In a dream I just had, I was sitting at a tavern table. An old tavern with massive slabs of wood for tables and a huge open fireplace, reeking of stale beer and smoked meat.

Three aliens sat around me. One was a beast, redder than a lobster, but humanoid with horns. One looking like an elf, but not so pretty, with the necklace of bones. Acting like a boss. One dwarf, with the stare of a Russian mobster, with a bad breath and a long beard that hung down like a dry, brown moss.

We were playing cards. A big stack, each of us had. But only five were in our hands. And each card was a soul, to trade, to bet, to make a duel, to win you a fortune, or to lose it all.

It was a bad dream. And I’m happy it was over before I found out how it ended.

It scared me to the point I did not even want to know what it meant.

It’s all white now. A very bright light is all around me. Blinding bright. Can’t even open my eyes. Can’t even look straight.

How the hell did I get here? I try to remember. Only splinters of memories. Trying harder does not help. Not much.

I remember the summer heat. The long days when the sun torched the earth and you prayed to high heavens that the AC in your fifteen-year-old Ford does not break down. And then suddenly the sky decided to flood the world and it opened up its flood gate and water came down as a continuous wet curtain. The hard burned ground could soak it not. And the streets and roads became rapids and rivers. Muddy and deadly.

I was coming home from work when I saw on the road below me how the black water of a river took a car, toying with it, turning it around as if it was a small dinghy in a raging hurricane. A young woman at the front wheel, hysterical, a baby seat in the back. Not empty.

Saw the horror on her face. The water was rushing in, and she could not even move.

So, I stopped the car at the overpass, didn’t care how much they beeped at me from behind, and jumped. The water greeted me as if it was an evil stepmother, trying to choke me and suck all the life and joy out of me on the first chance it got.

But I did get to the car, pressed my body against it, put all of my back into it, and moved the tree trunk that had the door all jammed.

I was going to pull the woman out first, but she screamed about the baby, so, as the water rushed in, I unbuckled the baby, picked her up and took her out, then pushed her over my head, holding her in my right hand above the furious water as my left hand gave support to the woman to get out and climb on top of her car.

Yes. I got them out. Felt a surge of euphoria, of pride and ecstasy. Thought about what my kids would say when they found out I was a hero.

But only for a second. Or maybe it was two. Because then something big hit me. Might have been a giant with something very big and hard. Maybe a golf club, or a hammer. I do not know.

Probably was just a piece of timber flowing down the water like a catapulted shaft. Something like that. Does not even matter what.

But I remember. A dull pain.

It knocked my lights out.

Yet. I was not dead. I know that.

Someone else might have pulled me out before the murky water could take me in and give me its deadly embrace.

I am not dead. And this is not an afterlife.

This is a hospital. I’m sure of it.

I heard what they said a few minutes ago. I am comatose. No way of knowing when I will regain my consciousness. But I’m here. Just… can’t open my eyes. No, no matter how hard I try.

The light is too bright. My eyelids weigh a ton, too heavy to lift. Maybe I can open them with my hand. But can’t move my finger, not even a bit.

There is my wife. I hear her voice. And my kids. Crying. More like sobbing uncontrollably, seeing their mother falling apart, asking what is to happen to me now.

Something is stuck there inside my chest, inside my heart. Maybe it’s a piece of wood that knocked me out. Maybe a part of it still remains there, piercing my heart while I hear them, unable to smile, to hug, to make them feel all right. It spreads pain through me and my body cannot do anything but take it. My mind screams while my lips stay frozen.

I breathe. That’s all that is left for me to do. A plastic tube inside my mouth makes sure I do. I have no say in it.

Time passes. Pain does not.

The only thing working, so it seems, is my mind. And that… in all honesty, never worked right to begin with.

What would be the best? Will I ever recover? What about the cost? Our credit cards were already fully loaded. If we miss a paycheck, what will be the first thing we would stop paying? Our student loans? Car payments? The house? Where would they find the money for medical? My insurance might cover most of it. It certainly would not cover it all.

Maybe it would be best if they disconnect me. A splinter in my heart expands, penetrating deeper, and the sucker makes me want to just shut all the lights and turn the darkness on.

