(Dylan)

Dylan was looking forward to getting his favorite cupcake. These weren’t just any cupcakes; they were gourmet cupcakes. Airy—with a fluffy texture that all cupcakes should have. While he wasn’t a baker by any stretch of the imagination, he considered himself a connoisseur of the delectable pastries.

Most shops had the standard fare: vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet. But this bakery also had German chocolate, Oreo, jelly roll, and his favorite, chocolate peanut butter cup. They didn’t just stop with a rich frosting—no, they stuffed those fuckers with a creamy center. And the cupcakes were huge. It was a feat of strength to eat the whole damn thing in a single sitting.

They came from one of those family-owned shops that didn’t deliver or bother with online orders. So, he hadn’t had the crumbly cake in years. Remote work, Amazon Prime, and Uber Eats enabled him to live a life entirely from the comfort of his own home. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had to leave his apartment.

The scent of warm spices, butter, and fresh bread teased him a block away. This was the first time he’d ever walked to the bakery. Usually, he’d have driven himself, but he was out and about because his car was in the shop for a recall. Something about brake light fluids, or maybe it was the seatbelt? He wasn’t a car person and just skimmed the letter detailing what it was for. All he knew was it was a free fix, so he picked up his phone and made the appointment.

The journey was noisier than he expected. Engines rumbled, brakes screeched, and tires crunched as traffic flowed past. He joined the silent crowd of pedestrians, all but the oldest glued to the screens on their phone, waiting for their turn to cross the street.

Dylan hadn’t charged his phone last night, and it was in the red when he left the house, or he’d have been among the screen zombies.

An older lady gave him a smile as they made eye contact while he took in his surroundings. Her crow’s feet suggested she smiled easily and often.

Cars, trucks, and even bikes drove past the walkway, leaving gaps just long enough to see the small one-story shop across the street. A solitary “OPEN” sign hung in the door. A display of golden brown goods, the source of the delightful aroma, sat in the shop window.

Ding! His phone chirped, letting him know he had a notification. The crosswalk switched to “WALK” as he took out his phone and stepped off the curb. One moment he was in broad daylight holding his phone.

And the next his bare foot slapped down on a hardwood floor, surrounded in darkness. The absence of street noise and his phone threw him off balance. He flailed, trying to remain upright.

A rhythmic sound, like rolling a heavy marble along wood, approached his feet. He glanced down, unable to make out what the round object was as it inched toward him. The room was dark save for the coasting sphere. It stopped just before his feet; about the size of a snow globe. Faint orange and blue light illuminated the surrounding floor.

He couldn’t make out any further details, realizing the room wasn’t just dark, but he couldn’t see well. Everything was blurry. He reached for his glasses.

“Ow.” He accidentally poked himself. That confirmed they were missing. Squinting, he strained his eyes and traced the path of the sphere, following it to an out-of-focus figure that sat against a wall.

Automatically, Auto-manners engaged as he bent down to pick up the spherical object. “I think you dropped this.”

While still bent over, he turned toward the window on his right as it suddenly lit up the room. He thought he heard his voice say, “Fuck.” Then the force of the explosion hit. It shattered the window, buckled the wall, and blew Dylan off his feet. He quickly found the nearby wall by smashing into it, leaving a Dylan-sized indent before he crumpled to the ground.

Dust and debris coated Dylan as he lay on the floor, his body refusing to breathe. He had the wind knocked out of him and panicked as his diaphragm refused to work with him.

The first couple of coughs were weak, but his lung capacity returned as he continued coughing.

“What the hell was that?” Dylan asked, feeling his voice rather than hearing it. His hearing was gone, replaced with a high-pitched ringing. Instinctively, he reached for his phone, only to discover he was completely naked.

The explosions weren’t done. More hot and, occasionally, frigid blasts staggered in every few seconds over the next couple of minutes. Fortunately, none of them were as violent as the first.

‘Since when are explosions cold?’ he wondered.

The fires outside crackled, illuminating the room. Shadows danced wildly along the floor, ceiling, and what remained of the walls. One shadow even got up and jumped out of the damn hole in the wall.

He thought his actual body might still be lying in the street back at the crosswalk. Most likely, he’d gotten ran over or shot—this was just his brain’s way of processing death.

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It didn’t matter; he wasn’t ready to die. If death wanted him, it would have to drag him kicking and screaming into the night. Dylan didn’t know where this resolve came from; this was the first time facing his mortality. He wouldn’t give up on himself and he wasn’t ready to give up on his phone, either.

Something was wrong with his leg. The sharp, shooting pain suggested a fracture, if not a complete brake, but he couldn’t bring himself to look. Instead, he focused on finding his phone, reaching out and blindly feeling around with his hand.

Dylan gasped as a new sharp pain shot through his fingers, and he quickly snatched them back. His efforts earned him fresh cuts that oozed red down his debris covered digits. Stained glass shards reflected light from the cuts. That would have to be a Future Dylan problem, as he had nothing to extract them.

