It was happening again.

The Reverend Timothy Lovejoy looked down at his arm, hoping he was mistaken. Maybe he was seeing things. But no, he was right. It was happening again.

His left arm was fading away; vanishing as though it had never been there. It had happened before, but there was one difference; last time it hadn’t really changed that much. Now, as he held his hand up to the basement light, he realised with horror that he could see right through it.

How can this be happening?
He had no idea. Neither had Dr Hibbert. Even Professor Frink couldn’t explain what was happening to him. It was as if his arm was slowly fading out of existence.

What if it didn’t stop with his arm?

It was then that he realised someone was watching him. Helen? No – as he spun around to the basement door, he knew it wasn’t her. There was no one on the stairs. That meant only one thing; the basement window. It was small, but if someone crouched down low enough...

But why would someone want to watch him? Lovejoy didn’t know, but someone did. Even as he made his way over to the window, he realised he was right. As he watched, a small scrap of paper slipped into the room. The Reverend reached down and picked it up, his heart racing.

On it, written in scruffy handwriting, was the following:

I know what’s happening to you

If you want to know, meet me tomorrow at 10am behind the First Church of Springfield

Lovejoy stared at the note, briefly wondering what the hell it meant, before darting to the window. Whoever had been there was long gone. He wasn’t surprised.

He leant up to close it, and caught sight of his translucent arm again. Never mind who it was; if they knew how to stop this, he’d need to talk to them.

“What the heck,” he said to himself. “I can manage that.”

So there he was, walking behind his church. Nobody ever really went there except rats and the occasional drug addict. That, apparently, had changed.

Lovejoy looked around nervously. A large dumpster blocked most of the space between the wire fence and the church itself. What lay behind it was a mystery. The Reverend shivered, reaching into his pocket for his pistol. He had no idea who this person was, after all; there was no way in hell he was going to meet them unarmed.

But there was no one behind the dumpster.

There was something there, but it was the most bizarre thing Lovejoy had seen in his life. It looked like some sort of blue oval, about six feet high and four feet wide. It glowed brightly in the shadows, and the Reverend instantly felt uncomfortable looking at it.

Whatever it was, it was unnatural.

Instinctively, the Reverend recoiled from it, bringing his pistol forward. It was in his right hand – a hand, he noticed, that was also beginning to fade. Where was the person who’d written that note? And what the hell was this... thing?

“It looks like a portal,” he muttered to himself, but that raised further questions. Where did it go? And what was it doing here?
Before they could be answered, however, he heard a noise behind him.

Probably a rat.

But it was not a rat, and before he could move, he felt a pair of hands push him forward. Towards the portal.

Before he had time to do anything else, he fell into it.

Behind him, his assailant wondered if she’d done the right thing. It didn’t last long; by doing this, she knew, it would save him.

Smiling at that thought, she stepped through the portal herself. A few seconds later, it disappeared, showing no sign that it had ever been there.