I do not want to think. Cannot think. Cannot find an answer. And I scream and beg for all that is holy to give me a way out. To make me wake up. And continue my life as it once was. It was so good before.

I was a decent enough guy. Never hurt anyone. Why did this have to happen to me?

A man comes in. I can see him. Do not know how, but I see him.

He is a strange-looking fella. Tall and fit. With sharp green eyes. Ageless. All dressed up in a very fancy suit, the kind I could never afford.

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Something tells me I should know him, but I do not.

He smirks at me, and I’m thinking he is going to ask me how I am doing, and then I will tell him, how the hell he thinks I am doing.

But instead, he just says, “Your management skill has not been left unnoticed. I have a proposition for you.”

“Yeah? Are you a god?”

“No.”

“A devil?”

“Some may say I’m worse than a devil. And kinder than a god. But then, in my humble opinion, I’m neither.”

What a douche. Yet I have nothing better to do so I ask, “Are you an angel?”

“No. Your concept of an angel would not portray me adequately either.”

“So, who are you?” I ask, hoping he would not be an asshole.

I get an answer that almost surpasses that. “My name is Ternicus, Baron of North Western Hemisphere and Seven Hectons, the fifth son of Marquis of Lemtar.”

I see. So now I see an elf standing in front of me. Older than Elrond, prettier than Legolas. Certainly not the same elf I’d seen in my dream, playing cards with me. So, that’s what it is… Just because I like Tolkien, now my mind is playing games with me. I guess it needs to do that to distract me. To protect me from the reality I find myself in.

“You can think that if you like. But I’m real.”

“Prove it.”

“I did not come here to prove anything. Especially not to someone like you.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You either take the job offered… or continue to live here as a vegetable in that broken body of yours. No matter how it ends, you will never be the same.”

“What?”

“Stop ‘what-ing’ me.”

“I saved a human life. Maybe even two. Doesn’t that count for something”

“And you think I should bow down to you for doing that?” he says, and scoffs, patronizing me enough that I am starting to really dislike this guy.

“You do not need to bow down to me,” I cannot help but say it. “But you can bow down to kiss my ass.”

He shakes his head, disapproving of my use of words. To hell with him.

“Okay, I’ll indulge you. Just this time, this time, and no more, you hear me?” he says but before he can explain anything to me, something strange happens.

I hear him talk, not like inside my mind, like I hear him actually talk through my ears.

“I'm an old acquaintance of your husband,” he says. I try to see to whom, but he disappears from my vision. “I came here to see him as soon as I heard,” he adds.

Then I hear my wife’s voice, her shivering voice, asking for his name, and it tears me apart. Anew.

"I’m here!! I’m all here, Babe!!!" I scream but the rebel yell just bounces off inside my mind.

I hear the man then asking Doctor Arya for a diagnosis.

He pronounces 'Doctor Arya' so clearly, I bet intended just for me to hear it.

The doctor, obviously, has to be a doctor, although I cannot open my eyes to see, clears his throat, then starts explaining, “His brain might never recover. There was a severe impact. We just do not know enough at this moment. His brain functions are highly irregular. He might recover in a few days, in a year, or never. It’s too early to know.”

The Elvish nobleman asshole talks again to my wife.

I want to scream again. Raise my hand, open my eyes. But my body listens to me not.

Then he turns around. I can see him now. But… I see when he talks to me his lips do not move.

He ambles toward me as if he has all the time in the world as if he is walking through some pretty elvish park, enjoying it. He keeps staring at me, and he is back inside my mind. He is also in my hospital room. It’s all so screwed up I cannot comprehend it.

“Why I can talk to you and not to them?”

“Because I’m a Lord. I can exist in places others cannot even dwell in dreams.”

“Nice. But… What does that really mean?”

“As much as you would like to talk to me and ask me your stupid questions for days on end, I do not have the desire to waste any more of my time on you. I already told you. I will not indulge your ignorance anymore. Think what you may.”

What an arrogant prick. That’s who he is. A huge donkey ass of an arrogant prick. If that makes any sense.

“If you are not interested, I will leave. And nothing will happen. And as I told you already, you will stay here living as a vegetable.”

