“What. The actual. Fuck. Is going on right now!” I shouted hysterically.

I shot to my feet as I took in my surroundings and noticed that I was standing in a nearly identical recreation of the basement in my childhood home. The house itself was destroyed to make way for a parking lot nearly a decade ago, but the details were exactly the same as I remembered them.

The fake wooden panelling on the walls that were showing signs of peeling. The ugly, dark grey, shag carpet that covered the entire floor. The light switch that never worked when the space heater was turned on. The pencil marks on the wall that marked the increasing heights of me and my siblings. The angular, metallic file cabinet that stood in the corner and contained all my parents’ tax receipts.

But for all the similarities I had observed, the incongruencies were what let me know I wasn’t dreaming, or that I had somehow been flung through time, which was a possibility I could no longer discount.

Like the fact that there was no crappy CRT television on a tiny stand with my old game console plugged into it. Or that the door leading upstairs to the rest of the house didn’t exist.

Or that, in addition to the green deer that was sitting on the carpet beside me, there were two voranders obediently kneeling before me, and piles of supplies scattered haphazardly around the room.

“What the fuck is going on right now,” I whispered to myself. The evidence only pointed to one logical conclusion.

How the fuck had I arrived in my beast space while I was asleep?

“That seems to be a common sentiment.” A deep voice said musingly.

Sighing, I turned to my companion and asked him, “I don’t suppose you have any idea what’s going on?” It was unlikely he knew, but I had to check, if only to remove the possibility.

“No. I am just as uncertain as to this change as you are. Before I woke up, there was nothing here. Your ‘beast space’, as you so eloquently called it, was just a shifting river of colors in a perpetual noon. This…man den, was what I saw when I opened my eyes.” Spearmint stated, his mental voice conveying how much he disapproved of the change.

“Were there any changes with…” I nodded my head at the two still-kneeling voranders, who had maintained that position since I woke up.

My companion shook his head as he said, “Outside, they may have been chaotic brutes, but in here, they are quiet and restrained. There is something about this space that compels them to obey you. That has held true since the day you subjugated them.”

His assurance wasn’t as assuring as he meant it to be.

“Do you feel something compelling you to obey me too?” I asked hurriedly. That was new information, and likely part of the change that occurred as I slept.

He tilted his head side to side in an oddly human-like manner before responding, “Yes, and no.”

Seriously, man?!

“It is difficult to describe. I am aware that there is something about this space that is creating that effect…but I do not feel it myself.”

“You don’t feel it yourself,” I restated.

“I only know that the effect is there. I do not know any more than you do what is causing it, where it comes from, or anything else. Oh, that’s not entirely true, now that I think about it,” he backtracked.

“Yes! What do you know?” I asked excitedly, eager to get a lead on this mysterious compulsion that was somehow selective.

“I know that it has been present since my arrival.”

And just like that, my theory that the space was affected somehow by the voranders was burned to ashes.

“What.”

“How long has it been since our initial encounter? Months? Well, in any case, I have felt that effect since that day, but it appears to have no effect on me, or perhaps it affects me in other ways? Or perhaps it is attempting to affect me but I happen to be immune? I cannot say for certain which is true, but my instincts tell me it chooses not to affect me.” Spearmint offered.

I clenched my fists in anger.

Just when I was beginning to really live life, this happened. A monkey wrench of unpredictability and chaos was thrown into my life that threatened the foundation of my decision making, my knowledge base.

In the end, I couldn’t ignore the intrusive voice that came and went through my head like a phantom. There had to be a connection. The timing was just too perfect. Wherever the aberrant thought came from, it likely played a part in changing the beast space, bringing me inside, and the compulsion effect that, according to Spearmint’s testimony, only affected my tamed voranders.

Heh, maybe they know what’s going on.

It was unlikely to yield anything of worth, but I wanted, no, needed to understand what was happening here, lest the unknown factors began affecting me negatively and in a way I couldn’t control. And if detective shows had taught me anything, it was that you don’t ignore possible witnesses to a mystery, regardless of your distaste for them. I had delayed communicating with them for long enough.

I approached the voranders slowly, taking small steps, before I stood about two meters in front of them. Hiding the apprehension I felt, I asked them aloud, “Can either of you understand me?”

I heard a growl and a snarl in response, which was roughly what I was expecting, when –

“Yes, Master.”

“Yes, Master.”

Holy…shit…fuck…

I…couldn’t handle the enormity those sentences brought me, and to say I was shocked would do a disservice to the word. I thought I had gotten a good handle on dealing with the unexpected, but this…this was something I couldn’t have been prepared for.

