Locked out of Heaven

“Come on… Come on!” yelled a short pale-skinned man, wearing his usual black “JERK” t-shirt. His hair was a mess of black knots and split ends that were clearly not taken care of. Hunched over behind his upturned couch, Dan glared balefully at a small clip-spring mousetrap in the far corner of his small apartment.

Chris—a tall, brown haired man wearing a light blue t-shirt covered by an unbuttoned orange shirt—glanced tiredly over at his aggressive friend. “Dan, yelling at it won't make the mouse trap work. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’re scaring the mouse away.”

Dan turned his dagger-leveling green gaze at Chris. “Then shut up and be quiet!” he yelled back.

Chris could only sigh. This had been the third day straight that he’d been called over to help catch a mouse Dan had spotted eating out of his trashcan. After his first two outlandish ideas involving a funnel, sandwiches, and a claw failed, he supposed that more simple ideas were in order. “You know, I’m actually surprised,” he stated.

“About what?” grumbled Dan.

Chris motioned around the room to the various kinds of clutter that littered the area. There were leftover food items in one corner, a pile of clothes in another, and for some reason, weapons in a third. “Well, with your apartment being this dirty all the time, you’d think that you would have a rat problem sooner.” He took another took around. “Or at least a roach problem,” He added.

Dan scoffed in mock offense. “Chris, please. A bachelor such as myself would never let his pad succumb to the disgusting, freeloading insects that crawl along the bottom of the food chain.”

Chris gave him an odd look. “That still doesn't explain—”

“All right!” Dan screamed, turning to glare at Chris. “Ninja Dave gave me some weird ninja smelling salts to keep the bugs and rodents away! Are you happy now?”

“Well then how did the mouse get in?” he asked, even more confused. Of course Chris knew of the infamous ninja living across the street. Once bent on killing Dan and Chris’ wife, Elise, the now retired black belt owns the local cookie store, and even gives them free cookies from time to time.

Dan’s anger evaporated as quick as it usually did and he gave Chris a flat look. “I think it’s mutated.” At Chris’ disbelieving stare, he continued, “Well there’s no other explana— HEY!” One quick glance back to the trap revealed that the small slice of cheese that Dan decided to use as bait had disappeared. Turning back to his friend, Dan leveled a rage filled finger at him. “CHRIS! IF YOU DON’T STOP EATING THE BAIT, I WILL STRANGLE YOU AND USE YOUR CORPSE AS A REPLACEMENT!”

Chris, all too used to his friend’s frequent outbursts, reeled back and held his hands up in practiced defense. “I swear it wasn’t me this time! You told me that you coated it in poison so I wouldn’t eat it!” he cried out.

Dan visibly calmed but his glare remained. “Oh yeah… That was a lie,” he stated plainly, “The store was out of poison today.”

Chris shot him a hurt look in response as he righted himself and stood up. “You mean I could’ve eaten it without dying? Not cool, Dan. Not. Cool.” Chris glanced over forlornly to the now sprung trap, lamenting over his lost opportunity.

Dan ignored him and put a finger to his chin, proceeding to tap his small beard thoughtfully. Then, putting his other hand behind his back, Dan stood up and began to pace around the room.

“Hmm,” he hummed to himself, eyes darting back to the cheeseless mousetrap, “It seems that this mouse is craftier than I first believed. Perhaps this trap was too simple after all.” He tossed a subtle look at Chris. “That’s the last time I take advice from Chris,” he mumbled.

Proceeding to look down at his cluttered coffee table, Dan’s eye caught sight of a peculiar article. As he went to pick it up, Chris fidgeted nervously, glancing between Dan and the door. “Hey, Dan… I—”

“Quiet, piggy!” Dan shouted back, holding out his hand to silence him. Dan himself had an excited smile on his face as he pointed to it. “Check this out!”

Chris walked over and took up the magazine, beginning to read its contents. “‘Dr. Codis’ semi-patented co-trademarked, completely non-magical pest catcher. 100% Guaranteed to catch any pest and deliver them to where they deserve to be. Use with extreme caution.’” Chris handed the paper back and gave Dan a concerned look. “Dan, you shouldn’t trust back-of-the-magazine advertisements like these. They’re all lies and fake products.”

Dan narrowed his eyes at him and crossed his arms in suspicion. “And how do you know? Have you ever bought one of these so-called, ‘fake products’ before?”

Chris’ eyes shrank in surprise and he glanced around nervously. “N-No!” he squeaked back.

Dan let his arms dangle by his sides and simply looked at him. “You’re a bad liar, you know that?” he said matter-of-factly. “So, what did you buy?” he continued to ask, genuinely curious.

Chris smiled sheepishly and struggled to avoid eye contact. “I, er, ordered a shrink ray. I thought if I shrank all my food I could eat more of it and enjoy the taste longer.”

Dan facepalmed. “Okay, two things… One: why not just use a gigundo ray? Then, instead of WASTING INGREDIENTS, you can just eat one—” he looked up and down Chris’ body, “two sandwiches a day!”

Chris’s face lit up in realization. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Dan ground his teeth. “And two… your wife already has a gun that does both of those things!”

“Well she won’t let me use it! Why do you think I wanted to buy one from a magazine?” defended Chris, “Anyways, that’s beside the point. The point is that these things don’t work and will only be a waste of—” A loud buzzing noise cut Chris’ speech off. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled his cell phone out to check who it was. After a few seconds, he put it back and gave Dan an apologetic look. “Sorry Dan. Elise needs me to hurry home for a… special project.”

