I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears as I rolled away from a massive gout of flame from a wyvern. Soon, the hiss of steam drowned out my heartbeat as my massive ursine monster partner shot a blast of water in the direction of the wyvern’s den. The jet of water he released would have put a waterfall to shame. Without hesitation, I dropped my shield, so it hit the ground and formed a practiced gesture with my fingers. It was a risk to summon another partner even though I hadn’t spotted my opponent, but the chance to end his wyvern flight before it got off the ground was too good to pass up. When you step into an arena to face literal monsters, the stuff of myth and legend, you learn pretty quick to keep calm and take every opportunity you get. Or you die.

Soon, a massive buzz joined the hiss of steam and the pace-driving drum beats, brass instruments, and chip tune melodies that dominated the soundscape of the arena, as my other partner rocketed forward into the fray to help its compatriot. They would do well working together and didn’t need my guidance at the moment, so I waited and took in my surroundings with my senses.

I gripped the basket-hilted saber I had equipped myself with for this match, and looked up at the massive mana projections of the match above. Dust and steam clouded much of the movement and the crowds murmurs of dissatisfaction told me that they could see just as much as I could.

So I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds and smells around me. I ignored the hiss of the wyvern’s breath as it and my bear partner crashed together. I instead only listened for the faint thump of hurrying feet and the jingle of chain mail. I took in the smells of sweat and anti-rust oil. As sounds it got louder behind me, and the scent got stronger, I prepared. The sound and scent grew more intense and I prepared myself for what was coming.

In the distance, the buzz of my bee monster partner rocketing forward and the roar of my bear partner alongside it practically spoke to me. They both of them together were more than enough to tie up his monsters while I focused in on my approaching assailant.

I turned toward the direction of the “plap plap plap” of their boot soles against the mud and the crinkle of their spurs. With all the noise they where making, my opponent was as visible to me as if they where holding a brightly painted banner in wan light. He sped up as he got closer and hoisted his poison-tipped daggers for a strike. I placed my foot on the shield that I had dropped earlier. With one movement, it was in my hand, and in the next it was flying at him. Without missing a beat, he was jumping over it with an acrobatic leap.

The sight of his leap was enough to send the crowd into a build up of shouts of excitement and tension. I could almost pick up when he got close based on their building tempo, and thanks to that I knew when to strike. Raising my empty right hand I focused on the energy that flowed in my body and summoned a stream of powerfully compressed water at his torso when he was mere feet away from me.

While not enough to knock him out, it was enough to throw him off balance and as he struggled for his footing upon landing, I threw up my saber arm and delivered a punch covered by a basket hilt right into his face. That brought up a chorus of mumbled disappointment and boos from one section of the crowd and a cacophony of excited shouts from the other. As crazy as it might sound, I loved it. This had to be why people back on Earth got into professional wrestling.

As I stepped back, blood and spittle from the punch flowed over the tournament's arena floor, and I let out a roaring shout of triumph loud enough to be heard over the roar of the crowds up in the stands.

With a flourish, I gave the crowd a bow. With it done, I slid my saber back into its sheath and picked my shield back up. The knightly bee, which was one of my partners, began to fly in for a landing, entering his polyhedral die artifact that was his reliquary and sending warmth up my body as he reconnected with my being. My bear partner, huge as a truck and covered with spikes and scales, stood beside me.

“Okay, good job Baloo. We’ve got one win under the belt, two more and we reach the finals. If we win, we should have enough experience to pay for Melody’s freedom.”

Water started flooding into the arena as I caught my breath and figured it must be part of the next fight. I wondered what it was going to be. With water flooding, I knew he would be useful in this, I mused as I climbed upon Baloo’s back.

It wasn’t a big deal either way. No matter the challenge, I could do this. I HAD to do this. Wait a minute! I’m sorry, where are my manners? I was taught better than to introduce myself like that–taught it twice.

My name is Wade Duncan Calhoun, and I’ll cut to the chase before telling you what happened next; bringing us back to the beginning. Let’s start with how I ended up here, and what brought my family and me into this world of magic, and monster partners.

We’ll begin with my family, because they’re frankly the most important thing to me.