I fell back on my breathing technique to calm myself as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in through my nose.

Inhale. Hold it. Exhale. Wait.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Wait.

I repeated the process until I had some semblance of control over my emotions again. I opened my eyes and saw the voranders kneeling before me.

Let’s try this again.

“Have, have you always been able to understand me?” I asked quietly.

This time, the response was a doubled, “No, Master.”

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I sighed in relief. At least I had proof from the primary source that the voranders were always vicious and instinctive in the outside world, instead of the controlled and obedient beings they were in my beast space.

As much as I would appreciate diving into all the mysteries and unknowns surrounding voranders, I was more concerned with the beast space and its recent changes.

“Do either of you know when this beast space changed?”

“I do, Master.”

It was the werewolf monster who responded, the goblin one remaining silent.

“Tell me what you know.” I ordered.

But instead of telling me mentally, as it had been doing, it somehow showed me what happened from its perspective.

Spearmint was playing around, butting heads with an imaginary enemy in the center of the beast space, a multicolored kaleidoscope of all shades of colors without lights or shadows, but with enough brightness to see everything. Soon, he stumbled and laid on the ground, falling asleep quickly after.

Then, the shifting colors paused in their movement, and a barely noticeable hole came into existence, and it grew larger and became more apparent, the scenery behind it fizzling out of existence. The hole expanded further and further, until finally, it encompassed the entire area, easily recognizable as the basement I was familiar with.

It was hard to tell how much time had passed, but nothing happened for a good while, until suddenly, I saw myself, still sleeping yet appearing out of thin air on the carpeted floor.

And then the vision receded and I was staring at the kneeling werewolf again, my sight once more attached to my own perspective.

So now I knew that I hadn’t consciously entered the beast space, which also meant the odds were low that I could consciously exit it.

Sigh, why does everything have to be so mysterious and complicated? Can’t the universe just make things simple for once? I mean, how hard would it be to just…explain how everything works? But no, of course not, then I’d be ‘robbed’ of the ‘precious experience’ of figuring everything out for myself all the fucking time.

Seriously, who decided that I couldn’t just enter and leave whenever I wanted? Is that so hard to do?! For fuck’s sake, it’s my beast space, it’s my life, it should be my FUCKING DECISION!

WHY CAN’T I JUST LEAVE WHEN I WANT TO?!

And as I stood there, clenching my fists with my eyes shut and attempting to suppress my anger, I opened my eyes and punched the wall in what was definitely an earnest attempt to break my hand, and NOT me lashing out in a moment of half-controlled rage.

The reverberation from the impact travelled through my knuckles, and as I reflexively shook my hand to get rid of the pain, I subconsciously used a healing spell on the bones in my hand.

I turned around to see if I could ‘summon’ Spearmint out of the beast space and hitch a ride with him, but turning around let me see a familiar view.

I was once more, somehow, in my room at the academy compound. Yep, there were my boots that I had quickly taken off last night, lying discarded on the floor.

Honestly, I was even more pissed off that I was back than I had been when I woke up in the beast space.

“What the FUCK is going on?!” I shouted aloud, completely forgetting where I was. A part of me still thought I was in the beast space, and I forgot to restrain myself as I usually did.

So naturally, the reaction that resulted was…

A barrage of knocks on my locked door, and –

“Hey, idiot, are you okay in there? Open the door! What was that shouting? Hey, this isn’t funny!” a concerned voice exclaimed.

“Rhaaj! Open the door now or I’ll get a professor!” an equally worried voice with a slight quiver shouted out.

There it was.

I covered my face with both my hands before running them up through my hair and settling down again. Time to act stupid again. It shouldn’t be too hard.

It’s good to see that at least you’re self-aware.

MOTHERFUC–

“Rhaaj, seriously, stop messing around and open the door!”

“That’s it, I’m getting a professor, Ord, you wait here in case –”

I scrambled towards the door and undid the latch before wrenching the door open violently, interrupting the frantic conversation between Teroa, Riddis, and Orddis, who were all in varying stages of concern.

“Ow! Will you stop that!” I shouted, rubbing my elbow after Teroa hammered her fists into my arm repeatedly.

“That’s what you get for making us worry, you madman!” Teroa said as she was almost on the verge of tears.

“She’s right, you know. We thought you were, well, we didn’t know what to think. You stumbled out of the room last night, then you just started screaming this morning and you wouldn’t respond to us calling for you! What happened to you, Rhaaj?!” Riddis exclaimed.

