Fantasy was bullshit.

That was my final understanding of the situation, but those words were the furthest thing from my mind when I was getting ready to leave the house hours prior. It was a Sunday, overcast, and ignored was the energy in my surroundings. Everything felt charged, the air was heavy, my hair was perpetually standing on end, and my legs were sore, which was unusual.

Normally I didn’t feel them at all. They were heavier than usual too, and it made it nearly impossible to draw my pants up over them from where I sat on my bed. The struggle to get dressed and looking nice was all the harder when coupled with the terrible overcast outside, shrouding what was supposed to be a beautiful sun-shine day into gloom and mist, with a warm bed coaxing me back to its clutches. Yet even the terrible weather couldn’t dissuade a smile on my face, my mood all the better for the days plans.

I had my first real date. Shifting my weight into the wheel chair, I double and triple checked my cell phone as I fidgeted with the impersonal metal of my chariot, making sure I missed nothing. I hadn’t. All night I’d expected the cancellation text, a change of plans, and it never came.

The last message was a bright pink heart emoji, sent to me twenty minutes prior, and that send my own into a fit of flutters. I blushed, cursed myself, and wheeled out of my bedroom, heading down the hall of our tiny family home, and stopped by the living room. My mother was there, as she always was, on the sofa with a thousand-mile stare that clued me in, that it was one of her bad days, and I meant to thank my brother later for getting her out of bed. My mood fell a little just looking at the aging face, the wrinkles under eyes and grays around her ears showing more and more in the passing days, and I knew it would’ve been worse if I had to dress her this morning, which made me all the more appreciative of my brother.

Noah could be a little shit, but he understood when something was important, and this was very important to me.

“I’m off!” I hollered down the hallway, craning my head to look back for him to peek out of his room, or come bolting out.

He didn’t, and I shrugged at my mother who also didn’t so much as turn to look at me. A little drool ran down her chin, and I frowned knowing I couldn’t reach her without expending too much effort. “I’ll be back later, okay? Just don’t let Noah give you too much shit, or change your channel. Noah! Make sure she eats!” I spoke, and then yelled again, and didn’t get a response back from either of them, though I could hear Noah banging around in his room after that.

Wheeling myself out the front door after pulling some backwards momentum to open it, I dreaded the pain of public transport. The drizzle immediately dampened my hair, and my umbrella had to be folded out and affixed to my chair, and after fidgeting for the right angle for the wind, I rolled down the ramp to the sidewalk. The bus stop wasn’t far from where I lived.

I was happy when public transport turned out to be less of an irritant than I’d expected, or maybe I was just in that good of a mood. I was fortunate to live in a nicer part of Chicago, where the bus drivers weren’t pricks and people hadn’t broken the strap in rails, which meant I didn’t have to hold on for dear life to a hand guard. The driver helped me, and the ride was short enough to where I didn’t have to fidget too much, but also long enough that I could get my thoughts in order.

Though my thoughts were only on one thing.

It hadn’t been but two weeks ago that I’d met her. It was at a school function, a charity fund raiser where we were raising money for an expansion of the library. They figured I looked good enough holding a book, or talking into a lowered microphone, a pity case for people to donate more to the school, that they put me up on a stage, with no actual ramp to get up to it, just for the sympathy points; though I couldn’t for the life of me pull the connection between bad legs, and new books. The parents and especially the mayor could though, because it was a resounding success - we raised more money than we ever had after I got up to talk about my love for books, and the challenges I faced that drove me to them.

It wasn’t all bullshit. I really did like books. I just didn’t give a shit about raising money for the school, but was promised help with college admission if I got up front and followed a script, so I did. I must’ve done a good job, because parents kept coming up to speak to me about how brave I was. The only person who called the bullshit for what it was had been Peyton.

“Really put your best foot forward there.” Was the first thing she said to me, and it left me so shocked after the boredom, and ass-kissing, that came with the charity drive that I laughed so hard that I choked.

Choking and coughing your lungs out in front of a pretty girl was never fun, and I felt heat rise to my cheeks just on recollection of the event. Now, after her courting me for two weeks, her words not mine, and constantly putting herself in my presence at her every opportunity, I had broken down and accepted a date with her. Dating a girl.

