Formula One blared on the living room. Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Sepang. Some place like that. One of the far-away races that motivated his father to wake up eagerly at 5 AM on a Saturday and watch high-tech cars outflank and outrun each other in endless laps around circuits shaped like failed churros. Fran had tried watching a couple of times, as a child, when the prospect of an adult’s activity like waking up to watch something with his father felt incredibly exciting. But every single time, the race’s hypnotic monotony put him back into sleep before even noticed. His father would put a blanket over his cold body and let him sleep to the lulling sound of the speeding cars.
The screeching sounds and the panicky voice of the TV presenters, excitable like puppies, had woken Fran up. He checked the time on his mobile phone: 7 AM. Just a couple of hours of sleep. Fran held the phone against his chest and lay down on the bed, eyes open on the room's ceiling. His mind felt so overwhelmed that it just went blissfully blank. Sooner or later he'd have to get out of bed and join his family, but not yet.
He got up smiling: His first thought had been “I can't feel the weight of my scimitar against my back.” Funny but irrelevant. Other memories mattered a lot more. He grabbed his phone and wrote a note to himself. New Alliance. And then, the email address.
Fran knew better than to contact them immediately. His confusion would make him write something he'd later regret. He switched on his computer and opened up a web browser, but his fingers stopped as they hovered over the mechanical keyboard.
Could he google Mela without dropping dead? Could he create a social media account and post about his day there, the strangest day of his whole life? A day with goblins, an Orcish sword that he used to kill its owner, adventurers that turned out to be Earth humans like him, a foreign land, a foreign planet. With cultures that felt utterly alien, yet also apparently derived from Earth's past. And the people, such people. Seasoned dwarf veterans and their big dumb sidekicks. Thieves masquerading as 'rogues’”. Explorers plotting death for a map. An opportunity to help strangers in danger, and also to become complicit in the murder of innocents.
It was too much. Who would want a life where the smallest mistake could lead to lifelong regrets? Better to have a normal life, a normal job and normal friends. Only a psycho would disagree. Fran's shoulders felt tense with the weight of his decisions, and that had been just a day!
He returned to bed and covered his face with shaking hands. What a nightmare. “But not just a nightmare,” he thought. A beautiful dream too. The fragrance in the air and the warmth of the Sun surpassed anything Earth had to offer. In Mela, you breathed optimism through your nostrils. Un deniably a land for heroes, but not everyone was cut to be one, and the only thing he was sure of was that he'd been chosen randomly. There was no way that someone had pointed at him and said “There's my pick for the dreamers.”
At Mela, every moment had been an opportunity for a deadly mistake, but the other side of that coin was a land where every second was pregnant with feats of justice and glory. He'd enjoyed the day in that fantasy land, there was no denying it. Self-denial was the worst crime in Fran's book. Look at yourself in the mirror with sincerity and admit who you are. There's something you don't like? We all have something. Is there something you hate? Change it.
Feeling more relaxed, he sneaked into the bathroom with the utmost care. He wasn't quite ready to meet his family yet, especially not his sister, who might be eager to exchange clubbing stories. Three years ago, the siblings had reached an agreement never to go out to the same clubs on the same night. An accidental visit on a friend's insistence was fine, but that was it. It'd been hard initially, as Marta shared his musical taste, but soon Rafa and Alberto made that point moot: Weekends are for chasing girls, music be damned. Fran had agreed, as motivated by romance as anybody else. After all, girls occupied about 90% of this headspace on a slow day, but couldn't they at least make it 50/50, Fridays for techno and Saturdays for the mainstream clubs with their top 40 music? The council's reply came back unanimous: Are you a moron or what?
A quick image flashed across Fran's eyes. A demo. A crowd. The muffled sound of loud slogans in the night. Had Marta truly attended that freak parade? Asking her would be difficult. A year younger than Fran, Marta resented feeling watched over by her brother. Their relationship wasn’t terrible, but she’d accuse him of working as a double agent at slightest disagreement with their parents.
Fran got back to his computer and wrote a terse email requesting information on a lost package with merchandise for a minor anime series, Himiko, Accidental Trillion Dollar Girl. “I hope for an answer in 7 hours tops,” he wrote at the end of the message. About to click send, he took a step back and breathed in, seeking clarity. Those New Alliance morons had been deceitful and manipulative from the start. They'd made him reveal his full name and city of residence before explaining that no, that's not information you volunteer in Mela under any circumstances. Sharing his email address with them would be a second step in the wrong direction, so Fran created a new account instead, and sent the email from that one.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Time for breakfast.
His father Antonio waved at Fran as he entered the living room. “Did you just arrive?” he asked. “I hope you didn't, because it's 8 AM already. Let me guess, the race woke you up?”
“There’s no need to worry, Dad. I'm sure my dreams will be quieter when I go back to bed.” The rogue had explained that you couldn't return to Mela on a second Friday night's sleep. No restart, no reboot. An interruption of your sleep would send you back to Earth until next Friday, when you'd return to Mela between a few hours and a few days after your original departure. “That's all I can share with a newbie. The New Alliance has figured out the timing correspondence between Terra and Mela. You'll learn it after initiation.”
