A Strange Hat

Anon has an uncanny sense that someone has been in his apartement when he gets back home. There's nothing to indicate a break-in, something just feels ever so slightly off. Anon quickly checks his dwelling for signs of things having been taken or moved, but everything is as he remembers it. Eventually anon chalks up the vague sense of unease to the fact that he saw a woman in a slightly season-inaproriate purple dress running as if away from something on his way back home. The unusual sight must have unnerved Anon and now he's imagining things.

Anon shrugs off the weird sensation and gets to one of his favorite hobbies, posting on /jp/. Tonight's Grimsokyo vs Cutesokyo debate is particularly stimulating. Someone is complaining about Kasen again. ”Why is the wild and horny hermit like this”, Anon posts. A pair of drawn, succulent yet stinky feet fill his screen. ”Ponder the aroma”, he replies. Anon contributes to a Yukari thread and considers masturbating to a particularly arousing picture that is work-safe only by the narrowest definition, yet decides against it. He prefers to do it right before he goes to sleep. It helps him to not feel so lonely during the night.

Eventually Anon has to go to take a piss, and when he comes back he notices something odd. There is a strange, yet familiar looking hat on one of the chairs. ”What the hell?”, Anon blurts out loud. He's pretty sure he doesn't own that thing and that it wasn't there before. Or was it? Anon is really tired after all, it's been a long day.

Thinking about it, that hat might have been something he got as a joke present from one of his friends who share his interests. After all, it's no doubt the cap of his favorite Touhou character. Yeah, he must have gotten it at some convention. Anon was cleaning his drawers a couple of days ago. He must have just forgotten to put it back.

Anon picks up the hat, intending to stowe it away with his other assorted junk. He feels strangely compelled to put it on. Anon walks in front of a mirror-door of one of his closets and tries the hat on. It looks absolutely ridiculous on him. To be honest, it looks kinda ridiculous on that one mature youkai lady too, but Anon has grown to like it. It's part of her charm.

Suddenly Anon feels strange searing pain around his head. It's almost as if the hat is biting him!? Anon yelps and tries to pull it off, but the pain only worsens as he attempts to struggle with it. He tears at it, and it feels like he would be pulling at his own skin! The horrible pain is rapidly seeping deeper, Anon can feel it drilling into his skull, slithering down his spine, reaching for his heart, spreading to his veins...

Anon loses consciousness.

At least he thinks he does?

Anon is pretty sure he has just blacked out and hit the floor with a thud. Anon can't see anything, he can't move either and the overwhelming pain is turning into something far more stranger than just regular pain.

For a moment, it's as if Anon's own eyes look directly into themselves.

Then it begins.

Anon starts spasming violently, the unearthly pain is now absolute, total and incomprehensible, it's as there is nothing else left of him, it doesn't even feel like pain anymore, it feels like he is getting hotter and brighter and lighter and fuzzier and...

Anon sees an infinite sea of eyes staring at him.

Anon sees a gigantic room with an ugly chessboard pattern texture of hot pink and neon green all over it. In the center, a cruel sun smiles at him.

Anon sees himself when he was five years old, being scolded by his mother for breaking a jar of jam. Remembering it in this perfect clarity would hurt, if his whole existence wasn't already pain.

Anon sees something that can only be ancient Japan. He feels trapped between invisible walls and in front of him is a man dressed in long robes and a funny tall hat. A strange word, ”onmyodo”, comes to Anon as he looks at the man. The man is trying to ask Anon questions, but Anon can not speak like this to him. If Anon could only pass the barrier that is blocking him and latch to the man's head he could answer his questions and show him more than he has ever imagined possible.

Anon sees a scene of primal past, Earth in a state that he recognizes only from books dealing with archaic prehistory of the Earth. Strange trees are covering the landscape where gigantic insects fly and crawl.

Anon is somewhere violently hostile to all Earth life, skies choked with yellowish-orange clouds, vast ugly brown oceans lapping against dark soil and red ice. The withering cold and toxic atmosphere that would kill a human in moments are but concepts to him.

Anon sees strange looping energetic structures in an infinite void, flickering in and out of existence, forming bizarre cathedrals that defy human perception. A thing, something that people in /x/ would call a Solar Plexus Clown Glider spots Anon. It coils into itself and vanishes. Somehow Anon knows the creature he saw is feeling a feeling that no human can feel, a sense of meeting something that can irreversably alter the course of your existence in every possible time and place.

