Dust, blood, and smoke filled my nose. My eyes burned from the haze of light and sand. I stumbled back from the terrifying creature in front of me. Obsidian claws the size of my hands protruded from muscular ebony arms. Its eyes glowed darkly like tainted rubies. It roared, sending my soul quaking to the back of my spine.

In the quick second I had left to think, with panic pumping through my veins, I thought about my brief stay in Threa. It was a whirlwind of chaos and confusion, and now it looked like my journey was over for good.

***

Earlier that week I was scrolling through old high school crushes’ profiles on Peepfolio. Anna Lowester was getting married. Jackie Finnegan finally started her fair trade coffee business. Julia Bernstein moved to Virginia. If she were still local, I’d have totally asked her out for a cup of coffee.

I lived on the third floor of an apartment in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s a city that often made it close to the top of the ‘Most Dangerous Cities in the USA’ list. A good bit of that drama was on the other side of the city. In Benton Park, where I lived, it was pretty safe. Pretty red brick apartments bordered a small community lake with a playground. People walked with their kids down to one of several cafés.

“Would it kill you to help me with the groceries?”

My sister DeAnna heaved seven bags of groceries onto the kitchen table, right next to where I was sitting. I didn’t even notice her walk through the door.

“Why? You get them all in one trip anyways,” I said.

“I wouldn’t have to if you started pulling your weight around here.”

Dead weight. I couldn’t let on how much that hurt.

“Hey!” I mocked being offended. “I did the dishes.”

She looked over at the sink, then the stove, and gave me a look that said, “Are you stupid?”

I just rolled my eyes. “The ones on the stove don’t count.”

“UGH!” She shook with a brief spat of rage. She worked at the local YWCA as a lifeguard for the outdoor pool during the summer, so in that moment she looked like an angry lobster. She stomped down the narrow hall to the bathroom and slammed the door. I could hear the hiss of the shower. I went back to doom scrolling on my phone.

Then the ad popped up, the ad that would forever change (and ironically end) my brief existence. It was from Spudworks. I had briefly heard of the company on TV one night. DeAnna liked to catch up on the news. This particular bit was at least a little interesting to me because Spudworks was competing in a bidding war with Nextech, the leading industry giant in commercial and industrial drone technology. They were vying for the opportunity to clean the St. Louis arch. At just over 600 feet tall, that monument was a lot of surface to clean.

Although I would have loved to see a sud-spouting mega drone in action, the bid went to the company that would cost the least amount of dollars. Spudworks sealed the deal, proposing the use of buckets and elbow grease to make the arch shine again.

I absent-mindedly tapped on and scrolled through the “Now Hiring” ad when some numbers got my attention. 50 bucks an hour for a 20 hour workweek? For a week’s worth of arch scrubbing I could make enough to get the new Lamia VR headset. I could already imagine myself playing ‘Fae and Fire’, throwing fireballs into troll dens and soaring above Faeland in ultra realistic 5k graphics.

It would also get DeAnna off my back. She would get super uptight when I was between jobs or when I chose a new major at my junior college. I recently…left my job from The Java Lounge the week before, so she was starting to act bossy again.

This ad also pulled a dormant nostalgia from my mind. I had a brief flashback to when I was about eight. I remembered being in a headlock in the arch’s elevator. Mom was giving me a noogie. Back when she was strong enough to. I had been playing a game of ‘stick my shoelaces into the closing elevator door and quickly pull them back out before the doors close’.

I bet you can guess how that turned out. Sure enough, I was a bit too slow. The elevator claimed my laces. As the elevator moved up, my laces yanked down, painfully tightening my feet. I gave a brief howl of surprise till I heard the snap. The laces broke and the tension eased in my feet. My mom looked at my shoes, then at the elevator door where lace husk was spouting from the door like a fountain. She gave me that "Are you stupid?” look. Then the noogie.

