It usually took me a few minutes to crank into gear first thing in the morning, but even my foggy brain was beginning to understand something had gone very wrong. The dry eyes and mouth told me I’d just woken up, but standing naked in a field of tall grass told me…

What did that tell me?

I glanced upward and did a double take at the sight of an icy blue planet hanging overhead. Distant trees rustled with a breeze that also tickled my exposed unmentionables. Something roared in the distance like an auto-tuned lion.

I felt insanity knocking at the door in my mind, asking me to let it in. Instead, I searched for the last thing I could remember. The last normal thing…

I was an EMT and we’d been on the way to a crash scene. Kirk was driving, and he was always a reckless asshole. The rest kept slipping away like a half-remembered dream when I searched for more detail.

Dim awareness was spreading through me like a drug just starting to kick in.

I held out an arm, turning it over and studying the shape of my muscles. Everything seemed a little off as if somebody had cranked the dials on me up a notch or two. Slightly bigger muscles. Slightly longer legs. Slightly bigger… I looked down one more time, grinning. Nice.

I had the strangest feeling of pressure surrounding my head. It wasn’t quite like a headache. It was more like I was wearing something, but—I let out a small, manly scream of terror.

When I reached up to touch my face, I found some kind of metal helmet on my head. I felt around it blindly, confirming that I should’ve been viewing the world through a narrow slit. Instead, my vision was completely clear and unobscured.

I yanked it off my head. I blinked, clearing my eyes as I stared at the helmet I’d been wearing. It looked like it belonged in a fantasy movie.

This couldn’t be a dream. Everything felt way too vivid. Too alive.

But the helmet had to be fake. Somehow. Actual shadows were streaming out of the eye slits like it was leaking darkness. And the metal was a blue so deep it was almost black, but with vibrant specks of blue and white light. When I moved it, the lights stayed put as the helmet shifted, making it appear more like a portal to the stars than a physical object.

I shook my head in disbelief. “Insane,” I whispered, turning it over and watching the effect. There was no way this could be real. But it was in my hands. I was seeing it with my own eyes.

I slipped the helmet back on my head. Once again, it felt like I was seeing more clearly and with more sharpness than before. It should’ve been impossible, but I couldn’t see the helmet when I had it on, as if it was turning into transparent glass as soon as I started sliding it down over my face.

I turned my focus back to my surroundings. Trees ringed the clearing in every direction beyond the tall grass. The blue skies were dotted with clouds that would’ve made Bob Ross proud. Other than the floating planet, I could’ve believed I was in a state park in the US.

A faint jingling sound caught my attention. I turned in its direction, frowning.

A little red triangle bobbed up and down above the grass, steadily getting closer.

“Big Boy?” I asked. Big Boy was my Australian Shepherd. She was actually a girl, but I jokingly called her “Big Boy” once, and she got so amped about it that I kept it going as a joke. Eventually, it more or less replaced her actual name, which was Daisy.

A small, high-pitched, and scratchy voice called out. “Give me your lid. Give it, give it, give it!”

I looked toward the sound, unreality washing over me so heavily I could almost taste it.

Heart pounding, I raised my palms defensively. “Give what?” To my credit, I sounded surprisingly calm.

The red had almost reached me now. The grass parted as two little hands pushed it aside, revealing a figure my brain was refusing to process.

I stared, eyebrows scrunched together.

It was a little man, but not quite. He looked like a miniature Santa Claus, or maybe more accurately, like a garden gnome—a garden gnome who was holding a little knife. The thing couldn’t have been more than three feet tall.

Nope. Hell no.

I wasn’t particularly scared of the little man. But my brain was having trouble processing what I was seeing. Autopilot took over for me as I smiled, patted my bare ass cheek like I was looking for my wallet, and shrugged. “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t have any money on me at the moment.”

No shit, Brynn. You’re butt-naked.

That feeling of insanity creeping around the edges of my consciousness kept rising. I wondered how long it would wait for me to invite it in before simply bursting through my mental walls like the Kool-Aid Man on steroids.

“Give it! Or I’ll fucking cut ya. Snip snip snap!” The frantic energy in his voice was deeply unsettling. The pitch rose to a squeal and then dropped to a growl out of nowhere and back up again.

