I awoke with a start, it was dark. My mouth was dry. I reached up to grab my water I kept by my bed.
Something was in my way, I gave up.
“What an awful dream.” I thought,
“That wasn’t fire.” Then, “Gatorator doesn’t sound like that she’s got a deep rumble of a bark, sounds like she’s sixty pounds.”
Gatorator, (mom would never accept such a name) was only forty pounds at most. Still large enough to eat a kid, or maybe mom.
Speaking of women, that thing I bumped into was a woman.
I blinked and realized I felt like I was a teenager. I hadn’t when waking up in a few years, except for during the spring. And that was only when I was going to the gym.
I jostled myself a little in bed.
My pajamas were weird, I was wearing some kind of wizard robe like I was eighty years old. No boxers, which was odd.
Also I was a beefcake, how had this happened? My arm had grown in width a few inches. My legs felt like springs. My chest felt heavy. My back was powerful.
Gosh I wonder if she’s attractive. I thought to myself.
“Go to sleep!” the woman grunted. Did I think to myself out loud?
“I’m thirsty.” I replied.
“Men…” she grumbled.
“Would you like a glass of water?” I asked.
“Shhh!”
Well whoever she was this wasn’t a glowing first impression.
I hope she isn’t too cute, I wouldn’t want to like her. Then again maybe I was being mean, I didn’t remember last night. Last night where I… but that was a dream.
This bed was oddly small for two people, I practically fell out. Cute, the bed had a farmhouse canopy. That’s the boondocks for you…
But gosh when was this made? Pre-twentieth century? Fancy bed…
I noticed I had flowing long hair. Like I was an eighties action hero.
But I was thirsty, I could worry about that later.
My eyes were dimly adjusted to the dark, I opened a door in darkness.
Some odd shelves? Alcohol? Unlabeled alcohol? I didn’t want alcohol, I didn’t drink.
What kind of crazy apartment was this? No bathroom for the king and queen, a giant half outdoor living room? Gosh the humidity here must be awful who would ruin posh furniture that way! I closed the door to what must have been the apartment living room? Balcony?
I paused briefly looking at the vibrant and numerous stars beyond.
I must be dreaming still.
I closed it and opened another door.
This was clearly a restroom, this must be the hardcore renaissance fair because it didn’t look like there was running water.
I closed that door.
There was one last door,
*crunch
I stifled a curse.
I had stubbed my toe on a smooth wooden table, fancy chess pieces in a box, a marble chessboard inlaid on the surface of my assailant.
Did this lady… I imagined she must have been cosplaying some middle aged lady. In my bed like chess? Maybe that’s how I got here.
I was never good at chess but I enjoyed the game.
I took a quick look at what must have been my beloved. She made no motion that she had perceived me.
I had always had a paranoid fear that I lived a double life somehow and didn’t remember it. Like I was some sort of Jekyll and Hyde.
In this fiction my alter ego was always more of a risky person.They liked to drink and party.
This strange ren fair apartment and woman in my odd bed basically confirmed the theory. While she did seem conventionally attractive, she wasn’t really my type and I didn’t remember her.
I don’t know, something about her otherwise beautiful face reminded me of goblins, or caricature, masks. Something predatory. Not the graceful natural beauty a striking apex. But the calculating treachery of an ambush. Like a mantis, or a flounder. Somehow it seemed nobody else I met could ever see the game. But this paranoia followed me, sometimes tragically, everywhere
“Come back soon,” she whispered as I stood by the door ready to leave. I could imagine her terrible breath. “It’s cold when I’m alone.”
I almost felt bad.
But that’s how men, lady or not, are butchered.
I actually did feel bad because I left the room without saying anything. Not even anything rude or witty to be coy.
The floor felt like genuine stone. Wow.
Stone was cold so I made sure to stand on the rug, my bare feet were hairier than I remember.
I must be king of the renaissance fair because I was in a castle. Which made sense, I probably looked good swinging a sword. In fact there were a few mounted horizontally just at the top of these stairs.
I admired them for a moment. I touched a few. Very sharp. Too sharp.
I wondered if the edges would chip, and then realized that if I were a proper king I would probably prefer a hammer.
“Charles Martel…” I muttered out loud. But that guy wasn’t a king now was he?
Still though, he smashed people with a hammer and won a war or two, that’s properly kingly isn’t it?
I could really go for smashing something right now. And a glass of water. Or even a water fountain or even a sink.
But I wasn’t me was I?
:(
My body wasn’t right, my hair was too long, I had been getting fat as my metabolism slowed down but now I was feeling as vitality incarnate. I was probably underweight now to be honest. I thought looking at myself, I could feel a lower rib as I breathed in and felt myself.
I suppose I shouldn’t complain, even a year of peak performance was a blessing.
And food was good, I should eat some food.
I walked down the spiral staircases.
Wow this was a serious castle, I had been expecting just a fancy hotel room. But there was a dark candlelit corridor complete with iron gates. An entire floor of odd rooms. If I didn’t know better I would say a dungeon.
I walked down the staircase some more. Flickering lights of an odd town I didn’t recognize flashed in the dark beyond the murder holes.
I could practically hear myself breathe. It was so quiet.
Gosh how tall was this stone structure? It was stone down here too.
Then it dawned on me.
Oh.. what if I’m genuinely in the Middle Ages?
That would be nice I guess, I was feeling young, had swords, was fit, I could do anything I wanted. I could finally live my childhood dream and be a pirate.
Nah that was the ren-fair fantasy. Not that it explained my newfound vitality.
The next floor was a wide open room of stone and armor.
Then the next was what I was looking for. A long series of tables empty, benches, genuine torches and cold night air breezing through.
“Uh oh”
A renaissance fair didn’t build a genuine stone castle.
And where was the water?
I walked to the “throne” at the head of the table.
A little understated door right behind it. I ducked through. Realizing now the impressive difference in material quality between the world I remembered and this one.
A well, deep and cold, I could practically feel the void pulling me down it.
Technically this part of the castle was outdoors, I could see stars above me. Stone walls surrounded this region and charmingly patches of moss grew upon carefully softened mulch.
I assumed so those who fetched water didn’t have to clean up spills.
The sky was open above me but a graceful wooden overhang would have shielded me from most of the rain, were it raining.
The sky was clear. I looked for my patron saint and eternal guide Orion. More specifically his belt.
“Crap”
I could see the Milky Way. Or… well… the stars didn’t match anything I knew.
Civilization must be dead. Or worse, this was south of the equator and I was truly mad.
Well I live in a castle right? I get to be important don’t I? I shouldn’t squander this chance.