My name is Montgomery Sasha Javed. My friends call me ‘Monty’. I’m eighteen years old. I’m a college student, currently taking part-time classes in the local state university. I’m studying to be an engineer. I also took night classes in computer programming because I’m apparently addicted to stress and one of my professors said it’d look good on my resume.

I lived in an okay part of town, in a rent-controlled condominium that I was fortunate enough to inherit from an Uncle of mine. I have three cats, Romana, Cassia, and Europa. They were my ever adorable, furry little babies, except for maybe Europa. She was kind of a diva. (But I still loved her anyway.)

When I wasn’t in school or home, I was working because people and cats both need food, and somebody needs to pay for the rent and wifi. That was where I was currently headed now. It was 8:45. I needed to be at the convenience store, where I worked, by 9:05. The place where I lived and the place where I worked didn’t really fall neatly on the bus line so I usually rode to work on my bike. Even pedaling as fast as I could it usually took between twenty and twenty-five minutes for me to reach the store. Put plainly, it was all but set in stone that I was going to be late today.

I had to climb down the stairs from the fifth floor of the condo instead of using the elevator because the maintenance guy was fixing it. When I got outside it was raining which was just the perfect final detail for what was turning out to be a pretty awful day. I got on my bike and started pedaling as hard as I could because looking at my luck today the manager would be there and I’d get my ass written up...again.

The sole silver lining I could see was that I’d be sharing the shift with Cheryl. Cute Cheryl with the “so whatever” attitude, commercial-punk, fashion sense, and the decent sense of humor. Cute Cheryl who was way out of my league.

I was well aware that I was just another cherry boy falling in love with any girl who’d give him the time of day. All the same that didn’t change the way my stomach flip-flopped whenever we talked, or the way my heart beat like crazy whenever she hung out in my little corner of the store, which also happened to be the one corner of the store that was out of view of the manager’s office. Having known myself for eighteen years, I can say that there was actually a negative two percent chance of me actually acting on these falling. However that was fine with me, so what if I was gutless, frustrating, fluttery, unrequited loves were also part of the youthful experiences, no?

I wasn’t a sporty guy, and the only reason I biked everywhere was because I was too broke to own a car. I was actually saving up for a scooter. Imagine my surprise when a huffing, puffing, sweaty me glanced at his wristwatch and saw that it was actually only 8:50 and somehow, miraculously, I was almost home safe. I’d almost reached my worksite. The garish green and purple storefront were literally entering my view.

“Hell, yeah! Eat it, George. Can’t write me up now.” I said. Celebrating because I was about a hair away from reaching the convenience store and even if I were to slow down at this point and only enter at nine-oh-six that would have been fine because, according to company policy, you had to be at least five minutes late to be considered officially late.

Just as I was about the reach the side of the street that held the shop, I heard the screech of tires and the honking of a horn. I turned my head to the side and saw a bright, blinding light, and the silhouette of six wheeler that was clearly running a red light.

I froze like a deer in the literal headlights, my brain making a bunch of calculations and coming up with results that assured me that there was no way in hell I was going to get out of this alive. The street was too narrow, my body was already moving unavoidably on a path that would intersect with the massive vehicle. Even if I tried to throw myself backwards or out of the way, it’d just change the what the runaway truck hit first, not the fact I’d get splattered.

“Well, shit…” I said.

“I guess you win this round truck-kun...What a way to go, death by internet meme.” I said. A part of my mind that was both detached enough to accept what was about to happen and stupid enough to nitpick on how it happened, decided that “well” and “shit” weren’t fitting last words.

I don’t remember feeling it as the truck hit me. Either it just hit me too hard for my body to make sense of the impact or my body was already too far gone. I just remember becoming airborne. I remember looking down, past my flailing, oddly bent legs, and getting mildly pissed about the twisted remains of my bike, I’d had that thing for five years and had taken good care of it too. This line of thought got me thinking about the rest of my life that was going to be fucked up by this whole stupid accident as well.

The fact that I actually was about to die hit me and I finally found myself starting to feel upset. Then I hit the ground and everything went black. Suddenly my perspective changed. When I came to, I wasn’t floating above my body like you’d expect. Nor was I standing beside my body. No, on the contrary I was several metres away. Watching everything on a screen like it was a movie. I was seated in a ritzy looking theatre wearing a sharp, black, business suit. Eating popcorn while I watched the life of a guy with the same name as me come to a sudden and unexpected ending.

The other-me frowned. His dark green eyes glowing red. He clucked his tongue at the screen. Then he sighed, stood up, and ran a hand through the black strings of light that served as his hair. Suddenly the other-me was the original me, and the corpse on the screen lost all importance. “I” was just an artificial being, a construct, made of ones and zeros and just a touch of magic. An interactive piece of fanfiction created from the memories of the man in the suit.