"Cripple and gay, you're really gunning for that college admission huh?" Noah had said the night before, and I had managed to ram the metal footrest of my chair into his shin. Like I said, he could be a little shit.

I knew Peyton and him would get along, they both lost whatever piece of brain goo a normal human had that filtered their words.

The ride to down town Chicago was mercifully short, and I was thankful of that fact, yet more time was needed to get my nerves in order. Already I was second guessing the band t-shirt I decided to wear, I was staring at the stupid mock patches in the knee’s of my jeans that obviously weren’t from wear and tear, and part of me wished my hair was pinned up in a more interesting way. When the doors opened, I had to hurry to unstrap my chair and was one part thankful to two parts annoyed that the driver helped me off.

The bus had dropped me off on Michigan Ave, right next to the gigantic shiny bean of a archway that rested on top of a strip of would-be white buildings filled with cafe’s, a grill, and various other shops and stores. It was in desperate need of a power washing, and people were flocking to it to take pictures with the large mirror-like structure.

Millennium park was just a little too busy for me, and I parked myself under the bus stop to wait. She said she’d arrive early, but Peyton was nowhere to be seen so far, and the air was just as electrified as earlier, feeding into my anxieties. I took to people watching, since for some odd reason there was not a bird to be seen, and noticed they all seemed more than excited. Each person had a bounce to their step, they moved fast, they smiled brightly, as if the unseen energy I’d been feeling all morning had charged them, and gave the crowd power.

It reminded me of a holiday season. Had I forgotten one? I’d only ever seen this kind of air of excitement on Fourth of July celebrations, the current of anticipation that went with waiting for the sky to be lit up with fire works and cheering applause. I almost reached for my phone to check, yet was immediately drawn away from my bag by the appearance of a car.

Sleek cherry red with windows tinted so dark that I couldn’t see inside had pulled right in front of the parking spot. It wasn’t a model I was familiar with in the slightest, we couldn’t afford cars and I couldn’t drive them, so they always were outside of my field of attention. Even still despite my lacking, I knew this was a very new model. It was edged in matte black, the wheels a sporty white, the design too n arrow compared to the current trend of bulky rounding that had come with the advent of electric cars, and all around it draw the eye.

My eyes were drawn even more as the backseat door opened. Rising from it was a picturesque image of sheer beauty, something boys fantasized about and women envied. Her hair was pulled back, four parts black to two parts orange, streaking in random orientation to give her hair a striped quality, a look that made messy look good on her. She’d dressed up herself in a black short with a high collar shirt with no sleeves, black to match her hair, buttons done down all but to the bottom where it made the shirt flare out slightly around her hips. The orange jeans she wore could’ve looked tacky, but they worked with her hair, and her hazel eyes, which pivoted from her saying something to the driver to looking at me.

Immediately her lips, as dull pale pink as her nearly stark white face, parted to give me a toothy grin and her full attention. She slammed the car door, ignoring something the driver said, and jogged over to me, pink trainers being the stand out to her outfit that I only barely noticed, too absorbed in staring at her approach. It was killing me as she neared.

“Sorry for keeping you so long, traffic was a little backed up. You look great, I love the shirt.” Peyton spoke with energy, still smiling too much, teeth too white in a way you noticed. I knew they weren’t dentures, but they gave me that vibe.

With the immediate attention and compliment, my cheeks flushed hot.

“You look better. That was a uhm, nice car, your dads?” I said, trying to change the subject from me to her.

“Moms. Dad hates the stuff, horse and carriage type guy.” Peyton said. I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not, judging by the look on her face.

“Me too, I don’t like cars so much.” I admitted.

I couldn’t help but notice her gaze drop to my legs. She probably knew. I pretended not to notice, and wheeled out from under the cover of the bus stop. Peyton joined my side, not behind me to push, and began walking while talking as I wheeled beside her.

“Me neither honestly, I like the open sky. Good breeze, not too much sunlight, like running. You strike me as a coffee shop corner with a beat up old book type though, which is why I’ve planned the date!” She said, loud enough to catch some mean glares from older couples and people walking past.

