Did you… drink some shitty wine, are you bipolar and this happens all the time, did you do some meth…” Viviana glances at the crawling skin.

“Did you read from an evil book, tell me – let me hear about it.”

Elena’s laugh is bitter and exhausted. “Evil book? I wish it were that simple.” She wipes ink-stained fingers across her face, leaving dark smears. “Three weeks ago, I was digitizing archives in the basement of Blackwood Hall. Just doing my job – scanning old architectural plans for the university’s historical database.“

Her voice becomes more focused as she talks about something concrete, the patterns on her skin seeming to slow their movement slightly. “There was this set of blueprints from 1703, original plans for the university’s foundation. But they were… wrong. Rooms that were bigger inside than outside, staircases that went up but somehow ended up below where they started.“

Elena’s hands start to shake again. “I thought it was just poor draftsmanship from three centuries ago. But when I scanned them into the computer, the digital files started changing. Lines moving on the screen, new rooms appearing in the margins.”

She touches one of the geometric patterns crawling up her forearm, and it pulses with a faint light. “That first night, I dreamed about walking through those impossible spaces. When I woke up, these marks were on my skin. And I could it, Viviana – the true architecture underneath everything. The university isn’t built where we think it is.“

The ivy on the eastern wall rustles more violently, despite the still air. “I haven’t slept properly since. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in those corridors that shouldn’t exist, mapping spaces that fold in on themselves.“

Elena looks directly at Viviana, her brown eyes pleading. “The thing inside those plans… it’s been waiting. Waiting for someone to set it free.“

“And now, well, it found you, right?” Viviana says to Elena, still smiling in what she hoped was a soothing manner. “It’s like a virus, right? Trying to replicate inside of you and get out,” Viviana says, tossing her chin and brushing those braids over her shoulder.

“So what happens if I… fuck up the equations you got here, right?”

someone me brings up her hand, drawing through the lines with her fingertips. “Whoopsie,” Viviana says, and grins again. “Smudged it.”

“And now, well, it found you, right?” Viviana says to Elena, still smiling in what she hoped was a soothing manner. “It’s like a virus, right? Trying to replicate inside of you and get out,” Viviana says, tossing her chin and brushing those braids over her shoulder.

“So what happens if I… fuck up the equations you got here, right?”

Viviana brings up her hand, drawing through the lines with her fingertips. “Whoopsie,” Viviana says, and grins again. “Smudged it.”

The moment Viviana’s fingers drag through the ink lines on the wall, Elena screams – not in her own voice, but in something that sounds like grinding stone and tearing paper. The geometric patterns on her skin flare bright red, pulsing like angry wounds.

“NO!” The voice that comes from Elena’s throat is layered, echoing with mathematical precision. “The calculations must remain intact! Every line, every angle is essential to the Great Work!“

Elena’s body convulses as she scrambles toward the wall, trying to redraw the smudged equation with desperate, shaking hands. But where Viviana disrupted the pattern, the ink seems to resist taking hold on the brick, sliding off like water.

The shadows in the alley writhe unnaturally, and for a moment, the walls themselves seem to bend inward, as if the space is trying to collapse. Several of the loose cobblestones shift and rearrange themselves into new patterns.

But then Elena’s human voice breaks through again, stronger than before. “Yes… yes, it hurts it when the patterns are broken!” She looks up at Viviana with desperate hope. “It needs the equations to be complete. Without them, it can’t finish mapping the spaces between!“

The demon’s voice roars back through her. “Foolish child! You understand nothing of the true architecture! The spaces must be charted, reality must be properly catalogued!“

Elena grabs her own wrist, trying to stop her hand from automatically redrawing. “Keep going,” she gasps to Viviana. “Disrupt more of them. It’s fighting me less when the patterns are incomplete!“

“Properly catalogued, and I think…” Viviana says, her eyes getting a little wider when the demon’s voice comes out. “You got fucky cataloguing, demon,” Viviana says. “It doesn’t make sense. Do they not have physics in hell or wherever the fuck you are right now?” Viviana says, curling her eyebrows at Elena, although dread rippled through her like a wave.

Annnnd… she licks her fingertip, and smudges another bit of line, and markings on the wall.

“Whoopsie, sorry about that great plan.”

The demon’s shriek through Elena’s throat is ear-splitting this time, and the geometric patterns on her skin begin to literally smoke where they touch her flesh. The acrid smell of burning ink fills the alley.

