"I can’t believe Cherion just died like that."
"Kid was what, twenty-four?"
"Twenty-one. Freak heart attack. My aunt thinks he died from an energy drink induced heart attack, but I could see it coming anyway. He has been taking Reese’s shifts for at least three weeks already. Guess his heart worked too hard."
Harvey tried his best to concentrate on washing his hands, but honestly, he heard it all. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but they were talking so loud and he didn’t exactly have an unhear button.
Once he dried his hands on a paper towel, he walked past the cashier stand where he saw a framed picture of this Cherion and a small tip jar that was nearly empty.
Cherion Hale. In Loving Memory.
The guy in the picture had an awkward smile, like he was apologizing for being there.
"Boy, he was way too young," Harvey said to himself. As he looked at the picture, he began to feel a strong desire to leave. He silently prayed for Cherion, and hoped that wherever he was now, he wasn’t cleaning floors or dealing with Karens who were upset about the lack of mild sauce a.k.a rested in peace.
"Order sixty-nine!" the cashier shouted.
Harvey picked up his brown paper bag and the fragrant scent of seasoned beef and cheese hit him. He pushed the heavy glass door open with his shoulder and stepped outside.
Harvey was three bites into his first soft taco with his left hand holding his phone when he got a text from his manager.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
’Harvey, the Q3 projection is a mess. I need the report redone and in my inbox by midnight. Thanks!’
"Let me TOUCH my couch first, you menace!" Harvey muttered while still chewing a mouthful of lettuce, freezing mid-step as he glared at his phone.
Rage bubbled up fast. It was already past office hours, he just got his dinner and he should have been resting after that. Not dealing with another round of corporate nonsense from the manager.
But who was Harvey kidding? He was just a regular employee who couldn’t say a word about it because they were a million other people who would gladly take over his job out there.
So he started typing a reply that screamed polite professionalism on the surface but whispered I just want to eat my damn taco in peace, man underneath, then took a step forward.
Big mistake.
Because there was nothing under him.
There were no warnings, no dramatic screaming. One second, he’s mentally roasting Ave, the manager. The next? His foot was plunged into nothingness as though the sidewalk disappeared.
The flimsy orange construction net? More like a decorative item as he tripped on it like a drunk giraffe. His stomach flipped as he fell straight into a pitch-black sewage trench.
What was the last thing he remembered feeling? A stabbing pain in the back of his eyes and the aftertaste of that damned cumin on his tongue. Then, blackout.
His consciousness had finally gotten tired of being hidden in the corner. When he opened his eyes, he braced for the usual, like the hospital beeping sounds, that funky cleaning chemical smell, and that embarrassing hospital gown that is open at the back.
Instead, he felt... fine? No, not fine. He felt fancy.
He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again due to the excessive brightness of the light from above him. He tried again, blinking rapidly. He wasn’t in a hospital. He wasn’t on the side of a road covered in sewage. He was standing (why was he standing?) in a room that looked like it had been decorated by someone who thought the Regency era was "too subtle."
It was all velvet drapes, mahogany furniture with gold leaf, and ornate moldings that probably cost more than his college tuition. It was a very... off-brand historical drama. You know, the kind where the actors have too many teeth and the corsets are historically inaccurate but look great on camera.
Why did they bring me to themepark? he wondered, his brain still sluggish. What the hell is this place?
"Please, Haviel... let me go. I can’t marry a demon."
The voice was soft, trembling, and very close. Harvey looked down. His hands, which looked surprisingly clean and manicured, by the way,were clamped firmly around the wrists of a young woman.
He jumped about six inches into the air, yelping and releasing her so fast it was like she’d turned into a hot stove.
"I can’t do it," she sobbed, clutching her skirts. "I can’t marry someone like him. I’m a human, Haviel! I’m just a human!"
Harvey stared at her. Well, yeah, no kidding, lady. It’s not like you’re a caterpillar or a sentient toaster. He wanted to say it, but his tongue felt like a piece of dry carpet.
"Please, Haviel. I’m begging you."
"Oh! Sorry! My mistake! Just... leave! Whatever!" he yelled at the young woman. He was still trying to figure out if he had a concussion or if the taco meat he just ate was laced with some sort of medication.
The woman stumbled back quickly. She was dressed in a beautiful gown made entirely of silk with countless layers of shoestring lace trim. She looked almost as though she had just stepped off from the set of a movie. Her eyes were wide, full of tears, looking into Harvey.