***

It was already eight at night in the summer, and while it was a quick process, it had gone from a sunny day to sunset quickly, with only the sporadic lights of the country road we were on and our headlights. We were on a secluded stretch of land in the deep interior of the United States when I heard the distinctive pop, whine, and drumming of our front driver-side tire deflating. I had my wife, Melody, pull the car over to the shoulder, and I began fixing our issue.

As soon as we were at a stop, I unbuckled my seatbelt and flashed a smile to Melody and the kids. “It shouldn’t be long, so keep the AC going. It’s too hot to turn the van off entirely.” Then I was out the front passenger side door.

I shut my door with a gentle push and I headed to the trunk and the spare tire. Without a word, I lugged the tire up from the trunk and got the jack and tire iron out. With a soundtrack made up of the inane music from the car’s FM radio and my children’s chatter, I got to work. Within no time flat, the sounds of Osbert, my oldest, trying to resolve the squabbles of his siblings over who could handle what electronic and try his best to help his mother police his siblings; and my youngest, Bridget, began crying out, “Don’t fight!” Only increasing the volume of the family drive turned orchestra. “Hey! Hey! Alec, don’t you unbuckle your seatbelt and try to go help dad! He said it shouldn’t be long, that means stay put!”

“Ossy you can’t just infer like that,” came my presumed future lawyer of a son, Alec. Despite only being seven years old, he didn’t talk like it - having read novels from the age of three and long since being convinced that using the right word was more important than the right tone. I would be lying if I denied he got that from me.

“Gwen, don’t let him pass you if he tries to go out,” Osbert commanded to his twin sister. My ten-year-old son was bossy, but he did it with silent confidence. Something he learned from being a big brother and also his stint as the team captain of his little league baseball team. I was glad he picked it up, because preferred bossy over the demure and shy way he had been earlier in his childhood.

It brought a smirk to my face as I continued the task, but I didn’t feel irritation or a need to step in. As Melody gave the look of irritation and command to the kids that I knew all too well meant ‘silence and behave’ to them, I focused. Was having a tire flatten in the rapidly darkening evening on an isolated country road annoying? Sure. Should my kids have ticked me off by already fighting impatiently in the back seat as I began the arduous labor? Probably.

But little irritants didn’t matter to me. I learned to control my temper a long, long time ago, and even more important than that- My Family means everything to me.

I was several minutes into the process when I heard the unpleasant melody mash-up of the screech of tires and the buzzing of thousands of bees swarming. The source? A tractor-trailer that was heading down the country road we were parked on the shoulder of. Its cab seemed to be covered in bees. As I stopped and stared at it, I realized that the tractor-trailer was moving with too much of an erratic pattern for its driver to be in full control - they had to have been being swarmed by the bees in and on his truck too.

I didn’t spare a second to think or take in the scene's absurdity, though. I simply rushed to the car and threw open the back driver’s side door - shouting as I did.

“Melody, get Alec out - he’s too small to move as quickly as we need to. Ossy, Gwendolyn, follow Mom as close as you can, and grab nothing you can’t shove in your pockets right now.”

I focused on Bridget and attempted to unbuckle her. As I heard my wife and my three eldest children get out of the van and move, I fought the seatbelt enough to get Bridget unbuckled and I grabbed her. Carrying my youngest child in a cradling hug, I rushed around the car. My first and biggest obstacle was dealt with.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Around the family van with my baby girl in my hands, I rushed down the slope of the ditch, which made up the end of the shoulder of the road with my daughter held firmly in my arms. In moments, we were at the bottom, where the rest of my family were already waiting and crouching down for survival. The entire horizon, even with the slope hopefully protecting us, was dominated by the bright headlights of the beehive-carrying tractor-trailer. As it got more dominant and bright, there was a feeling of static throughout the air and the horizon itself turned to the fuzz of an old-school cathode-ray tube television when it was flipped to Channel 3 before a video or game came on. As soon as that grey static came, I saw the deepest black I’ve ever seen - and as I lost the feeling of my family around me and Bridget in my arms; the deepest black I’ve ever felt.

