When Thom said “you and I have some work to do,” I expected for us to gear up in Kevlar and semi-automatic rifles and take the Church by force. I didn’t expect “work” to involve so many colonoscopies. But here I am. In the three days I’ve stayed in this strange room, I’ve undergone five colonoscopies and endless stool samplings. When I tried asking Thom about these strange medical rituals, he responded with a flippant “None of your business, Troll. Now poop into this cup.” I didn’t press any further- firstly, because it was rude to be so demanding to my saviours, and secondly, because I suspected the whole ordeal to be some vivid and strange hallucination. I had a concussion, after all.

Of course, I had no idea whether concussions could produce hallucinations, but it seemed appropriate. The concussion came as a by-product of our escapade, as Thom had informed me. He had to leap a great many walls and fences with the horse, and as my head poked out of the horse’s scrotum area, it became a target for mid-air collisions with said obstructions. I was lucky to have survived the ordeal, Thom remarked, but I should owe that to my unusually thick skull. As for the horse, the final fence would prove to be its last. The furthermost fence surrounding Fort Pants Dungeon and Shaw Cathedral was a masterwork of engineering: enough energy pulsed through its links to power a small Inuit village. The horse, exhausted from all the previous exercise and its coma, didn’t leap but instead barged right through its iron links, leaving a horse shaped hole in the gates. True freedom.

It was some miracle that we weren’t instantly vaporised like the horse. Since I was insulated inside the beast, I was able to survive with only mild first-degree burns. Thom, sensing the danger from afar, exercised the wisdom to jump off prematurely. He stuffed what he could of the horse’s ashes into his pockets- the beast should be commemorated for its brave sacrifice, after all- picked up my unconscious body, stepped (carefully) through the hole, and was gone. The alarms were sounded and inquisitors tried to follow him of course, but he was able to lose them in the thick forests surrounding town. True freedom.

On the fourth morning Thom entered my room like usual, but this time he brought a stranger with him. I already had my pants off and butthole presented for inspection, but he shook his head no.

“We won’t have need of your butthole no more, Mr. Troll,” slurred Thom.

“That’s right,” spoke the stranger. He was an older gentleman with an ancient great beard and bugging eyes. “My name is Testicaller Pugilens, but you may call me Thor.” Thor moved to sit by the foot of my bed. By this point I had pulled back on my bloomers and sweats. “Has Thom ever mentioned the purpose of your being here?”

“No sir, but I’d wager that this has all been a rather unusual hallucination, so there’s probably nothing to worry about.”

“Sorry son,” said the elderly Thor, “But I’m afraid that this is no hallucination. If only it was. You’ve surely been wondering the reason behind all the probing and stool sampling?” I nodded enthusiastically. “Well, wonder no more, for I am here to reveal it all. Not only your purpose being here, but the conspiracy which threatens not only the nation or this world, but our very universe!” He pulled into a dramatic pose, eyes flashing dangerously. “Prepare yourself, child, for I shall now reveal the rotten truth of that damned Church of Four! Thom, lights please.” Thom flipped the lights off. *Click* went the flashlight under Thor’s chin, illuminating his face all spooky-like.

“Nice effects,” I commented.

“Thanks. Here, I brought some marshmallows you guys can snack on while I tell the story.” Thor handed me a bag of the stuff. Thom and I huddled together to listen.

“A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” Thor paused for effect, “There sprawled a vast and hideous empire of unimaginable proportion. An empire which ruled for a hundred trillion years, an empire without equal! And at the centre of this glorious hideousness sat their most vile capital, the helical city of Ras Tanukha.” Something about that name tickled my memory lobes, but I couldn’t quite place it. Thor continued on, “Ras Tanukha, the city which winds closest to the sun. Ras Tanukha, the city closest to God. As long as the empire had their glorious city, they would have no fear of hunger or threat or even death. They would be prosperous for a hundred trillion years and more.

“But all good things must come to an end. Their end would come… from below.”

“Dun dun duuuun!” sang Thom dramatically.

“Thank you, Thom. Now. A brief interlude to explain the heat death of the universe. As we all know, doing stuff sucks. It takes energy to do stuff like eating or breathing or putting on socks, and it’s all a great bother. The universe feels the same way. It would much rather prefer to relax and be dead- I’m sure you can empathize. Problem is, everything in it, including humans and planets and socks and whatnot consume energy by simply existing. To the universe, it’s all a great bother.”

“This is all very interesting,” I interrupted, “But what does this have to do with my butthole?”

“Shush, I’m getting there. As I was saying, the universe is getting tired from all that stuff existing. The more tired it gets, the more things fall apart. This is called entropy. Eventually we will all succumb to entropy. Matter itself will collapse, atoms will scatter and shatter, time will stop, and the universe will finally get some gosh-darned peace and quiet.

“In Ras Tanukha, this was not the case. I’m not sure how, but they discovered a way to reverse entropy itself. Not even the universe could stop them. Or at least that’s what they thought. See, there could be no light without shadow. Every force has an equal and opposite reaction. That is how…”

I never got to hear the end of his sentence. I was too busy being asleep. About an hour later, Thor finally noticed one of his audience members was no longer conscious and shouted me awake.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, BOY!? How dare you sleep through my story!”

“It’s not my fault!” I said groggily, “It’s too dark in here!”

But it was too late. “I will not stand for this level of disrespect!” boomed Thor as he stormed out of the room.

“Now look what you’ve done!” said Thom. “And it was just getting good!”

"It’s not my fault! I have a medical condition!”

“You’ll apologize to Thor right now!”

“Never! I never apologize! I’d rather die!”

“The heck kind of reaction is that?? Just apologize!”

“No! I’m never in the wrong! And fuck you for suggesting it!”

Thom hung his head in defeat. “You know what, I don’t have the energy for this. This has all been a waste of time anyways. The DNA evidence is gone, you’ve probably digested it by now.”

“What DNA evidence?”

"Well, maybe if you’d been awake for the story, you’d know by now! The bloody DNA evidence you ate, crap-for-brains!”

“But I don’t remember eating any DNA evidence?”

“You don’t remember eating a literal plate of diarrhea!? Your first morning in the dungeon you were given a plate of crap as a joke by some inquisitors. They told you to eat it. Remember now?” Since he mentioned it, I do remember that the quality of food was sorely lacking in the dungeon. “Well that diarrhea belongs to the actual murderer of all those testicallers! The same guy that’s trying to end our hecking universe! And because of you, he might just succeed!”

“But I didn’t eat it.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Why would I eat that? That’s disgusting, dude.”

“But when I asked you said you ate it! You licked the plate clean!”

“Well yeah, but you kinda pressured me into it.”

Thom buried his face in his hands. “Then what did I rescue you for?? Who ate the diarrhea??”

I opened my mouth to answer only to find that I couldn’t remember. “Um. Weird, I’m blanking all of a sudden. I mean, I’m sure I didn’t eat the shit. Most likely. I think there was someone else in the closet with me? And they were hungry?”

“How sure is sure? Because I sure as heck don’t want to break into prison again!”

“Like 70% sure? This is so weird, I’m usually good with memory.”

Thom sighed deeply and fell back onto my bed. “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” he resigned. “We’re gonna have to re-break into prison.”