I remember the doors opening at the top of the arch, and being let out into a small room with many windows. I laid down on a window and looked almost straight down to the city 600 feet below. I remember feeling my stomach drop, pure adrenaline-fueled excitement.

I snapped back to the present, eyeing the ad. I felt the addicting rush of enthusiasm. I tapped on the section which read ‘Apply Now’. I started to fill out my information. Name: Alaster Titus. Birthday: June ‘92. Address. Phone number. Check, yes I’m a human.

Then a notification popped up for Mr. GOAT’s latest video: “We filled a swimming pool with maple syrup and raced for a hundred-thousand dollars.” Couldn’t resist. Turns out they drained Kaleb’s backyard pool and rented a firehose to pump maple syrup into it. I had to run some quick math on my calculator app. For a standard 4000 square foot pool, let’s assume 5’ deep, that’s 20,000 cubic feet. Quick search for how much syrup is in a standard bottle. 24 fluid ounces. Convert to cubic feet. 800,000 standard - sized bottles of syrup, at 5 bucks a bottle that puts it at… a cheap 4 million dollars.

My jaw dropped. That was insane. Literally insane. That was what I could make if I had worked my job at The Java Lounge for 250 years. And it was being dumped into somebody’s swimming pool.

Shoot! I was supposed to be filling out an application. I switched back to that tab and a notification popped up that said I had two minutes before the page expired. I don’t have time to manually enter my work history, I thought. So I just attached the resume and cover letter I used for The Java Lounge, scrolled through the fine print, signed it, and clicked send…with 4 seconds left on the clock.

I sighed with relief. Then I almost cursed. I felt like an idiot. I was now keenly aware that the phrase “my admiration for a perfectly balanced brew” was in the cover letter I sent to Spudworks. Who would hire this clown?

As if answering my thoughts, I got a phone call the next second. Unknown number. At the time I was glad I answered it.

“Hello?”

“Alaster Titus.” It was said like a statement, not a question. The man sighed at both the beginning and end of his sentences.

“That’s me…who is this?”

“James Hodge. Hiring manager. Spudworks. -wheeze- . Orientation is 5 o’clock. Tomorrow. AM. Bring a long shirt. Long pants. Closed-toed shoes.”

I was stunned. I barely made out:

“So orientation, like… I got the job?”

“Don’t be late.” Click.

The line went dead. How bizarre. I was definitely not expecting them to get back to me this soon. And that manager, he hardly let me get a word in. He didn’t ask any interview questions. That was not normal at all. Nothing in the next week would be normal.

Then it hit me.

5 O’clock? Aww, man…I was not looking forward to waking up that early.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Might as well finish the Mr. GOAT video. Kaleb won the race and described the experience of swimming in the pool of syrup by saying it “felt like swimming through concrete.”

“You should probably get some shoes. Here.” DeAnna, still in her bath towel with another one wrapped around her hair, tossed a couple twenties at me and I scrambled to snatch them before they hit the ground. DeAnna had scary good hearing.

Welp, my favorite sandals couldn’t come with me this time.

***

I accidentally hit the snooze button a few times that morning. I definitely regretted playing FauxBlox till one.

The streets were fairly quiet. Besides a rambling homeless person in a pink party hat. He was mumbling something about the stars lining up. The old psycho might have been right. I drifted past him on my longboard, down a small park walkway. The massive silver arch strolled into view.

I tried rubbing the exhaustion from my eyes as I walked into the double doors at the end of the gleaming semicircle. I got there two minutes before orientation started. A diverse crew of people stood side-by-side on what appeared to be a long, rubber mat. There were footprints stamped on its surface. I fell in beside them, placing my feet on the footprints.

I checked my phone right as it turned five. I heard a sharp “CLICK” from behind me where the double doors were. I saw someone walk up from outside and try the door. The click was the doors locking. It was clear he obviously saw us which made it awkward. A minute too late. Could have easily been me.

