Not many were in the path of Herschel-Chapmann, the comet now known as SLP-8404. Half of a dive bar in Chariton, Iowa, an ailing palomino named Quincy, a door-to-door knife-sharpener and inventor in Quebec, and a 9-year-old Dutch boy who had just made friends with a toad.
Herschel-Chapmann was one of those rare celestial bodies that passed close enough to Earth to project its ominous silhouette upon unsuspecting landscapes, oblivious drunkards, and a family of whales breeching in angular succession along its path.
According to most news outlets, it was a rather unremarkable day - A doctor was struck by lightning on the way to surreptitiously care for a prominent financier who had a heart attack while making hay with a silent movie star slipping into irrelevance - A famed Canadian explorer found evidence of a ship wreck that put ancient Almoravids into waters they were never supposed to have been, sparking speculation of vast fortunes yet to be claimed - Sextuplets were born to a 65-year-old Russian, though nearly all of her neighbors claim that the kids were just a cry for attention.
However, most importantly, it was the day that casters were born.
They had no name for themselves, of course, no understanding of what had occurred, no knowledge of any others like.. them.
The toad was the first sacrifice. Aldus hadn’t even named it yet. He was waffling between Luna and Snoepje when he felt a small, innocent tug on his heel. Believing himself to be alone, he hopped up and turned around with a frightened urgency. He saw nothing but the familiar trees, but he did heard a small, wet crunch followed by an earthy pop behind him. This time he turned only his head - Very slowly as to not disturb or upset whatever was with him here. Where Lunopje had plopped, a mere hop or two from the pond, was a palm-sized crater. It was no deeper than an inch or two, but as he watched, it began to rebound. Brown water from the damp earth had started to seep into the cavity, as if instantly extracted, now re-absorbing. It mixed with the tiny amounts of blood and fine bones that protruded from the flattened corpse. It was as if a thousand microscopic hooks had reached up through the soft earth in an attempt to pull the toad into a realm below.
As Aldus stared - not in horror, just in confusion - his shadow seemed to vibrate. The edges softened to meet an unheard frequency. A ripple seemed to run through it, creating a pattern of darkness unnatural for the time of day. A distinctively patterned version of inverse caustics, he would later postulate in his journals.
For now, though, he ran.