If you asked a mime why they always had to be silent while performing, they'd say something about how it drew attention to the motions, or helped them to focus. That was bullshit.

The reason that silence was decreed by the académie pour l'obscurcissement des arts occultes et de la magie, was to make the real effect of the magic invisible to the average person. One interacted with the world with the hands first, the eyes second, and the mouth third. Not talking meant obfuscating a little bit of the magic from view.

Which is why, as the mime's yell snapped me out of my happy little stroll through the back alleys of Bordeaux, I watched as a pane of glass appeared before his hands, his palms flattened against it to brace against the coming impact. Through the glass, through the veil between realities, I caught the murkiest glimpse of something, a writhing mass of hands and arms and teeth, and then the sound of shattering glass.

The mime grit his teeth, shards of glass flying across his face and drawing red pinpricks of blood onto his white makeup.

"Merde... Run!" the mime repeated, forming yet another invisible box. He had a little more time now, wiping his hand across the glass as if to polish its surface. The horrific... thing on the other side slammed into the glass again, sending a loud hollow thud through the street. The mime skidded backwards, his shoes scraping along the pavement. That sent me running, scampering as best I could through the unfamiliar streets.

But the alleys I was running through now were not the same as the ones I left. The veil of reality that nice, normal people believed in had been torn from my eyes. In each window, I caught glimpses of that thing from the abyss, watching me with one of a thousand eyes. Arms and feet reached out from mailboxes and gutters, trying to grab me or trip me over. The sky had turned a deep wine-red, the sun a watchful eyeball.

And as I rounded yet a other corner, there stood the worst sight of all. It was a horrid mess of flesh and bone, taking up the entire alleyway as it languidly crawled towards me - this wasn't even a fraction of its true size. It whispered in a hundred different tongues as I stood there, frozen. And just in front of the monstrosity? A couple enjoying a morning stroll, none the wiser to the thing behind them.

"You alright, buddy?" the man asked. His words were gentle and caring, but he stepped between me and the woman, as one does between crackheads and the people you love.

I couldn't force a word out. What words would even befit the situation at hand? I motioned wildly at the thing behind them, trying to express with my hands what words couldn't do. The man put an arm across the woman's torso, forming a shield between her and me. Of course they didn't get it. They hurried quickly past me, the man muttering something about a drug epidemic.

And the thing was getting closer. But the way the man had put out his arm had put an idea into my head. If only I could do something! I reached out with my hands, as the thing drew ever closer, and brought up an imaginary sniper rifle to my eye. Just the way my brother and I had when we were kids. And I fired.

The thing screeched in pain, a sound that shook the earth and cracked the heavens. I had fired at the most vital-looking thing I could find, a mass of eyes and teeth and a large, bulbous vein. It recoiled, tumbling over itself back down the alleyway. Behind me, I heard the screech of tires.

There was a man, his suit and his skin painted a pure gold. He hovered in mid-air in a sitting position, with only the cane in his hand anchoring him to the ground.

"Get in," he yelled, though I saw no vehicle. "Your brother is waiting."

"Get in? What are you talking about?" I yelled back. The thing was beginning to advance once more.

"Come on, get in!" he yelled again, as it began to thunder down the alleyway.

I pointed my sniper rifle again, and fires, but nothing came out.

"Hurry!" he screamed, as arms and legs dragged the thing forward, grabbing at the windowsills and doorways of people who knew nothing of this world.

I ran towards the man and lifted one leg high up into the air, trying to find purchase on something. I merely stomped the ground. Once, twice, and then finally I felt my foot brush against something. I hurled myself forwards, a maneuver that would have cracked my head against the pavement if I hadn't instead felt soft leather against my cheek. And then suddenly the cobblestones underneath me were whizzing by, as the golden man and I sped away from whatever that thing was.

"What. The hell. Was that?" I gasped. I wanted to sit up to catch my breath, but I was worried that if I moved the spell would break and I would hit the ground at speed.

"The Mimic," the golden man said.

And whatever else I asked, he said nothing, the picture of the stoic performance artist. Only the slightest tilt of his cane changed our direction as we moved smoothly through the city streets.