I saved the world.

But if we’re getting technical, it wasn’t this world. But still… I did it.

Saving the world is bullshit. I know it. You know it. And we know everyone else knows it. We see it in movies and read about it in books all the time, but no one person can actually save the world. Because how would the world suddenly end? I guess other than a couple of countries going completely insane and launching all of their nuclear weapons at once, there’s no real threat to the entire world. And it would seem like there are safeguards for situations like that, anyway. Maybe an asteroid could randomly hit Earth, but that already happened once so it’s statistically unlikely to happen again. I think.

And no, we couldn’t land a bunch of oil drillers on said asteroid to drill a hole and plant a nuke to blow it up.

Our world isn’t going to end.

But other worlds can. So I really did save a world.

Oh, and not by myself. I had help. Of course, I had help. You don’t think a guy like me, someone who only pass times/skills included playing video games, eating tacos, reading books, and masturbating, could save the world by themselves, do you? I’d like to think I could have, but I couldn’t, not without help.

So this is that story. Or as best as I can remember it. Ok, fine, it’s really the way I’m going to tell it so I’ll look completely cool and like I didn’t shit my pants several times during the whole thing. Which I totally did not do.

So here we go…

#

I woke up in a dungeon. I’m not kidding.

It was an actual dungeon.

I woke up laying on the floor, a bug’s eye view of the strangest place I had ever seen. Since I’d never been to Las Vegas, I wasn’t sure that was a high bar. I could feel the cold, hard stones that made up the floor, wet with sticky moisture as I rose to my feet. Rusted bars pinned me in on three sides, more hard stone to my back.

It looked like a dungeon. A dark, dank, medieval dungeon. Something out of a horror movie version of Disney World. It smelled even worse. If diarrhea and puke had made a foul-smelling baby, then that baby died and rotted for three days, it wouldn’t smell half as bad as this.

Where the hell was I? How the hell did I get here?

I looked around. There were cells on each side of a hallway and I was locked in one of those cells. A cold panic started to creep up from my guts.

There was a guy in the cell next to me. He was laying on a small bed. Let’s just say he was extremely short. A few years ago you could have called him a midget. Now I think the correct nomenclature was little person. It also seemed strange that he wearing a lot of leather.

He was laying on the bed, eyes closed, but he wasn’t asleep. How did I know this? Maybe I’m psychic. Or maybe it's because he was loudly humming a tune and tapping his foot to the music.

“Sir, what is this place?” I asked him.

The little man opened his eyes and sat up quickly. He stared at me for a long moment. Maybe he really had been asleep and I’d woken him up. He stared at me until it became awkward and I looked down at the floor. Yep, still dirty and made of stone. When I looked up he was still staring at me. I checked my shirt to make sure I didn’t have anything on it. I rubbed my face to make sure everything was still in place.

Why was this guy looking at me like I was a freak? My shirt was dirty and wet from the floor, but nothing as bad as what he was wearing. I mean who wore all leather like that. It had to be hot. My shirt was still just a regular shirt with AC/DC on it. I had on blue jeans and tennis shoes. At least I still had my pants. I took that for a good sign. He looked at me like I was the strangest thing he’d seen all day. I guess staring at the walls of a dungeon will do that to you.

“Sir,” I said. “Is this jail? This looks like a jail.”

Literally the worst jail of all time.

The man got up from the bed and walked over to the bars that separated us. “What’s your name, kid?” he asked.

He was half as tall as I was but looked like he was in great physical shape. He was muscular and handsome with stubble on his chin and had red hair pulled back into a ponytail.

I backed up so he couldn’t reach me if he decided to reach out and grab me. I didn’t have to go too far. Him having short arms and all. At least he wasn’t super tall with super long arms he could have grabbed me with through the bars of our cells. Thank god for small miracles.

Where was I? What is this place?

The last thing I remembered was letting Dennis talk me into getting into his machine…

Dennis. That son of a…

But surely he hadn’t meant…

“Ok, Dennis,” I called out loudly. “I don’t want to test this game anymore.”

I listened but Dennis didn’t respond.

“What’s your name, kid?” the man asked again.

I was reluctant to answer. But if I was where I thought I was I guess everyone knew my name anyway. Maybe. Who the hell knew?

“Kyle,” I said.

The man nodded as if that made perfect sense. “Names Varris. And I’ll tell you where you are, Kyle. You’re in the dungeons of King Marvick, and you’re about to be hung.”

Hung? Man, this was all a bad dream. I must be dreaming. No, wait! Dennis. The game. I’m playing the game. That’s all.

I was just about to start shouting to tell Dennis where he could stick his stupid game if this was the kind of experience he was going to give people when I heard a heavy door clank open at the end of the hall.

Two guys dressed in armor walked in. They moved down the hall, opening the cells and escorting their guests out and into a line in the hall. When I say escorted them out, I really mean they dragged them out.

They got to my cell and their jaws dropped.

Mine did, too. They were wearing actual armor. It was old and rusty and they both looked their armor was doing all it could to stay strapped to their fat bellies. But it was armor. Like a dollar store version of what someone thought a knight would look like. They were both holding long halberd’s that they had used to push/pull my fellow prisoners from their cells and into a line in the hall between cells.