“Should I be scared?” I said, trying to tease.

“Nope, there’s this neat little place that serves some weird foreign stuff, it has a wild coffee selection. I figured we’d catch lunch there, then come back to the park when it’s a little less full. I was gonna suggest finding some water to feed ducks but….” She trailed off. She’d noticed as well. If we were dealing with birdless skies, we’d probably be dealing with duckless waters too.

I smiled. She’d put in some work to figure out an ideal date for us. I’d known Peyton hadn’t been from around here, new to the city, and she’d gone out of her way to find places to go, a list she curated for me.

“That sounds lovely.” I said. I noticed her checking her watch, and followed up, “Not on a time limit are we?”

She blinked then grinned wider. I was forced to look away, heat rising in my cheeks for not the first or last time today.

“Kind of. It’s hard to explain. You’re just gonna have to trust me, alright? I promise it’ll all make sense soon, okay?” She said that much. I was confused, but I’d nodded.

The place we were going was only a few blocks down, and traffic jams made it easier to get across streets, meaning we didn’t have to go far.

Once there, an out of date looking place with a mismatched aesthetic, a mixture between a fifties diner and a modern day café, we made our way inside, and Peyton insisted we be away from windows and closer to the back. I’d given her a peculiar look, and she showed me that rakish grin of hers once more and it subjugated me in a mighty fashion. We took the booth in the back corner, and she mercifully didn’t offer to help me as I scooted from my wheelchair to the seat with some effort to get around the corner of the table.

She was patient the entire time.

“Why the back corner?” I asked now, curiosity unsated.

Peyton hesitated, and I caught that. I was catching a lot of things in fact. Dust motes seemed sharper, everything seemed sharper, I could see the wrinkles in her clothes more clearly, the fingers on the table she had been tapping with, chewed at the ends so the flesh was slightly torn. The lighting in the place must have been incredible, and I blinked a few times, which she studied. She was awfully quiet as she searched for an answer, or what was looking more like an excuse with every second that lingered.

“I was worried about a car coming through the building.” Again, she said that, and for some reason I didn’t take it as a joke. If I hadn’t just sat, and not even yet ordered, I’d assume I had been drugged. My perceptions were dialed to an eleven, both sight and hearing, and even my brain seemed to be working a little more on edge. I winced again, and saw her staring at me more intensely.

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I was too focused on her expression to notice the hand creeping across the table. It took mine firmly, digits wrapping around them in a firm touch, and that anchored me back.

“Are you okay?” She asked now.

“Yeah- Yeah I’m fine. I think I took a double dose of medicine this morning, eheh.” I spoke, and with jittery hands I watched the waitress approach. Our age, but not from our school, and I didn’t know what made me draw that connection. Dark skinned, wearing the cafe’s checker-pattern black and white uniform with a matching half white, half black, apron on over the attire, Peyton ordered for us with the girl listening more than I was. She asked for tea’s that I hadn’t heard of, words I probably would’ve mispronounced, and I watched the waitress, acutely aware of her presence. She scribbled the order down on a notepad, and I noticed her pencils eraser was chewed, her finger nail was cracked, she had a scar on her pinky, and her wrist was stiffer than someone’s normally would be.

I winced as if it were becoming a common tick of mine. The hyper focus subsided when Peyton noticed, and squeezed my hand again.

“Focus on me, Charlie.” Peyton spoke again, and I hiccupped. My face grew red at the nickname, Charlotte to Charlie, which made me smile. Focusing on her was easier.

Unlike the checkerboard tiles of the floor that needed serious cleaning, the seats that had cracks and little pin holes here and there from someone prodding with a pencil, the wood grain that had split towards one end where they nailed it to the wall, and the dust motes that traveled up towards the fan, and unlike all of the too many details, Peyton was security incarnate. Her face had no blemishes, her eyes were perfectly clear, not a single bloodshot line in them, her lips were slightly chewed on like her fingers were and when I came aware that I was staring at her lips I looked up and at her eyebrows instead.

