Standing in front of the Durham kitchen and dining area, Eli yawned, wishing he’d just slept in. Since the local Sahara R&D corporate facility employed thousands, it was little surprise that the place was half full even at this early hour. Idly stirring the hot coffee in his hand, he looked over to the omelet station, slammed as usual, and wondered if he had time to grab one before starting work. Beyond the automated registers, dozens of tables of varying sizes filled up with the other folks crazy enough to come in before 8 am on a Friday.

“Hey Eli!” a voice called out to his left over the hubbub of conversations and noise in the busy cafeteria.

Looking over, he spotted Mike and Hyunh sitting at one of the side tables in the dining area. He raised his hand in acknowledgment and nodded with a smile while walking over to join them. Mike was wearing his usual company jacket while Hyunh ate something from a container she’d probably brought from home. After working with both for a couple of years, he was amused to see that some things hadn’t changed.

“Hey, guys!” Eli said when he was a bit closer and didn’t have to yell over the other people talking nearby, steering towards an open seat across from Mike. “What the heck are you doing here this early? I just came in to get an early start myself.”

Frowning at his own words that seemed to hang in the air, a nagging thought snagged for his attention. Trying to hold a smile as his team members smiled back in welcome, he worried at the annoying itch in the back of his head. He had just set his hot coffee on their table when the realization hit him - Mike and Hyunh wouldn’t be here this early on a Friday unless he requested it, so how could he be surprised by their presence?

The room went silent. Confused, Eli tried to glance around to get a better look at his surroundings, but his head wouldn’t budge. Even his eyes wouldn’t turn but stayed locked on the coffee he’d just set down. His heartbeat thumped loudly as his adrenaline spiked, fear rising while straining to move even a millimeter, but he was trapped. Once again, he found himself a prisoner in his own body – a passenger along for the ride.

A loud snap returned his mind to the scene, but it had changed. Mike and Hyunh had vanished, and Aarav, of all people, now stood in front of him as if he’d always been there. Dressed like he was ready to step into the training ring, he still looked like a movie star from an action flick. Behind him, all of the other people had vanished, leaving the two of them alone.

“Aarav?” he asked with surprise.

His friend stepped forward, hugging him hard for a moment and slapping him on the back a few times. Stepping away, he put a hand on Eli’s shoulder. “How’re you doing, dipshit? Still a rowdy-sheeter?” Aarav asked, throwing around the same lopsided smirk the ladies seemed to love.

“Hey shithead, that was one time, and they dropped the charges!” Eli responded almost automatically, playfully smacking the hand off his shoulder. It was just like old times, but then he blinked. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I had to come by to get your attention, but I don’t remember you being this stupid back in school. You’d think with all the clues, you’d figure things out more quickly,” Aarav responded with a slow headshake while assuming an overly dramatic sad expression. “Do I need to hit you over the head to help you figure it out?”

“Naw, I already figured out that I’m dreaming,” Eli replied with a touch of sadness, knowing this wasn’t really his friend but just a figment of his imagination. Parking his backside against the edge of a nearby tabletop, he quirked an inquisitive eyebrow at Aarav. “But what do you mean about the clues? Why not just tell me?”

Aarav guffawed, his loud laugh somehow lightening Eli’s tension. “It doesn’t work that way,” he said, pointing a thumb back at his chest. “I’m just a manifestation of some hunch of yours, so the answers are sadly still up there,” he finished, pointing up at Eli’s head. His taunting smile returned as he crossed his muscular arms, tilting his head slightly.

A noise suddenly started behind Aarav, reminiscent of the hum from a giant server room, only much louder. Startled, Eli tried to look at the source, but his eyes were trapped again as his body froze. At the same time, Aarav froze, his face still locked in the same taunting smile, and then he slowly dissolved into the air as if he had turned to smoke.

At the edge of his vision, Eli caught a small light that flashed on the other side of the kitchen, just down the hallway that led to his temporary office. Crackling snaps and pops suddenly discharged like a fallen high voltage line even as the humming drone picked up to a dull roar. The distant light fizzled and pulsed in time with the sounds before a green circle slowly expanded into existence. A moment later, strange multicolored striations sparked like lightning along the green mirror-like surface.

Initially looking like Lugh’s portal, it continued to change as the colored striations shrank while the green light darkened. The tiny sparks dissolved into a darkness so deep that Eli felt the world's colors start to seep away. The room tilted around him, reality at the edge of his vision warping towards the hole while a wave of exhaustion swept through his body. Small streams of white energy emerged from his skin, forming little wisps of floating white lines of particulates in the air. Drawn away from him like a star consumed by a black hole, the white energy disappeared into the dark pit. With rising panic, he tried to back away, feeling like his energy and dream world was falling into the insatiable darkness.

Suddenly, a giant pale hand emerged from the shadow's deep, dark nothingness and reached out to him with an impossibly long arm extending back into the portal. Still frozen, he was grabbed around his torso. Screaming in his mind, unable to move, the hand squeezed him tight before jerking him back towards the darkness.

Motherf…

***

“Wake up, Eli.”

Someone shaking his shoulder woke him, and he opened his eyes to stormy clouds roiling above him while walls of dark grey colors swirled at the edge of his vision. Trying to sit up, he found himself again unable to move with only his eyes following his commands. Glancing to the sides only revealed bookcases on one side and a long table on the other without exposing the speaker.

“Eli! Come on, focus!”

Again he heard the familiar voice and tried to look over but failed as his muscles refused to listen. A moment later, Lugh stepped into view, wearing the same creepy smile that was still far too wide for his liking.

