It is noon, about 73F(22C) degrees, and there are clear skies. The mist is heaviest At Foxglove and Sidney/span>/spanAlice steps into the narrow alley between the Gothic Revival buildings, seeking a shortcut to the university library. The afternoon sun beats down from directly overhead, yet something feels wrong with the shadows. Instead of pooling at the base of the brick walls, dark patches seem to stretch upward toward the sky like grasping fingers. A few loose cobblestones shift beneath her feet, but when she glances down, one small pebble drifts lazily upward past her shoulder before disappearing into the strip of blue sky above.

From somewhere ahead comes the sound of a conversation, but the words feel backwards – responses floating on the air before any questions can be heard. “…fine, I’m doing just fine,” echoes off the weathered brick, followed by the confused murmur of “How are you today?“

The ivy climbing the eastern wall grows in impossible directions, its thick green tendrils reaching downward from the roofline with exposed roots grasping toward the heavens. A faint shimmer catches Alice’s eye from a third-story window in the building to her right – the glass seems to bend light strangely, and through it, she can make out the still form of a small figure lying in a hospital bed pressed against the pane.

The scent of old mortar mingles with something else now – the peculiar smell of dreams half-remembered upon waking.

Alice steps lightly through the alley, a familiar path interrupted by odd happenings. The odd shadows catch her eyes first; she looks out, scanning them carefully, preparing herself for the worst. The voices catch her attention next, and as she strains to listen, her eyes catch the shimmer from the third-story window. She stills and, with her voice gentle and reassuring, calls: “Hello? Is everything alright here? Does someone need help?”

Alice’s voice carries through the alley, but as the words leave her lips, they seem to twist in the air. “?pleh deen enoemos seoD” echoes back from the brick walls first, followed by her original question a moment later. She doesn’t seem to notice the reversal.

A jogger appears at the far end of the alley, moving in a peculiar shuffling gait. He pumps his arms forward while his feet carry him steadily backward, sweat beading on his forehead from the effort. He nods politely to Alice as he passes, completely unaware of his reversed locomotion.

From the third-story window, there’s no response to Alice’s call, but the prismatic quality of the glass intensifies slightly. The small figure in the hospital bed – a young boy with tousled brown hair – remains motionless against the window. His eyes are closed, but his fingers twitch occasionally as if grasping at something invisible.

A section of Alice’s red hair begins to float upward, defying gravity as it drifts around her face like she’s submerged in water. Near her feet, a discarded coffee cup rolls backward along the cobblestones, its contents flowing upward in a thin stream that dissipates into mist before reaching the roofline.

The air grows thicker with that dream-scent, and Alice catches a brief flash of memory that hasn’t happened yet – herself climbing stairs, reaching for a door handle that feels cold under her palm.

Alice finds herself perturbed by the jogger running backwards, her eyes narrowing. “Something’s amiss,” she declares helpfully. The dream-like quality of the air is not entirely unfamiliar with her, versed in the arcane as she is, and she stares up at the boy in the hospital, drawing connections in her mind: the jogger running backwards… the coffee cup… her own hair. She grits her teeth, realizing that the boy is likely connected to all these things, and heads for a set of stairs that will carry her up and let her reach the boy to take care of this problem.

As she goes, she readies her ring, runes worked into the celtic knotwork ready to carry forth her will upon the world through arcane might. “Hello?” she calls again. “Please don’t reverse the flow of time during the day, maybe keep that to your dreamworlds…”

Alice’s words echo strangely as she speaks – “…sdlrowmaerd ruoy ot taht peek ebyam” bounces off the walls before her actual message follows. Her hair continues its underwater dance as she moves toward the building’s entrance.

The heavy wooden door she approaches bears a brass nameplate reading “St. Bartholomew’s Extended Care Wing,” though the letters occasionally flicker and rearrange themselves backward. As Alice’s hand touches the cold metal handle – exactly as she foresaw moments earlier – the door swings open with surprising ease.

Inside, a nurse walks backward down the hallway, her clipboard held upside down as she makes notes that write themselves in reverse. She doesn’t acknowledge Alice’s presence, too focused on her impossible task. The elevator at the end of the corridor has its floor indicator counting down from higher numbers, though the car itself rises.

