Now, I’m sure you’ve all heard the story of someone getting portalled to a new world and becoming someone incredible with magic, bending the very world to their will!

This isn’t that story.

This is the story of little old me, a teenager with a problem with those who ruin others to make themselves seem better. Not an uncommon viewpoint, not by any means, but one I have.

But where to start? I mean, so much has happened, and I highly doubt I remember everything the right way, but I think I can try from just before The Event.

See, I’m a solid D-C student. Ds get degrees, after all. It’s not that I’m dumb, or anything, but I can never get the stuff turned in on time. I always end up putting it off until the last second, trying to get it done in the few hours I have, then hope I get a decent grade on it.

I’m getting off track, uh, right. Alright, so, I was driving home, yes, I drove. I took the course. Anyways, as I was driving home one night, something grabbed me, physically. Like a giant hand, it wrapped around me, and pulled me through some kind of portal, like a tear in reality. Naturally, I panicked.

I started screaming bloody murder, hitting it with my own hands, only it didn’t matter to the hand. Oh, what does it look like? I have no clue, I didn’t get a good look at it, and I doubt it was covered in spikes like I think it might’ve been. If it was, I would have been punctured seven ways from sunday.

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After the worst feeling, like being pulled through three dimensional sandpaper of the particular coarse variety, I popped out into a realm of blinding light. Now, I’d like to say that I broke free at that moment, and punched the hand’s owner in the face so hard, they were blown into the next reality, the truth is that I immediately burst into tears as the light practically dug claws into my eyes.

By the time that my eyes cleared, I was staring into the giant face of a Zeus lookalike, who was also frowning heavily, “Hmmph, puny as all the rest,” It spoke, sounding like rolling thunder, “A pawn at best, a waste of effort at worst.” A hand rose from Its side, moving too fast for me to see, when the world was washed in light, even more so than before.

The frowning face of Definitely Not Zeus widened Its eyes, slightly, “Not a drop. Perhaps it has a use after all. I dub you Manacles, Antithesis of Possibility.”

As the last word left DNZ’s mouth, a change rolled over me. Nothing physical, I think, but whenever I tried to remember my name, all I could remember was Manacles, pronounced Mana-cles, like a Greek philosopher.

With a heave, ho, and a mighty shrug, DNZ flicked me from his grasp into another tear in reality, this one somehow even more unpleasant. I get shudders just remembering that transit. Ugh. See?

Anyways, dazed as I was, I could figure out when the tear spit me out somewhere, since the… unpleasantness stopped. Ugh.

Which brings me to now, monologuing to myself as I try to make sense of what on Earth just happened, and why am I now in a forest of all places? I don’t even like nature!