She was easier to look at than the world itself, and that felt abnormal.

“I’m okay, sorry.” I repeated myself, taking deep breaths, and focusing only on the two-toned head of beauty before me. She smiled, and after a while, I regained clarity- or in this case seemed to lose it.

“Good. Listen when I said we’re on a time crunch I meant it. We were supposed to have a few more days, now less than ten minutes, I was going to try to explain to you later today, but in the next five minutes I’m going to step outside. When I do, you’re going to drink your tea, then get ready to move okay?” Peyton spoke, squeezing my hand again, and now she was glancing towards the window.

The waitress returned to our drinks, and I noticed her staring at me. Too long, dazed even, and she blinked a few times and winced as well when Peyton cleared her throat. She turned and left, and I looked to Peyton now, more confused than ever.

Peyton stood, and I gripped her hand. Her posture and demeanor had briefly changed in the moment she stood, and it broke for only a moment into a smile as she pulled away from me, before jogging her way to the front of the building and out into the street.

I did as I was told, and sipped my tea. It wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t know what else to say or do - she seemed too serious for it to be a prank, and my estimation of Peyton left me positive I wasn’t being ditched. The tea was way too strong as I mulled over my thoughts, and I wrinkled my nose. Adding trace amounts of sugar, I sipped it, and found it to be too sweet. I hadn’t even added that much sugar.

Irritatingly the wait was punctuated by the tick of a clock on the wall. Too loud, too slow. My ears picked that much up, and as I glared at it, they started picking up the confused mutter that was rising from the front of the shop, and it was impossible to crane my head to see what the commotion was about. Whatever was happening was taking place outside people were filing out of the restaurant, leaving me alone. From where I sat, I wasn’t able to make out much, and eventually fumbled out of my seat and into my chair as my legs begin to throb from sitting too far at an angle.

Wheeling my way forward through the shop, moving aside pushed out chairs, I muttered curses at my predicament, and eventually managed to get to the front door and wheel myself out.

The world was a dark blue.

Not in a sad, melancholy, metaphorical sense of the word. It quite literally was blue. The pavement beneath my chair glowed, and the sky had roiled with a deep and black blue of not quite clouds, and too dark to be the normal sky, with the vicious of a pot bowling over. When I thought everything was charged before, now it felt absolutely volatile. The air around me felt thick, as if it were too humid and too hot, yet there was a chill in my bones that chicken pimpled my arms.

The street itself was outright packed too, people murmuring among themselves. I was too low to see what they were looking at initially, assuming it was something on down the street, until movement caught my eye. The volatile churning sea of a shadow black and ink blue sky was moving to one destination, as if it were being sucked to that one spot.

The center of the city, and the center of a brewing storm. Red light spilled from that spot, a chaotic circle flashing with bolts of lightning that found themselves colliding and not reaching the ground, and from it streamed black dots that were too far to make out the shapes of, and from those black dots shot streaks of- fireworks? That was my rational mind at work, until the first ‘firework’ touched down, and with it an explosion that rocked the nearby buildings. The next seconds were chaos. The crowd rumbling and screams tore through as more of the red lights touched down, and the explosions grew closer, and in their rush to back away I was knocked from my wheel chair.

I hit the ground hard and was being nearly trampled, sometimes stomped by the crowd of panicked people, and I could do nothing but curl up in a ball, still slightly tangled in my wheelchair, to protect my head. My voice was quickly becoming hoarse as I yelled for them to stop, or for help, but people were too panicked. Too afraid of what was happening, and I still couldn’t wrap my brain around it myself.

Moments later, the screams got worse, and the crowd was thinning around me. My body was bruising and ached, scuffed from being stomped or kicked, yet I still ventured a peek to see what the commotion was about, the ground rumbling from unknown forces.

In the center of the street stood a man on a horse. No, I realized, not a man, not a horse, it was both. The centaur stood larger than an average car, its bottom half a slab of muscle and thick black fur, while its top half was that of a very tanned man, from what little skin it showed. It was donned in armor and robe-like pieces of cloth, and though it was nearly encased from head to toe- well, in this case hip, the muscle beneath its form stood out more than that of its horsen half. One bicep was larger around than my entire body, and it wielded a staff the length of a car, ending in a point of shimmering red glass that made the shape of glowing axe head, and he was putting it to good use.