“PHYSICS?” The layered voice roars with indignation. “Your primitive understanding of space is a cage! Reality has seventeen dimensions, not three! The university exists in seven different locations simultaneously!“

As Viviana smudges another equation, the brick wall actually cracks where the ink was disrupted. The ivy begins to wither and blacken in spreading patches, and one of the cobblestones simply vanishes, leaving a perfectly square hole in the ground that seems to go down much further than it should.

Elena doubles over, clutching her head, but her human voice emerges stronger. “It’s working! The patterns are breaking down!” She looks up at Viviana with tears streaming down her face, but they’re tears of relief. “I can think about other things for the first time in weeks. I remember… I remember I have a cat named Fibonacci. I haven’t fed him in days.“

The demon fights back, forcing Elena’s hand to scratch new equations into the dirt, but they’re shaky and incomplete. “The Great Work spans centuries! Mortals bound me into maps and plans, thinking to use me as a weapon, but I will chart every possible space that could ever exist!“

Elena manages to grab her own wrist again, stopping the compulsive drawing. “There,” she gasps, pointing to a complex star chart drawn on the eastern wall. “That one… that’s the keystone pattern. If you can disrupt that…“

The shadows in the alley pulse like a heartbeat, growing darker with each beat.

Sophie gives Viviana a lil nod, “Creepy alley..why?”

“Yeah, you see? I never really did the science shit when I was in school. I was sports, I was music, I was flirting with the prettiest fucking people at that place,” Viviana says to Elena. “So all I know, is when you say stairs go up someplace, and they don’t?”

“That seems kinda fucking dumb to me,” Viviana says. “Sooooo, maybe it isn’t like that,” Viviana says, smudging the equations that Elena was drawing on the walls. “This star chart? If we smudge this star chart, it’s going to reaaaaally fuck the demon up?” Viviana asks Elena, grinning over to her. “Oh, hey, Elena and demon? This is Sophie. Just met her, she’s a sweetheart,” Viviana says, upnodding Sophie.

Elena looks up at Sophie with wild, desperate eyes, the geometric patterns on her skin pulsing more frantically as another person enters the alley. “Don’t… don’t let it spread to you,” she gasps. “It jumps through understanding, through seeing the patterns…“

The demon’s voice cuts through Elena’s warning with cold calculation. “Another mind to map. Another consciousness to chart the infinite spaces.” Elena’s ink-stained hand reaches toward Sophie involuntarily before she jerks it back with visible effort.

“Yes,” Elena manages to say to Viviana, her human voice fighting through. “The star chart is the anchor point. It shows how all the impossible spaces connect to each other. Without it, the other equations can’t hold their meaning.“

The star chart on the eastern wall seems to sense the threat, its lines beginning to glow with a sickly phosphorescent light. The pattern shows constellations that don’t exist in any earthly sky, connected by geometric lines that hurt to follow with the eye.

Sophie can see that the shadows around the chart are moving independently of any light source, writhing like living things. Several of the mathematical equations nearby are actually carved into the brick now, not just drawn in ink, as if they’re trying to make themselves permanent.

Elena looks between both women. “If we can break that pattern, I think… I think I can fight it off completely. But it’s going to fight back hard when we try.“

The temperature in the alley drops noticeably, and frost begins to form on some of the ivy despite the summer heat.

“Yeah?” Viviana says, with a wicked grin. “Hold onto your ass, Elena,” Viviana says. “And I guess hold onto your metaphysical sense of an ass, demon,” Viviana says. “Cuz Sophie and I, are gonna fuck this star chart up, right?” Viviana says, grinning wickedly at Sophie. Viviana reaches into her backpack, and grabs… a sock.

A sock that she dumps in alley water.

Viviana then approaches the starchart, and tries to smudge it, looking at Elena like she was trying to irritate her.

Sophie watches Viviana dunk the sock with an incredulous stare, then lets out a short disbelieving laugh, “Really? Going to sock it ot the demon?”

The moment Viviana’s wet sock touches the glowing star chart, the entire alley erupts into chaos. Elena’s scream is inhuman, a sound like reality tearing at the seams. The geometric patterns on her skin flare so bright they’re visible even in the afternoon sunlight, then begin to crack and peel away like old paint.

“THE GREAT WORK! CENTURIES OF MAPPING!” The demon’s voice roars through Elena with such force that several windows in the surrounding buildings shatter. The star chart fights back, its lines writhing and trying to reform even as Viviana smudges them with the soggy sock.