Anon sees the birth of new stars somewhere in the Virgo supercluster.

Anon sees someone who was once the best friend of someone that he once was or will be. The woman is looking into a telescope and she looks so beatiful doing so. Anon has the sense that he has or he will love not only their looks but also their kindness and intellect. Anon also has the sense that he has or will absolutely ruin her life.

Anon sees something that no human words can describe.

Anon sees a Shinto shrine with it's red torii gates and stone steps leading up to it. He has never been there as Anon, but as what he is about to become, he will have been there a great many times and in great many places.

Eventually it's all too much and the boundaries shatter.

Anon is a billion people in different places all at once.

Anon is a billion different places.

Anon is...?

Anon Is.

Anon is projectile vomiting on the floor, completely slick with sweat. It feels like his heart is about to tear itself out of his chest. Strange multicolored swirls crawl and fade over his field of vision. The pain has settled into a torturous fever with a strange, unearthly quality. Anon begins crawling to the bathroom, his body shivering and aching on the way there so badly that the short journey is almost impossible.

For a while Anon can do nothing but lie on the bathroom floor and weep. The terrible sensation that has filled his body is turning into something else again. It feels like his face is squirming in an unnatural way. Anon forces himself to stand up with great effort and stares into the mirror.

It's barely Anon that is looking back from there. His features are completely distorted by the pain, or so he thinks. He feels his flesh and bones squirming once again and Anon swears the structure of his face changes. A strange, brief, jittery sensation overcomes him and for a second a horrible spongy thing unrecognizable as a human, looking more like some sort of alien sea life, stares back from the mirror with eyes that aren't there. Anon begins to scream, only to now see a horrified young blonde maiden in the mirror. As Anon starts to touch his face the face in the mirror changes once again, now it's something that looks a bit more like what Anon once looked like, but the color of his hair and eyes are all wrong.

Soon enough this too changes, and it change great many times, every time accompanied by a weird uncomfortable sensation. Now Anon sees something way more abstract, like a black void with endless eye staring out from it. Then an old withered hag. Anon again, but as if he would look twenty years older. A cloud of hazy purple particles. A cat-like creature. A warble of colors. A woman with bizarrely large eyes, small chin and tiny nose. Then it starts to settle down, adjust, Anon finds the pain receding and soon enough...

The face of an uncannily beatiful middle-aged woman with long blonde hair is staring from the mirror. She looks disheveled, sweaty and stuck wearing Anon's vomit-covered clothes, but even still, she has an unearthly beaty about her that shines through the terrible state she is in. The purple eyes staring back at Anon might be confused and terrified, but they are gorgeous in a way no other pair of eyes on this Earth are. Anon can't belive it, he blurts out something like ”WHAT THE HELL!?” and what he hears is undoubtedly the voice of a woman.

Anon pats down his body in panic. It's still recognizably his, but just to be sure he pulls off his soiled clothes. As he does so he can see his flesh warp and ripple, the pain that was once fading now coming back. ”NO, NO, NO!”, Anon yelps in a voice no longer his, watching in confusion and horror as sizeable breasts start to take shape on his chest, skin and glands aching as they expand. Anon feels his waist receding and hips widening, accompanied by a sickening crunching noise. And the sensation he feels in his crotch is no doubt his manhood vanishing, making way for parts more suited for the lady he is becoming. Anon is too shocked to even notice his height and weight adjusting, shoulders narrowing, buttocks and thighs expanding and fingers growing among the plethora of changes he rapidly goes through.

What looks back from the mirror now is no doubt Yakumo Yukari in a state of terror, confusion and nakedness. Tears stream down the face of the gap youkai. ”NO! Turn me back normal!” Anon screams hystericaly. He tries to tear off the hat, suspecting it be the cause of his current state, but it hurts so bad, it's like attempting to tear off his own skull times hunred. Anon tries to persist through the pain, but he can't. Some self-preservation instinct stops him.

Anon slumps to the bathroom floor and weeps and weeps. This is absurd! This can't be real! What the hell was he going to do now? He couldn't see his friends or family like this! He couldn't go to his job! How did this even happen? If he only hadn't put on that stupid fucking hat!

