Magic isn't real.

Chuck repeated those words to himself as he sat by himself in his treehouse, watching Meg's video of the Chef. He watched it five times. Ten times. Fifty. On each repetition, he went back to the same part: that moment thirty-two seconds into the video when the Chef seemed to sense Meg's presence. According to Meg, she never missed a shot, a gift granted to her by a white pill similar to the one that currently sat on the desk before him. She'd encouraged him to take it, and while he hadn't thrown it away, he also hadn't brought himself to ingest the unknown substance.

Chuck watched the video again. If Meg's uncanny accuracy was truly the result of magic, then the Chef must've possessed some kind of magic, too. Because he'd not only sensed Meg right before she'd fired, but dodged a shot from Scorpion.

It shouldn't have been possible. Chuck had cranked the tension on the device so it fired at 350 feet per second, which was far faster than anyone should've been able to move. Yet, the Chef had moved that quickly, avoiding the bolt like it was nothing more than a foam dodgeball Chuck had thrown across the line with his offhand during gym class.

Chuck sighed, minimizing the video player and leaning back in his desk chair. He massaged his temples, then lifted the vaporizer Meg had given him and took a long drag. The liquid in the cartridge bubbled and fragrant red smoke filled his mouth. If the vaporizer had just contained nicotine, he wouldn't have been interested, but Dr. Wunder's Magical Medicinal Vapors were something different. The red cartridge was called Max Relax, and the smoke was a kind of magic in itself, calming his anxiety in a way that nothing else ever had.

Chuck exhaled and closed his eyes. He'd watched Meg's video enough times to know that he wouldn't discover anything new. The Chef's seemingly magical perception could've been explained by a lucky turn, or some noise Meg had accidentally made that hadn't been picked up by the microphone. But the speed? There was no rational way to explain that.

Chuck opened his eyes to stare at the little white pill on the desk before him. Based on numerous tests he'd already run, it wasn't dangerous, though he still didn't know what it was.

I'm a man of science, he told himself. That meant he believed in the scientific method. In his mind, he ran through the steps.

First, I need to ask myself a question about something I observe, he thought. Then, I need a hypothesis. After that, I test my hypothesis, analyze the data, and draw a conclusion. Let's start at the beginning: What's my question?

That was easy... was magic real? The hypothesis was the tricky part. He could form one quickly enough, but the only way he knew how to test it involved ingesting a little white pill of unknown origin. Meg had sworn by it, and he trusted his friend, but...

Chuck swallowed. If I take this pill and gain unexplainable superpowers, I'll be forced to conclude magic is real, he thought. He rolled the hypothesis around in his mind, chiding himself for how poorly it was constructed. Of course magic isn't real, he told himself. Come on, Chuck. Grow up.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

And yet... if Chuck were being honest with himself, he wanted to believe in magic--so much so that he was willing to do something dangerous. The white pill looked innocuous enough, but it possessed a siren's voice, calling to Chuck with the message on the cakes in Alice's Wonderland: Eat me. And Meg had encouraged him to take it...

Before Chuck could stop himself, he popped the pill into his mouth.

There are a lot of explanations for why Chuck made that decision. One could say that without proper parental guidance, he was more willing than the average person to make his own rules. It could also be argued that his teenage mind was riddled with hormones, and the allure of approval from someone he liked was simply too strong to resist. But the easiest explanation was that he took the pill because he wanted to believe in his own exceptionalism. Who can blame him? He'd grown up on stories like Harry Potter and Dune, where the protagonist is whisked into grand and glorious adventure simply because they were born with a destiny. If Meg was to be believed, that destiny was only a pill away.

At first, Chuck felt nothing but the Max Relax vapor keeping him calm and happy. Then, he heard a strange noise. Thump thump. Thump thump. It took him a moment to realize the sound was the beating of his own heart.

"I can hear my heart," he said aloud, and the words spooled into the air before him, great bubble letters written in multi-colored ink. They swirled around his computer, bouncing from one side to the other like the screensaver his mother used to have on her ancient PC in their kitchen. Several letters sprouted little faces, each grinning and cheerful, looking as happy to see him as Monster did when he came home from school. Only, unlike Monster, the letters could talk.

"Hi, Chuck!" they chorused. One of the voices was a baritone rumble, while another was high and soft as a tinkling bell. Most fell somewhere in between. "You're about to experience some magic. Are you ready?"

Chuck blinked in surprise. "What?" he said. That word, too, floated before him. It scattered his previous words, which giggled as they slid down his monitor and disappeared into the crack between his desk and the wall. The word "what" only had a single face, eyes popping into existence above the letter 'w' and a mouth appearing below, and it spoke with Meg's voice.

"Magic!" it shouted. This time, the word's word spooled out from the mouth, the word 'magic' shooing the word 'what' off the screen. It followed the words from his previous sentence in jumping through the crack behind his desk. His monitor showed that single word--magic--and Chuck had a feeling he'd made a mistake.

So this is what drugs feel like, he said. I can see why Meg likes them, but I don't think I'd want to do this again.

Chuck's thoughts were interrupted by the little woman who stepped around the word 'magic.' She was no bigger than his index finger, though her body proportions made sense for her size, as if a human woman that'd been shrunken to scale. The only things that didn't make sense were her breasts--which, he had to admit--were massive. They were covered by armor that looked to be made of carbon fiber mesh, which stretched all the way down her legs and along her arms. She wore a motorcycle helmet, the visor lifted to reveal intelligent gray eyes and a scar that ran from the bridge of her nose to her right cheek. At her waist, she had a black scabbard that held a sword, the grip wrapped in weathered leather. And she had wings. They were thin as gossamer and translucent, their edges lined with the same armored mesh that covered most of her body.

The tiny woman bowed low to Chuck, then grabbed ahold of the letter 'M' and pulled herself to sit atop it. As she did, she pulled one knee to her chest, the other dangling over the edge.

Chuck still didn't understand what was happening. "Drugs are really crazy," he whispered.

"You're right about that!" The small woman's voice was husky and attractive. "So, what do you say, Chuck? Ready to choose a gift and fight some evil?"