“Are you going in tomorrow?” Grant asked, the sound of clicking buttons as he furiously mashed the X button on his controller.
“I don’t know…” I replied, taking another sip from my beer and then a drag from my cigarette. As I blew out the smoke, I added, “Think I can get away with another day off?”
Grant, wearing a black-faded shirt from a metal band, shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, you got pretty fucked up. I think the sight of your face would lose them money at this point.”
I picked up my pillow—a regular pillow, not one of those anime body ones that some sick fucks use—and, just as Grant went to perform a combo, threw it at the back of his head.
“K.O,” the announcer said as his character lay dead on the floor.
“Dick,” he muttered, then he turned and gave me an irritating smile.
“At least I’ve actually been in a fight before,” My mood soured for some reason. “You’d probably have just shit your pants.”
Grant got up and turned off the TV. He picked up and threw the pillow back at me, causing me to drop my cigarette. I was losing far too many of those things. “Gettin’ your ass kicked doesn’t count as a fight,” he said.
It hurt my pride, but in hindsight, Grant was right. Getting absolutely rocked in an alleyway doesn’t make you Mike Tyson. “Whatever, man. Enjoy that comic I so painstakingly retrieved for you.”
“You’re a true hero…”
I shrugged and waved him away. Grant, content with his minor verbal victory, went to his room and turned off the kitchen light as he did, which also served the double-purpose of being my bedroom light. His door creaked annoyingly as it closed.
I picked up my still lit cigarette off the ground and sighed when I saw the small burn-hole in the carpet. Looks like we were well on the way to losing that deposit.
I glanced towards the table and saw the silver amulet… The Dragon’s Eye, Ray had called it. Appearance wise, it did not look cheaply made. I turned it over and saw no identifying features. No manufacturing dates or locations. Had to have been a second-hand shop. Etsy maybe? Still, whoever had made it had done a fine job. I turned it back over to see the “dragon’s eye” staring at me. I could have sworn it peered into my very soul.
“Probably worthless,” I muttered, and slid it back onto the coffee table. “Man, fuck this…”
I yawned and sent a text to Gary about how much pain I was still in… with my “three broken ribs” and all. A little white lie hurts nobody. I received a reply quickly that essentially said not to worry about it. Two solid days off work in a row. One more, and I would need to find those muggers and thank them.
I went to the kitchen and ransacked the fridge, quickly finding my prize. I broke off a small piece of an edible brownie… not enough to get fucked up, but just enough to drown out the shit; to get me in that happy place where nothing else mattered except the here and now.
True fucking bliss.
I found my headphones, put the earbuds in and hit shuffle. I grabbed my pillow and threw it down on the couch, laying on top of it and kicking my feet up. I waited, listening to the music until the edible was in full-effect. I breathed a sigh of relief… free of the trials and tribulations of man.
Or simply—free of the bullshit!
Eventually, Enter Sandman from Metallica keyed up, and I closed my eyes, letting my spirit leave my body as I drifted into the nothingness. All those meaningless wants and dreams became nagging whispers at the back of my mind. I let the music engulf me…
Now I lay me down to sleep
Pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I die before I wake
Pray the Lord
my soul
to take
***
“Waketh, Fopdoodle,” A voice called out from the unknown.
“What… Fopdoodle?”
“Thy portal is closing. Waketh!”
“Eat a dick, I'm trying to sleep.”
A roar blasted into my mind like a cannon. “Wake!”
I opened my eyes to an intense scene. Right in the middle of my living room, a portal, around my height in size, floated just above the ground. All around the portal, the air looked… distorted. Wrong. As if waves of light struggled to escape its pull. The portal itself was pure-black, except for a small silver streak down its middle.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I sat up, my hands shaking and my mouth hanging wide open.
“Lubber-wort! Clutch me or thine will be lost to the fabrics of the in-between.” I looked around to find who was speaking to me, and when I peered down into my lap, I saw the Dragon’s-Eye amulet in all its silver glory. It looked… different. The silver, sharper, the lines more distinct, and it appeared to ripple as if made of liquid. The colorful eye in the middle now appeared to move and flow, as if alive. “Now thine see, for ye’ were blind. Taketh me, and I will show thee the way.”
“Fuck!” I yelled, as I grabbed the amulet, throwing it across the room. It clattered as it slid out of my sight. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered frantically as I rubbed my eyes.