I could hear music, and it reminded me of something I could not place. I don’t know what happened next in the process - but when I woke again, I would be in another world. Not the Earth I had known, but one of magic, fantasy, and monsters - both tamed ones and true deadly beasts.

***

I was sure that I, that we, were dead. That blackest darkness permeated my senses. It was only beaten back by the light of visions of my family. Memories, cherished memories.

Visions of my first time trying to really impress Melody by taking her on a dancing date, only for her to cackle and ask who taught me to dance and why I did not ask her, the superior dancing instructor. The brightness of her smile as she ribbed me lit up the shadows of what I presumed to be the afterlife.

Visions of her, each of our children on their birth, and her smile and the feeling of warmth that dominated me on the birth of each of our children and when I first beheld them.

Visions of having to teach Gwendolyn and Osbert to play baseball - or rather softball, together just because my daughter had a lot of her mother’s attitudes and she did not like that Osbert was ‘getting to play catch’ and she wasn’t.

Visions of teaching Osbert and Gwendolyn how to garden in the family’s garden, for much the same reason. “Why should Gwen get to dig in the dirt when I can’t?” from Osbert.

Visions of Alec’s grin when he first walked, first used a fork, and said his first big word. Alec’s smile somehow caught me with its contrary smugness at the same time as its warmth.

And visions of Bridget, so young and so new, constantly putting her arms up and demanding to be held before declaring to all, “I am the biggest one in the house now! Look how tall I am!”

Maybe my life was really flashing before my eyes? If it was, it didn’t matter. We would be together soon, I knew it.

***

I was wrong about my life being over, and probably about many more. When the feeling of my body came back into play, I was disoriented by the memories I had just seen and a still dark room, with no sound. The only reason I knew I had a body and my life was not over was a mundane one. Pain throbbed through my every pore for several minutes.

I don’t mean simply that my body didn’t feel great. When I say it throbbed with pain I mean it. Have you ever had your heart beat so quickly and had your body feel so sore that you woke up and thought you just died? I have. This wasn’t even the first time, as I am sure is true for many. After all, I was a rambunctious young buck once and I can’t tell you a single person who’s never rode a roller coaster and regretted it the next day. But this? This was different. Any time before had not included a tractor-trailer carrying an oversized novelty beehive advertising a local honey business and meadery. It hadn’t included my whole family, or me feeling the strong inclination to throw myself in front of them even though that action would not do a thing as the massive machine sped towards us. I don’t remember the specifics of what happened after that but the horizon changed, my body went numb, and the next thing I knew the total black that had occupied the horizon was turned into a wash of colors across the horizon that appeared closer to a malfunctioning CRT television being hammered into having a clear picture than the actual sky of the Southern Midwestern United States during sunset.

I couldn’t remember what happened initially but there was buzzing everywhere. Soon the sounds clarified from the buzzing of insects into the buzzing sounds of a human language you not only don’t understand but have not been around enough to pick up all the intonations and inflections of. After that, it clarified further and while I couldn’t understand the words being spoken to me – I got a distinctive nostalgic feeling and well of energy that I had not had in years. I knew I was being spoken to and I didn’t understand a word coming around me but the words felt to me with the instinctive emotional twinge of actually hearing the booming voice of a mentor at the beginning of one of those stereotypical monster collection video games that were popular in my childhood.

I even heard musical cues that implied the booming explanation that I heard but did not understand a word of was supposed to make me fill with excitement for adventure and wonder about the world. The only issue with that situation was that I shouldn’t have been excited. The joy of childhood escapism and the excitement that it should have brought couldn’t overrule the facts of the matter. Perhaps by some miracle we had not been hit by the truck and had not been devastated by that accident - but blood pressure and natural, rational fear couldn’t be ignored. If I should have felt anything, it was that I should have been terrified. So I was, too. Terrified and many more emotions I couldn’t even begin to evaluate - because no matter the situation on the ground at the moment, I had just experienced the existential terror of seeing my certain death flash before my eyes. More than that, the certain death of my family. My family! As the thought of them came to my mind, I suddenly felt their absence. With it, came a tidal wave of emotions. Fear led the charge, as concerns of whatever situation I was in, wherever I was, all of it washed away from fear for their safety and my want for them. Where were they - that was the more important question! But the fear was only the beginning wave, and a feeling of doubt and weakness followed, attempting to drown out any flickers of hope that might linger latently in my mind.