The new body feels weird and alien in more than one way. It's the wrong weight, wrong height and has flesh in all the wrong places. Worse than that, Anon now feels something profoundgly alien dwelling in every fiber of his new being.

Anon begins slipping again.

Anon is weeping in front of Eirin who looks very serious.

Anon is weeping next to what can only be the severely injured Hakurei Reimu.

Anon is weeping in his childhood room after getting yelled at by his parents for being weird.

Anon is weeping, embraced by his dear once or future friend.

Anon is weeping in the middle of an infinite black void filled with staring eyes.

”TAKE ME BACK!!!!” Anon screams and wishes from the bottom of his heart that he would be back in his home. He feels a strange sensation that would in time become very familiar to him and a second later he thuds onto the floor of his apartement. Anon sees a strange slit in reality, one may call it a gap even, recede into nothingness above him.

Did he just succesfully use Yukari's power? Anon stands up and extends his arm. ”Open.” Nothing happens. ”Open!” Nothing still happens. Anon tries several times again, changing the position of his arm. Anon sighs. He tries to picture his bathroom with utmost clarity. Without making any command or gesture he simply wishes to go there, imagines the gap opening, revealing a familiar scene. Soon enough a gap opens up for real. Anon pokes his hand through. It feels strange, but it's really happening. He can grab a towel and pull it back through the gap. Anon laughs. Of course. Of course! He steps through the gap and stumbles, it's a bit too high up in the air and he almost falls on the bathroom floor. But he's done it, he can open up gaps and move through them.

Anon stares at his new form in the mirror again and laughs and cries. The events of the night have been too much to bear. Anon has not only changed his form to that of the gap youkai, he has also inherited her powers. None of this feels real anymore. It can't be real, there is no way. When Anon was feeling the terrible pain, the experience felt more real, but now that it is gone, Anon finds himself doubting what has happened. Surely this is some kind of a delusion? An acute psychosis? But if he's really changed there is no way he can go to the doctors! Maybe he has died and this is some kind of pre-death hallucination?

Anon pinches his cheecks and all he feels is pain, regular old pain. He doesn't wake up, his hand doesn't pass through his body. Anon slaps himself on the face. Nothing but pain and a reddening of the cheek follows. Anon screams in frustration with a voice that is not his own. He keeps on screaming and screaming and hitting himself but nothing changes. It's futile. Anon wishes to punch the mirror, but he stops at the last moment. He doubts that it would change anything but make a huge mess and put wounds on his hands, new hands with delicate, long, ladylike fingers.

Defated, Anon takes a shower. If he is dying he is dying, if he is insane then he is insane. No reason to be filthy in any case. The grimy sweat and tears feel disgusting on his new skin. Anon may not feel real, the world at large may not feel real, but the shower feels real. The water pouring down from the showerhead is as it ever is. His body may not be, but it feels tangible.

Every time Anon closes his eyes, the terrible scenes he has witnessed today come back. What even was all that? Is Yukari able to truly go into such strange places? Was he seeing the past and future for real? Or was he peering into some weird parallel realities, events that may or may not have happened? On some level Anon knows the answer is yes to all of that. Does Yukari really have this much power?

Anon is in the shower for a long time, far longer than he would usually be. It takes a good while for Anon's mind to settle down and get to the actual task of personal hygiene. Anon is afraid of getting the hat wet, he think's it would be extremely nasty to have that thing sitting wet on his hair. He tries to shower in a manner where water wouldn't splash on it, but it's hard to avoid. Then he discovers that the hat apparently repels water. It doesn't feel like fabric to the touch, it doesn't feel like any material he has ever touched. Even more bizarrely, he really can feel the hat as if it was part of his body when he touched it. The ribbon is particularly sensitive to touch. Oh god, it really has merged with him! Anon shivers at the thought. No wonder Yukari is always depicted wearing the damn thing.

Beyond the matter of the uninvited extension sitting at the top of his head, Anon is hesitant to touch his new body. Anon doesn't have much experience when it comes to touching a woman's body to begin with, and it feels incredibly strange to be stuck in one now. At first Anon just tries to run water over his body, but he can feel it's not enough. If Anon wants to do a proper job of cleaning himself, he has to get to work. Women's bodies have all sorts of nooks and crannies that don't clean out that easily on their own.

