Everything had gone well. As planned, as expected.

Not that Abor knew what he was doing, but he carried himself well enough; and besides, it all worked out spell-casting wise. He went to the store and followed his instincts. But even so, it had been a trying endeavor.

Thinking back on how he had arrived at the store, Abor drew a blank.

He was walking through the hallways of the strange world he accidentally fell into and then . . . there was a point where the hallway changed to the lanes of a grocery store. One he had been to many times before with his mother— Augustford.

He wandered in a haze before orienting himself in the snack aisle.

As Abor walked, no one saw him. At first, then, Abor believed that he was “astrally projecting” himself into this place, where his body was back at the strange dimension while his spirit was at the store. But he could not be astral projecting, he told himself, since he felt like he was really here and when he shouted, people took notice of his sound and when he touched, it felt like true flesh. Even so, no one seemed to pay him any mind. Abor was confused, but not downtrodden. He sauntered up to a place in the aisle and redoubled his mission: holding out his hand, Abor grasped his grimoire with his free hand and followed the instructions just as they were spelled out on the page.

With a series of finger twitches and verbal utterances, Abor focused all of his willpower into his undertaking, willing the siphon into existence, coaxing reality to dwell within its form. Sweat began to form but Abor ignored it— he was going to do this or die trying.

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But Abor did not need to be so melodramatic.

Seconds after focusing on the incantation’s maintenance, after willing to spell to take shape, with a ploop— as if it were a can of soda— the spell took hold.

Looking at his handiwork, Abor saw a blob of radiant colors imesh itself into the snack shelving; like a parasite adapting to a new host body, it borrowed into the matter of the world and became one with its environment. But, as Abor watched it borrow and extend its tendrils into snacks and shelving until a good percentage of the long aisle was infected, the once radiant colors turned black, then white, and finally gray. Then, it settled.

Abor had no clue what that was about, but he was sure he had cast the spell correctly, so he wasn’t concerned about it.

Moving then to several other parts of the store, Abor cast the same spell several times over. Each time he did so, it took a little more out of him, but he persevered. By the end of his outing to the supermarket, he had cast the spell a total of five times. He was exhausted, but happy.

With his mission done, it occurred to Abor to return home and see his mother. But . . . he had no idea where she (they) lived. This grocery store was, in fact, the same one they had went on together on many occasions, but it was far away from home; the stores close to their apartment were all of inferior quality when it came to produce and customer service. So, Abor’s mother always packed up and headed maybe an hour down the road for one big shopping trip per month. This was where they went: Limeville.

But, he could ask directions to Limeville . . .

And yet, that would demand that he talk to people, and Abor was violently shy. Timid. And not in possession an once of charisma. He didn’t want to embarrass himself. He would find his way home another way.

With his mission done, Abor turned on his heels and walked into a hidden passageway of shadow. Instantly, he was back in the ritualistic chamber with the strange markings on stone flooring. Home sweet home, as though he never left— but he had left, just into a strange new world.