Finally, you and the stranger both stop as you exit Central Park and arrive on the still busy (even this late at night) street. The people walking by stare at you briefly with furrowed brows and sighs as some of them need to divert from their path to avoid running into you. One young man with a cell phone actually does knick you as he looks up at the very last second.

You are panting so heavily that you have a hard time forming words. What you try to say is thanks, but it takes several tries to get there.

You rub your scraped elbow and wince as you feel the rough scratches there. Your eye has just about swollen shut.

The figure nods at you in a sign of acknowledgement.

You brush off your shirt to rid it of muck and grit when the figure grabs you by the shirt and starts to yank urgently.

After the recent experiences that you have suffered through, you react rather poorly. You frantically try to brush off the figure’s arm as if it were more of the offending muck and grit.

You let out a string of curses that would make your dad proud and your mother embarrassed, or at least that is what the people on the street are probably saying. You wonder why none of them are getting involved in this situation.

This person did save you, so perhaps you should give them the benefit of the doubt. You look over one shoulder behind you and then over the other in search of pursuers. There must be pursuers for the rescuer to be this urgent.

“Wave down a cab.” The mysterious voice hums.

The figure keeps a hold of you but lets you step out on to the street far enough to be spotted by a cab that you attempt to wave down. Two cabs later, one finally stops. You climb into the back and the figure climbs in with you.

You sit there and wait, believing that your new companion has a destination in mind. Your companion just looks over at you as you take a moment to try to peer under the hood, still seeing nothing of facial detail.

“Hey!” The cab driver cuts in rudely. “I don’t have all day here, name a destination or get out and walk.”

“Don’t you have a place in mind? Tell the man.” You say to your rescuer.

The figure stares at you for a moment and then speaks, “Sure, look, we’ll go to Queens, I have a place there,” and gives an address.

The cab starts to accelerate. You nurse your injuries and can only imagine the sorts of aches that you will feel in the morning. There had better be some Aspirin in your near future.

It’s a longer trip than you would have expected for such a short journey, but you guess that’s just New York City for you.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

You insist on stopping by the local 24-hour convenience store to obtain some medical essentials. You had expected, based upon your injuries, that people would have asked if you were alright. Perhaps, people would have paid you attention. It doesn’t happen that way, and you feel like you are invisible when you finally leave the store after standing in a long line to pay.

As you stand outside of the convenience store with this stranger, your mind wanders over the past 36 hours. The peculiar commute. The presence of the strange...creature all along the route. The disorientation that has been a constant companion ever since. The baffling attack followed by the miraculous rescue. Before continuing any further you say haltingly, “Just...just wait a minute. I just got out of the frying pan and now you want me to jump into the fire? I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t even know your name, I know nothing about you.”

“There are some that call me Mysticalis Pulchris. It’s an ancient name, but it works to identify me. I am personally quite young, but there are those of my kind that say I am just another in a long line of reincarnated.” The mysterious figure now has a name and you will never forget it. You are just gratified to finally have some way to address and speak of this ‘friend’.

You share your name with Mysticalis, “I hope you can also tell me what the heck is going on here.” In Mysticalis’s presence, you feel calmed even in language as some foul words leave your vocabulary, the purity of the being in front of you influencing you subtly.

Mysticalis gazes up at the sky thoughtfully, “The best way that I could perhaps share what is going on with you is to start with a story.

“From a dark dimension, limbs reached. Into the light, the grim limbs crept. Shadows fell, and in the shadows formed new life. This life did not belong in this dimension, but in its own alien way, it thrived. It thrived as a predator does in a new environment where it has only prey.

“After a dark age, long before the time of recorded history of your people and in fact long before your archaeologists have records for, the light finally reacted to the shadows. A new race came into being. That new race is known popularly as the Unicorn.”

“Are you really one of these unicorns, because to me you just look like a human, a strangely obscured human...” you interrupt as your confusion grows. You know that you should feel freaked out, as this person is obviously bound for the loony bin. Somehow, though, you are at ease. “Let’s just go see this place of yours. I need to sit down and take some damn drugs.”

You climb laboriously up a set of rickety, rust edged metal steps. You hear a baby crying in another apartment. Somewhere, a dog barks. Passing by another door, you cringe to the sound of a couple fighting and hope they don’t get violent.

Mysticalis actually stops and puts an open palmed hand on that door and sighs. You stop and look over at Mysticalis quizzically, who says, “It’s just two more floors up.”

This place actually scares you a little bit. You’ve never been in a building so rundown, so full of such squalor before. You try the door and it appears to be locked.

“I’ll get that,” Myst glides by you and smacks the knob up a bit and pushes down while shoving the door.

The door flies open and just before the rickety piece of wood smacks the wall, it steadies the door.

“Well, I could say I’ve seen better. And I wouldn’t be lying. But... right now... that couch over there...” You take what could practically be described as a leap onto the bouncy cushioned couch. “Yup... mighty perfect right now.”

You pull out your band-aids, gauze, aspirin, and Neosporin just as Mysticalis hands you a glass of water. You down the tasteless pills and start tending to your injuries.

Mysticalis settles in a chair opposite of you. “Allow me to continue while your wounds are mended...”