Anon lifts up his new breasts and runs the showerhead under them. The breasts are enormous and very soft, not quite as comicaly large as he has sometimes seen on pictures of Yukari, but still more than substantial. Calling them saggers would be rude and not quite true, but they look like they have been fighting against gravity for 50 years. Or maybe 500. Or maybe a billion years. Anon really doesn't know.

Cleaning his new nether regions is even weirder. There's nothing really sexual about it, but Anon can't help but to think that he really is touching a pussy when he's cleaning himself. Is that bit of a meat curtain Anon is feeling? Anon tries looking, but he can't really see much of his new genitalia as the view is blocked by both his sizeable new breasts and the ample blonde pubes he now has. Not that women can see much of what they have there from this angle to begin with.

Anon gets off the shower, and his genital speculations are temporarily shut down by the fact that his new hair is a total hassle to dry. Anon wonders if Yukari even bothers showering every day. Or bathing, they probably don't have running water like that in Gensokyo. Some faint memory of having Ran prepare her a bath pops to Anon's mind. Another faint memory comes to his mind, this time he is bathing with Ran. Third memory, being in an onsen with his once or future friend. Anon feels himself blushing and brushes the thought away as he makes his way to the bed.

Lying naked on his bed, Anon wonders what to do now. He's feeling rather exhausted after the ordeal of the transformation, but he doesn't really want to sleep either. First order of business is probably getting some fitting clothes, somehow. Could he just steal them? Don't malls and shops have security cameras? It would probably be a bad thing if they caught him just teleporting into a shop and stealing. What size of clothes even fits on this new body? What size of bra is fit for these tits? These...tits...really, really big tits...no, he shouldn't be thinking about them right now! He shouldn't be thinking about his new genitals either!

Anon doesn't want to, but he can't help it. Considering everything that has happened it feels so trivial and vulgar, but he can't stop his mind from going there. His thoughts always loop back to his strange new anatomy. He gives in to the temptation. He has to see for himself, he has to know. It takes a bit of effort, but eventually he opens a gap that reveals his new crotch in front of him. Anon feels weird about doing this, not only because he is peeking at his new genitalia, but because of the way he is doing it. If he moves his gaze towards his body he can see a black void filled with eyes staring at his pussy. What the hell are even those things? He feels tightly connected to them, but can't discern their nature. Are they...part of him now?

At first Anon just looks at his crotch. It's not exactly some virginal innie silicon-sculpted onahole that he now has and it could use shaving, but it's actually quite nice. In particular Anon likes how pronounced the pubic mound of his new body is. Those pussy lips are probably quite lovely to touch, to lick... In fact, if Anon still had his dick he would be more than happy to give the pussy he is looking at some attention.

Curiosity gets the best of him and he starts touching himself. It's not sexual, he tells himself, he just wants to know what his body feels like. It's rather nice actually, it's warm, soft and squishy with one particularly sensitive spot. Anon has had many fantasies of getting to touch Yukari's body, but not quite like this. It's a shame that he can't squeeze his head between his massive tits. It's a shame he can't put a dick into that wonderful pussy, he can't even lick it...

...wait...he could. With the gaps he could! Anon pauses and hesitates. No! It's too weird! For now. Anon hasn't even gotten used to this body, let alone his powers. It's better not to push it...

Part of Anon wants to stop completely. This is really bizarre, and he doesn't like how he is getting turned on by the idea of old him eating out the new him. He is at the boundary between shame and arousal and it could go either way. And as Anon is stuck in a thought loop about how weird his arousal is, he just keeps getting more and more aroused. He can't fuck himself, he won't do any weird stuff with the gaps the lick himself, but at least he can use his fingers, yes, he would have been overjoyed to even put his fingers into Yukari if he were the old him...

Anon starts kneading his pussy, spreading the warm moisture that is seeping out from the inside. It feels very different from the kind of masturbation he is used to, but it's good. He really is doing. He is touching Yukari's pussy! He is seeing Yukari's pussy getting all wet and red from his fingers!

A desire to see more of his body fills Anon, an the gap adjusts, revealing a more full-body image of his new body on the bed. Anon gasps in pleasure at the lewd sight. Yukari is pleasuring herself on his bed! She's massaging her pussy and tits on the bed he sleeps on! And what a wonderful pussy and gorgeous tits they are! Yukari's wonderful, mature youkai body is seeping it's love juices into Anon's bedsheets! Yukari's beatiful, refined face is blushing with shameful pleasure on his bed!! Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of of men have spilled seed at the thought of getting to lay their hands on Yukari's body and Anon is the one to do it!!!

