What… What the hell is that?!

Dave’s home, just minutes ago as unremarkable as any other suburban home, was now surrounded by some kind of strange, swirling substance. Streaks of black energy with glowing red cores whirled about, all seemingly orbiting what could only be the epicenter of this strange phenomenon: the kitchen where my friends had been getting ready to start their game. Sickly red flashes flared up intermittently from inside, sending beams of unnerving light out into the sleepy neighborhood.

Already some passersby and neighbors had begun to mill about in the streets and on the sidewalks. Concerned residents called various emergency services, struggling to describe what was happening to the clueless dispatcher on the other end of the line. Some children cried, others tried in vain to slip away from their parents’ clutches to go investigate the light show.

And before I knew it, I was running… towards the home. I wasn’t sure what I thought I could do, but my friends—and my best friend since kindergarten—might still be in there. The front door was locked. Did Dave do that? Is that normal? Questions whirled around my head, but I ignored them in favor of planting my feet firmly, taking careful aim, and then kicking the door.

Once… twice… On the third kick, each one placed as close to the handle as I could manage, I heard the wood begin to splinter. I heard concerned shouts from the street, but I paid them no mind. Three more kicks later, and it seemed almost ready to break, so I took a few steps back, lowered my shoulder, and charged.

As I expected, as soon as I hit the door it finally gave way, bursting open. I staggered through, colliding painfully with the floor as I lost my balance, but wasted no time in scrambling to my feet and running toward the kitchen.

“Dave! What’s going on?!”

There was no response. I rushed through the small home, keenly aware that whatever was happening could be hazardous to my health. I didn’t feel any heat, so it wasn’t some sort of bizarre fire, but every hair on my body was standing on end, and the air felt electric. I prayed that the black and red stuff wasn’t some form of deadly radiation.

Just as I finally burst into the kitchen, I was blinded and deafened by a sudden flash of light and a loud crack. My ears ringing and my vision white, I stumbled and fell to the ground. My head pounded as I lay there for what felt like hours, waiting for my senses to return to me. The sensation, along with the strange almost electric feeling in the air, grew to be too much—I vomited.

At last my vision started to return to me, though what little hearing came back was useless in the face of the roaring that filled the air. I wiped my mouth, staring hard at the floor and waiting for my body to finally stabilize from the shock it had received.

Slowly, my hearing continued to return, growing sharper until finally I could make out something else alongside the noise in the air. It sounds like… chanting? I blinked hard, forcing my eyes to finally focus and enduring another wave of nausea as I looked up at the scene before me.

I don’t know what I had expected. It certainly wasn’t this. Rob, Chelsea, and Hanna were still at the table, but slumped over and not moving. My heart stopped. Please don’t be dead, please don’t be—

My train of thought was forcefully derailed as I finally saw Dave. Unlike the others, he wasn’t unconscious. Instead, he was standing at the head of the kitchen table, hands planted on either side of an enormous leather-bound book. He seemed to be reciting something from it, and it was from that book that the energy was flowing. I couldn’t make out exactly what Dave was saying. It sounded like some language I didn’t know, and couldn’t even recognize.

I struggled to my feet, grabbing the display case once full of fine china which had now been blown off of its shelving and now lay shattered on the linoleum underfoot.

“Dave! What the hell is happening!” I shouted, though I was still nauseated from whatever had disoriented me when I entered the kitchen and my words were slurred. He seemed surprised, stuttering and stumbling over whatever he was reading from the book as he looked up at me with wide eyes.

“Jason? Get out of here, man! You weren’t supposed to be here!” He looked torn, glancing between me and the book before him, before continuing. “You need to leave. I’ll be okay, so just go!”

At that, he looked back down at the book and began reading with renewed fervor. The house rumbled, a feeling not unlike an earthquake, and I struggled to remain standing.

“Do you know what’s happening? I can’t believe I’m asking this, but… are you doing this?” I shouted, forcing my voice to rise above the chaotic din. “I swear to God, man, if this is some petty revenge scheme and you’re hurting them somehow, I’m gonna kick your ass!”

Dave had seemed uneasy, almost panicked even before I got his attention and doubly so after I yelled at him, but as I said that his face grew cold. He stopped reading once more and glared at me, then said something I could barely hear over the noise.

“I tho…u we…ferent.”

“What?”

He didn’t answer me. He didn’t even glance back at me after looking back down at his book, all hesitation gone, and continued his recitation. I’d had enough. Still stumbling, I lurched toward him. I may not have been at my best, but I’d been boxing for years, and I could take Dave even if he was in peak condition and I was at my worst.

I was gonna put a stop to this, friendship be damned, and—

My blood ran cold as, in the center of the kitchen, just above the table, an enormous rift opened, like space itself was being ripped in half. All air vanished from the room. I felt myself, already off-balance, getting pulled toward it, first stumbling and then being lifted from the ground. Rob, Chelsea, and Hanna were pulled from their chairs, still limp, and were the first to pass into it. As soon as they crossed the threshold, they vanished from sight. Dave, closer than me, disappeared through it next.

Then I passed through the rip in space, and everything went dark.