“Seriously, man, are you sick or something? Do you need to see a healer?” Orddis asked, much more collected than the other two, but still concerned.

“No, I’m fine, I just…had a nightmare.” I said, as I thought about the reappearance of the phantom voice just a second ago and what it could mean.

“You’re lying,” Teroa and Riddis both said in unison, their eyes practically boring into me, prompting me to reflexively take a step back from them, with Orddis looking at them oddly.

“What? No, I’m not!” I blurted out.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong, or do I need to bring out the gauntlet?” Teroa asked threateningly, cracking her knuckles like she was warming up for a serious fight. Her moist and reddened eyes made her look even more fierce than she usually did.

Now, I could see this going in one of two ways.

Option One. I don’t say anything, or I lied and they didn’t believe me.

Teroa would get physically violent, Riddis would go along with whatever she did, and Orddis would be torn between getting help to make sure they didn’t go too far and sticking around to see what happened.

I wasn’t a fan of Option One.

Then, there was Option Two, where I told them the truth and they still attacked me for not telling them sooner.

I wasn’t a fan of Option Two, either.

So, I went with Option Three: Distract them with a different truth and hope it subdues them.

“Sigh, fine, just…come inside first, alright? I’d rather keep this a secret from most people.” I said resignedly.

All it took was one glance and a single nod between the girls, and Teroa rushed off down the hallway, while Riddis dragged me into the room, with Orddis following behind us, shaking his head.

“Sis, can you at least pretend to act with some dignity?” Orddis mockingly said.

“Shut up, Ord. Are you telling me you don’t want to know what’s going on with this guy?” She shot back at him, giving him a look that made him raise his hands in surrender.

He would’ve responded, but a full plethora of people barged into my room, making themselves as comfortable as possible in the small room, claiming chairs or the side of my bed for themselves to sit in.

Teroa closed the door once everyone was inside, looking straight at me.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to tell…whatever it is, more than once, and we would have told everyone eventually anyways. This way, it’s just skipping a few steps,” she said as she crossed her arms.

Most of my friend group was here. Teroa, Riddis and Orddis, Sheenai, Jissa, Tyrithen, Timek, Venaca. Everyone was mostly quiet, waiting for something to start.

So I enacted Option Three, despite my irritation at having a larger audience than expected.

“I’m dying.” I stated, without any preamble.

I could see nobody believed me. A roll of the eyes here, a smirk there.

“Brother, you could have picked a better excuse than that. Seriously, what’s going on with you? Teroa just ran into our room and said you’ve got some big secret to tell us.” Timek said, confused.

“Seriously. I’m dying.” I said, trying to seem as truthful as possible.

“Look, you better tell us all now the truth, or –” Riddis started saying.

“I’M DYING OKAY! FOR FUCK'S SAKE, JUST LET ME TALK!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, the lock that suppressed my anger just barely coming loose.

I had always been well-behaved around my friends, even if I was quick to drop propriety and become casual as soon as doors were closed. So seeing people react as they did, eyes widened, gasps and whimpers, flinching back, it was…well, there was no good way to describe it.

It felt like taking a breath of fresh air after escaping a garbage dump that reeked of toxic and nauseating stenches.

I let the silence sit for a second before I continued, “Ever since I was little, I’ve had these headaches. They would flare for a few minutes before going down, but they would happen more and more as I got older. Then, Teacher Passen noticed something wrong with me on the first day of classes.”

“Passen is the elf, right?” Timek asked quietly, seemingly accepting that I was being truthful and coming to terms with that revelation.

“He’s the healing instructor for, look, it doesn’t matter. The point is, he said there was something wrong with my soul and I don’t have a long time before it goes…boom,” I said as I mimed an explosion with my hands.

People were processing the bomb I had just dropped on them in their own way. The majority were staring at the floor while peeking looks at me. A few were reciting some prayer, as I could hear the word ‘Mother’ being used often.

“You’re not lying, are you?” Teroa asked me despondently, as she sat hunched against the wall, her tear-streaked face looking at mine.

“Believe me, I wish I was,” I said in an uncharacteristically serious manner.

“Do…do you know how long you’ve got left?” Venaca quietly asked me, not meeting my eyes.

“Not long. At least a few years,” I replied evasively. In my defense, I wasn’t lying. I mean, does anyone know when exactly they’re going to die?

“Then we…are not going to waste any more time.” a voice said from near the floor.

And the next thing I knew, I was back on my bed, struggling for air as a short and aggressive commoner girl pinned me down, her lips locked against mine, the taste of salt mixing with that of her lips.