Dimension Of Perfection (And Its Flaws)

Chapter 1 - A Normal Day

It's just a normal day for Hector Damon, in a normal week of his life.

Completely indifferent from any other normal day.

But this is about to change.

As Hector approaches the crosswalk, he looks to each side of the road carefully, before still stepping into oncoming traffic.

He walks with little regard to those around him, expecting an angry horn pointed in his direction pretty soon.

Actually, right about now.

Instead, there is nothing. There never was a vehicle there to begin with.

Hector fails to realise this and continues on as normal, sluggishly heading into an alley that leads out of the city.

While walking he looks up at the buildings surrounding him, not seeing the typical grime of battery acid and thermal paste. Instead, all that's there is a perfectly pristine wall dotted in posters, invoking a message of some kind.

He doesn't actually notice anything wrong with the wall, and goes on his way, feeling loose like a wobbling plate of jelly.

Wandering in a spinning daze to the end of the path, he taps at his forehead and wipes across his snout and squinted eyes. He groans, lets go, and leaves his expression to morph back to normal.

He stares straight ahead and doesn't pay explicit attention to anything, his eyes, completely unmoving and devoid of sense.

His finger hangs down as if to hold his bag of drinks; the ones that aren't there anymore.

He maintains the position, not at all worried about the lack of weight on his hand. Or, at least, just completely unaware anything has changed at all.

As Hector comes to a clear spot where the alley ends, he notices the warmth of the sun, and instinctively looks up from the street to the view.

He shields his eyes with a free hand and peers toward the light, looking out over the horizon of weird colours morphing and changing.

Across the skyline of the Progress Emporium, he notices something wrong.

He awakens a slight bit more, and accidentally begins to understand that a ginormous abandoned building that blocked the view beforehand, is suddenly gone.

It had only been a day since he was here, and it's unrecognizable from now.

Suddenly puzzled, he considers every possibility. (All two of them...)

What if 'they' demolished it?

No, that would take too much time.

Or, What if...

Someone dropped a nuke on it.

Yes! Hector thought to himself. That was what had happened!

So he continues down the left side of the street, having figured out this mysterious disappearance.

Still, he bubbles with thoughts in his psyche that something's off, beside the missing building.

The air smells... different. And not bad either, just aromatic. Strangely smelly to where the stench of smog is, noticeably absent. Now thinking about the smog, Hector notices that the air is clearer. The smokestacks in the Progress Emporium are no longer pumping pollution out directly into the neighbouring district, and most of them are gone altogether.

In fact, most of the Emporium looks entirely different; all of the blurred masses of colour that he usually saw in his faint peripheral are among those missing.