Staring wide-eyed at the horizon, I was wondering a number of things, am I high, did I get heat stroke, have I gone mad, and so on and so forth. There I stood until a bug decided that ramming into my eye was the best course of action for its survival and firmly cemented that yes what I am seeing is in fact reality. After waving away the suicidal little shit I grabbed both doors and slammed them shut and engaged all the bolts on the doors.

“Alight Mark calm down and think about this rationally… How the hell do I think about this rationally even in the first place” I pondered attempting to not panic at what I had just seen, then it hit me “am I still even in America”. Quickly I ran back to the storage room and practically leapt out the back door not knowing what I would find. Thankfully instead of seeing a similar sight as the one found at the front doors, the familiar warmth of the sun as well as the sights of sand cacti were what greeted him.

“Oh thank fuck”.

That at least gave me a measure of comfort knowing I hadn’t been whisked away in an old store to another world like in those Japanese stories that are so popular nowadays. No, instead it seems to me I’m in more of a Narnia situation of portals, or at least I think so, surprise I’m an expert on running stores not figuring out portal travel works. Putting the sudden revelation that my new store seems to have more than meets the eye I was determined to figure out what other bullshit might be hiding in here. Walking back into the storage room I inspected the shelves a bit more closely wondering if they had some sort of otherworldly properties, but simply looking at them only told me that they were bog standard shelves for storing product. Next, I made my way to the storefront and looked around, all in all, it looked like a regular small store.

On the left of the entrance (situated at the corner of the building) were two counters with poles on their corners on which were numbers the closest counter being marked with a 1 and the furthest being marked with a 2. On the right of the store is where things began to stop making sense almost immediately as there seemed to be a… device of some sort. It looked awfully similar to an industrial bread-slicing machine my dad once showed me when he took me on a tour of one of our stores. Looking at it closer revealed that the only thing it had in common with one of those bread slicers was its general shape as looking down the large input section of the contraption only revealed a black void, even with the lights in the store shining down from above. Leaving whatever the hell that thing is aside and how unnerving its ability to obfuscate its inner workings through unnatural darkness to the side and refocusing my attention to the rest of the store revealed that it was quite kitted out.

The store had 5 ails with 3 long wooden shelves in the middle, the entrance was denoted by one of those one-way shiny metal fence doors all stores have. The shelves on the right wall of the store were of two types, the first was made out of green crates which seemed to be for fruit and veggies while the second was made with wooden crates for things such as bread. The middle and left corner shelves were simple dark wooden shelves with no speciality attributed to them. In the left corner was a staircase which led to the 2nd floor and right next to said staircase was a freezer with shelves for frozen goods. Finally close to the 2nd counter was a place with a couple of wooden pallets and a larger shelf meant for drinks. All in all looks like a pretty bog-standard store, which doesn’t make much sense since a gas station would have been a better pick, damit uncle what are ya leaving me with here and how in the hell did you even manage to get people through the front door.

Actually, that’s a good question how did ol´uncle Robert even get people through the door when said door leads to God knows where. Something to think about later I suppose, I still have to check out the second floor. So, I trudged on up the flight of stairs feeling more tired the more I think about anything related to this store and flicked the 2nd story light switch revealing it to be not as populated with things as floor 1 was. The floor had a couple of circular clothing racks and the door leading to the little apartment I will be stuck in; all I can hope for is that I have a stable enough internet connection out here. Speaking of living space, I guess that’s the last spot to check for any bullshit magical items that could burn this place down in my sleep because I pissed standing up or something.

Opening the door of my new home had me enter the living room which already had a couple of my things brought in ahead of time courtesy of my dad. The kitchen was only separated from the living room by a counter and some white tiles which denoted where the living room ended, and the kitchen began. Directly in front of the entrance was a door leading to a bedroom with a small closet and to the right lay a bathroom with a bathtub, toilet, and wash basin. Feeling content that there were no spectres or ghouls waiting to jump out at me I ended my house tour and…

“shit” I had forgotten to get my bags out of the quiet man’s car when he brought me here. Thankfully I still had his number saved on my phone (also courtesy of my dad), which allowed me to contact him and see If he couldn’t return my things. Dialling the number on my phone I waited for him to pick up and thankfully he did with another expressive and detailed response.

“hrmm?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Hi yes, it’s Mark, the guy you dropped off today I was wondering if you were possibly still in the area”.

“hmm”

I think that’s a, yes? “Great because I seemed to have forgotten my bags in your car, could you come back so I can unload them?”

Surprisingly this time he actually spoke words rather than communicating in grunts. “I busy, send you my son, he good driver, he deliver”.

“That sounds great, and uh sorry for forgetting my things in the car”.

“No problem, my son he come by soon”.