“Why, hello there, my brave little adventurer. How are you enjoying your time in Lurra, hmmm?” Lugh’s right hand glowed with a green light as he waved it in Eli’s direction. Immediately, he felt the painful pinpricks and twitching muscles like last time. “There you are. We're just going to have a chat. Just you and me. It’s more than overdue, don’t you think?”

Eli turned on his side as the painful pinpricks flowed through his body. Surprisingly, his body responded quickly, with few of the problems he’d had the last time he was here. Able to roll easily onto his side, he levered himself up and sat on the table's edge before looking down. Grumbling at the state of his nakedness once again, he was slightly mollified after spotting the shiny bracelet still on his wrist.

Lugh clapped his hands loudly right in Eli’s face. “Come on now, get that mind of yours working. Seriously, were you this slow last time?”

“Yeah, okay, Lugh. You’re a witty guy – we get it,” he said with a grimace and a lazy wave of one hand. He moved to the edge of the table, carefully scooting off it, and stood up. For the first time, he felt the room’s floor that felt like simple cold stones, somehow surprised that it wasn’t more remarkable. Pushing the idle thought away, he did a little hop while imagining wearing his clothes. Landing, he smiled at his everyday attire: shirt, pants, and boots.

Magic is so damn cool.

“Oh? Figured things out already?” Lugh taunted. “Maybe you aren’t as stupid as I thought.”

Scowling, Eli held in the first flash of anger that nearly erupted, realizing that he was likely dreaming anyway. After the scene with Aarav, the hungry portal, and the monstrous hand like something out of a cartoon, he figured he was still asleep while his crazy mind created this weird reality out of tiny pieces of his memories.

Lugh stepped closer, poking Eli with a bony finger. “Come on, focus that tiny mind of yours,” he said, a malicious glint in his eye as if he knew how painful the jab was.

“Lugh, what the hell!” Anger rising up, Eli jabbed a thick finger hard into the smaller man’s chest, pushing him away. Backpedaling, Lugh gasped in surprise as he nearly managed to trip himself on his own feet. Satisfied when the crazy guy was a bit further away, he continued more calmly, “I get it already. Can you knock off the attitude? Seriously, I don’t give a shit what you’re selling. I don’t even know whether you’re real or a dream, and I have a hard time caring either way.”

Sniffing dismissively at the crazy guy, Eli glanced around the space, wondering how he could get out of here. He hadn’t been very successful at waking up from his nightmares lately, so he was a bit stuck at the moment. Still, he took a little comfort in not facing more nightmares about his family.

Lugh harrumphed like a much older man, straightening his bathrobe with a few angry tugs. Flipping his green bathrobe’s sleeves in annoyance, he said, “I’m here to make a deal with you.”

“Did I stutter?” Eli snapped back, angry at the crazy guy’s seeming inability to listen. “Unless you’re going to somehow convince me that you’re the real you and not some figment of my imagination, you’re just wasting my time.”

“Oh? You don’t think I’m real?” The confusion in Lugh’s face shifted into anger as the creepy smile bloomed suddenly, but with an extra smidge of maliciousness. With a smile extending further into his cheeks than seemed natural, he revealed far too many pointy teeth than should fit in a human mouth. “You doubt my power?” Lugh continued and pointed a bony finger at Eli.

Immediately, Eli felt his throat close off as if blocked. Shocked, he felt at his neck for anything restraining him, but nothing was there. There wasn’t any pain, but he also couldn’t breathe. Starting to feel a bit of panic rising, an image from an old movie series his grandma had loved crossed his mind. Recognizing the similarities, he tried to laugh, more akin to a cough at first, but more strangled chuckles soon followed. With both hands grasping his throat, he fell to his knees with an almost dramatic flair, mimicking one of the stuffy officers in the epic movie saga. Glancing up to see the reaction, he was gratified when Lugh stared utterly baffled at Eli’s antics, which only set him off again into a fresh bout of strangled laughter.

With expressions of confusion and anger warring across his face, Lugh finally waved his hand at Eli again, and the blocked sensation vanished. Disconcertingly, Lugh tilted his head far to the side as his smile bloomed again to reveal his pointy teeth.

Reminded of an animal playing with its food, Eli tried not to gulp at the look. Something was menacing in the man’s eyes, a look that hadn’t been there when he met the real Lugh. A few moments passed in silence, but Lugh didn’t move. Not a muscle or twitch, as if he’d turned into a vindictive statue sculpted by an artist who dabbled in the darker side of the human psyche. After almost a minute, he felt his unease grow and stepped away from the piercing eyes, but they didn’t follow him but stayed locked and unmoving.

Lugh’s eyes, frozen and looking at where Eli had been standing, suddenly tracked to his new position like out of an old animatronic show. “Perhaps I’ve been too nice,” Lugh said as if he hadn’t just been frozen for minutes. “I’m done with this conversation, so I’ll make it simple enough for that little mind of yours: Stop experimenting. Live your life and grow stronger, but stop meddling with things you don’t understand. I will punish you if you do not follow my simple instructions.”

Holding up his hands, Lugh pointed both palms at Eli. “Just to show you a little of what I can do, off you go, little adventurer. But remember my warning.”

A bright green light filled his vision, briefly blocking the entire room. Shocked, Eli gasped as excruciating pain coursed through his body while green flames sprouted around him as if conjured from his skin. He had a brief image of his skin bubbling away before even his vision went black, but the burning only continued. Falling and curling on his side, he tried to scream, but only wet, choked sounds emerged as his body burned. With the torment passing beyond anything he could imagine, an almost searing cold flashed through him. In his existence of unending agony, he welcomed the darkness as it rose up to consume him.