The Universe's Mixer

The sun had seen some recent issues over the past while. Not doing what it should have been doing. It tormented the City as much as it tormented the people that it contained. Just when it thought that it had everything fixed for good, something else would go wrong. Frustration filled it, the perfection was being marred, and it wasn't the one doing the marring. Maybe it would have been different if the sun's strange treks in the sky had been its own work. But the sun defied the City's desires.

While the City tried to sort out the problem, catastrophe struck.

One night, the sun sank below the horizon, bathing the residents in the glow of the wonderfully full moon. And the next morning, did not rise again. Stars blanketed the sky as if the night wasn't supposed to be ending, giving way to a new dawn.

The street lamps and lit signs functioned as they normally would, instead of staying on like people might have preferred. For 8 hours there was no illumination from any sources outside of what the moon in it's ever changing state provided. The darkness was deep and complete. The perfect shroud for the creatures that lurked.

Lisbeth spoke aloud in Swedish: "What a pathetic fool you are, Salander."

After deciding she was in love Mikael Blomkvist and going so far as to buy him a thoughtful gift and a confession of her feelings, she saw the journalist with his boss and -- their body language had been quite obvious as to their intentions -- lover. Lisbeth turned on a heel and began to walk home, throwing the gift into a dumpster when she had really wanted to throw it at Berger's head!

By now she should have passed Zinkensdamm, but instead found herself on a street that could not have existed anywhere in Stockholm. The night sky had turned to black and there were only stars, brighter than stars in a city ever should be, to light to path on the sidewalk.

I've lost it, she thought. I am completely insane and it's Mikael Fucking Blomkvist's fault.

It was a nice sentiment but if Lisbeth had gone mad, she wouldn't have imagined a city like this. She remained dead calm as she walked, in case it was some sort of temporary insanity that fresh air might correct. It didn't and, Lisbeth began to suspect, the roads were shifting on her. Her sense of direction was aided by a photographic memory. The alleys and turns she took didn't add up.

Lisbeth saw a bar, Purgatory, up ahead. Her mind had already considered several scenarios which might account for her Wonderland-like displacement. If she was drugged or had gone insane it was probably an appropriate time to get crawl-home drunk. The bar's interior didn't make Salander feel much better about her situation, looking like two establishments cut and glued together in half. On one side, there were burly North American looking rednecks. On the other, goths who were decked out in various degrees of fetish gear.

And everyone was speaking English with North American accents.

Lisbeth had the don't-fuck-with-me attitude of a hunter, but the tattoos and piercings of a fangbanger. The truth was that she didn't belong on either side. She took a seat at the bar as close to the invisible divider as she could and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. Lisbeth didn't see any No Smoking signs, and was having the sort of day where she couldn't be assed to care about any ordinances, either.

"Vodka," she said while holding up three fingers. The shots were just to start.