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Chapter Four
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Oh God, oh God, oh God, Justin thought as he flipped and spun through the vortex of swirling colors. Gravity was nothing but a distant, fleeting memory. It's just like that anime I watched that one time! I'm going to get stuck in a video game, and if I die, I'll die in real life!
But why?
The question wasn't why it had happened to him. By now, it was obvious that the universe simply hated Justin Flinchley, and was going out of its way to think up new and creative ways to kick him while he was down. No, the question was, why would he get pulled into a video game through a job search website? Surely there had to be a more thematically appropriate way to—
Suddenly, the colors vanished, and Justin was slapped in the face by a bitter, cold wind. The first thing he noticed was that it was dark, and not just because the colors were gone. While it hadn't even been nine o'clock in the morning back in Pleasant Ridge, here…wherever here was…it was clearly the middle of the night.
The next thing he noticed was that he was falling.
Justin screamed, his voice sounding strangely muffled as the roaring wind filled his ears. His arms windmilled, his legs kicked, searching for something, anything, to grab hold of and stop his plunge toward certain doom, but all he found was empty air.
Through his panic, he realized that he could see the ground far beneath him. An ocean of evergreen trees, tall and green, dominated the landscape for as far as he could see. In the distance, dozens upon dozens of miles away, he could faintly make out the jagged outlines of mountains. Where in the name of everything holy was he?
Closer than the mountains, but still far enough away that it was barely a mark on the horizon, he could see lights. He almost thought it was a city, but who would build a city in the middle of absolute nowhere like this? For a few seconds, he was too confused to be afraid.
Then he remembered that he was currently falling to his death, and let out another bloodcurdling scream.
“Perfect night for flying, huh?”
Justin’s mouth snapped shut, and he realized with a shock that he wasn’t alone up here in the sky. Someone else was falling directly alongside him. It was too dark for Justin to make out much about them, but he could tell that they were thin and tall, and apparently wearing some kind of headgear with two long, narrow prongs coming out of it.
“Of course,” they said, sounding far too relaxed for the situation, “you seem to be more interested in falling right now.”
“What’s going on?” Justin yelled. “How did I get here? Where am I?”
The stranger pointed at the lights in the distance. “I’ll explain everything once we get you home. Come on, fly with me.”
“Home? What are you…wait a minute! Fly? What do you mean fly?”
They reached out toward him. “Take my hand.”
Justin stared at the shadowy figure in disbelief. If he hadn’t just been sucked into his computer, through a swirling tunnel of psychedelic lights, only to end up falling from orbit a million miles from home, he would have called this stranger insane. But considering that he had, in fact, just gone through all of that, the only logical conclusion Justin could come to was that he was the insane one. But since no better options were presenting themselves, he reached out and grabbed the stranger’s hand.
As soon as they touched, Justin felt their trajectory change. Instead of falling toward the ground, they were falling forward, almost like they were…
Flying.
“I’ve gone insane!” Justin shouted, watching the tree covered landscape roll past beneath them. “I lost my job, I’m about to lose my apartment, and to top it all off, I’ve lost my mind too!”
“Hold your horses,” the flying stranger consoled him. “I know you’re confused, but everything will make sense once we’ve had a chance to explain what’s going on.”
“Oh yeah, definitely!” Justin couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason why I’m flying over freaking Narnia right now!”
The stranger didn’t reply, so Justin looked out at the swiftly approaching mass of lights and realized that it was in fact a city. And not only were they flying directly toward it, but they were getting lower by the minute as well. Already, he could make out buildings of all kinds and sizes, from cozy, single story cottages to tall, imposing stone towers.
Justin shook his head, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. It was like he’d fallen asleep and woken up in the world’s most elaborate renaissance fair.
“What is this place?” he asked as they descended toward it. “Some kind of theme park?”
“Even better!” the stranger said.
“And…that is?”
Again, the stranger didn’t answer, so Justin bit his tongue and waited. Part of him was still terrified. The mere thought of being up this high threatened to send him into a full blown panic again. But their flight—inexplicable though it was—was so smooth and gentle that he was able to keep his composure, if only barely, as they came in for a landing.
