“Just these and a pack of camels.” a man in an overcoat stated plainly.

Miles took his time finding the barcode to scan on the pack of cookies the man had placed on the counter and once he found it he dragged his feet over to the locked case behind him and grabbed a pack of cigarettes for his customer. 

“That’ll be nine fifty seven. Cash or card?” Miles asked, his finger hovering over the options on the register.

The man in the overcoat handed Miles a ten dollar bill and swiped his items off of the counter and into his pocket. He didn’t even bother telling Miles to keep the change as the door was swinging back to its closed position by the time Miles got the change ready. The change clattered at the bottom of the empty change jar as Miles motioned the next customer in line to come to the counter.

“How can I help you?” Miles stated half haphazardly while he focused on scraping the dirt off of his fingernail. A few moments went by with no answer and Miles looked up to find the wrong end of a gun barrel staring at his face. Miles’ body tensed to the point it began to hurt. After what felt like an eternity of nothingness, no demands and no gunshots fired, Miles took the chance to analyze the person who may very well end up taking his life before the night was over.

The man behind the gun wore a beat up hoodie and ragged jeans. In his other hand was a bag that Miles predicted would soon hold the cash of his register. The light shaking of the hand holding the gun, the constant flitter of his eyes and the fact that he had waited so long after pulling the gun without making any of his demands. All of this told Miles that this was a first time robbery. He wouldn’t be surprised if at any moment the robber dropped everything and ran, too pressured by his conscience to go through with it. The gun probably wasn’t even real.

“What do you want, man?” Miles asked with a hint of frustration in his voice.

This brought the robber’s attention fully on Miles as it looked like he finally found his resolve.

The gunman slammed the bag onto the counter and shoved the gun into Miles’ chest.

“You know what to do, pretty boy. And don’t test me. You won’t like me when I’m tested.” he finished before he backed off and gave Miles room to work.

Miles was caught off guard at how practiced the robber sounded and now questioned his earlier assessment of the robber. What could I have gotten wrong? What could he be so panicked about if this isn’t his first robbery? Miles was lost in his thoughts while following the gunman’s demands when a lady from the back of the store let out a scream that would make horror movies jealous.

A gunshot soon followed the scream as the gunman finished Miles’ job for him before sprinting out of the store. And there lay Miles in a world of burning pain as his vision began to fade. His last thought, a curse at the stupid woman who had gotten him shot.

_____

Miles floated, weightless, for what felt like eternity. Pure darkness surrounded him, bright specks of light in every direction he could see was the only indication he was moving. He found that he could change his point of view not by moving his head, but by willing his view to shift. His mind felt incredibly groggy so much so that he didn’t realize his transition to a room that resembled the interior of a log cabin. Everything in the room seemed completely normal except whenever he tried to focus on the details the world just blurred away from him. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it hadn’t killed Miles yet, so he tried to stand up from his chair to investigate only to find his body unresponsive .

“Oh, I wouldn’t try moving too hard dear. This is your first transference not to mention your real body is in a coma. So just give it a few more minutes before you try moving seriously now.” a soft motherly voice spoke. It sounded like it was spoken from every direction perfectly. A bit unsettling, but it left an odd tingly feeling in Miles’ body.

“Oh! My apologies young man. I forgot this is your first time so you don’t know how to manipulate this space to your liking.” the voice sounded out again a bit flustered. In the seat across the table from Miles a female form suddenly popped into existence. 

Long white hair covered the head of an older looking woman wearing a summer dress. Miles found that he could focus in on and inspect the woman and he found utter perfection in her face, her body and the way she held herself.

Damn I’m going to forget how beautiful this creation of my imagination is when I wake up from this dream. Odd that I can see her face so clearly. 

“This should be more familiar to you. How do I look?” asked the same soft voice, but this time it came directly from the woman’s mouth like it normally should. 

As Miles tried to comprehend what he had just seen in front of him a soft whisper escaped his lips, “How did you- Where am I?” He tried to move his head to look around at his surroundings but he still couldn’t move anything.

“Ah yes. I guess I shall begin before our time runs out.” the woman stated before taking a deep calming breath and releasing it. “My name is Qwenalyn or Qwen for short.”

“We are currently in a mind space created by one of my mages. We pulled you here because we want to make a deal.” she stated matter-of-factly as if this was the norm.

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“What do you mean mages? As in someone who can do magic? And mind space? Aren’t I dead? I remember getting shot by some idiot and then everything went black. Lady, err Qwen, this isn’t making any sense.” 

Miles’ statement brought a puzzled look to the woman’s face as if he had just stated that people crawl everywhere instead of using their two legs to walk. Miles sat there watching the woman, her face looked like she was in deep thought and then another woman popped into existence right behind her. This one looked significantly younger, blonde hair with brown peppered in and skin so flawless and pristine she looked like she was a hand crafted doll. 

Once she arrived she leaned into the older woman’s ear and started whispering something to her. When she finished her message she looked Miles dead in the eyes and spoke.

“So your world has no magic? No great sorcerers who control the elements or call upon magical creatures to do their bidding?” she spoke with a fierceness like her life depended on it.

Miles sat there stunned and absorbed her question. He really thought about what he was experiencing right now. He had been shot, that was for sure. And then a big blank of nothingness until I got to this log cabin?

Miles finally took his time to seriously look at the room he was in. Off to his left was the kitchen with standard dark brown cabinets, sink and refrigerator. When he turned to his right a lovely fireplace sat behind a couch and coffee table. Everything looked correct, but also wrong at the same time. He couldn’t quite put a finger on what specifically was wrong, but then it hit him. The minute details of the various objects were missing as if someone had constructed this with only a description to go off of.