From above comes a soft whimpering sound – not quite crying, but the distressed murmur of someone caught in an unpleasant dream. The prismatic light from the third-story window grows brighter, casting rainbow fragments that dance across the hallway walls in defiance of physics.

Alice’s ring grows warm against her finger, the Celtic knotwork responding to the magical disturbance. The runes seem to pulse with a rhythm that matches the boy’s breathing – slow, deep, and troubled.

A delivery person enters through the front door behind Alice, methodically removing boxes from a neat stack and scattering them across the lobby floor with practiced efficiency.

Alice glances down at the ring warning her about the disturbance. She nods, resolved, knowing what she has to do; she ensures her bracelet, marking her as a member of The Order, is visible. If anyone asks, she’ll tell them it’s Order business – here to help the needy, save the day, and leave everyone better off. She takes a moment to steel herself, breathing in and out deeply, then strides forward with the confidence of a trained mage, an expert arcanist, and the Warden of the Order.

She’s heading for that third story room, surging up the stairs with a sense of urgency now that she can hear the distressed whispering of the boy. She calls out again, regardless of her reversed voice: “I’m coming to help you,” she says, trying not to alarm the boy. “Everything’s gonna be okay.” She’ll enter his room when she arrives, wasting no time.

“I wish… I wish I could take it back… make it go different…“

“You don’t have to take it back,” Alice answers softly, reaching for the door to enter the boy’s room. “You can simply make things better. You have to move forward, and do good with what you have. Dwelling on the past will only hurt you, and everyone around you.”

“…dnuora uoy enoyreve dna ,uoy truh ylno lliw tsap eht no gnillewD.“

The door opens to reveal a small hospital room where Timothy Ashworth lies motionless against the large window. His eight-year-old face is peaceful but troubled, eyelids fluttering with rapid eye movement. Medical equipment beeps in reverse rhythms, and an IV drip flows upward from his arm back into the bag.

The moment Alice steps inside, the reality distortions intensify dramatically. The floor beneath her feet ripples like water, and gravity seems to shift directions every few seconds. Timothy’s whispered words become clearer: “I pushed Jamie… I didn’t mean to… if I hadn’t been angry… if the day could just go backward…“

Through the prismatic window, Alice can see the alley below where more people now move in impossible ways – a street musician’s melody plays in reverse while his fingers move forward on the guitar strings, creating haunting harmonies that shouldn’t exist.

Timothy’s breathing quickens, and the rainbow light fractures more violently across the walls. The boy’s fingers clench and unclench as if grasping at something just out of reach. His hospital bracelet reads “Catatonic state – Day 3 – Playground incident.“

The room’s temperature drops noticeably, and Alice’s breath begins to mist in the suddenly cold air.

Alice grits her teeth against the sudden intensity of the distortion, holding her hand up as if to shield her face. She looks upon Timothy with pity, genuine concern, and even sorrow, her emotions worn on her sleeve. Even so, she surges forward, approaching Timothy’s bed through the shifting gravity, across the rippling floor. As she approaches, she summons up two things from deep inside: her own magic, and her own empathy. She reaches out with her will, runes on her ring glowing as she works to calm the boy down, relaxing his heartbeat and forcing him to calm. That’s the magic.

With her empathy, she speaks, standing near his bed as a comforting, feminine presence. “Timmy, you didn’t know – you couldn’t have known. Even though you messed up, you can’t go back. You can only go forward, and atone. Redemption isn’t impossible for you.”

The Celtic runes flare with warm golden light as Alice’s magic flows outward, creating a small bubble of stability around Timothy’s bed. His rapid breathing begins to slow, the frantic REM movements behind his eyelids gentling to a more peaceful rhythm. The medical equipment’s reversed beeping gradually synchronizes into normal patterns.

“I… I can hear you…” Timothy’s voice comes not from his still lips, but seems to emanate from the prismatic window itself. “But I can’t wake up. Every time I try, I see Jamie falling again… see the blood… if I could just make that moment go backward…“

The reality distortions pulse with his words – the floor ripples more violently, and through the window, Alice can see the alley below where a new figure has appeared. A young girl, perhaps nine years old, walks backward up the brick wall as if it were level ground, her school uniform pristine despite the impossible movement.

