The video stuttered for half a second before refocusing. The person who filmed it was breathing heavily, as if he were in the middle of running a marathon. The sound cracked through Daniel’s earbuds in between gusts of wind and distant shouting.

  The Elisabeth Tower was in the middle of the frame, but it didn’t look like the great clock anymore. It still rose above Westminster in the same commanding way, but the familiar lines Daniel knew so well, were all gone. The tower was no longer a straight structure. It looked like it was curling up, with its body twisted into a sick, unnatural, spiral, as if some huge hand had softened the stone and twisted it.

  There were dark, thorn-like structures that curled around it in big hooked ribs. They transformed the silhouette into something predatory clinging possessively to the tower’s exterior. The stone looked a shade darker, almost black in some places. It looked older than it should have been, as if hundreds of years had passed over it in a single minute. The gold surrounding the clock face had become lifeless and flat, the color drained out until it was nearly black.

  His stomach knotted as the sight struck him. The tower didn’t seem to be damaged. It didn’t appear to be broken. It simply looked changed into something that didn’t seem built at all, but grown into place, as if the tower itself were alive.

  A thumb brought the picture closer. The person making the video swore under his breath. For one second something moved along the tower’s side at the speed that was too quick to see, a dark blur transversing the pale stone, before the camera dipped and the clip ended.

  Daniel barely noticed the students moving around him as he fixed his gaze on the frozen screen. Most of the noise was muffled by his earbuds, leaving only a dull, muffled wash of movement surrounding him.

  Another post loaded on his screen. This one showed the Parliament Square from a greater distance, with throngs of people crammed behind the police barriers and sirens illuminating everything with pulses of red and blue. The caption underneath the video was all capitals and question marks. He scrolled past it and opened another. Then another. The same thing was visible form every angle. The same twisted frame of that nightmarish tower.

  The students from his school were waiting for the buses that that would take them home. Teachers pretended to be supervising them as they stood along the line, checking their own phones every few seconds.

  He was prodded from the side by a shoulder. Daniel did not respond. Then there was a more persistent tap on the back of his arm. Annoyed, pulled one of his earbuds out and turned swiftly.

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  As if the day had personally offended him, Jay stood there with his tie already loosened, one bag strap dangling off his shoulder. Leo was standing next to him, one hand in his pocket, quieter than usual.

  “There he is,” Jay said. “For a moment I really thought you’d gone catatonic.”

  “What?” Daniel blinked at him once, with half an eye still following the video.

  “That.” Jay jerked his chin at his mobile. “You’ve been staring at it like it owes you money.”

  As more students moved up in line, Leo stepped next to Daniel and spoke a little more quietly. “Is this another clip from Westminster?”

  Daniel nodded and turned the screen so they could see it too. The three of them stood in the moving line while the video played again.

  “That has to be edited,” Jay muttered, though there was less conviction in it than he probably wanted.

  “Then so do all of these,” Daniel swiped his thumb over the screen and the next clip appeared.

  A video from a rooftop. A live stream from the street. A picture taken from across the river with a zoom. The same tower. The same twisted shape. Same sense that the famous clock tower of London had somehow become less like an architecture, and more like something living, pretending to be one.

  Jay made a face. “It looks…” He trailed off, searching for a word and finding none.

  “Wrong,” Daniel finished.

  “Yeah. That.”

  One of the buses hissed the tired air out as it stopped in front of the line, its doors folding open invitingly. The line advanced once more. Students started climbing aboard on twos and threes, muttering at each other to move faster. The teacher at the front kept urging everyone to hurry up, though he sounded distracted himself. Someone behind them complained loudly that they were blocking the way. Jay ignored them on principle and stayed focused on Daniel’s screen.

  “People are saying what now?” Leo asked.

  “Depends on who you ask,” Daniel scrolled through comments and headlines. “AI hoax. Drone show. Enemy attack. Gas leak. UFOs.”

  “There.” Jay pointed. “UFOs. That’s at least fun.”

  “You can’t be believing that.”

  “That’s the problem,” Jay said. “I don’t actually believe any of it.”

  Daniel opened a different post. This one was no longer in London. A skyline of another country, crowded with high-rises. People screamed off camera as something massive and dark moved in a bank of low clouds.

  Jay stared. “Oh, come on. That’s clearly fake.”

  Daniel scrolled again. Paris. New York. Short clips, shaky and blurred videos, with voices talking over each other. Every post sounded the same as landmarks from all over the world flashed by. The sky was filled with odd shapes and lights. Whole areas were being shut down and no one cared to explain why.

  “What is this?” Leo asked quietly.

  “No idea,” Daniel shook his head.

  This one featured a drone footage over Beijing, initially moving smoothly over the Forbidden City’s roofline under the dark sky. Jay squinted and leaned in closer. Beside him, Leo’s shoulders stiffened. For a few seconds there was nothing but rooftops and haze. Then the thing came into view. It had a long, scaled serpentine body that curved through the air like it belonged in the skies of China.

  The drone gave a wild tilt. Behind the camera, someone shouted, and despite the foreign language Daniel could hear fear behind those words. The beast turned its head, for a second revealing its face with terrifying clarity. The fire flooded the lens.

  The video cut out.