In which I enter a door in the wood, begin symptomatic expression for schizophrenia, and find some Food for thought.

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I blinked, coming to the understandable conclusion that I was hallucinating from head trauma. I did that sometimes. It was like drugs, with the painful hangover and everything.

The clock cabinet split vertically down the middle, bright light sending god rays across the room. I squinted as the clock continued to split vertically, the separate halves rotating freely like doors. I stood from the chair and leaned on the desk, tentatively calling out.

“Hello?” I said, “Is this real?”

No answer, just my eyes adjusting to the light.

I waddled out from behind the desk, wincing as I made my way over to the clock. The clock face stood on top of the opening, unbroken. The second hand was still ticking, which was comforting. Time had not stopped. Although, that did little to distract me from what I was seeing.

Light streamed through the opening and with that, a knowledge of the room beyond. For there was a room within the clock, with a dusty wooden floor bearing a red armchair. Beyond that, two windows stood overflowing with daylight, providing lumens to spare. At midnight.

“What in Narnia?” I said, waving a hand through the opening, “This hallucination is sticking around for a while…”

Though Today i might have born an exceptional beating, but this was too much. I couldn’t stop my heart from leaping as I looked back at Grandpa’s urn. He’d always said that he had a surprise for my 18th birthday.

Now all I had to do was go in and claim it.

Unfortunately, there was a problem. I eyed the opening, turning sideways. The opening was still the face of a grandfather clock, albeit one bigger than normal. And…well I had done a lot of overeating after grandpa died. I don’t think he anticipated me not being able to fit.

“All right,” I said, stepping in and squeezing my broken ribs into the gap, “I-er- let’s- owowowowowowow!”

I pulled back out, knocking over a case of trinkets in my rush. They didn’t shatter, but little wooden figures spilled across the floor. Great, more mess to clean.

“Great,” I said, sagging, “I’m ‘too fatto’ to fit through this door.”

Wait a moment, I thought, I did fit. It wasn’t as tight as I thought. Just more painful.

It had hurt but I had managed to squish at least halfway through the door. I could turn around now, but then life would go on as it had before. I would die with my greatest moment being beaten so a girl could run away. That’s not a finish, it’s a beginning.

“Screw it,” I slapped my face, sending shocks of pain across everything, “I’m going for it!”

I lunged, sideways and headfirst into the opening. Agony played screamo on the strings of my body. I grabbed the other side of the opening, beaten fingers clawing. Crying and screaming I pulled, feeling my fat wedge in the opening. I sucked in my stomach, exhaling to carve as much weight away as possible. I had to keep moving. To get through before the agony caught up.

POP!

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With a final heave, I found myself tumbling out into the sun and the unknown, like a cork from a lackluster bottle of champagne. I coughed, rolling onto my back and pumping my fist.

“Victory!” I wheezed, then buckled in for the bill.

Once the throbbing went down, I was able to move. Eventually. It helped when I caught my breath and wasn’t pumping at the bellows of my broken ribs. Once I could stand it, I managed to roll to my knees and crawl. I made painful progress to a chair and pulled myself up onto it, collapsing in a puff of dust.

The armchair wasn’t really made for someone my size, so I was wedged pretty tightly. The day weighed heavily, but I was too curious to sleep quite yet. I looked around.

I was in a simple cabin. There were two doors on the left, leading to more rooms, and a handful of furniture pieces scattered across the cabin. I could make out the beginning of the kitchen to my right, but my position in the chair kept me from seeing any further. A fireplace stood majestically between the outdated windows before me, empty of flame but bearing the marks of many fires.

Still, the sunlight was warm on my skin and the day weighed heavily on me. I felt my eyes obey the gravity that commanded the rest of me with an iron fist. I fell fast asleep.

It had been a long day.

****

I don’t know how long I was asleep, but I found myself being woken up by a rather pleasant, if robotic, female voice.

“Long rest completed,” it (she?) said, “Inheritance progress: five percent completed.”

