Panic grips my chest and I try to cry out for help from my next door neighbors. Praying one of them is home and will hear me. Instead I'm rewarded with a mouthful of cold liquid. I spin and thrash, weightless. I look around trying to find something, anything in the cold darkness.

There is light above twinkling in the black canopy and I kick toward it as fast as I can. My hands reach out and claw in the direction of possible salvation. With a goal in sight, I manage to get my level of panic down from wacky wavy inflatable arm flailing tube man to a mere pants-wetting fear. It does, however, give me enough control that my movements turn into more powerful coordinated strokes. Ones that actually serve to increase my speed and propel me upward toward my target.

I break the surface with a gasp, filling my starving lungs with air. I get a bit more of what tastes like water down my throat but pure bodily instinct takes over, coughing it up then sucking down another helping of sweet oxygen.

My eyes sting fiercely and everything is bright and chaotic. Where am I? There is a roar that sounds like... a waterfall? I spin about and attempt to get my bearings. With my feet treading water I bring up a hand to shield my eyes from the harsh stinging light and slowly the world begins to come into focus.

There is a forest all around me and I’m splashing about near the centre of a large pool. The water churns around me from a large, twin waterfall that tumbles over a cliff edge of orange colored rocks a good forty or so feet above.

Even in my distressed state I take in the beauty. The trees are rich and green, framing a, painfully bright, nearly cloudless blue sky above. Rainbows arch through the misty haze at the base of the waterfall where it splashes against the base of the cliff and the smooth, water-worn, slick rocks.

A weird cold shiver runs from the base of my neck and down my spine. I look up to the top of the cliff where a flock of birds burst from the branches of the trees. A split second later a monster appears with a roar on top of the rocky outcropping.

I’ve already ducked back under the water.

And it’s a good thing too because my panicked cry would definitely have alerted it to my presence. Luckily my girlish scream comes out as a series of large bubbles that pop harmlessly across the water’s surface.

Though hazy from looking through a lens of disturbed liquid I can still see the nightmare beast as it peers down at the water’s surface. The thing is easily the size of a horse, with a scaled grey-green hide and a feline-like body. It crawls forward, the foot long spines that run down its head and back quiver. Then it leaps.

Muscular limbs propel it through the air to another rock where it grips the edge of the stone with long dagger length claws. It's head cocks left and right in a jerky movement that reminds me of a bird of prey as it continues to once more study the pool.

My lungs begin to burn. Stupid bread brained boob! Crying out like that before.

Alright, sure. I’m probably being too hard on myself. A little freak out is perfectly reasonable when, in a blink, the world goes all bizzaro and there is the very real possibility that you may become lunch for something straight out of Prehistoric Park.

Perception: Success!

I look about underwater and see a break in the rocks under the churning waterfall. It means swimming in the general direction of the thing but it seems to be my only chance. Using the rocks of the ponds floor I pull myself along the bottom and through the mouth of the tunnel.

The water is a bit more still in here and the bubbles that cling to the ceiling above look like balls of quicksilver. Moving to the largest I put my lips to it and drain it and then a few of its smaller buddies. I give a silent sigh of relief, surprised at how much better I feel even with what can only be a couple of shallow breaths worth of air.

I’m tempted to go back and see if the monster is gone, but, I spot an even larger pocket  in the stone a little further down and decide to press forward. As I swim closer I realize it’s not just a big bubble but an actual cave. Lights sparkle and twinkle above the surface, like a doorway to heaven.

I wonder briefly if that is exactly what this is. Am I’m dead back in my apartment? Did I hit my head on the edge of my computer desk and now my skull is cracked open like a overripe melon. Perhaps I am laying there on the floor, slowly bleeding out on top of my coveted dice collection and my carefully sorted, genre coded binders, of old character sheets.

Most are laminated so they’d be salvageable, but it’s still a rather horrifying thought. Besides being dead of course.

Gripping the edge of the hole I get my feet under me, haul myself out of the water, then crawl forward and flop over onto my back. I again marvel how I’m not as winded as I thought I’d be, although, when I glance about the breath does catch in my throat.

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The cave is alive with a kaleidoscope of colors that dance and sparkle over a roof that looks to be made of thousands of shards of multi-colored glass. Glittering light in shades of blue, purple and red dance over magnificent crystal beams that jut from floor to ceiling. Many of the large sword bladed structures glowing with a heartbeat of slowly shifting hues.

I wipe water from my eyes with the back of my wrist and notice they hurt a lot less. Weird how you can get a bit light sensitive when you’re sick.

Though I don’t feel sick.

In fact, I feel great. Better than I have in... ever! I stand and almost hit my head on a aqua blue glowing crystal. Strange, with my short statue I figured there was more than enough room.

As I turn about I see a man in the corner. I yelp in surprise and he does the same, pulling a gun from a holster to aim at me.

