“The glass shattered, the music stopped, and time itself seemed to be holding its breath.”

When I went to the firing range for the first time, someone was firing off a ridiculously large caliber handgun, maybe a .50 cal. Even though the man was several lanes away, I could feel the soundless but tangible impact from the booming thunder of his gun in my chest.

That’s what it felt like.

Something intangible but tangible, an impact with no sound, a sudden pressure punching at my innards, a heartbeat that felt like a silent thunderclap in my chest, and then I was falling, inches from my car door, falling, falling, endlessly falling through endless darkness.

What came next was a baffling dream where I found myself hurtling, cartwheeling through the inscrutable realms and barriers that divided the universes. Pinwheels of stars whirled across my vision; alien clouds of strange gases seared my lungs. I reached, grabbed, flailed for anything, desperate to gain some sort of anchor that I could hold onto.

There was never a thought that I could find myself lost amongst the arcana of the universe, stranded in amongst mystifying comets, weird suns, and the empty, yawning gulfs of endless, silent dark between them.

I reached, I clutched, I screamed, my hands took hold of something, and at that moment I skidded across the ebonite floor of the universe.

The spell reversed, and I was once again cast through the beyond, yanked backwards until I could feel myself stretching impossibly long, but my hands curled tight in triumph, for in my perplexing journey, I’d found something and was determined to bring it back with me.

I skidded backwards through reality, choked on the atmospheres of alien gas giants, rebounded against stray chunks of ice, ancient when the bones of the world were new, tumbled through the ragged holes I’d torn in the fabrics of reality, the barriers between universes, the tissues of realms beyond comprehension.

All went dark.

*****

I opened my eyes; I was laying on something soft and thick. I ached everywhere, my bones and joints hurt, my muscles felt packed with sand. I wasn’t sure, but I think even my hair hurt.

I was laying on some sort of carpet. A few feet from my face was an ornately carved baroque coffee table, its legs sinuous and carved with reliefs of leaves and fruit, with what looked to be golden inlays.

I was drooling.

I slowly pushed myself to a sitting position, and immediately regretted every decision I’d ever made since I’d been born. My head lurched and thudded, laboriously pounding with my heartbeat. Even my vision pulsed.

I managed to roll over and rest my back on some plush sofa that was equally ornate and richly furnished, and as the room swam into view I realized that I was in some room that was richly- no- ostentatiously appointed. The walls were paneled wood with the grains interlocking to form zigzagging patterns. Massive tapestries hung here and there, each one a fantastic work of art showing exaggerated heroes fighting villainous monsters.

Everything looked expensive.

I wiped my mouth and chin and tried to make sense of things.

I’d just gotten off of my shift at work.

I was reaching for the door handle of my car to drive home.

Then... what?

Waking up here. It felt like there was something else, some element I couldn’t quite remember, something more, but it slipped through my mind’s fingers no matter how hard I tried to remember.

A door that was just as carved and gilded and inlaid as the rest of the things in the room opened, and a man in thick robes stepped into the room.

He reminded me of my boss, in a way. Stern-faced with a salt-and pepper beard and iron-gray hair, a well-trained body starting to go soft about the edges with age.

He babbled something incomprehensible at me, and I shook my head.

He tried again, but I had no idea what it was he was trying to communicate.

Obvious exasperation showed on his face; he reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a heavy gold ring. He put it on, took it off, and then placed it in front of me, and gestured at me.

I picked up the heavy ring and slipped it on my finger. There was a weird buzzing sensation at the back of my head that felt disgusting, but I jolted a little when he babbled at me, and then a hairsbreadth later I heard his voice, but translated, in my head.

“You should be able to understand me now.”

That feeling at the back of my head was starting to make me feel ill.

“Yeah.” I replied, struggling to hold back the urge to vomit.

“What kingdom do you come from?”

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Huh?

“Kingdom?” I replied lamely.

“I have to apologize; we were testing a newly crafted magical spell and it seems you were teleported here.”

Huh? Spell? Teleported?

“What is this?” I asked, baffled. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

Something lurched in my chest, then. That same feeling of soundless impact, air squeezing from my lungs, dull pressure behind my eyes. I reflexively took a deep breath, and for a moment my mind went through a curious sensation, as if someone had scooped my brain out of my skull and for the briefest of moments dipped it in cold, alien jelly.

I wanted to throw up, but the fear came first, a wholly unreasonable fear with no tangible grasp on reality.

“What is this place? Where is this place?” I demanded.

“You’re in the Alsach kingdom.” He replied, as if that made any sense.

“You’re not telling me enough.” I replied, and tried to get to my feet. Something cold, something strange, something darkly malignant was near, and it was coming closer. I could somehow feel it.