“Wha?” I felt groggily at my mouth and reflexively spat blood to the side. It splattered on wooden flooring rather than my blood bucket in Grandpa’s study. Right.

I idly reexamined my surroundings as I tentatively felt where my teeth had been. I’d been able to take care of them for so long, without getting a single cavity! Not that I’d been able to go to the dent-

“HOLY @#$%^!” My head swam as I struggled to sit up in the chair, “It wasn’t a dream!”

My heart fluttered in excitement as I performed my ritual struggle against gravity. I was inside the clock! Some kind of Narnia experience. A disembodied voice was weird though. Maybe it was more like an Isekai than Narnia. My grandpa was Japanese, after all.

And I will not think of the implications. I thought firmly. Religious or scientific.

Then, my struggle to get up revealed itself to be due to friction rather than gravity. I was stuck in the chair, wedged between its unwilling arms.

“Oh crap,” I panicked, trapped, “come on!”

I flung myself forward and landed on my feet. Unfortunately, the seat came with me. I looked like a rather fat snail balancing on the tip of its tail.

It wasn’t optimal, but I felt rather impressed with myself. I could barely feel the weight of the chair at all, and could even waddle around in relative agony. I really needed to get this off of me.

“Come on!” I said, wiggling my butt in an attempt to shake it off. My stomach growled. Hadn’t I seen a kitchen?

I craned my neck, the fat folds digging into each other as I looked around the cabin. Sure enough, there was a kitchen to my right. A table, counters, sink, and fridge.

Hobbling over to the fridge, the chair still on my butt, I pulled open the door in hopeful eagerness.

Nothing but a couple pieces of paper. It wasn’t even cold in there. My heart sank as I grabbed the papers, then I leaned backward to sit on the chair as I read.

To my dearest grandson Shane,

I knew that this would be the first place you looked, so I put my letter in here hoping you’d find it early. I have no way of knowing how the Inheritance process will go for you, but I keyed it to your blood so it should bond to you at your first bloody nose.

I grinned broadly. Grandpa had never gotten it into his head that I had stopped getting bloody noses when I was fifteen. Of course, now I get them every time I get punched in the face. So I suppose he was right this time as well.

You should know a few things.

First, consider this place your Greatest Inheritance. I spent many decades here, although it has changed from the old paper stuff I used to use.

Second, the second sheet of paper is a list of basic abilities that should help you. I didn’t really need to say that here, but I couldn’t help making the second thing about the second sheet. Besides, it adds this list up to a nice round 5.

Third, you will have to defend this land from an occasional attack from large man-eating monsters. Sometimes man killing and decorating. The presence of blood here should have them stirred up again, and they will scent it on the breeze. You will find the True Spear in the umbrella stand. I advise starting with that weapon. Bullets don’t work very well against the bigger monsters, but there’s an unlicensed M249 SAW machine gun hanging from the coat rack if you need it.

Fourth, I have left more instructions on various things around the house. They’re written in the languages from here, so you’ll have to activate your auto-translate ability to read them. I decided to make it more interesting for you than it was for me. You’ll thank me later.

Fifth, my philosophy applies here. I want you to be independent, strong, and not spoiled rotten like your mother was. This will be hard. Go ahead and quit if you’re unwilling to keep going, just know that the Clock may never open for you again. I don’t know how it will behave with you. As my heir, it should open at will. But there is the risk that it will close forever once you’re gone.

P.S.

If you’re hungry then there should be something growing around the property. I left a bunch of vegetables and things growing, and I know that there are a few fruit trees. If you’re gonna stay a while, there’s a bunch of seeds and stuff in a chest outside. I probably should have stored cans of food, but you’ve always been a chubby boy. I’m sure you’ll do fine.

“Not bad,” I said, chewing my lip as I looked over the list again, “I should probably- wait.”

Number three suddenly leaped out at me and rammed a stick of terror through my gut up my butt. Blood? Monsters! Bloodthirsty man-eating monsters?!

BOOOM!!!