Sitting up would give him a better perspective to find his phone and call for help, but he wasn’t sure he could with a bum leg and all the glass on the floor. His arm accidentally bumped the sphere from before and a weird prompt showed up in both his mind and vision. There was a dissonance when he read it.

[Time orb]: Initializing, wait.

He tried to swipe away at the message; it was in his way, but nothing happened. The mismatch was because his mind could read the message clearly, while his vision couldn’t.

[Time orb]: Four framework slots available, Time framework not found. Requesting permission to activate. Choose one.

[Consent] [Deny] [Cancel]

Dylan’s head hurt and he was pretty sure he had a concussion. Even in the best of health, he never had the patience to deal with End User License Agreements. So he did what he always did. He reached up and tried to tap on “Cancel”.

“Weird,” he said out of habit. The ringing continued to blanket him in a terrible white noise. Nothing happened and his finger went through the overlay—it didn’t physically exist. The prompt didn’t go away.

“Deny. Cancel. Escape. Go back. Undo,” Dylan said out loud, hoping it had better hearing than he did. He sighed. The three options stubbornly persisted. Closing his eyes tightly, he focused on one option: the first one. He mentally selected “Consent”.

[Time orb]: Consent acknowledged.

Dylan was glad the first option worked, but he would’ve tried them all if it hadn’t. The sphere shattered on the floor next to him.

“Oops.” Dylan just wanted the hallucinations to stop and never meant to break the stupid collectable.

[Time orb]: Activating Time framework­­­­—SKIP.

Dylan realized he could mentally skip the prompts. He had to figure out how to wake up from this damn coma dream and these prompts were very distracting.

[Time orb]: Framework two of—SKIP.

A warm sensation coursed out from his chest and into his extremities. It felt like a reinvigoration; it felt like power.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he said, actually hearing his words again. The ringing had stopped.

[Time orb]: New passive [Synchronicity] unlocked—SKIP.

“Wait, what?” he asked after hearing himself.

[Time orb]: Conjuring first magic influence—SKIP.

“How many of these things are there?”

[Time orb]: Manifesting new ability with Destiny—SKIP.

[Time orb]: New ability [Dejavu] unlocked—SKIP.

[Time orb]: Three open ability—SKIP.

“Holy crap, give it a rest,” he grumbled.

Dylan held his hand up and couldn’t find the cuts on his fingers. The only evidence they ever existed was the dried red stains. He pulled his hand away from his face and watched it remain in focus the entire time. He checked for his glasses again, this time poking the bridge of his nose between his eyes.

‘I can see,’ he thought as he looked around the room. That’s when he realized the background noises he was hearing weren’t from some stream or movie.

Crying, moaning, and whimpering crept into the room over the crackle of the untamed fires. He rolled onto his side and got up, careful to avoid stepping on the shards of glass. Peering past the missing wall revealed a disaster that reminded him of the war zones he’d seen on social media. There had been a building across from him, but only a portion of it remained. A crater replaced the missing half.

There were people down there. One of them ran, yelling for help. A few of them were upright, but stumbling; they looked confused. Then Dylan’s stomach dropped as he noticed the ones that were crawling.

“Oh my god..." Dylan whispered, bringing his hand to cover his mouth in shock. Parts of them were missing. He stopped looking for more people when he found one that hadn’t been moving at all.

‘Why isn’t anyone calling for help?’ he wondered, noticing none of them were using their cellphones.

The missing portion of the building laid in varying sizes of debris. Sickly green fire engulfed the remaining half. Looking past the immediate disaster in front of him, there was something off with the trees in the distance. He wasn’t an arborist, but he could usually recognize most trees, often identifying them by sight. Occasionally, he even knew their proper names—like willow, instead of the “hair metal tree”. He’d seen none of these trees before.

A tall, dark fence delineated the border, separating the well-maintained grassy fields and tree line, whose canopy rose even higher than the fence. The foliage lit up from the fires scattered around the area, and they reminded him of New England in the fall. The trees were full of orange, yellows, reds, browns, and he could have sworn, blues and purples. Not a speck of green to be seen. Even the remaining grass looked like a mix of burned yellows and browns.

A breeze caressed him with an intimate touch that reminded him he was still naked. He could really use some pants, which triggered a thought.

‘Maybe it’s in my pants?’ Pursing his lips, he scanned the room wondering where his phone was. He suddenly remembered there had been someone else in the room with him before the explosion.

Dylan looked over at them and said, “Oh hey, give me a second. I’ve got to, uh…” He covered his nakedness with his hands. His eyes scanned the room and found a bed tossed against a corner. Quickly, he salvaged a sheet from it.

One of the few things he remembered from his two semesters at college was how to fashion a toga. Never in all his years would he have imagined that skill would come in handy.

“That’s better,” he said, adjusting the fit. The result was loose and breezy, but at least he wouldn’t be flashing anyone. Well, anyone else. It was too late for his poor roommate.

Dylan turned around and froze, belting out a high-pitched scream that would’ve made any six-year-old girl proud. There was a chubby man with wide eyes staring at him with the same surprise he felt. That guy was also in a makeshift toga.