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“I seem to not be feeling well,” I repeat, my voice sounding very tense. At least I can still talk properly. Okay, maybe this is like the time in statistics that Tempest gave us all new water bottles that definitely didn’t contain water. Slurring the coefficient ofthe variable does not go down well with TAs who are tired of rich kids not taking their class seriously, or the poor kids who somehow get taken under the rich kids’ wings.

Mr. Ornix reaches for me, takes me by the hand, and draws me closer to his incredibly strange, but still undeniably attractive body.

“Breathe,” he says, his voice deep and soothing, his hand running down my back in a comforting motion. “Everything is okay. You are safe. You are taken care of. No harm will befall you.”

“I think so much harm… I think… my eyes aren’t working?”

“What you see is real,” he says reassuringly. “You have been liberated from your world, and brought to a realm that contains wonders you are yet to imagine.”

He says that as if it is supposed to make me feel better. It does not make me feel better. It makes me feel weirder.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“The first journey is the hardest for humans,” Ornix says, stroking my hair. “Don’t worry, you’ll feel exhausted for a few hours, and then your energy will return. Soon you will feel better than you ever have before. This is a much healthier, happier place than the one you came from.”

I stare at him. “How is this even possible? We were just having dinner. Where’s my transcript?”

“Where you are, you have no need of a transcript,” he drawls.

I look around once again, and see that the room we are in is vast. It feels like the size of a normal house, but all open andin one place. I don’t mean it’s like an open plan home, I mean it is a massive bedroom filled with cabinets and drawers and couches and little tables all made in the same style as the bed. All incredibly impressive and ornate and covered in statues, jewels, ornaments. A trove of treasure surrounds us, more riches than I could ever imagine.

There are also very large floor-to-ceiling windows set in solid stone. What I can see outside is a landscape comprised of rolling green hills. I pull away from Mr. Ornix, get up out of bed, and pad over to see more.

There’s a large field all around us, which rises into those hills, which then turn into mountains, and in one particular location, what seems to be a very large and quite active volcano in the distance.

When I look in the other direction, I see walls of what seem to be ice, and as I go from that window to another one, I see an ocean, dazzling and broad, dashing against cliffs that range around in a big semi-circle that looks like a bite that’s been taken out of a cookie. Another direction reveals a massive forest bending in a wind that blows almost constantly judging by the way the tops flow back and forth the way long grass does.

We are very clearly not in California anymore. I should have no idea where we are. Except it seems to me that the terrain is somehow familiar. It pulls at my mind for a long second or two. Where have I seen this before? A book, maybe? Or a…

Overhead, the wings of a very large flying creature extend in a great shadow with sharp points all over and a long tail that coils with the wind. It emits a cry that is sonorous and deep, rumbling through my body.

Suddenly, memory snaps into place.

“Dragon Fire Eternity,” I whisper under my breath. “What the hell?”

“What was that you said?”

I turn around to look at my boss, Mr. Ornix, who is now standing up behind me, his height very much imposing, not to mention the breadth of his shoulders. His eyes seem entirely gold now, and they regard me with a particular intensity that makes me quiver. He’s not human. He was never human. He’s a fucking dragon, and I have lost my mind.

“Dragon Fire Eternity,” I say. “It’s a video game. Looks just like this. I’m sorry, but I’ve obviously gone insane. I think you’re wearing golden pants, and obviously that’s impossible.”

My fragile grip on reality is coming unmoored. I’ve always had a good imagination, but this is pushing it too far. I don’t know if it’s drugs or something else, but I don’t believe it. I can’t. I wasn’t having dinner or fucking my boss one moment, and inside one of the most popular games of the year the next; that’s not possible. I come to the conclusion that this is nothing but a fever dream of some kind. I don’t have to take any of this seriously because it’s not real.

Ornix lifts a brow at me. “All you behold, and you don’t believe the golden pants? That is the part that most concerns you?”

“Concerning is a good description,” I say. “They’re so gold.”

He frowns at me. “Yes. They are. My kind enjoys gold, and jewels of all kinds. It is our weakness, and our strength. You will be similarly adorned when we are wed.”

“Oh, we’re getting married in my delusional dream? I suppose that suits me.”

He steps closer, extends a hand that now quite obviously has scales on it, and claws where his nails could be. I look into those eyes that are no longer human, but obviously dragon. How did I not clock that right away? Oh, right, because I was sane at first, as opposed to now, entirely insane all the way to the membrane, as the scriptures say.

Even though I know this isn’t real, it feels real. My senses are intact, and the closer he gets with that powerful clawed hand, the more I draw away from him in some measure of fear. He’s so strong and so large. And he is a monster of some kind. My mind is addled, and I am deeply confused.

“What is happening? Did you slip me something?”

“Melissa, there are worlds that most people do not know anything about. This is one of them. It lives adjacent to your own, and it is a realm.”