I was a dream born from the man in the suit’s memories of the brief time he was human. A dream of an existence that was simpler, more innocent, and more limited than his, my current one. That dream had an idealized approximation of the life that he...I...should have had before life took a turn for the weird. Now the dream was over.

My name was not Montgomery Sasha Javed. I don’t remember what my original name was. I also can’t give you my current name because whatever language you’re reading this story in doesn’t have nearly enough letters. I wasn’t some twenty year old kid either. The real me was old enough that you’d need to use dozens of knuth up-arrows to represent his actual age.

The real me decided he’d probably stick with Monty as a name for now. It’s not like it mattered what anyone called him now. “Monty” was a swell enough fellow, nice and mild-mannered, if a bit of a wuss. Monty had been an okay guy who didn’t disappoint, hurt or mislead anybody. I think the real me was going to miss watching him...I think the real me was going to miss ‘living’ his life. With that said, apparently, someone out there thought it was time for me to wake up from my eons-long slumber.

Someone was knocking on my door and as my simulated life and simulated world faded away, the real me went to go see who was there.

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Elsewhere, in one of the infinite earths that floated within a cosmic sea of infinite possibilities, a young woman sat in the darkness. The candles that sat around her had all been blown out. Extinguished by a gust of wind that suddenly appeared within the windowless chamber. Now she sat with crystals in hand. One glowing. One dark. Holding them beside an ornate circle, a summoning circle. The enchantments that made up the circle were written with hundreds of thousands of runes and millions of sigils. The magical text sharp and alive. Shivering in place. Moving in away that disturbed the mind’s eye.

The woman took the crystals and knocked them together. The sound reverberating through the chamber like thunder during a storm.

*Clack*

“Oh, ye spirit from beyond the vale...Oh, ye aeon from beyond the boundaries of time and space….I call on you!” chanted the woman. Ending the chant by speaking a name that felt like knives being clashed, bells being rung, and cannons being fired. The mere act of attempting to pronounce the name causing her to cough blood.

*Clack*

“Oh, ye eidolon of the forgotten age ...oh, ye legend of the obliviated past...I call on you!” Spitting out yet another mouthful of blood as she uttered the beings name.

*Clack*

“Oh, spirits! Oh, aeons! Oh, eidolon! Oh, fabled legend of old! This humble mortal makes her plea...Grant me my desire and I will pay an appropriate price! I call on you!” chanted the woman. Forced to yell as an inexplicable wind appeared. Her throat raw beyond imagining at this point. The wind blowing harder and harder, seeming to enter her thoughts and deafen her to the voice of her mind.

On the final clack, the two crystals shattered. The bright crystal going dark and the dark crystal going bright. The final clack sounding more like a knock. Like knuckles rapping on a door that had been hidden in the background of existence. The young woman waited with bated breath and rapt attention. The space within the summoning circle shattered and the woman witnessed a darkness even darker than the lightless room.

An oppressive pressure pressed her mind against the back of her skull making the woman feel like she was falling forward at high velocity. Then suddenly the pressure was gone and the circle was gone. And in the book that the woman had, had sitting beside her with all the ritual instructions in it...was also gone.

In their place was a man, a naked man, a handsome man. A beautiful man. A positively, frightening, man. A thing that looked like a man but was clearly NOT a man. A thing that was beyond human comprehension. It’s visage inspiring a deep and abiding existential dread within the young woman. Its features were so transcendental and utterly fascinating that she couldn’t find the strength within her to look away, even as she felt her eyes, ears, and nose melting. It’s dark, eerily, glowing gaze so sharp that she could feel her entire body, mind, and soul being sliced into electron thin slices for its perusal and later consumption.

She felt herself die. Then she felt herself get brought back to life. In the background of her mind,...in those parts of her consciousness that weren’t trapped by the equally urgent and extreme desire to either prostrate or flee screaming..., she was mortified. Horrified to find she’d soiled herself in various ways. Various fluids flowing betwixt her thighs.

The man was holding the book, her book. He read through it with a bored expression. Then seemingly having found the page he’d been looking for he tore out the page, then tore out the pages behind and before the page. Then he ate them. Chewing for several seconds like the old tv and radio PSAs always said to do. The man’s eyes flashed red as he swallowed. The young woman found that a certain piece of knowledge that had previously been prominent in her mind was suddenly gone.

Then the man turned to her and said,

“Sup...So you’re my Summoner, huh? Cool. That seems like it’ll be a good way to kill a few millennia. The name’s Montgomery. Call me Monty. Nice to meet you, Margot Wallace.”

The young woman’s already pale visage grew even paler as she was forced to accept that something had gone catastrophically wrong. The spirit, demon, whatever it was she had summoned was now walking free. Worst yet, it knew her name. Her true name. With a face full of despair, Margot keeled over. Her eyes rolling into the back of her head as she fell.