THE STRING OF LARGE, white Christmas lights lit the cave enough to let me see the inflatable couches, armchairs, plastic cabinets along one wall, and wooden, unfinished shelves along the other. The elves, though... They all wore white shirts and neon green sweatpants, like it was some uniform.

As soon as the group of possible aliens lined up in the center of the cave, Nasilain extended her arms toward them, and the same strange thing happened. The pulsing air, the flash of blinding light, and then they vanished, leaving me, Nasilain, and the elves behind. I had seen some strange things in my life. This, though? What the hell was this?

I wasn’t sure how to get my ass home, but I couldn’t leave until I knew what the hell was going on. Sure, some of the conspiracies out there had a grain of truth, but aliens? Really?

“Why don’t I give you a tour.” Nasilain eyed my gun. “Can you please put it away? I promise, no one will harm you as long as you’re with me.” She inhaled like she wanted to say something else, then stopped, and then started again. “Unless we get attacked.”

I didn’t trust her word or her sanity, but she had just magicked people away. I put the gun back into the holster on my hip, knowing I could draw it fast enough if I had to.

“Where are we exactly?”

Nasilain gestured to the two maps hanging on the wall right next to two calendars and clocks. One of the maps had completely different names and borders for every country, and one of the calendars didn’t even have normal years, months and dates.

“What is all this?” I asked.

Nasilain pointed at the spot on the funky map right around where the center of Ohio should be. Instead, the map had a squiggly line separating regions labeled Salakin and Verlinia. “We’re here. Not the most peaceful place, but since we want to save the wounded soldiers, it’s the perfect location.”

I stared at her. She couldn’t be serious. But the teleportation made it clear they weren’t playing some game.

“We have coffee,” Nasilain said. “And showers. You’ll be alright. Jill told us people in your world could die without these things.”

My world? I looked at the map again. All of the continents were exactly the same, but they didn’t have the US or Russia, or even China. A number of small kingdoms replaced every damn country. They had elves who didn’t mind being told to their face they were being bullshitted, and apparently, they had some crazy technology that allowed them to teleport. How was this even real?

“Alright, how about that tour?” I asked.

Nasilain walked to the opening in the wall of the cave and gestured for me to follow. Stones covered the four-foot wide tunnel. Must’ve been how they kept the place from turning into a mud bath.

“As I said, this is mostly a medical facility. Jill, Vinsor, Ricci, and I have our sleeping quarters in the caves because, if the injured need help with anything, we want to be near. We keep most of our medical supplies down there as well.”

We came out of the caves to a wooded area with dozens of tents, a few wind-powered generators, and portapotties. At least now I knew where to go for that.

Nasilain led me to the largest tent. With the flaps tied open, I could see inside without even walking in. A few freezers lined the walls. The shelves above them showcased a whole bunch of Ziplock bags with dry fruits and vegetables.

“Everything we have is powered by electricity,” Nasilain explained. “We brought electric stoves from your world, and we have a water pump leading to the stream on the other side of the caves.”

She opened the cabinet under the two large sinks and showed me an on-demand electric water heater, then pointed out the coffee makers and a few dozen plastic containers with coffee.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep it in mind if I ever decide to have breakfast on your planet.” Though it looked like these aliens had developed in some parallel dimension.

Nasilain looked at me with a mixture of caution and curiosity, her head tilted slightly to the side. “You should stay for a few days. The others won’t be in your world for long, and they might want to talk to you.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but I’ve got a life back home.” And I didn’t want to fight my way back, especially since I didn’t know how to get there. I had to see my therapist in a couple of days if I ever wanted to work as a cop again. Somehow, I didn’t think telling my therapist that I was a no-show because I got abducted by aliens would work out for me. Just keep it cool, play along, and something would come up.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Time moves faster here. It’s one to twenty. If you stay here for a few days, it will only be a few hours in your world. You won’t miss much.”

That explained a lot about Ricci’s shopping. If he had bought enough supplies for all these people and time moved faster, he’d have no problem using up that much before it expired.

“Would you like me to show you where the showers are?” Nasilain asked and when I nodded, led me further through the camp.

A group of elves in the same white shirts and neon green pants passed us by, stopping to bow to Nasilain.

“What’s up with the uniforms?” I asked.

Nasilain followed my eyes, then shrugged. “Jill told us every cult needed a dress code and the pants were on clearance. The shirts are always cheap and easy to find. I can tell you more about it, but not where they can hear us. I don’t want to ruin the brainwashing.”

I let out a slow breath. What a loony bin. Completely nuts. Seriously, what the hell was going on here?

We got to a small, wooden building that served as the showers. Inside, a few doors led to individual stalls. All in all, it wasn’t bad.

“We can’t always get the water hot enough in the winter, but it’s still good to have.”

Adding a couple more water heaters to their system would fix that. Maybe they had a hard time getting the funds for all this. I couldn’t imagine how they wouldn’t.

“Where do you get the money to buy all this?” Were they working with our government?

“Jill and Ricci make some money with their jobs, but it’s mostly a cover at this point. We don’t want your government to wonder how they can afford to buy cars. This world has a lot of gold, but we only use it for magic and jewelry. There is plenty they can take back and sell.”

“What’re their jobs?”

“Jill is a nurse, and Ricci is a podiatrist. He has his own office in New York City, so he can also order some of the supplies for us.” She stopped like she remembered something. “Please, don’t tell Ricci that podiatrists are useless. He doesn’t like that.”

I cracked a smile. At least they knew how to keep their story straight.

Nasilain guided me to the palisade standing at least eight feet high. A man sat with a sniper rifle on a small perch on a tree. Living on the border wasn’t so peaceful.

“We have a lot of enemies, but as long as you stay behind the walls, you should be safe. If you need to leave, for whatever reason, you should take a gun. No one else has guns in this world, so it should provide you with some security. Just be careful with the magic users. You can never know who it is. Oh, and with demons. You can tell them apart by their eyes. One is always red, and the other is always black.”

“So you people are just sitting here and accepting the wounded from both sides?” The amounts of skirmishes they might see right outside their walls would be insane.

“No. Both sides want us dead. We umm… kidnap the wounded. Kind of.” She gave me another one of her worried looks. “I mean, they usually agree to come with us unless they are unconscious, but their generals don’t see it that way.”

I stared at her. Tall, about five ten, but still a slender little thing. I couldn’t picture her running into battle to drag away the wounded while both sides tried to kill her. Then again, these were probably some crazy alien abductions.

“That doesn’t sound safe.”

“We have electric cars, guns, a rocket launcher, and dynamite. What will they do? Chase us on horses and try to stab us with swords?”

Huh. “I think I wanna stick around for a while. I’m on paid leave right now anyway. Just beam me up into my world to see my therapist and we’ll be good.”