A minute later, they were gliding in between the rows of old fashioned buildings, a gray cobblestone road rising up to meet them. Even this late at night, there were people walking the streets, and they looked up as Justin flew above their heads the same way he would have looked at an airplane back home. The stranger swooped down low, until they were only a couple feet above the road, and Justin felt their momentum dwindle until they were practically hovering. Then, light as a feather, they touched the ground.
Justin’s legs immediately gave out.
“This isn’t happening,” he told himself, his heart racing and his body shaking. “I’m dreaming, or I hit my head on the way home from work, or maybe I really am insane, but it doesn’t matter because absolutely none of this is happening!”
“Take a minute to calm down,” said the stranger. “But hurry, okay? We need to get going.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Justin exclaimed. “I just fell out of freaking outer space! I am never going to move from this spot!”
“You will if you want to know where you are and what’s going on. Besides, you’re, uh…kinda making a scene here.”
Justin looked up and realized the stranger was right. All the people he had seen on his way down were still there, staring in confusion at the weirdo who had just collapsed on the road. Something was…off about them, though. With his brain in its overtaxed state, he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but…
Their ears, he realized with a jolt. Every single one of them had long, slender ears that stretched a good six inches from the sides of their heads before coming to sharp points. And they were short, too. Justin guesstimated that the tallest among them couldn’t have been more than four and a half feet tall.
Elves, he thought dully. So this is a theme park of some kind. Maybe some kind of large scale LARP?
“Don’t worry, give it a day or two and this will all seem normal.”
Justin realized that he was still holding the stranger’s hand—the stranger that he had never gotten a good look at. With his heart sinking into his stomach, he turned to look.
His jaw dropped.
Justin had expected his savior to be another elf, even though what he’d managed to glimpse up in the sky had made him look much taller. That couldn’t possibly have been farther from the truth. What Justin saw before him now defied the imagination. It stood on two legs, but instead of feet it had a pair of black cloven hooves. Short brown fur covered the parts of its body that Justin could see, and the rest of it was covered by a pair of paints and a bright red jacket. Like the elves, it did have a pair of long ears, but these looked more like the kind you would see attached to a horse.
Or a deer, Justin realized when he took in the two long, pronged antlers that grew from its head, above a short cervine snout that was just human enough that Justin could tell it was smirking at him.
Justin snatched his hand away, panic rising up in him again, and he stumbled backwards to get away from the…the thing that had brought him here.
“What in God’s name,” he gasped, his mind teetering on the very edge of sanity, “are you supposed to be?”
It was a costume. It had to be a costume! Just like the “elves” watching them with bemused looks on their faces. But no, Justin could tell just by looking at it that this was no costume. The way it moved, the expressions on its face, it was all too real. It was real.
The monster took a step toward him, and Justin recoiled in horror. Did it eat meat? It looked like a deer, but did that mean anything for something so completely and utterly unnatural? Had it brought him here to skewer him on those wickedly sharp antlers, roast him over a fire, and eat him?
“Stay away from me, you freak!” Justin yelled. He tried to stand up, but immediately lost his balance and fell back down again. What was wrong with him? Had the fall traumatized him so badly that he’d forgotten how to use his own legs?
The deer monster snorted in amusement. “Hey now, I know you’re confused, but that’s just uncalled for—especially considering the circumstances.”
Slowly, Justin managed to get to his feet, though his legs wobbled uncertainly beneath him. “What’s that supposed to mean? What circumstances?”
“Well, the fact that you and I are…well…” the deer monster met Justin’s gaze and raised his eyebrows. “We have a little more in common than you think.”
Justin stared at him. They had more in common than he…
Oh…nooo…
Tearing his eyes off of the beast, he spun around—almost falling over again—and spotted a nearby shop with a large window. He stumbled over to it, the elves wordlessly parting to let him through. The lights were on inside, making it difficult to see his reflection, but…
“N- No,” he whispered, taking a step backwards. His feet, or what he had instead of feet, finally gave out, and he fell again. He didn’t care. Moving slowly, he ran his hands up his arms, feeling the short brown hair that covered every inch of his skin. Up to his face, where he felt his mouth and nose push forward into a snout. Two long ears that jerked and twitched of their own accord. And to top it all off…so literally that it made him sick…
His fists wrapped around a pair of antlers growing from his skull.
Justin fainted.
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