As a crowd on the other side tried to disperse, the centaur rushed, and swiped across the spreading masses, bisecting no less than twenty in the one swing. I’d never seen someone die, let alone so many, and the sheer amount of blood left me making a strangled gasp as I tried to crawl back to the shop, struggling to untangle myself from the wheelchair that was more than useless now. If another crowd of fleeing people came, the trampling may certainly kill me, if the centaur didn’t notice me first.

Advantages of being small and low to the ground.

The Centaur moved with constant focus on killing, his axe head plunging down to cut one mans arm off clean at the shoulder. When his momentum would normally be arrested by others in the way, he instead trampled them, chasing the larger groups of fleeing people down the road as cars veered. One tried to run straight into him, plowing through citizens as a byproduct, and the creature went low. His top half was almost like a vertical plank, arms extended, and as the staff dropped, he caught the front of the car. From what had to be at least eighty to zero in a single collision, the Centaur didn’t so much as flinch or even get pushed back, and he hefted the car up to crush the front between two massive arms, engine block and all.

I watched in silent horror as he lobbed it onto another crowd of onlookers. I’d already crawled back, to the door of the tea shop, and found I couldn’t reach the handle. My arms were too short, the handle too high, and scraping my fingers into the recess between the door and frame did nothing but break the ends off of my nails. I was unable to pry it open, and I choked a sob of defeat at my predicament as another set of creatures swaggered their way down the street.

The black dots that I had seen before were these creatures. Centaurs, and now frog-like men, and god knew what else. Their heads were large, round, distended slightly in the front, with too large mouths and languid green skin. They glistened with moisture, taller than I was, and fat in the arms and legs while skinny in the torso. Whatever they were, they were just as ugly as I was scared, and that was saying quite a bit. They didn’t seem to pack the destructive capabilities of the Centaur, instead focusing on single targets, a woman that was running caught by the neck. It squeezed and crushed her windpipe to strangle her screams, and simply discarded her limp body onto the road, where a car ran her over as it tried to swerve, and then crashed into a lamp post.

By this point the streets and nearby buildings had started being covered in flames. It was a small mercy that I was backed into a corner, in the slight recess of a doorway, and that the flame’s hadn’t reached to my side of the street. Mercy however, was quick to run out, and the centaur had doubled back. It had picked up its staff, and the glass axe was now the shape of a spear, and the creature was using it to do a double check of bodies. It pierced corpses, and rolled them to the side, making piles with how it skewered some and then used a hoof to pull the limp bodies from his spears end.

It stopped, and noticed me.

Quickly I turned and slammed my hands in the glass door, trying to break or crack. It was double paned, too thick, and each thud of my hands only made more noise, and the frog men were making their way over with the centaur as I choked back a sob. The galloping of the figure made me all too aware that I didn’t stand much of a chance of survival. In a matter of minutes they had wiped out an entire street, and I was just one girl, with legs that didn’t work, and no hope of rescue. Would police officers arrive? Not a chance, I figured. The explosions had been closer to the center of town, and that’s likely where most of the threat was, threat of fire and threat of these creatures. Distant sirens rung over the sounds of chaos, and more noises of explosions, and they were too far away. I could already feel the shadow of the creature wash over me, and could feel the menace.

“P-Please don’t, I- You don’t have to do this.” I glanced back as it raised its spear, and saw the hesitation. Maybe I looked that pitiful. Tears, snot, my hair messed up, and my clothes scuffed. My legs were at slightly odd angles, and I had blood on my hands from scrapes and cuts, noticing them as I raised my hands.

The Centaur bowed his head, and then lunged down with the spear aimed at me. I instinctively flinched and closed my eyes, waiting for the pain to come. It’d be over. Life didn’t flash before my eyes, and I didn’t see the light at the end of a tunnel or anything like that, I just felt regret, and an uncomfortable amount of relief. I wasn’t suicidal, not even in the passive sense, and that relief that it was over scared me as much as the hulking titan that was about to kill me. It was the end of hardship, I could go see my dad. Coping maybe.