I’m a touch faster with my own pistol and the world explodes in light and sound.

Condition: Blinded - 4 rounds.

“AGH! I’ve been shot!” I drop to the ground and grab my face, hands furiously rubbing over my eyes. Blinking as blackness and bursts of white swim in my vision. I don’t feel pain anywhere else. Did he hit me in the head with a taser or something?

“Don’t shoot you lunatic! I’m unarmed!” Although, I do feel something cold gripped tightly in the palm of my right hand, and my finger is resting on the trigger guard of, what I know is, my pistol?

“Dude? I don’t know what the hell is going on but don’t tase me, bro!” I feel foolish quoting the meme but it’s the first place my brain goes. Hopefully my attacker will find it funny enough that he won’t do it again, cause that really frigging hurt!

Slowly, my vision clears and I shoot of a silent prayer of thanks that the blindness wasn’t permanent. I blink a few more times and take my life into my hands, popping my head from the floor to steal a glance toward where the man is.

Instead, I see a shattered beam of crystal standing in the exact spot where my assailant had been a moment ago.

With my brain overtaxed it still takes me a moment to realize that it had been my own reflection that I’d seen in the smooth mirrored surface. I look down to the gun I have cradled in my dirt-blackened right hand as I sit up to my knees.

It’s heavy. A ugly hunk of dark grey metal pitted with rust filled pock marks along the entirety of both barrel and body. Of simple design it reminds me of an ye olden days pirate pistol except that it has a hinge near the centre similar to a shotgun. The cracked and faded wooden grip is bound with strips of sweat-stained navy blue cloth, and I’m pretty sure it is missing a screw at the bottom.

How did this thing not explode and blow off my hand when I fired it?

Just holding it freaks me out and I’m about to place it carefully back in the holster. Like I’m on auto pilot my thumb flicks a catch on the side and the weapon breaks open on the centre hinge exposing a single, still smoking, brass shell. Almost faster than my mind can register I’ve pulled the spent shell from the chamber, tucked it into an empty loop on the belt around my waist, and slid a fresh cartridge in its place.

My hand spins the pistol with a deft flourish before sliding it into its home on my hip.

Still in shock I barely have time to process that before I look at my body realizing I’m dressed in totally different attire than I had been in my apartment.

“What happened to my clothes?” Gone is my, faded by the wash, Big Trouble in Little China tee, replaced by a sopping wet, deep red cotton shirt.

An equally waterlogged old, brown leather jacket, cracked and faded pretty much everywhere, sits heavy on my frame. Many of the dull metal studs missing from the sleeves and shoulder padding, the only evidence they were once there, the empty small round holes and a few twirls of thread.

My grey sweat pants have been replaced too. Now dark brown trousers, stitched with heavy leather on the thighs cover my legs, held up with a wide gun belt ringed with shells and a couple of pouches. I notice that  the pants legs tuck just below the knee into high, scuffed black leather, pirate boots.

“Oh jeez, my foot.” I remember the stab of agony from before and fall to my butt. Grabbing at the left boot I tug it off, expecting to still find either a huge sliver of glass or a pewter wizard with a pointy hat  lodged into the soft arch. Thankfully there is no clear wound to be seen, though my foot is almost blue-black in color.

I nearly faint.

“On my god, I’ve been infected with lead poisoning or something!” I knew the price of those Chinese knock off fantasy minis were too good to be true! Now I’m gonna lose my foot cause I didn’t want to shell out for overpriced, blind box, globed on color pre-paints.

“Damn you and your affordable shipping!” My fingers scramble at my pants leg exposing my calf. The blue-black has stained my skin past the knee. In a panic I pull my shirt up and expose my waist and more dark, indigo tinted skin. What the hell happened to my stomach? It’s not soft and doughy from way to many ‘Big Joes party pizza and garlic butter breadstick basket’ weekend coupon, and ex-employee discount, combo deals.

Instead it's smooth and hairless. Even with the dark coloration the skin looks... vibrant and healthy? Nothing like my blotchy complexioned belly.  I twist about and watch toned muscle play beneath the surface. With a deep breath I tighten and hold my stomach and am rewarded with a set of obsidian cut, eight-pack abs. There is even that distinctive V of muscle where my legs meet my waist. The arrow-like shape pointing down...

Below the waistband of my trousers.

Tentatively, I swallow a gulp and pull the waist of my pants down below the belt and forward a few inches.

“Hot damn! Where did that come from?” Somehow I’m packing some serious firepower, and I don’t mean the holstered pistol bumping against my hip.

Scrambling over to a few of the large crystals my eyes search about until I find one against the cavern wall that’s easily twelve feet tall and on an almost 90 degree angle to the floor. Its smooth surface polished by time to a mirrored sheer.

My jaw drops as I stare at the reflection.

And the real-life Drow standing where my out of shape body should be.