The Mystery Of The Sideways City

The first time Andrew Peel saw the gateway to another world, he was in the middle of a driving lesson. Far and away, one of the absolute worst times to learn the truth about the existence of extradimensional realms.

"Slow the hell down, Peel!" the driving instructor bellowed, briefcase held over her head as if she were hiding from nuclear war beneath her school desk. "Do you want us to fly off into orbit?!"

"Fun though that may sound, that's what I'm trying to avoid!!!" Andrew snapped, white-knuckled hands clutched so tight upon the steering wheel he and the car might as well have synchronized into some sick superbeing. "Don't you see that monstrosity back there?!"

"All I see's a shit-ton of smoke!" Nathan Rademacher, one of the other two students in the car, shouted from the back. The thick-necked bastard stuck his shaved head out the rear window and started hacking up hairballs. "Dude, the tires are on fire!"

"Mister Peel, your feet are on both pedals at once! Stop it!!" Mrs. Mathieson shouted, the instructor's words turning into pure screams as the car swerved to avoid a cherry red pick-up. "Bring this car to a halt this instant!"

Andrew licked his lips, ignored Mathieson and the sweat dripping down his dusty brown bangs. "Don't stop me now," he sang under his breath, humming to himself as the radio was off.

Only one thing was on his mind.

One thing to both pay attention to and avoid at all costs.

In the corner of his eye, he saw it.

Not captured in the rear-view mirror, no reflection in the side-mirrors. Flickering above the swaying laurel green trees along the highway, a spiraling silver torrent of twisted energy ate away the sky. In the hungry heart of the time-space tear, a cluster of bristling glass needles and steely straight lines, all of them facing in a hundred different directions.

Towers. Arches. Bridges, domes and skyscrapers. An alien city hovering in the sky that no one else saw. Upside-down and inside out, horizontal and vertical swapping places.

A sideways world out to get him.

Out to get them ALL.

No amount of tire fires and swearing classmates could cause him to stop driving now. Andrew clenched his teeth and ass and pushed the tiny sky-blue sedan further, faster.

Mathieson screamed some more. Rademacher thwacked him upside the head with a stack of manuals. Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew noticed the one still point in the swiftly swerving car.

Julia Washington, the third student in the car today. Diminutive, doe-eyed and dark-skinned, a fellow nerd though they moved in different circles. She hadn't budged an inch in the chaos apart from the swaying of her many thick braids. Her inky gaze was slanted upwards, peering out the rear windshield, her body rigid with fright.

She can see it, too! I'm not the only one!

For whatever reason, this simple fact-that he wasn't as crazy as everyone thought him, that he wasn't alone-was enough to push Andrew into proper action.

He sped towards Exit 6, flew through the lights, charged down Halfpenny Boulevard like a streak of ball lightning. More screams, more honking horns. Not the most pleasant soundtrack to drive to but it'd do.

All the while, the unholy lovechild of Nolan's Inception and Lang's Metropolis kept tumbling forwards through the sky, a trilling alien anthem heralding its presence.