“Did you put anyone in cell eight?” the guard on the left asked the one on the right in a surprisingly British accent.

“I didn’ a put anyone in there,” the guard on the right shot back with an insulted look on his face.

Lefty said, “Well someone put em in there. He’s not on my list.” At this point he pulled a crumpled up sheet of paper from his pocket and glared at it. “Six prisoners, not one listed in cell eight,” Lefty told Righty.

“Well, he’s here id’nt he,” Righty said. “Someone put him in here so we may as well bring him with us.”

I tried to interject. “Guys, listen, I… Uh… Where am I?”

Lefty shoved the handle of his halberd through the bars and hit me in the stomach. The sharp pain knocked the wind out of me and I put my hands on my knees and coughed.

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I heard the small man next to me laugh and say, “Easy boys, he just got here.”

“Who’s he, Varris?” one of them asked the short man. “Who brought him in here?”

Varris laughed. “He just showed up. Kinda like magic.”

They brought Varris of his cell and chained him in line. Then entered my cell why I was distracted with the pain of being hit in the gut with a large wooden pole. One of them grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and pulled me into the hall and into the line of prisoners.

Suddenly there were manacles around my wrists.

“Any more talk from you and I’ll knock your teeth out,” Lefty said.

“Look what he’s wearing,” Righty said. “What kind of tunic is that? And look at those trousers. And what does that mean?” He pointed to the AC/DC logo.

“That’s the devil’s script,” Lefty said. “He’s a witch.”

I started to speak but Lefty raised his halberd like he was going to bash my teeth in with it so I kept my mouth closed.

Righty went to the front of the line of prisoners, all of us chained together now, and jerked the first guy forward. We started walking, trying not to trip over each other, Lefty behind me at the end of the line, jamming the pointing end of his halberd into my back.

We walked down a hall and the short man the guards had called Variss whispered to me, “Follow me and do exactly what I tell you and you might survive this.”

Survive this? What was going on here?

I didn’t have any other options so I figured I’d go with that until something better came along.

We walked through a doorway and the sun lit up the sky with blinding light. I put my hand over my eyes to provide some shade and looked around. There was a courtyard with a crowd gathered in it. Every person turned to watch us as we made our way through.

The courtyard was surrounded on all sides by high, stone walls, and on one side was a castle. A very real-looking castle. It had towers and spires and all the decorations that you would expect to see when looking at a castle. There were guards all around, all wearing the same crimson cloak with a griffin on it.

The crowd parted and I could see where we were heading. A large platform with nooses hanging from an overhead beam. There was another platform on the side of the courtyard with a handful of people sitting in chairs and watching us walk.

That platform looked a lot more comfortable than the one we were heading to. The people on that platform were dressed in either fine clothes or shiny armor. There was a man sitting in the middle in a large chair, a crown on his head. He looked like someone’s version of what they thought a king in the middle ages would look like. He had a white beard and watched me intently. There was a middle-aged woman sitting to his right and a young woman about my age sitting on his left. Standing behind him was an older man with a craggy face and an even scragglier grey beard.

The crowd had started to murmur when we came through the door and as we walked through they started to get louder and were shouting at us by the time we go to the platform. To say the crowd was made up of people is being a little too fair. Most of them didn’t have all of their teeth, but that wasn’t the weird part.

Some of them weren’t people at all. Sure, there were people with dark skin, and people with light skin; then there were people with scales and faces like lizards. There was even a big thing that had a bull's head and horns.

Where the hell was I? Inside the game? There was no way!

Had Dennis put me inside the game?

I didn’t have time to think about that. Righty led the line of prisoners up the steps to the platform and pushed each one in front of a noose. Another guard, a younger man in his mid-twenties or so with jet black hair and good looks, dressed in the fancier armor that the guards of the castle, sliver armor that gleamed in the sunlight, and wearing that same cloak over his chest with a symbol of a griffin, put the nooses over each prisoner’s neck.

The knight got to Varris and laughed when he put the noose over his neck. This one looked like it had been made especially for somebody short since it was longer. “I knew they’d catch you eventually you sawed-off little bastard,” the knight said.

Varris smiled. “I stayed in your mother's chambers just a little too long, Erick.”

Well, this place could be all bad if they had mom jokes.

The knight scowled and punched Varris in the stomach. Varris doubled over and coughed. That looked like it hurt. Then the black-haired knight put a noose over my head and around my neck.

“Wait, I’m not supposed to-“I started to say. The knight punched me in the gut, too. The sharp blow took my breath away but I couldn’t bend over because of the noose pulling on my neck. I stood there coughing and choking with the noose tugging on my throat, feeling like I would never get my breath back.

Once I had enough breath back I asked Varris, “What is this place?”

“King Marvick’s castle,” Varris said. “This is the monthly hanging of the prisoners.”

I gulped. Monthly hanging? I was definitely not supposed to be here.

Varris chuckled at my reaction to his words. “Don’t worry about it. We are about to make our exit from this place.”

“Exit?” What was he talking about? I just wanted Dennis to get me out of here.