Anger followed - anger at myself, anger at my emotions, anger at the situation, anger at existence itself. It was hope struggling in some ways, but I realized it was also guilt wearing the mask of anger. How could it not be my fault? Finally, the wave of grief. Perhaps they were not dead - but it was natural given the preceding events to assume that was the case. As the overwhelming feeling of drowning in my emotions continued I struggled for air. With a jolt of physical movement, I sat up and took a deep - cold breath.

Even as the words which I could not quite understand continued to buzz across my consciousness and the feeling of childhood nostalgia tickled my subconscious I didn’t possess any of the wonder I would’ve felt as a child. Instead of wonder, I felt grief, guilt, fear, and worry. In the darkness of the moment, I seethed and soon found that I was sore but sitting up. As the emotions settled to ebb and away from their flow the most important question remained. Where was my family?

I was on the cold stone of a marble table or as I took it in; maybe some sort of ritual slab. From the way it was carved and sloped, it certainly felt like I was on a roughly cut stone pulpit. Adding to the assumption of what it was were the smells around me were dominated by the faint tang of incense recently burned, of lit candles, and of some sort of wood polish. Perhaps this was a church? From my sitting position, I looked around the room.

The floor was dominated by rough-cut whitewashed stone and marble. With woven rugs, well-polished wooden pews sitting atop the flooring, and an ornate pulpit and ancient-looking chair to the left of where I sat. Tapestries and stained glass finished off the look of the room, and I made the decision I must be in some weird church - or maybe I was dead.

Whatever the details about the situation, I wasn’t worried about it specifically so much as the eerily smiling woman in a robe who stood before me and whom I had not noticed. From her blonde and gray-tinged hair in a braid to her slightly stooped and short and comfortably round form, I couldn’t help but think of a grandmother - she reminded me in some ways of my own.

“It’s about time you woke up, I gave you the whole introduction and you sat through it. I know you outworlders are often exhausted but that’s no excuse to be rude.”

I looked at her incredulously, and for a split second added anger to the stewpot of my emotions. How dare she greet me in this situation and my emotional state, after all I had just been through, with an accusation of being rude?

“Listen, lady, I don’t know who you are or what you said but you’ll have to excuse that. Attention is not an easy thing to give when you’re in pain and I’m definitely in pain.”

That made her odd smile disappear, and she immediately looked concerned. “You feel pain? That’s concerning. Tell me more.”

I’m not too proud to admit that I answered with a glare before speaking up. “I both feel like I got hit by a big rig truck and I have a massive headache. In fact, I swear that I did just get hit by one and have a headache worse than a hangover migraine. One that not even frat boys would laugh at.”

“A big rig truck? Frat boys? I don’t know the meaning of those words but as I was saying welcome to our World, Hekatondrona- it is a world of magic, adventure, and the monster partners who facilitate it.”

I had to have a concussion because that declaration was straight out of a generic brand version of one of the many games I played in my youth.

“You don’t know what my words are but you expect me to believe you about this straight out of a video game setup?”

Perhaps it was more than a second but it stopped as I jabbed a finger to point at her for emphasis and saw it didn’t match what it should be. I was a grown adult man and yet a child’s finger did the angry pointing.

As I saw that finger, I looked at my hands as a whole, stretching them and then looking at my feet as well. Something wasn’t right and it was then that I noticed the mirror behind this strange grandmotherly woman, and I instantly took in the fact that I looked like myself at the age of fourteen. Messy black hair, blue eyes, and a gangly frame that couldn’t decide if it was meant to be heavy set or skinny. I was wearing a navy blue shirt and tan cargo shorts along with multi-strapped sandals.

If I followed the logic that I had a concussion, and that I was still alive then this was a hallucination. It had to be, and before I could say anything else I saw something that made the idea of really arriving in another world even more into question. I had to be dreaming- because what I saw appeared to be a glowing green LCD information prompt coming up in front of me.