Best of all, Anon is Yukari! He has become one with, been given the first person view of the object of his desire! Anon has never felt sexy in his life and now he is the sexiest thing he has ever known. Anon moans as he inserts his fingers into his vagina and begins finger-fucking himself, dreaming of someone, anyone, putting their fingers into him, licking him, fucking him...

Anon starts losing control of himself again and begins to slip between the boundaries.

Anon is furiously rubbing his pussy in a room that is not his own. A young woman opens the door and gasps in shock and closes it, apologizing in Japanese. Anon should feel ashamed because his best friend seeing him like this, but he just finds it arousing.

Anon is furiously rubbing his pussy in a very traditional japanese room. The door slides open and Hakurei Reimu stares at him, flabbergasted, shouting ”what the hell Yukari!?” in Japanese. Anon should feel ashamed because the girl who he has raised and protected is seeing him like this, but he just finds it arousing.

Anon is furiously rubbing his pussy in front of a bound man who is looking away. The man doesn't want to be here, and Anon is terrified of the joy and delight he is deriving from this situation. Anon knows the words he will speak next, how he wants to humiliate the man, Anon doesn't want to do it, but the boundaries between Anon and Yakumo Yukari are shifting by the second closer to Yukari.

Anon is furiously rubbing his pussy, embraced by Ran. Ran is sucking on his right tit and Anon's free hand is gently, but firmly holding Ran's hair. Anon revels not only in the pleasure of act but also the power he wields over such a mighty being as Ran is.

The growing pleasure grounds Anon back to a single perception of reality once again. The new body is hormonal, hungry and burning with pleasure. Anon groans and moans and enjoys the lewd wet noise his wonderful new pussy is making. Anon is drunk with the ecstacy and power of the realization that with this new wonderful body and the powers that have come with it he can fullfill every single of his most darkest and deranged fantasies.

If Anon were in his right mind he would know that many of these fantasies were not in him before this night, but Anon is hardly Anon anymore. Anon is not a sadist, Anon is not evil, but Anon has felt unwanted and powerless all his life. Yukari has found a wonderfully compliant new host, a delightfully empty vessel to fill. Some flicker of confusion and shame comes over Anon as he finds himself even more aroused at the thought of fading away, completely and absolutely becoming Yukari, bidding good riddance to all he ever was, but the confusion and shame just makes the pleasure even sweeter and...

Anon breaks the boundary between mere pleasure and an orgasm and screams loudly as his pussy pulsates against his fingers in the fits of the climax.

Lying on the bed, Anon is smiling widely in the afterglow of the pleasure. Anon finds that he no longer cares much about his friends or family and especially not about his work. He is Yakumo Yukari, he can do anything he wants! A cavalcade of fantasies swirls in his mind and he doesn't know which one to begin with. After all, he is sure he can do it all now.

Anon's hubristic daydreams are interrupted by a strange and alarming sensation. He opens his eyes and sees that a strange portal has opened into his room. It's not like a gap, it's a black oval rimmed by bright blue light. In this situation most humans could only perceive the dreadful sensation sweeping over him, but becoming Yukari has given Anon the eyes that can see and a mind that can perceive. Anon has failed to consider that the world that has just become much wider and stranger for him may contain great many entities possessing power similar to his own, and that some of them might be far more stronger than even Yakumo Yukari is.

From the portal slithers out the entity most on Earth can not name. To the few that can it is known as Solar Plexus Clown Glider. Anon has seen one of them before, and now his mind recalls all of Yukari's knowledge about them. And Yukari knows that this is not good, they have found Yukari and they will not come alone. She could handle one, but they will come in mass. Soon enough another one comes out from the portal, the another one, and it appears that they have brought some even bigger, nastier friends with them, ones that no human cognition has ever perceived before. Anon feels an overwhelming sense of imminent doom and Yukari's instincts completely override what is left of Anon by this point.