He adopted a patronizing, patient expression. “Many things in the world can be summoned or teleported from place to place, with the exception of humans. People. We’ve been trying to overcome that barrier.” He paused. “We attempted to summon a person from the Temple of Tear to here, but he vanished and instead... you arrived.” He paused as he folded his arms. “As soon as you tell me where you’re from, I’ll have you sent back home, and the Alsach kingdom will provide suitable recompense for your trouble.”

So I told him where I was from. He didn’t get it; didn’t recognize the city. I told him my country. Everyone knows the United States. He gave me a baffled look.

I told him the name of the world I was from: Earth. I described what it was like, how it fit in the solar system. He stumbled backwards and caught himself on the back of a chair.

“It seems... It seems that we’ve made a serious mistake.” He muttered, alarmed. He produced a handkerchief and mopped his sweaty brow.

“I thought we’d pulled you from some kingdom, but it might just be that we pulled you from another world entirely.” He gasped, and then on unsteady legs he stumbled to a window and pulled open the curtains.

It seemed pretty obvious that he wanted to show me what lay beyond the window frame, so I struggled to my feet.

Standing was an exercise. Walking a herculean feat. I dragged myself to the window and peeked out.

There was a city that stretched out for miles, cobbled streets, fountains, strange architecture. What caught my eye however was a cluster of three mons in the sky. Not one, but three.

Son of a bitch.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” I complained, and my legs gave out on me. I sagged to the floor, and tried to pull myself back up using the window as leverage, but my arms were rubbery things that refused to behave like arms.

“This is definitely not my world.” I complained as the man (who still hadn’t given me his name) helped me up.

He nodded. “This is a ... mistake on an unprecedented scale.” He agreed.

I looked out the window again and saw a strange black ribbon snaking along the streets sinuously.

“The fuck is that?” I wondered, and the man gave me a baffled look, so I braced myself against the window and pointed. His face flushed with alarm, his eyes widened. “I haven’t seen the like-” He began, but the door burst open.

“Magister Aleister!” A young man shouted, panicked. “Something escaped from the Sage Tower! It’s killing everything!”

“Stay here, sir.” Aleister commanded to me, and then immediately turned and strode out of the room. The door closed behind him with a click.

Well, shit.

Using the furniture as things to prop myself against, I stumbled across the room to the point where I could flop down into the richly appointed sofa and sat there, gasping with effort. I felt drained and husked out. Just walking from the window to the sofa had worn me out to the point where I wanted to sleep. I laid down on the cushions and resolved to at least get my breathing under control.

Maybe this was a terrible dream. Sleep sounded like a great idea.

I closed my eyes.

*****

When I woke up, I immediately knew that I wasn’t alone. There was something cold, something alien, something that boiled with strange thoughts and indifferent malevolence in the same room as I.

I hadn’t even opened my eyes and I was already terrified, icy sheets of sweat sliding and pooling on my body. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t human, had never been human, and its dispassionate indiscriminate violence was something akin to a person indifferently brushing away an ant from his arm.

I opened my eyes.

The room was dark, but whatever it was was darker still, seemingly draining the light from the room.

“You brought me here.” Its voice was an unholy chorus of un-sound, something that rasped and grated and shredded even as it was silky, husky, and inviting.

“I- what?” I managed to gasp out, struggling to breathe even as the temperature in the room cooled.

“This place is not like my place.” It observed.

“It’s not like mine, either.” I replied, and shakily explained what I’d learned.

“To think you ridiculous hairless apes had learned of things beyond your ken...” it murmured. Suddenly the amorphous darkness drew in on itself and assumed a human shape- arguably human, as if it wasn't sure what a human was actually supposed to look like.

“Wh-wh-what happens now?” I managed to choke out, hot bands of terror clamping down on my lungs.

The thing toyed with a snow globe that tinkled with music I hadn’t heard before.

“You’ve tread on things that should not have been.” it replied, eyes sliding on its face like candle wax. “Actions have consequences.” It’s voice was thick and clotted now, like bubbling tar.

It indifferently crushed the snow globe in one hand. The glass shattered, the music stopped, and time itself seemed to be holding its breath.

“Icarus.” I stammered, and the creature drew back.

“What?” it asked, confused.

I racked my brain for what I remembered in High School and I told the thing the story of Icarus, who flew with wings of wax, flew too high and died.

It chuckled, a laugh filled with delight, menace, and unspeakable hunger, a hunger that had been cultivated for billions of years in the great lightless spaces that lurked between the stars, the places where it was inescapably empty, lonely, and oh so cold.

“Tell me another story.” It decided, and grinned, displaying too many teeth in a mouth that stretched much too wide.

I swallowed hard.