Somewhere, far away, a song was playing that I recognized. It was a song I knew by heart. Trent Reznor sang, and my head filled with confusion.

“Ow,” I moaned as I rubbed my eyes. Hung over didn’t even begin to describe it. I could barely get my eyes open enough to see what time it was.

“Why do I do this to myself?” I asked the mattress, pressing my face into it and wishing the world away. The wish didn't come true and the song kept playing. Groaning, I put one foot down onto the floor followed by the other. When I stood, my feet went out from under me. I hit the ground hard, my hip banging against the wooden floor, my elbow doing the same.

“Fuck,” I hissed, rubbing at my elbow. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

I sat up, looking at the lottery tickets beneath me.

I sat up, holding my head between my hands to stop the sloping world that swished left and right like a thick milkshake. I smacked my lips. My tongue felt like it had been dry for eighteen days and left out in the sun for an additional twenty.

What did I drink last night?

That was the weird thing though. My mouth tasted less like the aftermath of a night of binge drinking and more like I’d licked the inside of an ashtray.

I’ve gotta be late for work.

I froze.

That’s not right.

I waited and it all clicked into place. I didn't have a job. I no longer worked at Luke's. I'd been fired and met Lebec in the parking lot of the theatre after burning through my last thirty dollars. The evidence of that thirty-dollar scratch off binge was being pressed into the floor beneath my ass.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember what had happened in the parking lot of the theatre. I could get bits and pieces, but not the whole picture.

Well, that doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

I hadn't been drunk at Luke's.

I hadn't had anything to drink at the convenience store.

I could remember the scratch offs but after that, after meeting with Lebec, a lot of the evening was a blur.

Did he and I go drinking to celebrate/bemoan my firing?

I shook my head. That couldn't be the case. I’d never lost my memory before from drinking.

I took a deep breath and let it out. I needed to calm down. I needed to relax. I took in several deeper breaths, allowing myself to slowly relax, allowing myself to let my beliefs and thoughts about the previous night go.

I wanted any memory that would surface to do so organically; I didn't have to wait long.

Lebec had handed me… something.

A card?

The bible?

No, definitely a card.

I could see the silver writing on its black surface, but for some reason I couldn't see what the letters or numbers said. I got up, being careful not to slip on the lottery tickets for a second time and searched the floor for my jeans.

If I'd been given a card, it would be in one of the pockets. I looked under my bed, but nothing was there, nothing besides the regular, garden variety dust bunnies. I lifted my head too fast and was rewarded with a splitting shriek of a headache that felt like it was tearing my head into two halves.

In the kitchen, hanging over one of the chairs at the small table, were my jeans. I made my way over, lifted them up, and slipped my hands into the pockets, searching for the card.

What did Lebec say about the card? Why did he even bothered giving it to me?

I remembered it was something strange, something… otherworldly?

Well that’s just goofy… Otherworldly? How drunk was I last night?

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I let out a laugh. There was no card in my jean’s pockets. Likely I'd never met Lebec, nothing had actually happened, and I was just hung over. I took a seat at the kitchen table and dropped my jeans onto the floor. I considered my options.

I had no job and rent was due today.

I had negative dollars, and rent was due today.

I needed a job and fast…

Wait… Lebec. Didn’t he offer me something last night? A job?

No, not a job. He’d offered me a position of some sort.

I don't know why that made more sense than him offering a job, but it sounded closer to the truth.

“Okay,” I mumbled to myself. “At least we're getting somewhere. I think…”

Sitting at the table, I stared out the window above the kitchen sink. A slug made its way across the glass there, bringing me back to the parking lot of the theatre, back to the For-Sale sign there, back to Lebec offering me a place in a school…

A school?

I couldn’t believe that. After high school I hadn't done any more school.

Why would Lebec offer something like that?

That was something else. In my head, I kept referring to Mr. Marsden as Lebec. I'd always known him as Mr. Marsden so I couldn’t figure out why I would ever refer to him as—A sudden burst of a memory exploded in my mind.

Lebec and me, standing in an alleyway somewhere, staring at a dumpster.

I shook my head.

Why would you be in an alley, with Lebec, staring at a dumpster?

