((Sorry about the delay.  Insane hours this week.  Kills creative urges...))<br/><br/>The man's response was strange when it came, but that wasn't what hit Santi in that moment.  What hit her was a wave of dizziness and senses-rending confusion.  She was speaking to him, her nervous words leaving her lips, and suddenly he was standing miles away.  She was falling, but she was falling<span style="font-style: italic">upwards,</span>except her feet were planted firmly into the sidewalk, seeming to be rooted there to keep her from falling to her death below... no, above.  Her body was stretching, being twisted and drawn out like she had no bones and her flesh was taffy, though there was no actual<span style="font-style: italic">pain</span>to fit the sensation.  Her eyes widened, and the last words left her mouth in a rush of expelled breath; she jerked in place, her muscles seeming frozen in her shock, and something was howling through her mind.  Something wasn't right... something was... so very, very<span style="font-style: italic">wrong...</span><br/><br/>And then everything was right again.  She was still standing, the sky was up and the sidewalk was down, and she hadn't been stretched into a strand of female-flesh-spaghetti.  The wave of...<span style="font-style: italic">wrongness</span>passed as quickly as it had come.  She was left staring at the man, who quietly, and so unnervingly, checked his glasses like absolutely nothing had just happened.  He begged her pardon, as though her words hadn't been clear... which they might well have not been with what had happened to distract her.  He never stopped walking, but he did take the time to turn and look at her... just enough time to say she looked unwell, and that she should hurry home like a good little girl.  Then he was on his way, pulling out a cigarette like so many of her clients liked to do after she'd done her job to their satisfaction.<br/><br/>"I..." she murmured.  He was out of hearing range, but somehow she felt that she had to at least respond somehow.  "I have no home," she murmured.  Then, the derelict building she shared with her friends coming to mind, she decided that wasn't entirely true... so instead, drawing up some trace of indignant pride, she murmured, "those things'll kill you, mister..."<br/><br/>She stood there watching him walk away, and she felt stupid.  She'd mistaken his odd look, surely she had... she'd gone and spoken to someone, not something for a pickpocket to do after a lift.  Surely she was mistaken... no... no, she wasn't.  He'd seen her.  And somehow, in some way, he'd dealt her some kind of retribution... something minor, a mere warning perhaps, and yet...<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I've never felt anything like that before.  So strange... so... foreign.  It was... it was so...</span>her thoughts slowed to a halt, and she looked through the nearest building toward the great wall so close by.  Could it be?  Could it have been some sort of... Welle?  The strange energies she'd heard about on the other side of the wall?  No, impossible.  Powers like that didn't exist this side of the wall... the same way as even the simple technologies she and her friends shared didn't exist on the other side.  Or so she thought, at least...<br/><br/>Then, as she looked around in continued confusion, she felt it.  The alley she'd stopped in front of... a chill, so chill wind was blowing.  And... and her heart seemed to skip a beat, and her breath caught in her throat.  The alley went on forever.  Her eyes couldn't spot the end of it.  Her mind couldn't comprehend the distance.  Somehow the buildings to each side went on into infinity, endless expanses of concrete and stone...<br/><br/>She shivered.  Whatever that man had done, it wasn't over.  It was as though he'd ordered her to run down that endless path, running forever and ever, lost in the limbo of...<br/><br/>She wrenched her mind away from that concept, and looked away.  Her eyes alighted on the nearby shop, still warm and cheery and reassuringly<span style="font-style: italic">normal,</span>and she still felt the stolen money weighing down her hand.<span style="font-style: italic">Coffee,</span>she thought, swallowing fearfully.<span style="font-style: italic">I need a coffee.  I'll feel better after a coffee...</span><br/><br/>She turned her body toward the coffee shop and started walking toward it, and away from the impossible scene of the endless alley.