Lulu likes to sleep. Sleep is a constant, reliable source of freedom in a world that was not free. He often slept after work when his mind was trying to convince him of how many mistakes he had made in his life and how inconsequential his attempts to achieve peace were. He never thought that he belonged—not in this world, at least. He liked his little fragile bubble of the world that he made inside Yatu, but he hated all that was outside his grasp of reality. He was a shape-shifter without any actual shape-shifting, and these other shape-shifters came in different races and dimensions. He meant literal dimensions. You don’t want to see a higher-dimension shapeshifter; it breaks some primal part of your brain or brains or… thinking organ. He pretended to be asleep for most of the way, but they knew what they were doing. He was blindfolded and deaf all the way. If they cared to put soundproof headphones on an unconscious person, then the curves on the road he was feeling were not squares but his kidnappers trying to avoid evidence and any would-be rescuers. Lulu’s deliberate grasp on sleep was broken by a vicious kick to his stomach.

“Wakey-wakey, it’s time for me to check if you’re alive,” said a gruff voice with frustrating smugness.

“Mommy, five more minutes, pleaseee,” Lulu replied with his sweetest expression of a frustrated child. Another kick to the stomach made him aware of the mistake in his ways.

“Stand up, meat!” The voice was clearly in a worse mood than before.

Small victories, Lulu thought to himself. If they were going to work him to his last bit of essence, they should expect him to be annoying about it.

“Mom, your voice is getting worse. Two packets of cancer sticks a day should not be a viable option anymore.”

This time the man grabbed him by the back of his coat and heaved him off the floor, making him stand on his feet only to kidney punch him.

“Wait… you’re not… my… mom,” Lulu said between grunts and vicious tries to catch his breath. “Your punch is pathetic… My mom, bless her soul, would have been ashamed to be mistaken for some weak p…” A backhand made Lulu swallow his next words.

The dumb goon readied his fist for another punch, but another voice cut him short of rearranging Lulu’s guts… in a bad way.

“He’s trying to bait you into cracking something you shouldn’t, you imbecile,” said an Oxford-wearing guy stepping in front of Lulu’s eyes. Lulu followed the man’s legs up, hoping to see someone other than a bunch of guys he dreaded. His rotten luck pretty much guaranteed the results. Beelzebub, one of the chairmen of Fire and Brimstone Industries. Their company practically runs Jaduq, and all magic runs through them. They overthrew the government in all but name years ago and made deals with other magical powers across the realms. So you can guess that Lulu wasn’t in a good mood when he found the big boss standing in kissing-distance of his face. The demon was the farthest thing from kissable, though. He had large blue bug-like eyes with lots of little black eyes around them. There were two sharp teeth poking out of his upper lip. His horns were segmented and antenna-like. All in all, he was what his legends described him to be: a crazy, power-hungry, slave-trading cockroach of a demon but dressed in fancy clothing.

“Oh, hello sir. It’s lovely to see you. I would have started a poem if I knew you were coming; unfortunately, I can’t think of something on the fly,” Lulu said with his most accurate butler voice. Lulu broke the silence by adding, “Is something bugging you, sire?”

“I see why he was trying to beat you into a pulp, Mr. Lulu. Fortunately, I’m more acquainted with your kind,” Beelzebub said with a grin on his face, or what Lulu assumed was a grin.

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“Listen here, Mr. Creepy-Crawly. I know when one of your kind shows up, I’m gonna be beyond cooked. You don’t show your ugly segmented ass for a simple tax fraud and imprisonment. You don’t want my essence; you would have just made a goon bash it out of my skull. You need something from me that needs your personal touch,” Lulu replied.

“That’s just ridiculous. Don’t give me that mastermind villain monologue; your ego is getting the size of this moron’s head,” Beelzebub replied in an annoyed tone while lightly knocking on the goon’s rather gargantuan head.

“Nobody needs you specifically; you were the most convenient shape-shifter criminal around, so I made sure you never went to camp and your records were deleted from the database,” Beelzebub continued.

“People and their massive egos, am I right, boss?” asked the goon while trying to put a friendly hand over Beelzebub’s shoulder.

With a chop of his hands, Beelzebub broke his goon’s hand. The goon tried to scream, but Beelzebub shut him up by chopping his throat.

“Don’t touch your better, filth. I am pristine and perfect. Don’t sully my majestic carapace,” Beelzebub said in a monotone voice without acknowledging the quietly sobbing goon under his feet.

“To be honest, you’re making me antsy. I’m getting worried about your lack of mental health and what it means for my safety,” said Lulu.

“Then don’t talk too much and come with me,” Beelzebub replied while walking toward the exit.

“No, let’s slug it out,” Lulu continued but evidently joined Beelzebub before the madman did something drastic.

They went on and on inside different corridors and gothic stairs. From the look of things, they were inside a big mansion or one of those old-school castles. Finally, after climbing gothic haunted stair after stair, Lulu found himself in front of a huge double door.

“I’m not going to ruin your fun by opening it,” Lulu said to Beelzebub.

Beelzebub almost looked grateful while opening the double doors with extra grandiose and suspense.

In the middle of the room was a huge golden metallic crystal. The room was literally made with money. The metallic crystal was ruuin—solidified magic. They made coins out of this stuff, and everywhere in Yatu there was value in having them.

It was beyond the scope of Lulu’s brain to even start contemplating the possibility of this much money in the same place.

“What… is this?” Lulu asked, bafflement swimming in his voice.

“This, young puny shape-shifter, is the most significant artifact and one and only technology in the whole of Yatu. It’s made from ruuin, and it helps with transportation,” Beelzebub proudly replied.

“You don’t need this much mass for realm transportation. You can do that with a simple coin and a ritual. Where do you want to go?” Lulu noted.

Beelzebub laughed. “Earth.”

Earth was the subject of fascination for every young creature in Yatu. Then you became old and bitter, and your only fascination would be coming home from your job and sleeping.

The thing about Earth was that it became something that you couldn’t forget from the first time you looked at Yatu. Yatu had some kind of metaphysical connection with Earth that made it sort of like a magical sister particle.

People gain vague information because their meta sibling had a life-changing revelation on Earth; sometimes that sibling was a scientist, so the individual from Yatu would try to replicate that theory on this side.

Or places changed because their equivalent on Earth was changing, and with this changing process, sometimes a piece of Earth technology would find itself inside your home or backyard.

Long story short, Earth had a significant effect on everyday life.

And like every mystery in life, there were legends and conspiracies around it.

From how it was the resting place of your soul after dying seven times in Yatu to how this government or that monarch was controlling Earth as a secret resource to fuel their filthy desires or war goals.

But something was always the main subject of every conspiracy or sci-fi podcast: Was it possible to travel to Earth.

As long as you were not one of the big powers who could shatter the veil between realms with a thought, it was impossible. But that didn’t mean people would stop imagining new ways or portraying different fantastical methods of traveling to Earth in books and creepy-pastas.

So here we were, the big cockroach was trying to convince him that this monument was the key to Earth.

“You’re giving me a nervous tick,” Lulu smiled from ear to ear.