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The shortcut wasn't much - just a back path carved between fences where kids used to smoke. It sliced through a patch of dying trees, came out by an empty lot, and spat you onto the next street. He'd walked it so many times he could have done it blind.

But not today.

Today the shortcut looked wrong.

He slowed at the edge of the fence. The gap he usually slipped through - the one bent open by years of sneakers and shoulders - was still there. But the path beyond it... stretched too far. It should have opened into a street after fifty meters. Now it curved away into fog.

Brighton blinked.
Maybe it's just weather, he thought. But the air was dry. No mist, no smoke, no reason for that grey wall just sitting there.

He stepped through.

The first few steps crunched gravel. Normal. But then the sound changed.
Soft. Wet.
The ground turned to grass under his shoes.

He frowned, looking up.

Rows of houses, cloned from one blueprint, ran down either side of a street that didn't exist yesterday. All their curtains were drawn. All their lights off. Every front yard perfectly trimmed.

This isn't here, he thought. This street doesn't exist.

He turned to look back.
The gap in the fence was gone.
Only more houses. Endless.

Something in him tried to laugh, tried to call this a dream or a migraine or a prank, but nothing came out. He walked forward instead, hands in his pockets, pretending he wasn't scared.

Halfway down the street he noticed the swing set.

It sat crooked in a patch of grass between two houses, the kind of cheap metal thing parents put up in the nineties and forgot to tear down. The paint was peeling. The seats were still. Except one chain twitched, like it had just been let go.

He stepped closer.

There - under the swing - a shoe. White canvas, scribbled with black stars.

He froze.

He'd seen that exact pattern before, a hundred times, because Sadie Langford used to sit cross-legged in the courtyard, drawing the same stars on her sneakers while she listened to music too loud to hear anyone else.

He crouched, heart hammering.

The shoe was clean. Not new, not dirty - just placed. He touched the sole.
Warm.

A breath caught behind him.

"That's not yours."

He spun around.

Nothing. Just fog swallowing the end of the street.

He turned back - and the shoe was gone.

The swing creaked once, then stopped dead. The air felt heavy, thick with static. He pulled out his phone to text Barry, but the signal bar was gone, replaced by a little clock icon spinning slowly.

He backed away, step by step, until his heel hit pavement again.

The neighborhood behind him blinked. Literally - blinked.
For a second, every house light flashed on in unison, bright enough to burn the shape of the windows into his eyes, then they all went dark.

And when the spots cleared, he was standing in front of the school again.

The bell was ringing.
Kids were spilling out like nothing had happened.

He checked the time - 3:15.

Same as when he left.

He stood there, shaking slightly, watching the normal world restart itself.