There was a trumpet and everyone turned towards the platform that held the dignitaries of our little function. The crowd had been excited, voices calling and cheering, but now everyone got quiet.

“Jailer,” the man who was obviously king said loud enough for us to hear, “who is that?” He pointed right at me.

Lefty had a look of absolute shock on his face. He stammered and the knight who had put the nooses around everyone’s head, Erick, Varris had called him spoke forcefully to him. “The King has asked you a question, Jailer. Answer him.”

Lefty gulped and when he spoke his voice squeaked. “He was in the dungeon, Your Highness.”

That was it. That’s all he said. The King looked unimpressed. He motioned a finger and Erick grabbed me and pushed me down the stairs and led me to the platform where the King sat.

He looked even more in charge when you got close to him. “Who are you?” he asked me. “And what is your crime?”

Crime? I had no idea what my crime was. Other than for once not being the most unattractive person in a crowd of random people. This was all so weird. This had to be Dennis’s game though.

“Look, bro,” I said to the guy dressed up like a medieval king. “I don’t know how Dennis pulled this off, but this game sucks. I shouted to the sky, “Dennis, turn this fucking thing off and let me out of here.”

The king gave a look and the knight, Erick, punched me in the face.

Everything went white, then black, the sandy ground rushed up and smacked me in the side of the head. It dawned on me that either this was the most vivid virtual reality simulator in history, or I was not in fact in a virtual reality simulator. Which meant this was real.

Which could only mean one thing.

That this wasn’t real and I had gone completely insane.

That had to be the answer. I was insane.

The knight jerked me up from the ground, his armor creaking loudly in my ear. I tasted blood in my mouth.

Blood. Oh shit.

“The King asked you a question, peasant,” the knight yelled in my ear, the decibels making my eardrum throb. Pain. Why so much pain if this wasn’t real?

The knight held on to my shirt and the King spoke again. “Who put you in that dungeon?”

I had no answer for that. I think Dennis had. But how? I couldn’t remember much about what had happened before I woke up in that dungeon. What had happened?

The knight cocked his fist back again to land another blow and I made the quick decision to say something. Anything. Maybe Mr. I Like To Punch People would stop punching me.

I said the first thing that popped into my head.

“I’ve paid my dues… Time after time… I’ve done my sentence… But committed no crime… And bad mistakes… I’ve made a few…”

The knight didn’t even let me get to the chorus of “We are the Champions” before he punched me in the face again. Obviously, he wasn’t a Queen fan.

The sand of the courtyard was gritty in my mouth, the blood tacky and sticky. I spit it out once he pulled me to my feet.

The King looked at me, a severe disappointed look on his face. The young woman on his left look at me earnestly. I could see she had honey colored hair and was tall, the King and Queen, I presumed, were clearly her parents. She was breathtakingly beautiful. She was the kind of girl that wouldn’t be seen in public with a guy like me in a million years. She leaned in and said something to the King who considered me for a short second. He waved a dismissive hand at the young woman then shrugged and the knight hauled me by the neck back up to the platform.

I threw a look over my shoulder as the knight hauled me toward the platform with the nooses and saw the older man whispering something to the king as well. The king shook his head and the older man looked at the girl and gave her a sort of “I tried” shrug of his shoulders.

When we got back to the hanging platform I said, “Look man, I think there’s been a big mistake. Can somebody get in touch with Dennis?” I should have known better. The young knight with the black hair and the evil smirk on his face punched me in the mouth. Hard. I hit the deck and heard the crowd cheer.

Wait a second. Is this the game? Am I playing the game? Because this is too fucking real.

My friend from the dungeon seemed all too calm about all of this. He watched me get up and I saw him gesture with his hand with a kind of stop motion.

Stop talking? Good idea. Wish I woulda thought of that before that last punch. We now seemed like it was going to be the least of my worries when these guys actually hung me!

The crowd grew quiet in anticipation of what was about to happen. Varris had a sly smile on his face like he frequently was on the verge of being hung but up until this point had not been and was supremely confident that it wasn’t going to happen this time either.

I wanted to cry. I stared at the sky hoping Dennis and his team would take me out of the game right now. Erick the asshole put a hand on my shoulder and I could see his eyes were full of happiness at what was about to happen.

Oh shit.

I’d like to tell you my fear was not overwhelming and that it didn’t hit me like a punch in the gut, a punch so hard that I lost control of myself and my bladder for a second.

I’d like to tell you that, and since this is my story I will.

I faced death stoically and not crying like a baby.

Before the knight could push me though, darkness overtook the courtyard, like a sudden and complete overcastness suddenly blotted out the sun.

The crowd murmured, everyone’s eyes rose to the sky, then there were a couple of screams, then in what seemed like a second, everyone was running and screaming. People were pushing and shoving, trying to fight their way into the castle.

Guards grabbed the King and the Queen and their daughter and rushed them inside. I happen to see the young woman throw a look at me over her shoulder as she entered the castle. I think I did anyway, everything was blurry because of my tears.

I looked up, the noose still around my neck, and what I saw sent a cold tremor of fear down my spine…