The spear never found me in the end.

Moments of quiet passed, until I heard the grinding of pavement and soft grunts. I dared to open my eyes, and felt the better half of relief, not the ugly confused sort I had just experienced, at the sight.

“I told you to wait inside for me.” Peyton grunted, her feet firm in the ground. The spear was being held back by her, and I noticed she was as wrong as anything on the street prior. Her arms, exposed from the sleeveless shirt, were stark white, paler than I was by a significant margin, with blue veins scattered across in too many places, like webbing up her arm, and thicker veins of the protruding sort stood out where muscle sat, coiled and visibly straining. The arms on up seemed to be stretched for skin, and her hands were different to match, fingers long and pointed, with no details of little things like fingernails, or detailed digits. To say they had turned to bone would be a good guess.

It was her face that worried me the most. It was stretched back, as if the skin was pulled taut at the back of her skull. Her eyes were too angular, too sharp, redder than the crimson that washed the streets, a solid color from one corner of the eye to the other. Teeth of her exposed mouth were pointed sharp razors, and her nose was nearly flattened. If I hadn’t heard her voice, I wouldn’t have known it was her.

Having seen that very same Centaur heft and crush a car, I didn’t know how she was capable of holding back his spear, and the power struggle was clear as her arms began to shake. “Leave this one if you want to live, buddy.” Peyton spoke, confident, and I realized she had only sounded normal for my sake before, as now the voice was filled with a snarl, rough at the edges as if she just eat a hand full of gravel, and had damaged her throat thoroughly.

The center, in response, hefted back his spear, and she released it. In one moment it seemed to stand down, and in the next Peyton struck it.

Her figure moved in a dangerous step forward, and it reminded me of a coiled snake. That clawed hand, stark white, was drawn back in one instant, and I could see every muscle in her back scrunch up and the fingers curve inwards, muscles rippling in preparation, before she striked out into the center of the Centaurs stomach. It was a follow through, a step into him, that let her penetrate the armor, into the flesh, and then out of his back, her whole body wrenched into his form from hand to bicep. It gasped, and Peyton had to use considerable effort to remove herself from the creatures body before it collapsed forward onto its knee’s, all four. It slumped to the side seconds later, curling up into itself.

To say it had been murdered in cold blood would be an understatement, it hadn’t been a threat any longer from what I saw.

“Come on. You can get up, and run right?” The monster known as Peyton turned to look at me, arm covered in bile and blood. The question was almost as confusing as she was terrifying, and I glanced to my wheelchair. In a huff she grabbed my wrist, which elicited a yelp, and I was yanked up.

Onto my feet.

The act alone startled me, as my legs shook like jelly. I was upright, and Peyton wasn’t letting me fall, and I found my weight was being supported by once useless limbs. Confusion. I looked up at her stretched back face, and she stared down at me with a nod.

“I’ll explain in a bit, but we have to go. Just follow me, and trust me.” The frog creatures were approaching. The movement startled me forward, and I had trouble remembering how feet worked, but I was running, at some points being dragged, down the sidewalk as I heard some unseen behemoth roar behind me a good distance towards the cities center. I decided not to spare a glance back, but shrieked as Peyton pulled us through a wall of flame, too deep into the curtain of heat for my comfort, and I ran feeling my hair and clothes being singed, yet my skin felt fine. I felt really good in fact, now that the terror of near death was temporarily behind me.

As we ran, we moved across more streets, and I saw more figures. A large creature that I could only call a Orc was bashing at a brick wall, trying to get into it, too big and too green with muscles that would impede its movement through the shops window, so it would just tear down the building it seemed. More Centaurs mowing down crowds, each as efficient as the one I encountered. There were tiny little red devils, imps, that were hauling away goods from the stores, tiny looters. I think I saw the head of a Dragon peaking around from a corner, but Peyton moved faster past that particular street corner, which made me think it actually was a Dragon.

Fantasy was bullshit, I’d decided. I hated it.