“Jamie?” Timothy’s dream-voice whispers with desperate hope. “Jamie, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to push you off the monkey bars…“

Alice’s ring grows almost hot now, the magic straining against the powerful dream-leak. The temperature in the room continues to drop, and frost begins forming on the window’s edges. Timothy’s physical form remains motionless, but his astral presence feels stronger, more aware of Alice’s comforting words.

The prismatic light suddenly shifts, and Alice catches a glimpse of what might be Timothy’s actual dreamscape reflected in the glass – a playground where children move in reverse, where accidents unhappen, where guilt tries desperately to undo itself.

Alice realizes she might have to commit a momentary cruelty in order to free Timothy from the trap he’s made for himself. For a brief moment, she indulges, watching the dreamscape with pity and melancholy, her eyes soft, her gaze kind. Rather than stay standing, rather than loom above the boy, she kneels beside the bed, laying a comforting hand on his arm. She softly whispers, “Jamie wouldn’t want you to do this, Timmy. It’s time to move on. You can’t live your whole life in this torturous dream. You can’t… make other people live in it.” She raises the hand that bears her ring now, beginning to work magic against the dreamscape.

Alice contorts her hand in arcane gestures, forcing her will upon the world as she does; her runes glow red with haemomancy, black with necromancy, and orange with pyromancy as she weaves those magics together, combining them with wards to cut off parts of the dreamscape, to tug it apart, to weaken it, and ultimately… to shatter it. She chants under her breath in broken Latin, intoning reverberating words of power to raise her authority beyond what it should be, to steal fire from the gods and work it in her own image. She works to free the boy from his own hell. “Time to wake up, Timmy. No more dreaming. Time to live.”

The moment Alice’s magic strikes the dreamscape, Timothy’s astral voice cries out in anguish. “No! I have to fix it! I have to make it right!” The prismatic window cracks with spider-web fractures as competing forces clash – his desperate need to undo the past against Alice’s determination to free him from his guilt.

The reality distortions explode outward with violent intensity. The hospital room spins like a kaleidoscope, gravity reversing completely as medical equipment crashes upward into the ceiling. Through the fragmenting window, the alley below becomes a maelstrom of impossible physics – people walking on walls, rain falling upward in torrents, shadows dancing independently of their sources.

Timothy’s physical form begins to convulse on the bed, his small body fighting between dream and waking. “Jamie forgave me…” his voice whispers through the chaos, barely audible above the reality storm. “She… she said it was an accident… but I can’t forgive myself…“

Alice’s combined magics tear through the dreamscape like fire through silk, but each severed connection sends shockwaves through both the boy and the surrounding area. The frost on the window melts and reforms in impossible patterns. The Celtic runes on her ring burn almost painfully hot as they channel forces that strain the very fabric of local reality.

“I’m scared to wake up,” Timothy’s voice becomes smaller, more childlike. “What if everyone hates me? What if I really am a bad person?“

The cracks in the window spread further, and through them, Alice can see the dream-playground beginning to collapse – children fading like smoke, monkey bars crumbling into dust.

Alice is forced to stand to keep her balance against the whirling, violent distortion. Her clothes whip around her and threaten to yank her down, fling her out the window, but still she stands firm, hands weaving like a conductor’s as she commands magic and reality alike. Harsh motions slice through dreams, guttural words dispel illusions, and a touch of anti-magic helps to quell the boy’s rapidly awakening powers. She shouts against the storm, “It’s okay to be scared, Timmy! We’re all scared, sometimes! Even I’m scared! But Jamie’s okay! Jamie forgave you! You can still make things right!” She pulls on a deeper well of magic, blood starting to run from her nose as she strains herself beyond a human’s ability.

“You ARE a good person, inside, but you have to want to be! You can’t keep dreaming! Wake UP, Timmy! WAKE UP!”

Timothy’s eyes snap open.

The reality storm stops as if someone flipped a switch. Medical equipment crashes back down to the floor with thunderous impacts. The prismatic window goes clear and ordinary, its cracks sealing themselves with soft tinkling sounds. In the sudden silence, Timothy Ashworth – pale, thin, but undeniably awake – stares up at Alice with wide, frightened brown eyes.