I sigh. My brain at least sighs. I mean, I do not want to be a carrot. Or an onion, no matter how many layers I may have. I always disliked people who have layers.

As I look at the arrogance that resides in his eyes, his perfect posture of a British eighteen-century nobleman, missing only a long black coat, a walking stick that might be up his ass, and a funny hat so nobody can see his dirty hair. All I want to do is get up and slap him hard over his mouth, bitch slap all that pride right out of him.

But then I surprise myself, hearing my own words as I say, “And what is your proposal?”

“There is a place that needs urgent management.”

“Well, just give me a second to get up. And I’ll be right on it.”

“It’s not your body I need.”

“Then?”

“It’s your mind. Your soul.”

He is serious. Surprises me not. For a long while now I've accepted my innate capacity to attract weirdos.

“Who are you?”

He looks at me and twitches. And sighs.

I think he will repeat what he said before, if he can only remember it. I sure can’t. Lord of Seven Hells and a Lovechild of some bastard aristocrat. But instead, he surprises me even more as he says, “With time, maybe you will remember. But I will say this to you, this is not the first time we have met. And there is a good reason why you jumped in that river and tried to save a woman and her baby. Time passes, but some people never change.”

“What?”

“Accept my offer, and stop asking me stupid questions. You want answers, find them yourself.”

“Fine, I ac-” I stop myself as I look at him. “You will take care of my family while I’m gone, right?”

“I can’t take care of your family. They need a father and husband. I can be neither.”

“I mean, you will help pay …”

“Oh, that. That’s the least of the problems. That I can do.”

I can’t believe he even thought about anything else.

“But you should know, you made yourself so loved, that will not take care of them. But, if you think that will help… If that is what you need to find peace and accept the job? Sure. I can take care of that.”

What did I say before? An asshole.

He looks impatient, looks toward somewhere else, and I’m out of options. “Fine, then, then I accept. Now, are you going to help me get up, or do I have to do it all on my own?”

“Stop your senseless shenanigans. They were never funny, and they are not funny now,” he admonishes me in a dismissive tone.

I think there is hurt in his voice as well. I think I am finally getting to him.

“Okay. But I am telling you, I am trying as hard as I can, and nothing happens,” I say.

He ignores me and regains his emotionless voice as he says, “There is no time to give you a tour. So, you will have to use your intuition. You have done this before. Many, many years ago. Don’t worry. You will remember.”

I do not know what he means by it, but there is only one question worth asking now, “Will I ever be able to come back?”

“That depends on you and how powerful you become. If you get to Level 100, you’ll be able to do whatever you want to.”

The words echo in my head. I see a way out. I do not need to hear anything else.

So, yeah. Level 100 here I come.

Send me to hell, for all I care. I have a fight to wage and monsters to slay. For I will do whatever it takes. I will remember. Become powerful. I’ll become so powerful they’ll kick me out of hell, throw a party that I’m gone, and send me back to the loving arms of my wife. To my son’s giggling as we play, to my daughter’s soccer game where everything suddenly disappears and only she remains, moving on the field, running, dribbling, kicking ass.

Yes. We are fighters in our family. And I’m ready. Will come back to my family again. And be a better father and husband than I ever was before.

He touches me lightly with his finger, and I feel a jolt of electricity bolting straight through me. Then a thick deck of strange cards appears in his other hand. Golden with funny designs and gleaming stars.

He picks one, thinner than a nail, with a shining amber light all around it, and taps it against my hand.

The card suddenly shifts through the air and embeds where my chest is. I try to scratch it out but then, strange letters appear in my vision, and I’m drawn to read them. They say,

[Do you accept the offer to become an interstellar agent of LIP Corp?]

I guess this is all just a part of the process.

“I do,” I say readily, thinking what LIP can stand for. But then, anything calling itself a ‘LIP’, can't be that bad, can it?

[Do you accept to govern the Dungeon of Blackins Mountain, River Green District, Planet Zylon Rich, Sector 23XL32nn2?]

“I do,” I say fully resolved. "Especially if it is 23XL bla, bla, bla... Always liked that place this time of year," I add as if I know anything.

But I don't know a thing. Because in the next second…

[Waiting for the transference…]

The letters blink, and I lose my mind. Again.