Slowly, I opened them again, and the portal still stood in its eerie glory, still rippling the air in the room.
Ok, Ike, I thought to myself. You’re just tripping balls. It must have been the brownie. Clearly, there was something else in it. It’s not real—this isn’t real.
I looked to the portal again, and it still stood, humming in place, almost peacefully.
“Ok,” I said out loud. “I’m just having a trip… maybe this could be a good thing? I don’t have work tomorrow, so let’s just go with it. My mind wants to take me on a journey… that could be fun, maybe.” My words sounded desperate, even to me; the dictionary example of desperate. I knew with sickening certainty that I was about to have a bad trip. But, like a cat with too many lives, I set the thought aside.
Forcing down the want to run and hide in Grant's room, a thought I only entertained until I considered the ramifications of such an act, I Cautiously stepped closer to the portal.
It was incredible!
I could feel the power from it—the force it took to rip a literal hole in the universe… even if it was just a hallucination of my mind on shrooms or acid… why the fuck did Grant have this shit unlabeled?
I felt an opposing pull from the portal, and my eyes were drawn to the amulet that laid near the front door. I shrugged and walked towards it, carefully picking it up off the ground.
“Dew-beater. Fopdoodle. Lubberwort,” a deep-voice assaulted my mind with all manner of… insults?
“What the hell are you saying?” I replied out loud, but I had the feeling that the voice could read my thoughts.
“Tarry,” the voice replied, its words entering my head like the pounding of a bass drum. Then I felt an invasion of my mind, as if someone pried at my brain with a crowbar… or a mallet. Soon after, the pain subsided, and it said, “Moron! My words imply idiocy on thine part.”
“Then why didn’t you just say that?” I forced the thought with all the brainpower I had, forcing my mouth to stay closed as I did so.
The voice in my head was silent for a time before finally replying, “Why do we still stand here? To the portal—quick now!”
“Wait,” I replied. “Fuck, it’s hard to talk without talking. What are you? Who are you?” I turned the amulet around in my hand. “Wait…” an amusing thought came to me, “ Let me guess… you’re a dragon?”
“... Of course I'm a dragon! What sort of stupid question is that from a… what manner of creature are you again?”
“Uh… human? What kind of stupid question is that?”
I heard a chuckle from an amulet, like the deep roaring of a fire. “So thou does have a mind. Now use said mind, and ears, and listen… the portal—I can only keep it open for so long. It is crucial that we go. Now!”
“And where are we going?” I replied, as if any of this made sense.
“No consequence,” the Dragon replied. “I simply know that therein lies my next destination… and seeing as we are now linked, it is your destination as well.”
“Linked? I don’t remember signing any TOS. No contracts. Did Ray set me up? Is this some type of MLM that my fucked up subconscious is trying to escape from?” I was scrambling as my thoughts made less and less sense. Even to me.
“MLM… TOS…” I could sense the confusion from the supposed Dragon as well. “Even delving into your mind didn’t provide me with the knowledge of such advanced concepts. Pray tell me, are these things important to you humans?”
“Nevermind…” I replied. “Forget I said anything.” Sighing, I paced back and forth. “So basically you want me to go into the portal and bring you with me?”
“Yes.”
“And we don’t know the destination?”
“Nay… we do not.”
“And the quest? What is your mission?”
“... It escapes me, for now.”
I laughed. “For fucks sake. So you want me to take you through the unknown portal, to an unknown place for an unknown reason?”
“I sense the mockery in your voice,” the dragon replied in a deep grumble that foretold ill-intentions. “Human, if you do not do this thing for me, when I regain my true form, I will obliterate you from this realm… Wherever and whenever this realm may be.”
I considered the threat for a moment before shrugging my shoulders. “Eh, Fuck it. Either I’m tripping balls or dreaming. Either way, I’m in!” I walked towards the portal to stand just in front of it. “So what do I do? Just walk through?”
“No!” the dragon’s deep voice boomed in my head. “If you traverse the in-between without guidance, there is no telling where you will materialize. If you will materialize at all. Hold me out in front of you, and I will guide the way for us both.”
“Alright… let’s get this over with. I’m seriously going to give Grant some shit when this is over—if I don’t jump out a window, or some crazy shit.” I held the amulet in front of me, facing the portal. The silver streak bent and twisted, expanding just a hair.
“Now go!” the dragon commanded.
I stepped through.
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