((If anyone wants a go at it, feel free to toss your single post observation into the mix. Think about little vignettes where it doesn't make much sense for an entire thread, but it's still worth mentioning.))

Staring at nothing had become something of a pastime for Maya.

In the warm glow of the late afternoon sun, the elemental sat on the Mansion's back porch railing, swinging her legs. She was quite enthralled, staring off into the open air. Though many had asked her what she saw, it was almost impossible to describe.

With her spatial vision being based on the air around her, typically air showed as a field of white nothingness and objects that had mass appeared as solid black. Things that were something inbetween, like fire, would show up as a fan of greyish fingers. Maya's own body registered as something in between. As did this... whatever.

She'd noticed it first in the front entry hall of the Mansion, just outside of the library. It looked like a little wrinkle in the vast open whiteness of the open air, up high and out of reach. She'd thought it was a large spider web... until it moved.

Maya tracked it all day, much to the amusement of the students. It passed over a light fixture and the bulb went dead. Once the bulb was replaced, she was told the fixture worked fine again. The bulb appeared to be an old one with a burnt out filament. Probably a coincidence, but the stringy turbulence grew bigger.

Now, in the rosy last fingers of the day's light which were lost on Maya's special brand of vision, the wrinkle was nearly as large as a camping tent. It hadn't gobbled anything else up. Maybe it wasn't gobbling at all...

"Mom?" A little tailed mutant tugged at her skirt. "I can't find Clover anywhere."

"Did you look upstairs?"

"I want you to find him." He whined and Maya knew the kid probably hadn't seen her enough today.

The anomaly, whatever it was, didn't seem to be hurting anything. She hopped down and turned her back on it.

"Did Cafas not sing you a song?"

Amber had been sitting outside, her back to a large tree on the Mansion grounds, with a book in hand for the last hour.  It was well past midnight and she had a small portable light with her to make reading possible.  Since her return, she'd found herself feeling claustrophobic and didn't like sleeping inside.  The sun had always been a problem for her, burning and blistering her skin even when exposed to it for short periods of time and as such, she had long ago become mostly nocturnal.

The night was dry and mild, at least with her resistance to temperature, and there was no one out to interfere with her peace.  That was another reasons he had begun coming out here to read: the peace and silence that existed during the late night hours when everyone else was asleep.  As much as she appreciated her new home at the Mansion, sometimes the noise and chaos got to her.  Here, she could simply be alone with her thoughts.

The night should have been much like any other, peaceful and quiet until dawn when the sun began to creep back up into the sky and she'd be forced to go back inside the to safety of the Mansion walls.  This night, however, was not like any other.  The first thing she noticed was that the shadows weren't quite right.  They began to change and waver back and forth, as if the source of light needed to form them was changing rapidly from one place to another.

Next, the light itself suddenly changed.  One moment is was dark, lit only by the dim moon and her little light and the next, there was the sun, bright in the sky.  Her exposed skin prickled with its presence.  What was going on?  Panic rose in her chest.  Then the sun flickered, went back and forth from light to dark 3 or 4 times in quick strobe-like fashion and then it was night again and there was the moon, right where it should be.  The prickle in her skin went away just as the sun had and she was left sitting there, baffled, unsettled and unsure about what in the world had just happened.  Maybe, in the morning she'd have to go ask someone if they knew anything about what was going on.

Booker was really over the interns lately. He had a system for keeping track of their work, just to ensure that they were actually working while they were out in the stacks. Every day, Booker assigned the interns under his watch to specific sections throughout the day to organize, shelve, and to dust the book stacks. It was a pretty simple system but the thing that the interns never realized is that the librarian checked their areas the next day, to ensure that they were actually doing their work. Secretly he would mark his findings down, using a spreadsheet to ensure that he could keep accurate track and figure out who was actually doing their work.

It was elegant, simple, and effective. He weeded out most of the slackers fairly quickly and was able to praise his good workers. However, he was noticing more and more that his people seemed to be slacking off a bit – especially in the dusting department. A few stern lectures towards their confused faces seemed to be enough to get them on the straight and narrow, but he wouldn’t know for sure until the next time he checked.

Arriving early for work, the librarian wandered through the halls of his beloved library, smiling a bit to himself as he made his way to his office. Pulling his bookbag off of his shoulder, he sighed as he set it down on his table, plopped in front of his computer, and logged in.

First tasks would be checking his emails, deleting spam, and then sneaking onto his favorite roleplay forum where he typed out a few plotting messages to friends. Once that was done, it was time to get to work. So, grabbing his clipboard from his desk, he attached a fresh sheet of paper that was printed with the names of his interns and their assigned locations. Okay, it was time to see if they were actually getting off their lazy butts and doing their work.

Before the library opened was one of his favorite parts of the job. Strolling through all this architecture, history, and design, Booker found himself in an extremely Zen-like state. With a song whistling on his lips, causing it to echo throughout the halls, the man sighed as he made his way into the stacks, his clip board in hand and a destination in mind.

It didn’t take the librarian long to find the first of his assigned shelves. A quick check gave the man a smile and a nod of his head; the same with the next one and the one after that; however, inevitably it came time to check on his last worker…Alexis. Ugh. She was a sweet girl but a bit too absent-minded to be working in a library, especially since she never cleared up her shelves! But he hoped that today would be the day.

”Come on, Lexi,” he grumbled through the pen he had balanced between his lips. ”Don’t make me have to fire you…”

As he made his way to her assigned area, Booker was cautiously optimistic. The shelves looked clean, orderly, and a quick swipe of his finger provided absolutely no dust! Bravo! With a little happy turn, Booker pulled his pen out from between his lips and started to jot down a Happy Face next to her name when his pen stopped writing. Sighing, he tapped it a few times on the paper and prepared to write again, but when he glanced up to double check he had the right shelf…he paused.

