Pete’s sense of hearing returned before anything else. When he remembered what had happened, the sounds he heard surprised him. There were no sirens, no rushed voices of emergency medical workers. The woman with the cat didn’t ask him if he was okay.

Instead, he heard…was it ski ball? Was it bowling? It seemed more like ski ball. Where both activities involve the sound of a ball rolling across a hard surface, this sound ended in a hollow thud, not with the crash of pins.

Beeps and bops accompanied the sound. It reminded him of video games, but not modern ones. These sounds were from ‘80s and ‘90s video games.

He heard kids playing. For how long had he been asleep? If kids were awake, he had to have been out for hours. Was he in the hospital? That might explain some of the electronic sounds. The ski ball sound might be a cart with food on it. But why would they let kids run around, playing in the halls? That didn’t make sense. He tried to lift his eyes to see, but his eyelids were heavy.

His sense of touch began to return. Air conditioning pushed down on him from above, giving his arms and shoulders goosebumps. He wondered why he felt the air current so pronounced against his shoulders. At that point, he realized he was in a sitting position, and he was wearing a tank top. Hard plastic supported his back, curving under his legs. It was a booth or a bench, not a chair.

His upper body inclined forward, arms crossed under his head. Was he lying on a table? He tried to open his eyes again. His eyelids remained heavy.

What kind of hospital puts people in tank tops? And what is that smell? It didn’t smell like a hospital, nor did it smell like the cool morning air he’d experienced when he was outside during the tree incident. No, this smell was something else, something familiar; it was the smell of pizza.

He could already taste the pepperoni, and that was the last bit of motivation he needed to force his eyes open and take in his surroundings. From his head resting on crossed arms position, neck crooked so he was looking to the side, he took it all in.

What he saw wasn’t a hospital. It wasn’t emergency crews rushing to help him. It was something he hadn’t seen in years, not since his childhood. People walked around in gawky animal costumes with gigantic heads. One was a bear. One was a giant mouse. The bear held a microphone. The mouse had a guitar strapped over his shoulder and a cup-shaped hat atop the center of his head. Out of the hat poked a tiny propeller.

They each wore goofy pink and turquoise shirts. The shirts had a Pizza and Games logo embroidered over the left side of their chest.

A non-costumed employee helped customers who sat around a circular, red table. Pete guessed there were more tables, but still unable to move, he could only stare at the one in his line of sight.

On the other side of the table, he saw arcade games, ski ball, and basketball hoops. The hoops were the ones with the ramps under the basket, so the balls return to the shooter after each shot. This version of the machine moved the baskets toward and away from the shooter. Kids occupied all the games, laughing and playing all the while.

“Ugghh…” he grunted as he used his shoulders and arms to push, and he lifted his head up from the table. Joints cracked and popped, but with each passing second, he seemed more awake, more alert. When he gathered enough strength, he lifted his hands over his head, leaned back, and stretched.

“Ah, good, you’re awake.” The voice was male, and it spoke in a British accent, one of the more proper dialects, one Pete would expect to hear from royalty or nobility.

He moved his eyes in the direction of the sound. When they fell upon the source, they widened, and his heart began to beat heavy.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It came from a cat, sitting across from him at the same table. It wasn’t a human in a cat costume like the mouse and bear from before. This was an actual, true to life, talking cat. Its face was that of a cat, anyway, covered in black hair with a familiar white spot on its forehead. In more ways than not, its body and size seemed human, aside from the smooth black fur which coated its arms and shoulders.

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Pete assumed the fur-covered the rest of the animal as well. But he couldn’t tell for sure…because it wore a bright orange tank top, covering its chest. A print of a lizard wearing sunglasses rested in the center of the tank top.

Pete looked down at his own tank top. They matched. He groaned, embarrassed by the wardrobe. Then he realized things were much worse than the tank top. He wasn’t wearing any pants. This must be a nightmare, he convinced himself; I’m still facedown on the concrete. This is all happening in my brain.

Then he wondered if the cat was wearing pants. Then he realized it didn’t matter. “Is this a dream?”

“A dream?” The cat repeated. “It isn’t real if that’s what you mean?”

“Isn’t real?” Pete’s confusion grew.

The cat sighed, “let me explain. My name is Max. I have something I need to ask you, a request as it were.”

“Max?” Pete remembered the name. “You’re the cat in the tree! You scratched my face. You made me fall!”

“Let bygones be bygones,” Max yawned. “As far as this place goes…it’s an illusion. I wanted you to wake up somewhere where you felt comfortable. If I’m not mistaken, this is such a place?”

Pete glanced. Now that he took the time to look around, to take in everything, he recognized the joint. When he was a kid, his grandfather used to take him to that exact Pizza and Games. They’d go out together on a special day. That’s what his grandpa called them. They’d buy a toy at the store. Then they’d end the day at Pizza and Games. “You brought me to Pizza and Games because you have an important question that you want to ask me?”

“Right,” Max nodded, “now, you’re getting it. I’m so glad you understand. Boy, it is nice to have that out of the way. I worried we’d never get to the point.”

Pete glared. “You knocked me out of a tree.”

“Only because I need your help.” Max shrugged, adding, “should I tell you why I need your help? Or would you like to keep bringing up ancient history?”

“Ancient history?” Pete felt annoyed, and he let some of that agitation tinge his voice. “It was FIVE minutes ago.”

Max shook his head. “It’s like they say; time is relative and all that.”

Pete glared. He would have said something, but he couldn’t think of what to say. The only thing he could do was emote, and the emotion that swelled within him was anger.

“Oh, don’t be like that.” Max sighed. “I can send you back to your world. I can return you to before you climbed the tree to save me. You won’t have to die.” At this point, Max’s voice went from lighthearted to menacing. “And believe me, you did die.” Max let the words sink in—and for Pete, they did sink in—before reverting to his nonchalance. “But first, I need you to do something for me. Shall I tell you what that is?”

“You killed me?” Fear began to replace anger. Pete worried about his family; he felt disappointed that he would never know if Zoey liked him back. He thought she did, but it might have been his imagination. He had so much he wouldn’t accomplish: graduate college, buy a house, have kids someday. Would he never do any of that? Wait, he told himself, realizing he was going about things the wrong way. “You said you can bring me back. In exchange, what do you need me to do for you?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Max’s whiskers lifted to show pointed teeth beneath an arrogant smile. “That’s very selfless of you.” Pete didn’t miss the sarcasm. “There is a world that needs you to save it.”

“Save it from what?” Pete asked.

“My job is to send you there,” Max explained. “Once there, you’ll need to discover your purpose. At that point, you’ll be able to grow in strength… become the hero that world needs.”

“This is crazy.” Pete shook his head. “You want me to go to a different world than my own, find my purpose, become a hero, and save that world? All this when I couldn’t find my purpose in my own world?”

“Exactly,” Max smiled. “I knew you were a bright one.”

“And if I don’t do it?” Pete raised an eyebrow.

Max squinted his eyes together, the smile on his face turning to a frown. “Then you stay dead, my boy. Your spirit moves on to whatever comes next. That could be better. It could be worse. Regardless, I have a world that needs a hero. Will you be that hero?”

The decision wasn’t a difficult one to make. Pete wasn’t ready to be dead. He’d do whatever he had to so he could return to his life. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

A smile returned to the cat’s face, “good.” And with that, the cat lifted his right arm, put his thumb and middle finger together, and snapped. A white light filled the room, blinding Pete and forcing him to close his eyes.