No time to dodge. A sensation of falling without moving, of being stretched thin and folded over. A crushing pressure, then a blinding, soundless flash.

Now, your boots scuff against coarse gravel. You catch yourself on a low parapet, lungs burning as you suck in a breath that smells wrong. Too clean, too metallic. The skyline that greets you is a stranger. Queens, yes. The water towers, the squat brick buildings. But the light is flat, the colors muted, the angles somehow… off. Like a photograph of a place you know, taken with the wrong lens.

A distant, familiar thwip cuts through the odd silence. Then a red and blue blur, graceful as a gymnast, swings into view three blocks over before disappearing behind a taller building. Not your blur. Not your suit.

From the street below, a car horn blares, long and impatient. A voice shouts back, Hey, I’m walkin’ here! The normalcy of it is the most jarring thing of all.