“I… I’m awake?” His voice is hoarse from three days of disuse. Tears stream down his cheeks as he struggles to sit up. “The playground… Jamie… it was all mixed up in my head. She came to visit me in the dream. She said…” He swallows hard. “She said accidents happen, and that I shouldn’t hurt myself trying to fix something that can’t be unfixed.“

Through the now-normal window, Alice can see the alley below returning to natural order. Shadows fall downward where they belong. The jogger runs forward. A delivery person stacks boxes in the proper direction. The ivy grows upward toward the sun as nature intended.

Timothy looks at Alice with a mixture of gratitude and lingering fear. “Are you an angel? Jamie said someone would come to help me wake up.” He notices the blood on Alice’s face. “Are you hurt? Did I hurt you with my dreams?“

The hospital room settles into peaceful normalcy, though Alice’s ring still thrums with residual magical energy. From somewhere down the hall comes the sound of running footsteps – nurses responding to the sudden change in Timothy’s condition.

Alice wavers a little, dizzy from the strain, but she keeps herself standing by leaning against one of the posts of Timothy’s bed, wiping the blood away from her nose and giving a soft smile to the boy. “I’m okay,” she insists, whether she is or isn’t. “You didn’t hurt me. You were having a bad dream, Timmy.” As she catches her breath, she looks down at the damage her ring did to her finger, the magic searing its shape into her finger below. She quickly hides this in a sleeve, not wanting the child to see.

“I’m not an angel, Timmy. I’m with the Order. We help people like you… good people who made mistakes, and want to make things right. And now you can make it right, Timmy. You don’t have to dwell on the past.”

Timothy nods solemnly, wiping his eyes with the back of his small hand. “I want to make it right. I want to tell Jamie I’m sorry for real, not just in dreams.” He looks toward the door as the footsteps grow closer. “Will the doctors believe I just woke up? Will my parents come?“

A nurse bursts through the door, her eyes wide with amazement as she sees Timothy sitting up and alert. “Timothy! Oh my goodness, you’re awake!” She rushes to check his vitals, her hands shaking slightly with excitement and relief. “I need to call Dr. Martinez immediately, and your parents…“

Timothy looks back at Alice with newfound determination in his young eyes. “Thank you for helping me wake up. I think… I think I know what I need to do now.” He pauses, then adds quietly, “The Order sounds like good people. Maybe when I’m older, I can help other kids who get stuck in bad dreams too.“

Through the clear window, the alley has returned completely to normal – just a peaceful passage between Gothic buildings where students and faculty go about their daily routines under the warm afternoon sun. The only sign of the supernatural disturbance is a faint shimmer in the air that quickly fades, and the lingering scent of dreams that dissipates on the summer breeze.

The nurse glances at Alice curiously. “Are you family? I don’t remember seeing you before…“

“Ah,” Alice says sheepishly, giving a little smile to Timmy. “You can, Timmy. Just look for the brown coats. You’ll make a great Orderite, someday,” she tells him firmly, giving him a little nod and a pat on the head. To the nurse, Alice holds her hands up, showing she’s unarmed, and grins wide. “Ah, I was just leaving – I’ll be on my way. I’m sure Timothy will be fine, now,” before she heads for the exit before people ask too many more questions.

Timothy gives Alice a small wave as she heads toward the door. “I’ll remember about the brown coats,” he promises with a shy smile that transforms his pale face. “And I’ll be good, I promise.“

The nurse, overwhelmed with Timothy’s miraculous recovery, barely registers Alice’s departure as she fumbles for her phone to call the medical team. “Dr. Martinez? You need to get up here immediately. Timothy Ashworth is awake and responsive…“

Alice slips out of the room and down the hallway, where the delivery person is now properly stacking boxes and the elevator counts floors in the correct direction. The building feels lighter somehow, as if a weight has been lifted from its very foundations.

Outside in the alley, the afternoon sun casts normal shadows that pool properly at the base of the brick walls. The ivy climbs upward as it should, and the cobblestones remain firmly underfoot. A few university students pass through, chatting about their summer classes, completely unaware that reality itself had been unraveling in this very spot just minutes before.

Alice’s ring has cooled to its normal temperature, the Celtic knotwork no longer glowing. The scent of dreams has faded entirely, replaced once again by the earthy smell of old mortar and ivy. From the third-story window above, she can hear the excited voices of medical staff and, soon, the joyful sobs of parents reunited with their awakened son.

The Ivory Quarter returns to its peaceful academic rhythm, another supernatural crisis quietly resolved.