He was maybe three feet tall—barely up to my waist, even with the hat. He was sneering from behind his sparkly white beard with rows of sharp teeth. He looked like a garden gnome but with a criminal record and a crippling gambling addiction.

He tossed his little knife from hand to hand as he crouched low in a fighting stance. “Snip, snip, snap,” he whispered, punctuating each knife toss with the words. There was a small bandolier full of little knives crossing his barrel-shaped chest.

Great, I thought. He has even more knives.

My job taught me how to keep my cool when shit was hitting the fan. On an average day working as an EMT, shit was always hitting the fan at various speeds.

This was… sort of like that.

I lifted both palms toward him in a placating gesture. Maybe I could just talk through this. Maybe he just looked like a psychotic little gnome thing holding a knife. For all I knew, he could actually be… what else could he be?

“Sorry,” I said, plastering on a smile. Then I realized he couldn’t see my face because I was wearing a helmet like some kind of Lord of the Rings character. My gently enhanced dick was also right about eye level with those sharp teeth, and he was looking at it instead of me. That felt like a bad sign.

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“I think we got off on the wrong foot back there. It almost sounded like you said you wanted to ‘cut’ me.” I added a little dose of friendly amusement to my tone, like I must’ve just misheard him. He would probably take the opportunity to apologize and—

He bared his teeth and broke into a sprint toward me, knife pumping up and down in his fist.

“Oh, fuck,” I shouted. I was pretty sure I could punt him into the stars, but I didn’t want to hurt an angry, small person. So I turned and ran. With those little legs, there was no way he’d catch up.

He snarled, chasing me while slashing the knife wildly in my direction.

I covered a few dozen yards before I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see him trailing far behind. When I saw him right on my heels, I stumbled in surprise, arms pinwheeling as I leaned forward and fell.

I landed hard, rolled, and skidded to a stop on my back.

The small man jumped, stretching out Superman-style with his knife in both hands, ready to plunge it straight between my legs.

I reflexively kicked upwards, nearly impaling my foot on his knife. Instead, I caught him in the chest, launching his tiny body away like a ragdoll. The knife flew out of his hands, landing in the grass beside me.

I snatched it up and rushed to my feet, pint-sized-weapon outstretched toward him. He was already getting back to his feet.

The stolen knife was so small that it felt like a toy. With my ring finger and pinky lifted, I held it like a fancy glass of wine because there was no room for my whole hand.

“Okay, let’s try that again,” I said, gulping for air between my words. I kept replaying the image of his attempt to stab me between the legs, feeling more horrified each time. I’d only just earned this extra ten percent of length, and the little bastard already wanted to take it away from me? I suddenly felt more willing to punt the little bastard into the shadow realm.

“Kick me once, shame on you. Kick me twice, shame on you!” he said, giggling a little like he’d lost his mind.

“Huh?” I asked. Reflexively, I held the knife out to my side like I was a samurai preparing to duel my three-foot-tall opponent.

The gnome thing mirrored my stance, knife held out wide as he side shuffled, eyes locked on mine. “Cut cut snip snap! I’ll get ya if you turn your back, fucker!”

What the hell was going on?

“Last chance,” I said as calmly as I could. “I’m going to walk away, and you’re not going to chase after me like a fucking lunatic this time. Alright?” I felt an eerie calm as I stared down the absurdity of my situation. Maybe that meant something was wrong with me.

“Okay?” I said again when he didn’t respond. I gave the knife a little shake to show him I meant business.

His forehead scrunched, and his eyes bulged. His arm snapped out like he was pointing at me.

I felt a soft punch in my lower chest and looked down, confused.

The handle of a knife was sticking out of my bare skin. I stared in disbelief, watching it twitch in rhythm with my heartbeat. Twitch, twitch, twitch.

Oh. That’s not good. Oh, fuck. That’s bad.

Pain erupted from the spot as I fell to one knee, grimacing.

“You just…” I started. I frantically ran through a quick mental check of how screwed I might be based on where the knife hit and how big it was. Right side of my body. It was probably too low for a lung, but I couldn’t be certain. The blade was too short to get past the ribs.

I decided it was probably superficial. Maybe.

“Got ya with my family goo,” he said, sneering. “Two minutes, and it’s night night for you, Big Dick! Last chance to give me the helmet. Take it off real quick like, and I’ll let you have the swill. Fix you right up, it will!”

