–landed with a pained cry on hot, damp stone that immediately drenched my jeans and connected painfully with my tailbone. In the next instant, the tear hovering above my head snapped shut with a indignant hiss, leaving me all alone in another, new, hazy, and indistinct landscape.

Holy shit. I fucking made it.

After a moment of shock, I found myself once again scrambling to my feet, my pen pulled from my pocket and clutched in a white-knuckled grip. I furiously wiped at my eyes with my other hand. The fast breaths I sucked in were hot and humid, so thick with moisture that they were almost suffocating.

After a few moments of frantic movement, I could see well enough through my tears to take in my new surroundings. Steam shrouded most of the ground, thick and heavy as it bubbled up from pools of tumultuous, boiling water. It hung thickly in the air. So much so that I could hardly see five metres in front of me before everything faded into obscurity. All around the sound of boiling water bubbling away filled the air, but the sulphuric smell I’d come to expect after visiting Yellowstone wasn’t there. The water looked clear, apart from the bubbles scrambling its surface and the thin trails of mist hiding most of it from view.

Between the pools the ground was smooth, weathered stone; greyish brown in colour and dotted with divots and cutouts. It was course, despite its slickness and a few tentative steps didn’t see me slipping to my death in the pools of boiling water on either side.

Heart still pounding in my chest, I sidled carefully along the stone peninsula I’d fallen on, my panic only beginning to subside as the walkable ground widened on either side. I couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. It seemed completely impossible. My little bench behind the STEM building was nowhere to be found though, and the heat in the air was making me sweat under my cardigan. It was all very real. Too real in a way. The sights and sounds felt heightened, thicker, and richer than they should be. It was uncanny.

I could only imagine what had happened to the three skull-masked soldiers. A certain part of me felt vindicated that I’d managed to escape them at such a critical moment, but I still didn’t want them to die.

Pulling off my overlayer, I trudged carefully forward, eyes scanning the mist for the first sign of a decaying hand of waxy face waiting for me between its wispy strands. The heat was extremely uncomfortable, but it beat the haunting openness of that other place.

I soon found myself facing a pockmarked stone wall that extended up further than I could see. Thick rivulets of water ran down its face, trailing thin fingers of steam that curled away before joining the haze all around. Deep holes marred the stone’s surface, some only as wide as my pinkie but others big enough to stand in and so deep I couldn’t see where they ended.

I peered into the depths, shivering as the click-clack of insectoid legs circled around my mind. I’d dealt with masked, armed dimension hopping psychopaths today. I could deal with bugs, even if they made my skin crawl.

There was nothing there though, and after letting out a long breath I turned around, ready to follow the cliff until the heavy mist dispersed. It was hard to breath in the heat and humidity.

Behind me, so close I don’t know how I hadn’t heard them approach crouched three diminutively short creatures. They only reached around mid-thigh, with unnaturally plump, green skin. Their limbs were all wrong. Wavey and boneless but tipped with sharply clawed hands. While passably humanoid their heads were squat, with wet, lidless eyes – all in shades of green – and no mouth or lower jaw.

As I flinched back, the first of the trio was already on of me. It reached up without hesitation, and searing pain ripped through my chest and stomach as its claws tore through my flesh like tissue paper. I fell back with a scream, sending both of us tumbling down into the tunnel I’d been standing infront of.

I acted on instinct for the second time in a day, slamming my fist and the pen clutched tightly therein down onto the creature’s back but it was like stabbing a glossy floorboard. My pen bounced away without digging in at all and the creature continued to claw at my front, sending agony shooting through my veins as blood began to stream down my sides.

Grabbing with my other hand I pushed against its head with all my strength, struggling despite its diminutive size to move it even an inch. Desperation grasped my muscles and after a few frantic moments of struggle I managed to lift it from where it had been tucked against my leg. With a cry equal parts panic and pain, I stabbed with my pen a second time, aiming for the soft-looking flesh of the creature’s eye.

My strike landed with a sickening squelch, and my pen sunk in until it reached my fingers. The creature jerked but didn’t make a noise, its limbs still thrashing against me while its claws left gashes across my abdomen. Desperate and refusing to let the creature walk away after gutting me, I let go of my improvised weapon and struck it with my palm. The blow carried all of my remaining strength and spite, and it buried the writing implement all the way to the clicker in the creature’s ugly head.

In an instant its movements turned feral, and its death-grip relaxed, turning to random thrashing as it flopped to the ground next to me.

Crying out, I shoved myself further into the tunnel. I could see the other two creatures hovering nervously around the cave’s mouth. They didn’t enter though, even while the third member of their pack spasmed on the ground between us.

Go away please… please just leave me alone.

It was unfair, everything was falling apart. What was even happening anymore. A trail of my blood marred the tunnel floor, which I noticed was blisteringly hot to the touch as I continued to drag myself deeper below the ground. The tunnel curved and the light dimmed further but I didn’t stop. There was nothing stopping those creatures from coming after me. Maybe these next few feet would be the difference between being torn apart and… and what? Bleeding to death? Lying alone in the dark till the last few drops of life slipped from my veins onto the scolding stone floor?