He'd refused to discuss initiation too, but had warned the new dreamer to save his worries for real threats. The New Alliance was friendly. A great organization, formed by dreamers from all over Terra collaborating hand in hand to discover the mysterious link between both lands.
Fran liked to spend early Saturday mornings alone in his room catching up on anime, manga, music and memes. Not his plans for today, though. A long list of coding exercises awaited him. He tried his hand at them but kept on interrupting himself to check his new email every two minutes. Finally, he admitted defeat and dressed as quickly as possible. There was no point in trying to study, and spending the morning in the living room with his father wouldn't relax him either. Neither would calling his friends, and it was so early anyway. His mind was under too much pressure. A stroll would help.
He walked away from the streets of his neighborhood of Argüelles as fast as his shoes would take him without breaking into a run. Usually, the people in his neighborhood brought a smile to Fran’s face. He loved the presence of the small neighborhood stores, the produce, fish and meat shops, and, seeing their owners, who'd lived in the area for decades. His parents insisted on buying at the neighborhood stores and only went to the big franchised markets for other items. Fran reached the big intersection at the Argüelles subway station, where the huge El Corte Inglés department store dominated the crossroads. Fran turned left towards Bilbao, turned right into the indie neighborhood of Malasaña and then headed toward Gran Vía and Callao, the heart of Madrid's downtown. He knew quicker ways to get there, but he needed time to clear his head and people around him to make him feel grounded in the normalcy of everyday life. Or so he thought.
Gradually, a paranoia very unlike him crept up, ballooning with every stranger that met Fran's eyes. A New Alliance girl? A solo dreamer? He bit his lower lip to quell his desire to scream at everyone he passed. “Mela! Mela! Mela! Kliogos! New Alliance! The Explorer's Guild and mining maps! It's all real! Cheng'An is the Empire’s capital! Greedy dragons shelter greedy criminals! It’s just a dream away, a week away! And if you're hearing this and I'm not dropping dead, that means you know what I'm talking about.”
The menace of death kept him in his place, but should he believe it? The New Alliance might have made it up to control information about Mela. Or even to hide a campaign to assassinate dreamers who disagreed with their secret objectives. And would Fran be next? He didn't regret his parting words to Merkes, but perhaps he could have been a bit less insulting. What a nightmare. New Alliance of not, how could he confirm whether revealing the truth would get you killed? He typed his phone's password and checked his email again. Nothing. He updated it and closed his app before realizing something had appeared at the top of his screen. BANG ZHAO CUSTOMER SERVICE. He opened it. “Please wait for answer of the most urgent species. Confirm trash filter with diligence.” Fran stopped. Clicking again, he opened the spam folder. A lone email promised last-generation steroids from Russian labs. “Power from another world. The secret of Silicon Valley's billionaires.” When he opened it, a string of long paragraphs described effortless gains for a ridiculous price, all thanks to a product delivered in discreet packages to customers in 160 countries. “Call our number TODAY for confirmation.” Must have been the first time a Russian pill-master included a Spanish landline number in his emails.
Fran looked around. He was a man on a mission. Where the hell can you find a phone booth these days? You saw them everywhere in old movies. Their invisible presence took over whole cities. He kept on walking, looking for one, for half an hour. He tried the large streets first: Fuencarral, Gran Vía, Alcalá. The small ones then, desperately. Where could he find a fucking phone booth? He didn't, but after an hour of start-and-stop low-level cardio, Fran did find a pair of local policemen who asked him to repeat the question thrice before heading back to their car to check with their colleagues. “It’s not a joke, really,” they insisted, laughing like it was the funniest question in months. Finally, one of them pointed toward further downtown and said “You know the Santo Domingo subway station? The one near the National Police station?” Fran nodded with aplomb and went on his way.
Once there, his hands dug into his pockets like hungry claws. He usually left home without coins. His fingers danced inside his trousers. A coin, two, the heavy, solid shape of a 2 euro coin. Victory!
He dialed the number and waited for someone to answer without even knowing what he'd say. Shit. The same mistake he’d made at Kliogos when he hadn’t prepared a Melan identity for himself. He'd have to remember to work on that.
Someone answered and Fran lost his breath for a second. It didn't matter. Thankfully, the voice didn't greet him with a “Yes?” or a “Hello?” An automated female voice recited a message monotonously.
“NA's next support meeting will take place on Sunday at 8:30 AM. Meet us underwater by the Palacio de Cristal before moving to the meeting's location. Remember: This meeting is for owners of a Newfoundland dog only. The Newfoundland Alliance doesn't admit fans or admirers. A mandatory contribution of 17.40 euros will be collected.”
Fran understood the cloak and dagger masquerade, but he looked up the dog's breed anyway. Big, hairy, with a dumb, friendly look in his eyes and a thick tongue that wanted to lick his owners. Nice dog, to be honest.