"It's a very simple question, Digit." The mysterious girl looks up at her school teacher with eyes that seem to flicker. Ignoring this, Mr. Armstrong continues. "Where are you and your parents from?" Interesting question, to be sure. Interesting and understandable. But far from simple. And certainly not very.
You see, this glitching thing extends beyond the family's behavior and environment to their verbal communication. (You really didn't expect them to talk like normal human beings, did you?) This speech abnormality manifests as a bizarre mixture of choppy English and vocalization of binary code. At any point during a conversation, even during mid-sentence, a binary stream of 0s and 1s will flow from lagging lips. Of course, good luck in finding someone in Hollow Graham who has heard this "glitchspeak." It has happened, but only on rare and exceptional occasions.
Today happens to be one of these occasions.
Digit finally answers. Or at least replies.
"It's 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100."
Did you get that? Neither did her teacher. But Mr. Armstrong is nothing if not thoroughly prepared for every classroom situation. Based on previous interactions with this most unconventional of pupils, he had downloaded a binary code translation app onto his phone.
The dedicated educator requires a few minutes to input the spoken numbers into the app. Digit waits patiently, her head zipping in multiple directions at lightning speed. For any other student, this would be great cause for alarm. But Mr. Armstrong knows that she's just glitching right now.
"So it's...complicated, huh?" The translation is complete. "Then why don't you try to explain it to me?"
This might take a while.
Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, a background story for the ages begins to emerge...
The mundane environs of Hollow Graham temporarily fade into oblivion. Digit is no longer sitting in the desk-lined classroom. She is no longer looking into the attentive face of her teacher. Suddenly she is far away - so very far away. The transcendent vehicle of her memory has "teleported" her through time, beyond space, across dimensions. She finds herself in a very familiar place. Home. Original home.
A storm is brewing. (Well technically, a "matrix malfunction" is initializing.) An epic event is on the horizon. It's set to arrive in just a little bit. After it has passed through, a family will be gone.
Light becomes darkness. Powerful currents sweep across the field. Bright bursts of high-voltage energy materialize overhead. An unnerving medley of noises sound. It's definitely near.
At last the monster comes into view. A ferocious funnel - a vicious vortex - is rapidly approaching. The doomed family helplessly brace for the inevitable. This is goodbye. It doesn't take long. In an instant, it's all over.
This tragedy doesn't strike on the tornado-prone plains of a Midwestern state. It doesn't occur on Earth at all. Where, then? On the alternate plane of a different dimension. And the "twister"? A furiously-rotating vortex of incredible, exotic energy. A wormhole gone wild, if you will. And unlike an earthly tornado, it doesn't destroy. Instead, this thing sucks its victims up like a gargantuan vacuum cleaner, then deposits them in another dimension of its choosing. Imagine The Wizard of Oz in reverse.
The victims in our story? None other than the newest citizens of Hollow Graham. That's right. The Glitchesons are the bizarro, interdimensional versions of Dorothy and Toto. They find themselves stuck in a world for which they were never intended, and to which they are ill-suited, to say the least.
Summertime in Hollow Graham is a stressful time for young Digit - indeed, for her parents as well. While the neighbors bask in the sun, the Glitchesons remember. They recall the spherical object which, perpetually suspended above their heads, hurled photons down upon their world. But these beams of light did far more than turn night into day. The other-dimensional orb created reality itself - the reality they knew - by the holographic projections emanating from it.
For, you see, the Glitchesons are natives of a holographic world. A fish doesn't flop and gasp for air in the water. Neither did the Glitchesons glitch prior to the "wormnado" which summarily booted them from their natural environment.
Now, marooned on a spinning rock, in a physical universe, bound to a different reality system - there's a whole lot of glitchin' goin' on.
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