“Alright thanks”

Ending the phone call I went back to looking at what I already had in my little apartment as waiting outside in the mid-day sun would have been hell. The bedroom had a twin-sized bed with coverings thankfully included, the closet was small but empty of anything of note, the bathroom was equally bare with only a towel on a towel rack a sink a toilet and a bathtub. The living room was truly empty as all it had was 1 chair and one regular-sized table which I could probably put my computer setup on. Opening all the kitchen doors in my hunt for magical bullshit revealed them all to be empty except for the fridge which had a bottle of milk in it… Not opening that shit up, who knows how long that’s been in there, the label and everything seemed to have been rubbed off with time suggesting that it may have been a minute or two, or four, or more. However, I did not have time for any pondering the age of label-less milk, I had to make a list of all the things I would need to run this place even if no one will buy things here I still live to hear meaning I have to figure out the logistics of this being my home for the foreseeable future.

So, I sat down on the only chair I had and placed my phone on my only table and opened up the notes application on my phone and began writing.

Issue 1: product delivery, I am getting one delivery as a freebie from my father tomorrow but after that, I have to figure out how and from where I am going to get more.

Solving issue 1: the quiet man said something about his son being a driver maybe I could hire him for some deliveries, and I will have to look if there are any wholesalers in Carisbad.

Issue 2: safe product delivery, if I'm going to be selling food I need the driver to have an appropriate truck for all of my product because this heat is not going to be kind to it.

Solving issue 2: looking up trucking rental services or a popper logistics company if the quiet guy’s dad isn’t up to it (though he might be cheaper)

Issue 3: waste removal, I don’t think a garbage truck is going to make any rounds to my neck of the woods any time soon and I don’t think

Solving Issue 3: I’m going to need to hire a waste management company since food delivery trucks sure won’t take garbage bags, which will once again be very costly for me unless I can get that one guy that I’m really hoping is a good driver to ferry my trash away.

Issue 4: those fucking doors, so my doors lead to another place I’m gonna need to find out where they lead to since it’s sure as shit not out of the front of this building.

Solving issue 4: to find out where it leads to exactly since typing dirt road, a field of grass, and thick forest into a search engine won’t be giving me any good results.

Issue 5: customers how? So, since my doors lead to god knows where how am I going to get people through my doors or more importantly even turn a profit

Solving issue 5: fucked if I know.

Costs, costs and yet even more costs what in the hell am I even going to run this place, and the only way I’m going to be able to return to my dad is if I have fully “shaken off all of uncle Robert’s silly influence”. However, before I could depress myself even further about the hopeless nature of my situation a loud banging sound came from downstairs.

“Ah, that must be the guy delivering my forgotten bags”.

So I made my way down preoccupied with ideas (or attempting to form them) to hopefully solve my current predicament. Then I stopped and realized that the knocking was coming from the front door, ya know the doors that don’t lead to New Mexico but to who knows where. A sense of fear and curiosity began to fill me about if I should open the doors or not and what could be banging on the outside of that door maybe it’s a cop wondering what I’m doing operating without a valid licence in their country, maybe it’s a farmer angry that my new teleporting doors have squashed his harvest. Finally, however, curiosity won out against fear, and I opened one of the two doors revealing… nothing. It was as anticlimactic as it was puzzling as I could still hear the banging on the other door but couldn’t see anyone or anything that could do such a noise, could it be that the only times these doors act as portals is when they are open? An idea to ponder later as the banging got a bit louder as they were trying to get my attention it seems, so I closed the front door again and entered out the back to see a portly Latino man waiting with his truck at the front of my store.

“Are you Mark?” he asked with a bit of an accent

“Yup that would be me, sorry about making you wait the front door is busted” I replied.

“No worries, names Carlos your bags are in the back,” he said shaking my hand while leading me to the back of his truck´s trunk and opening it revealing my bags.

After unloading everything and depositing it all in the storeroom I turned back and asked him a question

“Hey, Carlos are you by any chance a delivery driver?”

“Yes,” he replied, “or more so I was I am between jobs right now since the last place I was doing deliveries for shut down”.

Oh, that’s perfect I thought as this would allow me to at least have some sort of logistics option for me.

“I actually need a guy that can transport some things around I could give you a call once I’m set up”.

“Sure, let me give you my number” he replied and we said our farewells

Getting back in through the storage room I began to move my bags up into my new home until I heard another set of banging on the front door. Before I could curse myself out for absentmindedly opening the front door again when it doesn’t lead to where I think it will I was met with quite a sight.

“Hey Carlos, is there something you nee-“ I stopped myself when I opened the door and was greeted with the sight of a short brown bearded man in what could only be described as renaissance fair clothing.

“uuuuuuh” was the only thing I could get out before the little man asked.

“Are you an elf?”