And why did I keep thinking of him as Lebec, not Mr. Marsden. What had happened last night?

I got up and promptly sat right back down. Suddenly, I felt sick.

“What happened, Hexana?” I asked the empty kitchen. The slug which had just finished making its way across the window disappeared from view. “What happened?”

I stared at the fridge, wishing it was fully stocked, but knowing all that was inside was a half-eaten jar of pasta sauce.

As I stared out the kitchen window, trying to remember what else had happened, the slug reappeared, heading in the opposite direction. I shook my head. It was quite the industrious little thing.

Watching as the slug slowly made its way across the glass, another memory burst into my head, this one of an actual explosion: Lebec and I screaming with laughter into the night as a dumpster in front of us literally exploded.

“Dumpster explosion,” I mumbled. “Why would I have blown up a dumpster?”

I shook my head, trying to grasp at more of the memory but got distracted by the slug.

“Weird,” I muttered. I'd never seen a slug go back and forth in straight lines across a window. Sure, I'd seen them go in wavering lines, but perfectly straight lines?

I shook my head. Everything was weird now, nothing made sense. Everything was a conspiracy. The slug made it to the other side before it turned back again at a sharp angle.

“What are you looking for?” I asked the slug, not expecting any sort of response, but also vaguely expecting it to respond. Based on all the weirdness that had happened within the last twelve hours, I wouldn't have been all too surprised if the slug had answered my question.

It didn't answer though. It just kept moving.

Another image from the night before burst into my brain. It was the same image of the dumpster explosion, but it was clearer.

There was a sign on the dumpster.

And I recognized the building the dumpster was behind.

“Oh no,” I mumbled.

The sign on the dumpster said Property of Luke’s Bar and Bookshop. Premises monitored by cameras. No dumping.

The back of the building was Luke’s. The dumpster was Luke’s. For some reason I had an intensely realistic memory of blowing up a dumpster behind Luke’s with Lebec, a man I barely knew.

What the hell is going on?

I ran over to the kitchen sink, suddenly feeling like I was going to throw up. Bending over and staring down the drain, I willed myself to keep it whatever I had in my stomach right where it was. When I was sure that I wasn't going to throw up, I stood back up and stared out the kitchen window.

The slug was gone, but the pathway it had left made a shape that I recognized. The way it had gone up and then down and then back and again made the shape of the letter M.

I frowned.

The slug had made a perfect letter M on my window.

What the hell is going on?

I slid down to the floor and sat with my back against the cabinets. Staring at the table, I shook my head.

Am I going crazy? Am I losing my mind?

I stared at the fridge, stared at the door, frowned.

Why do your eyes keep going back to the fridge?

I knew there was nothing inside it and I wasn't hungry either.

So why do you keep focusing on it?

I swallowed and crawled over to the fridge on all fours. After I pulled the door open, the light inside flickered and then burned out.

“Great,” I mumbled. “That's totally not creepy.”

I was suddenly covered in goosebumps, and not because the fridge was cold. I was covered in goosebumps because I could see something sitting on the top shelf.

It wasn't the pasta sauce.

I took a shuddering breath and stood, looking at the object there.

Holy shit.

It was a black rectangle. It looked like a business card. I reached out for it, touched it with my hand, lifted it from the shelf.

Holy shit.

It was heavier than a regular business card. It wasn't made of paper. It was made from leather or something close.

Embossed in silver was an address and a phone number.

I shook my head as I stared at it.

“Okay, so,” I said in a shaky voice, convincing no one in the kitchen. “I dreamed parts of last night but not all of it. I saw Lebec—Mr. Marsden—for a little bit, he gave me a card, and then I came home. Maybe there's a gas leak in the apartment. Maybe this is what carbon monoxide poisoning is like…”

You’d be dead if it was carbon monoxide poisoning…

I stared at the address and phone number, wondering what they were for, wondering what I was supposed to do with them. I flipped the card over, and my stomach fell to my feet.

There were words scrawled there in shiny ink.

I said the words aloud into my too quiet kitchen and everything stopped for me, everything from the night before came back at once.

“Become a vanisher in the magick world,” I whispered. “It’s what your father would've wanted.”