The cobblestones beneath their feet begin to shift and rearrange themselves rapidly, creating impossible geometric patterns. The ivy on the walls withers completely, turning black and crumbling to ash. The shadows in the alley stretch and twist, reaching toward the three women like grasping fingers.

But Elena’s human voice breaks through, stronger than it’s been since they arrived. “It’s working! I can feel it losing its hold!” She doubles over, retching, and when she spits, it’s pure black ink mixed with what looks like mathematical symbols.

The temperature plummets further, and now actual snow begins to fall in the narrow space between the buildings, despite the summer heat just beyond the alley’s mouth.

Sophie can see that where Viviana is disrupting the star chart, cracks are appearing in the brick wall itself, spreading outward like a spider web. Through the cracks, glimpses of impossible spaces are visible – corridors that stretch infinitely, rooms with too many corners.

“Keep going!” Elena gasps. “It’s almost broken!“

Sophie braces herself against the freezing wind, “You’ve got this! You’re breaking through.” At this point she wishes she had something to join in and aid with, and then she remembers her water bottle. Running over she pours it all over the map.

“You wanna help, Sophie? Grab something and some alleywater, and help clean up graffiti,” Viviana says, with a wink over towards Sophie.

Viviana hops, though, at the inhuman scream from Elena. Eyes widen, and Viviana slinks away a second as she vomits up that black ink. “Maybe if you have centuries of planning, don’t try to write it on the side of a fucking alleyway, in poor ol’ Elena’s soul,” Viviana says to Elena.

Viviana kicks her hips left and right as she scrubs at the star chart, grinning over towards Sophie. “Hell yeah, actual water. Much better than alleywater,” Viviana says.

Viviana keeps scrubbing, shaking her butt in those tight pants as she sings, “I’m a cocktail molotov-!”

“The spaces between… the true architecture… it must be mapped…” But the words trail off into nothing as the last of the star chart washes away under Sophie’s water.

The supernatural cold vanishes instantly, replaced by the normal summer warmth. The snow melts as quickly as it appeared, leaving only damp patches on the cobblestones. The shadows return to their proper positions, and the remaining ivy stops its unnatural rustling.

Elena looks up at both women with exhausted but genuinely human eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers. “I thought I was going to disappear into those impossible spaces forever.” She examines her hands, now free of the compulsive need to draw. “I need to get back to my cat. And maybe sleep for about three days straight.“

The alley feels normal again – just a quiet passage between university buildings, with the distant sounds of summer afternoon activity echoing from the streets beyond.

Sophie looks down and hands Elena the other half of her pecan and caramel pastry, “Carbs.”

Viviana nods her head afterwards. Viviana wipes her hands off of her fancy pants. “See,” Viviana says to Sophie. “Isn’t that *way* fucking better than just chatting in a coffee shop?” Viviana asks, with a wryness in her voice. “Good to hear you’re doing good, Elena. You said earlier you worked at the university. Do you remember which files you were archiving? Maaaaaybe better to lock those up again.”

Elena accepts the pastry with shaking hands, taking a small bite and closing her eyes as if remembering what normal food tastes like. “Carbs,” she agrees weakly, managing a genuine smile for the first time. “I haven’t eaten anything solid in days.“

She looks up at Viviana with growing clarity. “The files… yes, they’re still in the digital archive system. Basement level of Blackwood Hall, in the restricted collection.” Elena struggles to her feet, leaning against the brick wall for support. “The original blueprints were dated 1703, filed under ‘Windermere Foundation Plans – Anomalous.’ I should have paid attention to that word ‘anomalous.’“

Elena runs a hand through her silver-streaked hair. “I need to contact the university administration immediately. Those files need to be quarantined, maybe destroyed entirely. If another researcher accesses them…” She shudders, remembering her ordeal.

The alley is peaceful now, just afternoon shadows and the distant sound of students walking between classes. The brick walls show only faint stains where the ink drawings had been, and the cobblestones have settled back into their normal, centuries-old pattern.

“I owe you both more than I can ever repay,” Elena says, looking between Sophie and Viviana. “You saved not just my life, but my sanity. And probably prevented that thing from spreading to others.” She pauses, studying Viviana’s unusual outfit with newfound appreciation. “Though I have to ask – do you always dress like that when fighting demons?“