Did he just call me Big Dick? So I wasn’t imagining his fascination… “Family goo?” The grunted question was all I could manage.

“Poisoned ya! Stupid! Stupid!”

Just as I was sure things couldn't get any stranger, text appeared in front of my vision, floating in front of the little man.

[8] Unread Accomplishments. Read Now?

[1] Unread Notification. Read Now?

Family Goo resisted by [Voidgaze (?) (Gold)?].

I reached my hand out, trying to touch the letters. Voidgaze? What the hell? My fingers passed right through them.

“Don’t wave at me, idiot. Take it off! Take it off!” the creature hissed.

“I don’t even know where I am, you little asshole,” I grunted.

God, that hurt. I touched the knife and regretted it as the movement sent a fresh jab of pain through me. I was surprised how strong the impulse to rip it out of my body was, even though I could remember learning to leave it in until the doctors were ready.

“Take off the cap!” the little man shouted. He pounded his jingling foot and produced another knife, coming closer. “I’ll stick you again. I’ll cut ya. I swear I will! I got plenty more family goo, I swear I do!”

I held the knife in my hand up higher. “Stay back. I’ll… stab you, too.” Great. I’m rhyming right along with the crazy gnome.

He flashed those pointy teeth of his. “Already close, aren’t ya? I bet ya have a minute. Maybe less. Now, take off the helmet, and I’ll give you the drinky drink. It’ll save ya, surely will.”

I couldn’t help thinking how he seemed like a character from a children’s show who escaped the set, lost his mind, and took to the wilderness to pursue his obsession with helmets, dicks, and kind of rhyming.

Desperately, I tried to form some kind of plan. He didn’t seem to know I resisted the poison. He also seemed to think I was going to drop dead soon. So why would he try so hard to get me to take off the helmet when he could just pluck it from my corpse?

Shit, shit, shit.

I needed to think of something.

On a whim, I decided to stagger a little, like I was feeling the poison. “Ugh,” I said.

“Clock’s ticking. Come on.” His voice was urgent. He was stamping his foot again. Jingle. Jingle. “Bind it to me, fucker!”

“I—” I began, then I fell to my knees. If this place had the Oscars, I doubted I would win one for this performance.

But I could see the frustration on his face growing by the second. I tipped to flop on my back and nearly shouted with pain as the movement jostled the knife, making a fresh line of blood dribble down my chest.

I made a gurgling sound like I succumbed to his “family goo.”

“Damn it!” he shouted. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” With each outburst, he stomped, rattling the bell on his boot. I heard him pacing back and forth. “She’ll be mad. She’ll be real mad. But we tried. They might take me back. Take me back if I bring a good story. Or maybe we can use his goo?” He spoke almost frantically, like he was trying to reassure himself. “We can’t help it that the human was stubborn, stubborn, stubborn!” He punctuated that last word by gripping the knife below my chest and yanking it free.

The sudden pain made me sit up with a scream. I lashed out before I could even think, jabbing my hand with the knife straight up toward the sound of his voice. With eyes squeezed shut, I felt the knife jam hard into something. It almost slipped through my three-fingered grip, but the butt of the knife pressed into my palm, driving the tip deep.

Warm liquid flooded over my skin. It was dripping all over me in hot gushes. The gnome clutched my arm, a choked sound coming from his throat. His fingers slipped, and then his legs gave way. He collapsed on my stomach, nearly driving the knife into my shoulder deeper with his limp weight.

I pulled my hand and the knife away, which only released even more blood.

He rolled off me, gripping my neck with his fists as he snarled, teeth covered in red. I didn’t know what else to do, so I head-butted him. The first made his eyes roll back, but he didn't loosen his grip. I smashed my helmet into his face two more times. Three times. Four times. There was a concerning feeling of something jabbing into him with each head-butt, like the little spikes on my helmet were driving into his face.

I finally felt his grip ease, and he slumped off me, rolling to his back with a gasp.

I staggered to my feet, putting my palm on the bleeding wound in my shoulder. I stared down at the tiny corpse in horror.

[9] Unread Accomplishments. Read now?

[1] Unread Notification. Read Now?

You’ve reached level 2!

You’ve reached level 3!

You’ve reached level 4!

What. The. Hell?