I’m so, so Fucked.

A pained whine slipped from between my lips as the throbbing, searing pain in my stomach twinged. My head was pounding, pain radiating from between my temples as the air grew even hotter and more of my blood dribbled to the floor, sizzling. The scent of iron was overwhelming as the tunnel grew smaller, more closed in and I’m sure I would have vomited if I had any energy to spare.

Utterly spent and gasping for breath past the burning sensation in my throat I collapsed. The searing heat of the tunnel was only a secondary pain compared to the agony tearing apart my chest and guts. My breathing slowed to a pained wheeze as dots began to dance across my vision, lethargy pulling at my eyelids. Minutes passed as time seemed to dribble by, sometimes as thin as water and sometimes thicker than honey. My eyes finally closed, too heavy to keep open anymore and reality fell away.

…

…

What’s this? Please…

I can’t take any more…

Please…

The searing pain didn’t return, and I hesitantly peeled my eyes open.

I stood on a beach, looking out at a boiling sea of fire. Great gouts of flame exploded from the waves, only to sink back down again like breaching whales. In the distance a sun shone on the horizon. It was so intensely bright that I had to look away, turning to the impossible landscape behind me.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Streams of flame ran across the blackened sand surrounding a wide, deep pit. They flickered as they fell into the abyss. At the hole’s centre a few small globules of reddish liquid hovered, separating, and joining and changing over and over as flames began to pool far, far below.

I startled when fire began to stream past my ankles where I stood on the ring of sand. The flames didn’t burn me though, radiating a comforting heat. Their whisper-light touch promised the power of a raging inferno before it was whisked away by the torrential current, shooting over the pit’s lip before falling from sight.

It was impossible to tell the size of the pit itself. At times it was as large as a city block but from the corner of my eye it shrunk to be as insignificant as a puddle. Its size didn’t seem to matter though, because the tide at my back continued to rise, pouring an ever-growing torrent of flame over the pit’s edge. The flames cooled to the touch as they rose higher and higher, reaching my waist and then my chest.

They poured into the pit all around, crashing far below like the rushing water of a waterfall.

I watched on, held in a kind of drunk trance as the pit filled, brimming with heat and energy. The ocean of fire around me seemed to relax as the two levels became one, the current urging the ocean onwards dying down once there was no hole left to be filled.

The pit was full, the tiny globule of reddish energy already drowned under the flaming onslaught.

I looked out over the glassy sand – now a deep, obsidian black – as the flames retreated, lapped gently against the exposed shore. I had no idea what the fuck was going on, but I was thankful that my pain hadn’t returned wherever I was. Catching whatever breaks I could, I laid down on the freshly glassed volcanic beach and let out a long, hoarse breath; fatigue washed over me again, despite the comforting glow and the warmth permeating my being. Everything fell away in a flash.

-=:=+=:=-

I rolled onto my side, luxuriating in the warm stone cradling me. I was sure there was something I had to get up and do, but the comforting fugue of sleep held me back. It was so nice here, so peaceful, held in that muddled state where hours could pass in a few moments. Much better than worrying about assessments and missed tutorials and… and blood and… Pain.

I bolted upright, pressing myself against the tunnel wall as I rubbed furiously at the thick, flaky sleep clogging my eyes. There was so much of it, flaking off in chunks, but I was too worried about feeling the bite of those awful green claws again to think much about it.

The tunnel was dimly lit, weak sunlight filtering in from its entrance. So deep inside, I was almost completely shrouded in darkness. It was only broken by a faint flicker that illuminated the stone immediately around me. The gruesome trail I’d left during my desperate crawl was little more than a crusted, brown stain on the tunnel floor and I had no idea how long I’d been sprawled out on the tunnel floor. It was indistinct in the dark, but I could feel a comforting heat radiating from the coarse walls. It settled comfortably beneath my skin, like the comforting burn of whisky after a hard day.

There was no pain, which I thought was wrong. There had been a lot before.

Maybe I’m still bleeding out? People go numb from blood-loss, don’t they?

But I’d moved when I woke up, and I could feel the wall against my back.

I ran my fingers over my legs in the dark and yes, I could feel them fine as well. Even through my jeans, stiff and matted with dried blood as they were.

My hands were shaking again.

I reached up slowly, the same fear that turned my head away whenever a nurse took my blood clawing at my muscles as they brushed against my stomach.

The skin there was… wrong, but untorn.

I could still feel the agony of those claws tearing me near in half. The creature was small, but those claws had been sharp. I’d felt the elastic snap as they sheared through my abdominals before they got to work slashing apart my organs and pain swept everything else away.

But now there was nothing… no evidence, as though it had never happened.

I screwed my eyes shut against the overwhelming onset of tears and my arms tightened around my middle.