Blinking, he peered closer to the shelves and noticed that the books were slightly askew and they were caked, literally caked, in dust. Pulling one of the books from the shelve, Booker suddenly had a coughing fit as the movement caused a layer of dust to break free, forming a cloud around his head. Sputtering a little Booker sighed and shook his head. Giving the book a shake or two to knock off most of the dust, he sighed as he held it back up. Ironically, it was The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. It looked like it hadn’t been dusted since time began. Though he could have sworn a second ago it looked freshly cleaned, now it looked as if it had been neglected for weeks.

With a grumble he replaced the book on the shelf and jotted down the name of another intern to tackle the area. ”Sorry Lexi,” he sighed with a shake of his head. ”Strike three.”

Xavia was resting on the couch in her living room, rubbing the back of her daughter who snuggled up to her sleepily. Her own eyes were starting to grow heavy with fatigue. As she gave a great yawn, gooseflesh dotted her body. Blinking, she tried to shake the feeling that something weird was happening.

Then the lights started to flicker,and there was an odd charge in the air. She only blinked and her daughter vanished as if she hadn't been there. She sat up with a start, "Delilah?!" And started to look about frantically. Then the electricity did that weird thing again, and suddenly, there was her daughter, looking up in great confusion at her.

"Mommy..." Croaked Delilah, who now clung to Xavia in said confusion. Xavia buried her face in the little girl's baby shampoo scented hair, holding tight to her spawn and stumbling to her feet.

She tried to rub her back but the girl vanished before her eyes again, causing Xavia to cry out. "No!!! What t'e hell? Delilah!!!" And this would happen several times more before a frightened little girl clung to her neck? Xavia ended up sitting in a corner, breathing heavily as she rocked her baby.

It took several minutes of odd silence before she started to sing to the girl in a shaky voice, hoping that what just happened was nothing but a hallucination, caused by her lack of sleep. And soon, the little one would calm down, and Xavia would continue to rock back and forth.

The sun was still high enough in the sky, it was only a little past five, when the Ranger decided to stop for a bit to eat. He had been out all day meeting with some potential clients and hadn't even had a chance to catch lunch.

He knew a little hole in the wall middle-eastern restaurant was near. Authentic schwarma sounded perfect to him right then. He drove a few blocks out of his way and parked the Hellcat tamer. There was a meter so he paid it and turned to head toward his late lunch, or was it an early dinner?

Not managing a spot close to where he was going he did have to walk a half a block. No big deal. He hadn't had a chance to do much of anything today so the little walk was nice. He would need to hit the gym when he got back to Haven. He couldn't start getting soft around the edges because work was busy.

Traffic had been bad all day. Now with everyone off work trying to get everywhere at once it had become crazy. Spending a little time off the road would protect the Hellcat tamer from everyone else. The Ranger was an excellent driver, many people in New York City were driving in ways that left him questioning if the driver test in this state amounted to, "What are car noises?" He'd narrowly saved his car from same yahoo merging into it ten minutes ago.

Approaching the door to the business he wanted to leave the worries of the road behind him on the road. He opened the door and as he stepped inside he heard tires screech and a nasty crash follow. Immediately the Ranger turned back around and left the business. Even while hungry he couldn't not try to help.

The sun was gone.

It was only a little past five in the afternoon and the sun was gone. Except everyone was cruising around like it was normal. The Ranger looked and there was the skid marks on the road, a little glass debris on the side of the road from the collision. No cars. He looked up at the sky and saw the moon.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. A phone that when pinging a tower kept up the current time. It showed him 21:15. It was a quarter past nine. The Ranger had lost four hours.

Idly he wondered... had he been Noeled?

Click.

Click.

Click.

There really wasn't much to watch on weekday afternoons. Alas, it was a quiet summer day. Aside from the pair of students playing chess, Glitch was the only one in the living room. She had nothing better to do. Remote in hand, she flipped between channels. Eventually, she settled on a Chess of Crowns rerun.

She laid on the couch, lazily watching the show. Or, trying to. Knowing what deaths, betrayals, and such were going to happen kind of took the fun out of it, even with the awesome dragons and all. Her eyelids were getting droopy. She could just fall asleep then and there...

BBZZZZZZTT!!!

“What the-!”

A loud crackling in her mics slash ears jolted her awake. Her vision was so full of static it was hard to see. Frickin' electronic parts were on the fritz, it seemed. Glitch tapped the side of her head, hoping it would clear.

After a few seconds, it indeed did. She gave a sigh of relief. But something was going on with the television. The fighting soldiers on the TV were still.

“Huh, this stinks.” So much for the sort-of entertainment.

She left the couch, but that's when she noticed the strangest thing yet.

The pair playing chess were like statues. One even was frozen mid-move, about to put down her knight.

“Guys...?” Glitch asked, worried.

Just when Glitch was about to go over and shake the living daylights out of them, the static returned. Another few seconds later, and...

“Check!”

Glitch blinked, confused. The chess players were continuing their game as if nothing happened. She looked over at the TV, which was again playing the battle scene.

That was really. Effing. Weird. Something had to be wrong.

She hurried down the hallway. Stopping outside one of the office doors, she knocked, then peeked inside. “Hey DocProf? I think something's wrong with my eyes. And ears. Some whacked up laggy thing. Is one of your mechanic friends available?”

A mechanical issue. That had to be it.