Okay, Harvey, think, he told himself. This is an Acid Dream. Or a Lucy Dream. Yeah, whatever, the kind where you realize it’s just a dream. He must be out cold in that trench, and his brain was filling the void with a weirdly high-budget soap opera. It made sense. He’d probably hit his head on a pipe.
"Look," Harvey said, putting on his best ’I’m a normal guy’ voice. "If you do not want to be here, then free yourself. For real! I will not hold you back from running for the door. I’m just waiting for the alarm clock to go off, honestly."
The woman froze. Her eyes were wide and she looked dumbfounded by the offer. "You... you’re letting me go? Just like that? After everything the Duke said?"
"The Duke? Is that a brand of tea?" Harvey shook his head. "I don’t care about the Duke. I don’t care about the question. You asked to go, I said yes. We’re in a win-win situation here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go see this place around."
He turned away from her, completely ignoring the way she stared at his back as if he’d grown a second head. He walked to the large window and lent his forehead against the glass. The view was simply... insane. This was not his city. There were no tall buildings, no pollution, no Taco Hell. Just rolling green hills, large rock mansions, and a sky that seemed like it shouldn’t be that shade of purple.
He could hear the door behind him open and close. A quick glance behind him, and he saw that the woman had left.
"Good for her," he said softly. He felt a weird resonance with the name she’d used. Haviel. had a certain ring to it that he could not quite put his finger on. Why did that sound familiar, though? It was like a song you can’t quite remember the lyrics to, or a word on the tip of your tongue that refuses to come out.
He started walking around the room, and as he did so, he realized how huge it was. He felt like a marble rolling around in a shoebox. Eventually, he pushed the doors wide open and stepped into the hallway, which was more ridiculous than the bedroom, if that is possible.
"Wow, this is a very long dream," Harvey said softly as his voice continued to echo. "Maybe if I jump? No, that’s how people actually die. Maybe I just need to find a mirror and see if I look like a K-Drama lead."
He hadn’t gone twenty paces down the hallway before running into a woman carrying a large bundle of linens. She was dressed all in black and white, kind of like what you would see in a maid cafe except she didn’t have any cat ears. The maid froze when she saw Harvey.
"My Lord!" she gasped, nearly dropping the laundry. "Why are you wandering alone?"
Harvey blinked. "My Lord? Wow, this is the most prestigious role I have ever had in a dream."
The maid’s face went from startled to deeply concerned. She looked past him, toward the room he’d just vacated. "Where is Lady Hevira? You were supposed to be... to be guarding her until the departure."
"Hevira?" Harvey rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, the girl in the fancy dress? Yeah, she left."
The silence that followed was heavy. It wasn’t a peaceful silence; it was the kind of silence that happens right before a bomb goes off. The maid’s face drained of color, turning a sickly shade of parchment gray.
"You... you let her go?" she whispered. Then, her voice rose, shrill and panicked. "You let her escape?! Lord Haviel, do you have any idea what you’ve done?"
"Hey, don’t use that tone with me," Harvey said, though he was starting to feel a tiny, cold prickle of genuine anxiety. "She was crying! What was I supposed to do, tackle her?"
"The treaty!" the maid screamed, dropping the linens entirely. "The King... The Demon King is coming for his bride! If she is not there... if she is gone... he will burn this entire province to the ground!"
Without waiting for his answer, the maid turned and started running down the hallway, calling for the guards, the Duke, or whoever could help.
Harvey stood there, his heart starting to thud in a way that felt much too real for a dream. Demon King. Hevira. Haviel.
Wait.
The cold prickle turned into a bucket of ice water poured down his spine. His coworker, Sienna. Sienna, who sat in the cubicle next to him and never, ever shut up about the books she read on her phone. She’d spent an entire week obsessed with some novel. What was the title? The Marriage something?
Harvey felt the floor tilt. Not because of a construction site, but because his brain was finally putting the pieces together.
Hevira. The heroine.
Haviel. The twin brother.
The Demon King. The guy who was currently expecting a bride and was about to find an empty room.
"No," Harvey whispered, his knees feeling like jelly. "No, no, no."
He looked down at his hands again. They weren’t his hands.
This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a hallucination from a head injury.
The sound of heavy boots began to thunder down the hallway.
"Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me," Harvey whispered to the empty air as the guards rounded the corner. "Am I in the novel?!