 And it looks like it’s where, exactly? Miles paused his thoughts to look out one of the many windows and all he found was darkness speckled with dots of light. Definitely not Earth. So a dream perhaps, but I’ve never had one this real before. I’m experiencing it all in real time. If this isn’t a dream or a hallucination and I assume magic to be real then these people truly are aliens who want to make a deal with me. Content with his conclusion Miles decided to conduct his interaction with these aliens in an earnest but self-interest focused manner.

“No one that I know of currently uses magic. My society only has stories from thousands of years ago of what could be considered magic. Other than some shitty sleight of hand tricks nothing magical exists in my world.” Miles answered quite puzzled.

A long silence followed Miles’ answer. Both women shared a similar look of shock and they eventually looked at each other as if they arrived at the same conclusion at the same time. The younger woman gave the other a nod of her head before she whispered something and disappeared.

“I’ll be honest Miles, when I brought you in here today I did not think I’d be making a deal with so much resting on it. It's giving me anxiety worse than what you are probably experiencing right now.” she expressed with a light chuckle before continuing. “I know you have thousands of questions right now and I can’t answer all of them, but I will answer the most important ones and hopefully my colleague can extend our time here.”

Miles nodded and started his line of questioning, “I guess the best place to start is who are you and why do you want to make a deal with me specifically?”

“My organization is called the Order of Lady Tyranwen and we are one of many organizations that make up the Galactic Council of Bwhunela. You can think of the council like a government that oversees the part of the galaxy that its members come from and manages the System’s expansion into the great unknown.” she paused looking at Miles to confirm he was following along.

“Okay, I understand all of that except for the System part.”

“The System is an entity that governs large parts, no, all of our reality. It provides us with the power and tools needed to defend ourselves from the Invaders of Beyond and fulfill our true potential. The Invaders are creatures out of your nightmares’ nightmares that will stop at nothing to consume every living thing that exists in our reality.” she paused to look at Miles, hopeful he was following along with her story.

Qwen jumped out of her seat and took a battle stance when she saw ethereal chains wrapped around Miles’ unconscious form.

Soon after a voice blared out from the chains repeating the same line over and over again shaking her soul each time.

“Warning! Warning! System level intrusion detected. Remedial action queued.” sounded out a robotic voice.

The voice struck fear into every fiber of Qwen’s form. She tried to move, to leave this place, but it was impossible. Any attempt to contact the outside world was met with silence. A cold sweat began forming all over her body as her brain slowly came to a conclusion that she didn’t think was possible. The voice, the chains, the power, they were not operating on Miles’ and Qwens’ mind and body in the transference, but their Souls. The only thing that she knew that commanded that level of power was the System itself. Not even the Council, who oversaw System expansion, had the power to instantaneously exert control over Souls.

On the edge of her vision Qwen caught a glimpse of a portal opening into the room. When the portal completed its formation she could feel the pure and overwhelming power that its presence leaked. It was nothing like she had ever felt before and she began shaking. Her body was perfectly still, but her Soul was trembling. Her vision was getting blurry and an ungodly ringing was assailing her ears. With each second that passed her condition worsened and just as she was about to pass out the overwhelming power abruptly disappeared.

“Hmmm. A curi- -ase inde-.” was all Qwen could hear as the ringing hadn’t fully left her ears yet. Her vision had recovered faster and she couldn’t take her eyes off of what she saw. 

A humanoid figure paced around Miles. Its entire body was made up of what looked like pure light. She couldn’t see its face from her angle as the figure was well over seven feet tall, but she could see its hands poking and prodding the chains that still held over Miles.

“Aha! Found you! Now we just do this, that and voila! You should be free to go.” The figure raised its hands in celebration as the chains turned to light before disappearing from Miles. Relief filled Qwen at the thought that the nightmare was over and that she could get on to making a deal with Miles when her relief was cut short.

“Alert! Alert! First seal broken. Calling host to resolve conflicts.” called out that same robotic voice from earlier, with a hint of anger in its voice now.

“Oh! Come on! Not a double seal. I’ve got a barbeque to get to at Paul’s in half an hour.” Whined the figure of light.

A portal opened directly behind Miles now and Qwen braced herself for that overwhelming power to return, but as she stared at the portal as it fully formed it never came. Instead a large human-like baby came floating through the portal. 

“Hey Admin S! How’s your cycle going? I just had the best strawberry cream cupcakes and some scrumptious strawberry milk! Do you want to come over next cycle and try some yourself? Oh, come on. Come hang out with me. I’m so lonely.” tears were beginning to flow down the floating baby’s face as it orbited the other figure’s body.

The figure released a deep sigh and perked up before answering the baby.

“I’m too busy next cycle.”  at the figure’s response literal streams of water burst from the baby’s eyes as it started throwing a full on tantrum.“But, I'll tell you what. You get this seal situation handled in the next ten minutes and you can join me at Paul’s. I don’t know if there will be cupcakes, but he makes the best barbeque brisket in all of quadrant S. What do you say?”

When Qwen looked to the baby to see how it would respond it was already working on the seal restricting Miles. Once it completed a full inspection of the seal it pulled a big plastic key out of nowhere and removed the seal from Miles.

“That was all?” asked the figure, perplexed at how simple a solution was to a problem that had taken up too much of his time already.

“Yeah, I got the call from upstairs that I was to just remove the seal when I was summoned. So, job is done now, where is that barbeque?” Drool began to fall from the baby’s mouth as it floated about the room, eyes lost in a gaze. 

A long slender hand grabbed the foot of the floating baby and pulled it out of the room and into the portal of brilliant power.