Chapter 1: The offer

Tom was sitting there, glaring at his screen, working at yet another stupid task to slave away the hours. ‘Why did they need an engineer to resize a fucking water pump mount from imperial to metric, isn’t that what a drawing department was for?’ He sighed to himself, At least he was getting paid well, even for this simple job.

After having sent the revised files for review by the client, Tom leaned back and stared longingly out the window. The weather was fair, if a bit cold this afternoon, with hunting season about to start this weekend. He wondered if any of the boys would be up for an early morning this Saturday.

The picture of him and his home guard buddies stood in the window. A few of them he had gone through the army with, others probably had joined the home guard just to get to play with guns. Well, he couldn't deny that a day at the range with friends was always fun and the yearly exercises were usually also a great time. They were volunteers after all, and so were the people running the show. In short, it was a lot like being a soldier, but without most of the hardships. He enjoyed it a lot. In fact, the time he spent with those guys was some of the best in recent memory, but that wasn't saying much.

Not much exciting had been happening in Tom’s life after the army. He had finally made use of his engineering degree he’d taken to become an officer, and tried settling down. In many ways, it had been a success. He earned a decent pay, but he had been through many jobs. Production manager, drawing department, RnD, he had even worked on a damned oil-rig. But none had managed to keep him hooked for long. It was simply too boring, even if the job was otherwise difficult and or stressful, it still got repetitive.

He always managed to get stuck in the monotony of the job. Sometimes it took weeks, other times months or years, but it always happened. He was almost always decent enough at the job, attacking the problems with determination and discipline. He even got promoted a few times when he managed to stick around long enough. And yet here he was. Back in his home office, doing freelance work again. He had often done this in the past between jobs. It made ends meet and kept him sort of busy.

He missed the old days, even if his life had been on the line. Still, at least he'd felt alive. He had tried too many things to list in an attempt to recapture the feeling of being in a firefight. But so far nothing had come close. Not hunting, not parachuting, not even car racing. He felt like an old man in the middle of a midlife crisis, and he was only 37. ‘Well, what can you do except keep going? At least if some of the boys come over it would be a fun few hours in the outdoors,’ he thought to himself. He picked up the phone to ask in group chat if anyone was up for a little hunting.

A smooth, soft voice spoke from behind him. “You know, if you really want to live an exciting life you’re gonna need an exciting place to do it.” Tom stiffened in his chair and slowly turned around to face the man behind him, but there was no one there. As the voice spoke again it had moved behind him again. “Come on, you know you don’t want to waste away the few years you have, sitting here, staring at a screen and waiting for something interesting to happen!”

Where was this voice coming from... wait, he had his headset on and was listening to music, how could he hear this guy so clearly? This didn’t make any sense! And what on earth was the voice talking about?

“Show yourself! What makes you think you can just come into my house?” demanded Tom, now standing and looking around. Once again the voice came from behind him, even as he turned to look at it. “I am sorry, truly, but I can’t exactly knock on the door, now can I? As for showing myself, well that isn’t really possible either; see, I’m not there.”

“Well, who and what are you supposed to be then? Don’t tell me I’m just talking with myself! Right?”

“Oh no, don’t you worry, you're not that crazy... yet. Though it does feel like you are slipping in here. As for what, I’m not gonna tell you.”

“So I am guessing you wormed your way inside my head? Well, this is just fucking marvelous! What do you want?”

“It's more like what do you want? See, I’m here with an offer for you. I want to run a little experiment. I’m working on a little project of mine, and I require a guinea pig.”

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“And you think I’m just gonna jump at the chance to be your test subject? Apparently, I’m not the crazy one here,” Tom proclaimed, a bit of indignant anger in his voice. This was getting really weird, really fast. What the hell was going on?

“Well yes!” the voice answered. Tom thought it sounded quite condescending. “You don’t thrive in this environment, you need something new and different, you need experiences, and you have what I’m looking for.”

“And what exactly would that be?”

“Well, you are combat and survival trained, healthy and educated, so you will hopefully survive long enough and have the ability to make an impact.”

“What in the ever flying fuck are you talking about, and what do you mean ‘hopefully‘ survive?’”

“What I’m offering is to send you to another world for the purposes of seeing what would happen. I have long pondered the scenario and written many hypotheses, but I honestly don’t know what will happen, so I will have to try it.”

To Tom, the voice was beginning to sound excited, possibly too excited, especially for something … someone...? sure someone contemplating his possible death.

“And in return for satisfying my curiosity, you get to go to the world of your dreams. Well, at least as close as I could find.”

“So you want me to leave everything, to go somewhere I know nothing about, on the request of a voice in my head, just because you think my life sucks?”

“Yes!” the voice answered, as if it was the most obvious conclusion in existence.

“Jesus fuck man, you don’t think much of me do you?”

The voice sounded almost hurt. “What do you mean? I already outlined why you are perfect for the job. You have almost no immediate family, and only a few friends, and the family you do have left...”

“Don’t you dare bring up my mother! I get your point already.” Tom interrupted the voice

“So you will do it?”

“No? Why would I trust you? Besides, how do you even plan one getting me anywhere?”

“Well, I could just send you against your will, though I would rather not.”

“Send me? As in poof?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” The voice sounded deadly serious, which sent a cold shiver down Tom’s spine. This was beginning to look like a hostage situation. Not that that was entirely new to Tom, but still, it sucked, a lot. The thought that he might just go poof and end up somewhere he probably didn’t want to be wasn’t exactly comforting.

“What if I don’t want to go? Will you just do it anyway?”

“Nah, don’t wanna do that. Remember, I found you because you had nothing to live for here.”

“Are you even aware of how not nice that sounds when you say it like that? In that case, I think my answer is no. I don’t trust you and I don’t see why I should, now go away.”

“Will you at least allow me to show you?”

“Could I stop you if I wanted to?” Tom let out, sighing a bit.

“Nope.”

“Well fine then, this should be good. You are aware I still don’t think you are real, right?” Just as Tom finished his sentence, a small dot flickered into existence in the middle of the office. It quickly started expanding, until it was a little under a meter in diameter. It was slightly oval in shape, and wind poured through it into the office. It was like being on top of a skyscraper in rough weather as his eyes looked through what he assumed was a portal (because why not?) in the middle of his goddamn office. He just stood there and glared, “Well fuck me I guess!”

The scene that greeted him was like something out of JC’s Avatar mixed with Lord of the Rings. Tall spires stood atop floating islands! Honest to God floating islands! In the sky soared what looked like enormous birds, though he could not see what kind. Judging by how his day was going, they were probably dragons or something. With a whoosh of air, the portal moved with far too much speed to comprehend. Tom was flung across the room as the wind hit him. He scrambled back to his feet despite the pain of just having been flung into a wall. His eyes locked back on the portal, it now showed a massive forest.

“This is roughly where you will end up. I can't tell you exactly where because, to be honest, I don’t know where you will end up. Also, I won't tell you about the world, you’ll need to figure it out yourself. It’s all part of the experiment!”

As the portal snapped shut with a thunderous crack, Tom stood dumbfounded. He had just seen a glimpse of an honest to God fantasy world, like in the movies and books he’d enjoyed so much when he was younger.

“Do you agree?”

“If I go, will I ever get to return?”

“Not until the experiment is complete, but in time... maybe.”

“What are your terms?”