My fingers clenched uncontrollably and skin disintegrated like burnt cardboard, their tips falling away even as they pressed into my untouched stomach. What had been porcelain smooth, greyish skin in the dim light of the tunnel flaked away, revealing a dark, ember-dotted layer beneath that radiated heat like an open fire.

I froze, too scared to move lest I fragment into a lonely pile of charcoal and ash on the dark tunnel floor. Tiny motes of ashen dust floated from the joints of my elbows and the creases in my hands, and I watched them settle on the floor. They formed little trails of pale grey amongst the gritty brown of my own dried blood. My breathing came quickly, and my heart… my heart laid still in my chest.

My heart wasn’t beating.

It was something so intrinsic, something so central to being alive that I’d never really noticed it before. Sure, I’d felt it when someone took my pulse or when I ran or swam but I’d never taken a lot of notice of it. I’d taken it for granted.

None of that mattered now that it had stopped. It was impossible to miss its absence. Like a cold, dead weight, the absence of its steady beat made it hard to even think as panic washed over me in a wave.

I laid there, slumped against the tunnel wall for who knew how long as wave after wave of constricting tension wracked my shaking body.

Little trails of ash trickled from the hinges, the joints of my body, though I could feel the finger-length gashes I’d torn in my own stomach closing over. The ash slowly grew outwards, like rust growing over a long dead hulk at the bottom of the sea. The subtle flicker of light never faltered around me, and I didn’t want to find out where it came from. I felt trapped, more than I ever had. I’d always joked with my friends that we were all just riding around in meat puppets, but now mine didn’t even have the meat.

What felt like hours later my panic began to recede, the tightness in my chest easing just a little bit. What passed for my muscles loosened and I unclenched myself, lying on my back in the semi-darkness as I tried to come to terms with the fact that I was somehow still alive.

My hands trailed gently across my body, exploring. I pulled off my soiled jeans and shrugged out of what was left of my shirt. My shoes, socks and underwear followed while I took long, slow breaths. I wasn’t sure if the oxygen itself was helping at all, but the old habit I’d picked up from one counsellor or another was calming all by itself.

My hair was still there, albeit smouldering slowly, it never seemed to burn off though, so things could’ve been worse. The face I’d had my whole life felt foreign. My nose was still straight, and my lips were still thin, and my cheeks pronounced, but the little bumps and marks and bristles of stubble I’d tried my entire life to get rid of were gone. They were replaced by skin I was afraid to press too hard against, lest it crumble away and leave me grinning like the skull-masked soldiers in the place in-between.

I had worked hard during my final years of high school and for that first, hope filled semester of university before reality began to kick in. There were a lot of things about myself I’d changed… exercised, shaved, exfoliated, and cared for. But there were some things, some things that I wanted desperately to fix, but had never been able to. They were too big, too scary to think about, so whenever they came up, whenever I got down on myself, I would push them back.

“In a few months.”

“Once I’ve got Uni under control.”

“Once I’ve tried everything, everything else.”

As I ran my fingers over the rest of my body and felt it for the first time, as something that really fit, something that felt right. Something that felt like Me. The dread that had hung over me, just waiting for the second foot to drop, slowly turned to elation.

It wasn’t perfect, nothing was, but despite everything else about this situation being fucking awful. Despite the fact that my skin seemed ready to slough off at a moment’s notice and my insides being turned into so much charcoal, I finally had a win against the thing I’d been fighting since I first wondered why I hated photos of myself so much.

It was gone, replaced by smooth skin that disappeared between my legs when I pressed them together. A small, fragile smile split my face and the tears I shed just for a moment were from relief, rather than the crushing fear of annihilation I’d faced only a few minutes before. Warmth spread across my face and sizzled against the stone beside my ear, but I didn’t care.

I let out a long, deep breath.

Fuuuck I could lay here like this forever…

It seemed less and less likely that this could be a dream. It felt real… and vivid in a way frankly nothing had throughout my entire life. I almost hoped it wasn’t a dream. It would mean the suffering I’d just gone through would mean something, and I wouldn’t be waking up again to live a life I hated, burdened by another imaginary scene that could still make me feel sick to the stomach. A bit of distance did a hell of a lot for perspective. I had hated what I was doing. But up until the moment my head passed through that portal, it was all I had. All I’d known, and all I likely would have known. Maybe I’d wake up in an hour, delirious on the ground next to that table, with the world’s worse concussion and a new, weird fucking entry for my dream journal. But maybe I won’t wake up. Maybe I never fell asleep.

I sat up slowly, glancing at my pile of discarded clothing before I flicked it further into the cave. I didn’t want to put it back on. Not yet at least.

Still breathing deeply, I looked down at myself, running my fingers over the seams where charcoal-black flesh peaked through my ashen exterior. They created little grooves, and occasionally embers jump out, fading to falling ash before they hit the ground. I was a walking fire-hazard. And just like back home, there would be people who I’m sure would find me hideous. That was fine though. I’d accepted it then, and now… well now it didn’t matter. I could feel the heat churning through what passed for my veins now, and somehow, it felt so me.