I’m at my sister’s house, babysitting my nephew Dayton. He’s three years old, and he’s a selfish little shit. He’s over at the other end of the lounge, threatening to pee on the stereo because I won’t give him a biscuit. For some reason, I feel really queasy, like I might vomit, and he’s put sand in my underpants and it’s made my groin super itchy. Like I say, he’s unpleasant, even for a three year old.

I would run over and grab him, but he’s laid a minefield of Lego pieces on the living room carpet. Somehow they’re stuck to the shag and I can’t pick them up to clear a safe path. I don’t know where my shoes are, and so I’m barefoot.

“Biscuit!” He shouts at me, with a wicked look in his eye.

“You’ve had three already Dayton. Come back over here like a good boy and we can talk about it.”

“Biscuit, biscuit, biscuit!” He turns his back to me so he’s facing the stereo, and looks at me over his shoulder. His expression is one of pure malevolent glee. It looks like he’s about to carry out his threat and he’s excited at the prospect of being so naughty.

“Don’t you dare you little toerag!” I shout and begin a dash of peril over the plastic caltrops before he can start soaking the hifi. Of course, the sharp edges of the Lego bricks jab the soles of my feet like little spears. It’s as painful as the cliche would have you believe. I’m about halfway there, when a particularly angular piece actually pierces the skin and draws blood. I wince, closing my eyes for a second, furious at this little chaotic fiend.

Then I open them, and my head is thick and my vision blurry. I’m lying down in wet grass and my tongue feels like someone - presumably Dayton - has sandpapered it. My guts are churning thanks to my adventurous mixing of various drinks last night, and I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I may have pissed myself. It’s difficult to tell, because for some reason, my Spongebob top and green trackies have gone, and all I’m wearing is a pair of underpants that are so itchy, they feel like they’ve been woven out of horse hair as a gift for a penitent monk.

There’s that jabbing again, like needles in the soles of my feet. I try and sit up and feel something tugging at my hair. Panic wells as I realise I can’t raise my head. I turn to look as best I can, and see a multitude of little ropes tied to my hair and then staked in the ground. Trying to move my arms and legs proves similarly futile. They must be bound in the same way.

I’ve been fucking Gullivered!

Has Dayton drugged me, pulled me into the garden and tied me up as a joke? Surely he wouldn’t be strong enough.

Another jab, and this time, I feel a pointy something drive into the sole of my left foot like I’ve stepped on a nail.

“Fuck Dayton! Fuuuuck!”

“He’s awake. He’s awake” says a voice. It’s high pitched and full of malice, like a demon that’s been inhaling helium.

“Make a hole, make a hole!” Shouts another with a voice like an evil munchkin from the Wizard of Oz. There’s motion all around me, the sound of many footsteps swarming. There’s a commotion and excited chattering, the sound of a multitude of creatures busying themselves around me.

I feel something grab the hairs around my belly button, and hoist itself up on to my stomach.

There’s something walking on me! Christ. It’s stomping up my abdomen towards my chest.

I can see now that it’s a tiny man and he’s grabbing my chin. He’s about as big as a sparrow and he’s clad in what looks like rusty chain mail. His skin is the dark red colour of a roasted pepper. He climbs up my face and sits down, using my nose as a stool.

“We’re going to make a hole in you, and we’re going to climb inside it,” he says, in his hideous squeak.

“Fuck off,” is all I can think to say. Panic has overloaded my brain. Panic at this horrific threat and at my sudden change in circumstances. I remember the note, and the tube station now. I remember the big guy with the hair, and his flask of drink. I remember the carriage, drifting off to snores like thunder.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But I don’t remember how the fuck I ended up like this.

“We are going to march in to that bloody gape, one by one” the demon munchkin continues, “and we’re going to eat your flesh. Starting in your thigh, then up along your guts, then on to the sweet, sweet meat of your heart. We’re going to make of your flesh a tunnel, a red and wet feast.”

“Please don’t.” I wrench at the restraints at my arms and legs, grunting at the effort. They don’t budge.

“Easy now meat mountain,” says the man. “You’re bound fast. We are experts at knots, and besides, our spears are laced with spider poison. A paralysing venom, that will stiffen your sinews.”