The Spudworks hiring manager stood, his head slightly visible over the counter. He comically looked how I had imagined him: trimmed, polished, and dull. Something told me one of his hobbies could include collecting business cards or folding napkins for a dinner set. He wore a grey suit with a grey tie, and you guessed it, grey hair. He remained impassive as the knocks grew louder, and simply raised his voice to be barely heard over the insistent knocking.

Without introduction or even a “welcome to Spudworks”, he turned to look at a screen that rolled down. A barebones slide with “safety first” next to the Spudworks logo appeared. He sighed and said nothing as he sat down, with the slides moving at exactly 10 second intervals. I counted.

Attach the carabiner to the support frame. Always wear your hardhat, gloves, and goggles. Someone to my left yawned.

It’s funny, I thought, what’s a hardhat gonna do if you fall?

If you accidentally ingest the cleaning agent, signal the emergency alarm and lay on your side. Here’s how to use the pressure gun. Spray 45 degrees downward for best cleaning and to avoid getting the cleaning agent in your face. In theory, everything we needed to know.

After the slideshow he individually handed us our goggles, gloves, hardhats, cords, and pressure guns. He rolled out thick barrels of what looked like swirling bubbly stuff with patches of shiny floaties. Someone to my left audibly gagged. That’s when the smell hit. I about dry heaved. The smell was an unholy combination of battery acid, shower cleaner, and jr high boy gym socks.

I wheeled my barrel of cancer to the elevator. I was raised to the fifth maintenance stop, somewhere around the 450 foot mark. As a tourist I’d only ever been to the top. The doors opened and I pushed my bucket forward. It hit a bump and a small slosh of the contents landed on the elevator floor. I could hear a slight hiss and saw bubbles form where it landed. I had no doubt this stuff could clean off the sides of the arch. I was worried it would clean out the sides of my esophagus too.

I stepped off the elevator into a room where I could see the massive elevator pulleys and a narrow staircase. I approached the tiny maintenance door and opened it. I gasped. I had expected to be hit with a rush of exhilaration, and that was definitely there. But terror claimed the majority of my emotions. A cold blast of air slapped me in the face. I could feel my stomach in my throat. My hands started shaking involuntarily.

I saw the city of St. Louis in full view. The traffic looked like dust bunnies. The people walking the streets looked like ants. I could pick out the tiniest bit of pink that I guessed was the party hat on the homeless man I saw earlier. Previously when I came here I was looking through a slanted window. It felt much more terrifying looking down and thinking that there was absolutely nothing to catch me if I fell.

Let’s fix that. I clipped the heavyweight carabiner I’d received onto a solid steel loop on the building’s frame. I connected my pressure gun to the outlet and secured the heavy plastic cover so that the weight of its cord wouldn’t disconnect it. I attached the clear tubing to the pressure gun. I stuck the thin tube into the barrel of carcinogenic gunk. I noticed with fascination that the pressure gun also had what looked like a manual pump attached to the front.

I braced myself and scooted off the floor of the maintenance room into the open air. My heart caught in my chest as I fell a step’s height. Then I felt the reassuring tug of the steel cord. I turned the wheel to get me down about ten feet. I heard the twang of what sounded like lasers as the metal cord wobbled. It was still frightening, but I could breathe a little easier. The cord felt thick enough.

Time to get to work. I held the trigger down on the pressure gun. Only the surface layer of gunk fell off. Looked like I was going to need that pump. I found it took about 5 pumps to give me 3 seconds worth of blasting power to blast the 60-year-old encrusted dirt off the side. Knowing what I knew already about Spudworks, they'd probably done the math and figured it was cheaper to pay for the man hours it would take to pump the extra pressure by hand than it would to just buy better guns. Lucky me.

As disgusting as the cleaner was, it was undeniably effective. A silver, shimmering sheen reflected the sunset twilight off the arch’s surface.

Wait. Hold up. Sunset? It felt so wrong and out of place. I definitely didn’t put in a full shift. Did I? It was only the first herald of my world being ripped away from me.