Anon falls through the gap that has opened up below him. He falls through the infinite void of eyes, through the nebulae and exoplanetary skies and scenes of future and history, fantasy and reality. He has to act quickly. In a split second that feels like an infinity he has to choose a Gensokyo. There are a great many options to pick from. He has a vision of picking a particularly pleasant one and completely ruining it for his amusement, but for a fraction of a moment the boundary between Yukari and Anon shifts to Anon's favor again.

Anon sees the end of the worldline the creature that now makes half of him was about to pick and there is nothing but ashes and weeping there. He doesn't want to be Yukari the Cruel. He really doesn't want to be Yukari the Evil or Yukari the Slayer or a great many worse epiteths that the entity he has merged with wishes to be crowned with. Anon knows that he is wasting time, as much as the boundaries of time and space have been shattered at this moment, but this is his choice to make.

Anon picks a Gensokyo, one that is not too cute or too cruel. It's at best a pseudo paradise but it's not some hungry ghost hell either. It's a primal scene of Japan but not too primal. It's a Gensokyo that has been loved by gods and humans alike, but also one that has been blighted by the plots of the gods and feared by the humans. It's a Gensokyo that has had countless pictures drawn of it's inhabitants and many stories written of it's events. It's a Gensokyo where the high priest of the Hakurei Shrine dwells in the outside world in a strange arrangement and is amused and tormented by visions of this unseen world.

The entity agrees with Anon's choice, not out of some moral concern that Anon feels but because it finds the ambiguous nature fascinating. This is a story that has not yet been written, there are great many fates unaltered here. Neither Anon or the entity can see how things will play out. Everything is still possible there, including a Yukari that is kind and cruel and cold and caring and wonderful and terrifying and loved and hated.

Anon reaches through the Hakurei Barrier just barely in time. Half a Glider has followed him, but as the gap snaps shut so does the creature snap in half, it's etheric howls reverberating in the room Anon finds himself in. Anon watches the corpse of the creature rapidly decompose into multicolored flames and strange astral fumes.

”Lady Yakumo, what is happening here? Why are you naked?”
It's Ran.
Anon smiles at her. ”Ran dear, I am so sorry for the mess. I had bit of a misadventure outside of the barrier.”
Ran stares at Anon expressionlessly. ”I can very much see that. Shall I clean the mess, Lady Yakumo?”
Anon looks at the corpse of the creature that has now turned into a silvery puddle with strange multicolored colored filaments sticking out of it.
”Yes please. I am terribly tired and if you excuse me I will need to sleep.”
”Lady Yakumo...it's barely past the midday. You were gone but for a moment...”
Anon smiles. If Ran only knew.

Anon finds Yukari's rather luxurious bed and slumps there, falling asleep rapidly despite the hectic events of the past...day? It's all so subjective and Anon will have much time to think about the finer details later on. With the merger complete, Anon feels comfortable in this new body. There will be much to process with all the strange new knowledge floating in his head, but one important detail that puts him at ease has surfaced as soon as he got into danger. Anon knows that he is safe behind the Hakurei Barrier, somehow knowing that the others can not follow him through it.

Anon drifts into an exceptionaly long sleep even by Yukari's standards, having many strange dreams of events that may or may not have happened or will perhaps happen, if not here, then elsewhere. But many of these will be nothing more than dreams, as Anon has made his choice. One cannot forever exist in a boundary state, and this Yukari will not be the one to roam prehistoric Earth or explore alien planets. She will not face the most terrible entities of the unfathomably large and wide world and she will never figure out what exactly they have against her. Here Yukari will not do the worst things that Yukari could do nor the best things that Yukari could do.

With time Anon will come to understand that what he thinks Gensokyo is at the moment isn't quite true. Yukari isn't also as omnipotent as he thinks, her strange powers have equaly strange limitations. Anon will also come to understand why Yukari needs a human host. In a few subjective centuries or millenia Anon will grow tired and resentful of this place and this existence.

But that is a concern for another time. Anon has a wonderful, rich and fascinating life ahead of him, albeit one that very few even in Gensokyo can begin to understand. Anon will come experience both companionship and loneliness. He will be seen both as a fearsome youkai and a bothersome attention-seeking granny. He will come to know a great yearning to be understood and to be seen in a good light despite all he has done by then. And when the time comes Anon will know the trick that his predecessor used to separate herself from Yakumo Yukari. He hopes that the lady in a purple dress he ran into that one strange and fateful day is safe, because the human world can be unkind to strangers in strange places.