I grunt as I strain at the ropes again. I grit my teeth and try to heave my arms free, but they won’t budge. They feel heavy and they ache, and every futile attempt I make to get out of this mess saps more of my energy.

I can’t die like this, can I?

It must be a dream, in the same way that me shouting at my nephew and treading on his Lego bricks was a dream.

“We’ll make a feast hall of your rib cage,” the demonic Lilliputian continues. “And we’ll dance in the puddles of your blood. Your screams will be music to our revelery. We’ll sing along, and harmonise with verse that celebrates your very deliciousness. You’ll fade away, with the ballad of your own death ringing in your ears, a song of how you tasted and how your pain made the flavour all the more sweeeeeeee-”

He stops mid taunt as a hand with hairy knuckles suddenly grabs him, and flings him away from me.

“Away insects!” Someone shouts. “Away you little fucks. Away.”

There’s crunching noises, and high pitched screams cut off by stomping. There’s the sound of a tiny stampede all around me, as someone scatters my miniscule tormenters. I feel my bindings loosen, and am relieved to find that I can move my limbs. Someone walks behind me, and picks out the ropes from my hair. Then there are arms around me, helping me to sit up.

Then there’s a face. A very hirsute one, more red beard than face. Unlike the last face I stared at, it’s regular sized, but it’s still not quite what you’d call normal. This face has a lumpy potato of a nose, and the eyebrows are so wild and thick they look like they might crawl off to try and find somewhere to pupate. When this face talks, it’s with an accent best described as “generic Celtic” - not quite Irish, not quite Scottish, not exactly Cornish.

In short, it looks and sounds like the face of a fantasy dwarf from any number of MMOs and RPGs. As I sit up, I get a better look at him, which confirms my theory. He’s a dwarf alright, short and stocky, with worn leather armour and a hammer amulet around his neck.

“Drink friend,” he says pushing a small bottle to my lips. “It’s an antidote to the Wraxsies’ poison. It’ll get you back to spry in no time.”

“Thanks” I say, so relieved to be free of my recent predicament that I take a sip of what’s offered without suspicion. It tastes disgusting, and I pull a face.

“Ah, tastes like milk from a hag’s tit” he says. “I know. But it works a treat.”

He holds out his hand for me to shake, and to help me up off the ground. His grip is like a bulldog’s bite.

“My name is Bray, of the Black Hills.”

“Hello Bray. I’m Doon, of Tooting.”

He laughs. “Tooting? That is not a place. It is a sound.”

----------------------------------------

For someone with such short legs, Bray of the Black Hills walks with impressive speed. Having given me a whole five minutes or so to vomit, have a panic attack and regain some semblance of composure, he told me that we have to get to the sanctuary of a nearby village “with great haste” because the current place we’re in is “too dangerous linger.”

No shit stumpy. I figured that out after my run in with a horde of carnivorous pixies that wanted to have a dinner party in my cadaver.

“There’s a road up ahead” I say, doing my best to keep up with him. “Can we hitch a ride or something? Flag someone down? I’ve been through a lot. And I’m a bit hungover, could do with another sit down and a sausage roll or something.”

“We cannot take the road Doon, because there are Sorrow Spreaders about.”

“Sorrow Spreaders?”

“Yes. Grief Harvesters some call them.” The disgust in the dwarf’s voice is clear. “Powerful and sadistic bastards they are, who love to roam these lower lands looking for fresh meat. They only go for the easiest of prey, those who are several levels lower than themselves. They get no glory for the kills, just a kind of sick, hollow glee. Pointless and vicious murder, that’s their delight.”

“And if we met some, they wouldn’t be friendly?”

“No, they would kill us. To make themselves feel big.” He stops and sighs, and waits for me to catch up. “Just four days ago, I was a level seven Bezerkhan. They would not have dared to approach me. But then I met that evil Brynhold leech, and I’m back to zero, like you.”

I stop, take a breath, and decide to accept the obvious.

The evil Lilliputians weren’t a hangover-induced hallucination and this Bray guy isn’t an incredibly convincing Larper.

I’m in some sort of game world.

The dwarf’s talk of levels and griefers has confirmed it. The abandoned tube carriage transported me, Twilight Zone style, into a living, breathing realm of fantasy.

Either that or I’ve had an aneurysm, and this is my coma.