The arch under me began to shake violently. It resounded ominously like a massive gong. Waves of savage resonance beat against my skull and eardrums. The pewing of the metal cord intensified. I went to cover both ears. That was a mistake.

My back smacked hard against the quavering metal of the arch. My teeth hurt as I clamped them down. Air rushed out between my teeth. The force of the shaking threw me away and back like a flailing pendulum. I felt sick to my stomach. Bile rose to my throat.

I remember thinking I was grateful the metal cord held. Until it didn’t. I heard a sickening SNAP above me, and I saw the frayed end of the metal cord launch away from the arch. Time slowed, and I remember this sense of hopelessness as I fell, with the arch shaking around me and ringing in my ears. My sense of color, shape, and distance blurred together

I pictured my death in daydreams many times, but never in a way as insane as this.

Oh well. If I’m gonna go now, it might as well be dramatic.

I knew I only had seconds before I became ground beef on the concrete, 400 feet below.

Suddenly everything became unnaturally still. I no longer felt the wind squeezing against my face. I didn’t have the horrible sensation of falling. I opened my eyes.

“Am I…dead?” I wondered out loud.

It was the purest white I’d ever seen. I looked up, down, left, right, but there were no landmarks. No sun. No shadows. Just white. And me. My gloves, hardhat, and clothes were thoroughly greased in that cleaning gunk. The void was kind of beautiful. It was absolutely terrifying.

Locked…Am I locked in here forever?

A keyhole seemed to spring up from nowhere. I tried walking towards it and found that I could. I was walking on infinite whiteness. I looked through the small keyhole. I was amazed to see what looked like light glinting off a lake, with trees swaying in the breeze.

Definitely not St. Louis. But then, where exactly was this? Wherever this was, I wanted in. But a problem stood in my way. It was a 4 inch keyhole and I was a six-foot-tall man. I tried looking at the other side of the keyhole, but it turned invisible when I viewed it from behind. My heart skipped a beat before I circled back around and the keyhole came back into view. I breathed a sigh of relief. But how was I supposed to get through this thing?

That’s when a crazy idea hit me. I just have to get through this thing. I remembered how I willed myself to walk on the infinite whiteness, so what if I just willed myself through the keyhole? Brimming with determination, I reached with my hand. I couldn’t believe what happened next. My fingers stretched and stretched till they looked like long strands of spaghetti. On a whim I reached behind my back and scratched that one spot I could never reach. I lost myself in the bliss of that moment, before turning back to the keyhole. I reached my lengthened fingers through it, and felt the warmth on the other side. My hands, arms, and shoulders were quick to follow, bathing in the sun. I went all in, stretching my whole body through the impossibly small keyhole. A blinding flash consumed me for a moment. I tasted something like strawberry lemonade. Then it was gone.

For a split second, I took in the world around me. In the twilit sky above me was something that took my breath away. Instead of a solid ball, the sun, if you could call it that, looked like one large and one small interlocking ring. It still hurt to look at, so my attention shifted to beneath me. Unfortunately, gravity existed in this world too. I resumed my headlong descent. The shimmering lake was right under me.

Maybe I can stretch myself into a parachute? I tried it.

Nope. Apparently coming through the keyhole meant I lost my ability to do that. So I just fell. I really wish I could tell you that I cleared the tree line. I didn’t.

I squeezed my eyes shut. It felt like getting hit with a wet street pole with leaves on it over and over again, first on my head, then back, one dangerously close to my manhood, then side. I didn’t have enough air in my lungs when I hit the water.

Pain erupted in my shoulder. I kicked frantically as I plummeted farther and farther down. I tried to swim up. Where was up? My arms and legs pumped as fast as I could. I puffed my cheeks in and out. My chest started to make hiccup motions, then started heaving. I desperately clawed my way up, dots swarming my vision. Finally my hand broke through, and I used the last of my strength to breach the surface. I gratefully gasped huge lungfuls of air.