* - * - *

Black. It was all black, as far as the eye could see.

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And I knew the eye could see, since it wasn’t the sort of pitch-black where you couldn’t even find your hand in front of your face. I could see myself, plain as if I was standing under a spotlight even though there was no visible light source. Everything else was pure black.

“Am I… dead?” I couldn’t see any of the others. No Rob, who would have probably been putting on a brave face to reassure everyone else. No Hannah, who no doubt would have been furious and going for Dave’s throat. No Chelsea, who might have tried to hold Hannah back or might have decided it would be fun to watch them fight.

And no Dave. I couldn’t even ask him why he did… whatever he did. I couldn’t ask him what he did. I couldn’t ask him what he said there at the end, either.

I sighed, and went to sit down. Though I expected to lower myself until I hit whatever floor I was standing on, I suddenly found myself sitting as if on a chair. I looked down and there was, indeed, an old wooden chair that had, inexplicably… materialized? Or had it always been here and I just couldn’t see it?

If there’s furniture, then there must be someone who uses it, right? I looked around, gripping the arms of the seat tightly in the fear that it might just vanish as quickly as it appeared.

“Hello? Is someone there?” There was no response, but I blinked, and just as suddenly as the chair, a table had appeared before me. On it was a familiar sheet of paper. Despite my rapidly increasing certainty that I had died and this was, in fact, the afterlife, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

It was a character sheet. My character sheet, to be precise. Though…

It looks like this is my character sheet from back when Colranth was level one. I reminisced as I read it.

COLRANTH FIREBREATH

Species:

Human

Class:

Dragon-Blooded Mage

Level:

1

Stats

Combat

Skills

Rank

Powers/Spells

MP Cost

Duration

Strength

15

Leadership

1

Dragon Claws

(Ignite)

N/A

(1)

Permanent

(1 minute)

Agility

12

Evasion:

13

Bluff

1

Dragon Scales

(Spread)

N/A

(2)

Permanent

(Instant)

Resilience

15

HP: 14/14

Sneaking

1

Mote of Flame

1

Instant

Presence

19

Fire Breath

3

Instant

Wit

12

Arcane Shield

3

Instant

Willpower

14

MP: 12/12

Colranth Firebreath, the human Dragon-Blooded Mage. A spellcaster with access to a specialized list of spells, almost entirely geared towards combat. Tough enough to take a few hits, but unable to win a sustained melee fight against any level-appropriate enemy unless luck was on your side.

Since I had never played a tabletop roleplaying game before, I’d built Colranth to be a bit of a generalist, on Rob’s recommendation. Dave insisted I’d be better off making more of a specialist character, but the class had spoken to me.

Presence was the stat I used for spellcasting, so of course it was the highest. The others I had set to be fairly evenly spread and middling. I’d rather be able to contribute a little in any situation than have times when all I could do was twiddle my thumbs and rely on other people.

The sheet lacked many of the spells I had gained as we leveled—we’d been level ten when fighting Arkosh in our most recent game. Still, every spell listed was one I got good use out of at high levels as much as at low levels.

Dragon Claws, naturally, gave me clawed hands I could use to attack enemies with. In the same vein, Dragon Scales simply meant that various parts of my body were covered with tough dragon scales. At level one, they could only be found on the hands and near vital organs, with a smattering of scales on the face as well, but they grew as the character leveled up, covering more and more of the body.

Mote of Flame was a useful little ranged spell, letting me throw a bit of fire at distant enemies. It wasn’t efficient, but for a melee-focused character a ranged option was vital. Fire Breath was self-explanatory, and Arcane Shield was the one spell I had chosen that wasn’t strictly dragon- or fire-themed. It let me reflexively summon a magical barrier, turning away enemy spells.

I really enjoyed playing Colranth. As my first character, I felt a bit of a connection with him, and it felt oddly sad to think that I’d never get to play as him again. I sighed, a raw, ragged sigh full of suppressed emotion. Tears began to sting at the back of my eyes as the realization finally started to settle in.

I was almost certainly dead. And the one who had killed me was the guy I had considered my best friend. Tears fell from my eyes, staining the paper below me as I stared at it. My dad wouldn’t even be able to know what had happened to me, if my body really did disappear into that portal. We’d be a group of mysteriously missing kids. An unsolved mystery. Hell, maybe we’d be brought up on one of those true crime shows, or podcasts.

“It’s not fair, goddammit!” I couldn’t even feel vindication at the fact that Dave had been pulled through as well. I just felt like I’d failed him as a friend, if he’d been pushed so far.

I cried for a while. Nothing around me changed—the endless expanse was still black, and I was still sitting at an antique wooden table on an antique wooden chair. But eventually, I started to notice something. It was faint, and I had no way of knowing how long it had been going on while I had been distracted.

It sounded like… rushing air. Like that sound when you’re going down a highway at seventy miles per hour with the window down, but all around me. I also thought I heard thunder cracking, but faintly, like from a storm miles and miles away.

I reached forward apprehensively, grabbing the character sheet to keep it from flying away if something happened, and as I did so the infinite blackness around me was replaced with bright, blinding light.