Dealing with the Universe

Today was not a good day for Alan, not that there hadn’t been worse days in his history, but this day in particular certainly was up there in the top register of his mental list of bad days.  Then again, most people, waking up to a large stone room looming up around them when they expected the warm comfort of one’s own home, would agree that it would be a bad start to any day.

Alan sat up groggily and looked at his new surroundings.  He was in a large and ancient looking circular room, made of large rough cut stones, a few arches showed corridors to unknown locations.  The stone was cracked and caked with vines and moss.  This perusal would have gone on longer had he not looked down at his arm.

What graced his sight was horrible.  The most unimaginable evil had befallen him.  The book he had been reading the night before was lying next to him, destroyed, from puddle of water that had collected in the room.  Truly, this was a most horrific of occurrences.  Nevertheless, he picked up his book and decided to take a look around.

Finally, getting to his feet, Alan began to pace around the room.  While getting the feeling back in his legs, he pondered as to how he arrived at his new location.  He did not have long to worry about it though, as he heard voices coming down one of the corridors.  Well, he thought they were voices, it had the same rhythm as speech, but it certainly wasn’t any language he had ever heard.  Either way he had a choice to make, he could investigate the corridor with the noise, or head through the other corridor leading out of the room.  This choice could prove to be of benefit or detriment to his situation.  This did not actually go through his head as, by the time he could have thought any of this, he had already taken off down the path to his left away from the voices.  This decision would later come to haunt him, as he would forever wonder how things could have gone had he chosen the other empty path.  That path actually held a spike trap that would have brutally killed him, but he didn't know that.

After walking for a few minutes Alan was getting worried.  All he ever saw were the same ancient, cracked stones and a few vines, and even though he saw no lighting fixtures, the whole of the corridor was well lit.  The oddest thing was that the lighting was completely even over the entire space, as though the light just decided to exist everywhere of its own accord.  The whole of his situation was finally sinking in.  He was lost, in an unknown environment, with no idea how he got there or, more importantly, how to get back.  Unfortunately, he lacked time to truly ponder these questions as the voices had gotten closer again, so he stopped his introspection and started running through the cave system.

It took only seconds for him to realize that something very odd had happened.  Where once he was in an old stone building, he was now in some kind of cave system.  Looking back, he tried to see where the switch occurred, but could only see the cave walls extending back into the darkness where the voices dwelled.  He did not stop to ponder how there could be darkness, as this area was lit like the first, he only realized that he was nowhere near anything familiar.  This was an alien locale that worked differently from anything he knew, and so he followed a very basic command from his hypothalamus and adrenal glands:  "Run faster."

Alan was by no means fit, but he would have still done a runner proud at the speed he went down that hallway, and it was a hallway now.  He slowed to a walk, he could no longer hear the voices.  Not that it would have mattered anyway, as he was completely spent.  Slowing further to catch his breath, Alan looked closer at his surroundings for the first time.  The passageway, whatever it was, was completely straight as far as he could tell, it didn’t appear to bend or connect to anything.  Looking around he noticed that the hallway looked set up for doors, like a hotel or a set of dorms, but each space where a door should have been held only a bare door-shaped discoloration.  He wondered where this place was, and whether or not it had an end.  Wherever he was, he wanted out as soon as possible.

Turning back to continue down the hallway, he found that his location had changed again, this time for the strange (relatively speaking).  While all the other locations had been indoors, his current setting was in the middle of a dense Cyprus forest.  Surrounded by thick trees and dense underbrush, Alan saw a path leading to what appeared to be a small clearing.  Having no other options, he walked to the edge of the clearing.  At the center of the clearing was a stone platform, square and completely smooth, and on this platform were two individuals.  The first entity Alan saw was at the center of the platform.  He tried to describe what the individual looked like, but could not hold on to anything tangible.  He could see the individual, knew what they looked like, but after looking away, or breaking concentration to think about their appearance, all the information went blank.

The second individual did not share this quality.  In fact, Alan recognized this individual quite easily.  It was quite large and black, about eye height to Alan’s reckoning, quadruped, about the shape of a horse only with insectile wings and a gnarled looking horn with a saddle looking piece of carapace on their back.  All of this formed one singular word in Alan’s brain.  This word was a name, and this name was Chrysalis.

Now Alan had an idea of what was going on.  Being well versed in fan fiction, he had come across several from a relatively new fandom centered on the show My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic.   He wasn’t really big on participating in the fandom, but he enjoyed their works; and there was one particularly popular genre in that fandom, stories where humans were magically sent to the show’s world.  While he did enjoy those stories where his world and theirs collided, he had no intention of participating in such a story.   So, he promptly turned around and ran.  Or he would have if the infinitely forgettable entity wasn’t in his way.  Alan stepped back to try and circle around the entity, but was stopped at the sound of his foot hitting something hard.  Alan was now somehow on the stone platform at the middle of the clearing.  He tried again to run away, but only succeeded in turning around to face the same direction he started.  Alan then decided to stop before the nausea of moving non-euclideanly got the better of his stomach.

He finally looked back at the entity who had adopted a smug smile on his face, or rather, gave the impression of being smug as Alan could still not pin down any features on the creature.  Whatever the case, it was absolutely radiating smugness and Alan was getting rather irritated with it.

“So this is the creature?”

Alan had forgotten about the other individual on the platform and jumped at the sound.  Alan scowled as the entity seemed to radiate something akin to laughter.  As Alan pondered what was said, he realized he was remembering different things about what was said.  There was the English, he picked up on that rather well, but there were other parts. He could hear some kind of rhythmic clicking, or maybe it was whinnying?  Trying to concentrate on it was giving him a headache, so he decided to just stick with the English.  Any further thoughts on the matter were interrupted by the entity

“Yes.”

This response caused Alan to recoil.  It was said, but it was not, it had a language, but it was all languages, and Alan was getting pissed that he had to resort to vague ideas just to come close to understanding what just occurred.

“You will be bound to this individual and him to you, and in exchange I guarantee the well being of your subjects.  Though, through this process, you will not emerge the same individual you are now.”

“I accept.”

Alan tensed up to prepare for the mental onslaught, but it never came.  All he heard was English, even what the entity had said he could remember, even if there was no voice to connect it too.  Perhaps the initial oddities were one time only, and he could understand them now without negative effect.

“Wait!  What was that about binding!?”

Alan had finally spoken up.  It was interesting to see Chrysalis’s reaction to him speaking.  She seemed to sport a confused look as it appeared she was trying to rectify something he said.  He realized he had probably had that same look not too long ago.  The entity was the one to answer.

“Her people are starving.  They need sustenance and protection.  She came to me in order to strike a deal to care for her people.  In exchange she is to be bound to another individual.  Both of you will have to travel together, and so long as you are together, neither of you shall come to harm.  But should you wander apart, and the binding wear thin, calamity will claim you both.”

“And why, exactly, did I have to be the one to get dragged into this!?” Alan shouted.

“Each reaction has to have the proper ingredients.  I know not if you are a reactant to be changed, or a catalyst to spark the reaction, but you are necessary for everything to pass according to the deal.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You cannot.”

The world began to spin around Alan, and he assumed another scenery change was occurring, but a sharp reunion with the ground informed him that he was losing consciousness instead.  As darkness began to envelop him, he used what little time he had left to try and lob his book at the entity.  Time well spent, in his opinion.