Dan fumed. “What is with you these days? It’s like you get called home every few hours! Is Elise that needy?” Instantly, Dan’s tone shifted more towards a sorry, more pleading one. “Come on, I need help with this mouse! And I can’t sleep at night knowing that it might jump up on my bed and claw my face off…”  He smiled softly and held up the rest of his pack of square cheddar cheese. “I’ll let you have some if you stay.”

Chris stared at the cheese for a long while, a gaze of intense desire flaring in his eyes. Finally, he shook his head and made his way towards the door. “N-no. I’m sorry, Dan! I’ll see you tomorrow… maybe.” With that, Chris ran down the outside stairs and towards his car.

Dan, nearly bursting with animosity, ran out the door and screamed down the stairs, “FINE, YOU TRAITOR! THIS FRIENDSHIP IS OVER! YOU CAN LIVE IN A SHALLOW GRAVE WITH THAT SUCCUBUS OF A WIFE OF YOURS FOR ALL I CARE! GOOD RIDDANCE!” At the end of his rant, Dan slammed the door closed as hard as he could, while Chris simply looked up at it expectantly. After a few seconds, the door cracked back open and Dan looked down with a flat stare. “See you tomorrow.” Once again, he slammed the door.

Inside his home, Dan continued to vent his frustrations to himself. “Stupid, no-good, best friend! Choosing family over me. Who does that?! And what is this ‘secret project’ that’s been so important recently?” Dan then let out a sigh, dragging a hand down his face. “Ahh, forget it. I have better things to do anyway then worry about whatever weird fetish movies Elise is making Chris try out.”

Grabbing the magazine, Dan pulled out his phone from his pocket and began to dial the number written along the page. “Hello, Chaos Industries? I’m calling for Dr. Codis…”

~~~

The very next day, Dan opened his door with a grin and picked up the medium sized package that was laying in front of his apartment. “Wow, that was fast. I need to order from that magazine more often.”

“Merow.”

Closing his door, Dan turned to see his faithful scruffy black cat standing behind him. Smiling sweetly, he bent down to pick her up. “Mr. Mumbles! You wanna see me kill a pest?”

Mr. Mumbles cocked her head, gazing up at her owner with wide eyes. “Meow?”

Dan reeled back in shock. “Goodness no, Mr. Mumbles. I would never make you catch that filthy rodent yourself. Who knows what kind of diseases it might be carrying!” With that, he rubbed his face against hers affectionately. “Come on, let’s go watch the show.”

Skipping excitedly towards the center of his living room, Dan set down the box on his table, speedily using his handy pocket knife to slice open the top. Sticking the tool slash weapon in his pocket, he eagerly opened the box.

“Ohh, packing peanuts!” Dan reached in and held up a handful of styrofoam peanuts. “I’ll hold onto these. You never know what kind of vengeance scheme might have use for them, Mr. Mumbles.”

Stuffing handfuls of peanuts in his other pockets and delving deeper into the box, he felt something cold brush against his hand and pulled out a small silver cube. Examining it curiously for a few seconds, Dan picked out a single piece of paper that had been sitting right next to it. Unfortunately, the writing only served to confuse him more. “What is this?!” he yelled out furiously, squinting his eyes at it, “It’s just a bunch of wild scribbles and lines!” He showed it to his cat. “It’s like someone wrote this with their mouth! You could write better than this.”

Frustrated, Dan irritatedly tossed the cube against the back wall, ignorant of the whirring noises that began to emanate from it while he continued to mumble bitterly to himself. He turned the sheet of paper this way and that, desperately struggling to read the strange writings.

“Maybe it’s a different language?” Dan then peered back to floor, or rather where the floor should be. He was unable to see it with all the garbage and clothes scattered about. “Where did that magazine say this was shipping from?”

While Dan looked around to find the magazine, Mr. Mumbles managed to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon happening in front of them. The cube began to release a white light as it expanded. The top of it soon burst open, fully releasing the pent up energies within. The magic covered the back of Dan’s wall, turning it into a veritable door made of light.

“Merow! Meeeow!” Mr. Mumbles pawed Dan’s leg to get her owner’s attention. Dan turned and opened his mouth to say something, but when he noticed the large wall of light that had replaced his back wall, they died in his throat as his eyes widened. Before his speech could recover, a fierce wind thenbegan sucking him and his cat into the wall. Letting out a shocked yelp, the first thing that Dan grabbed was his couch as he fell down, but even that was starting to drag.

“What’s going on?!” he screamed over the wind. Next to him, Mr Mumbles also dug her claws into the couch for support. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the strength that her owner did, and was quickly sucked in, Dan yelling after her. “MR. MUMBLES!”

Panicking, Dan reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to dial Chris’ number. He didn’t live all that far away, and if Dan held on long enough, could probably do something to help.

Putting the phone to his ear, Dan heard one ring then the telltale sound of Chris’ answering machine. However, this time, the message was slightly different. “I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. My wife and I have decided to go away for the next few months on vacation, and you will be unlikely to reach us for the majority of that time.” Dan’s jaw fell to the ground but the message continued.

“And if this is Dan, then I’m really sorry that I couldn’t tell you in person. I—” there was the sound of the phone being passed. A familiar redhead’s voice bragged through the speaker. “Ha! Finally got away from you, Dan! You’re not coming with us this time. We are going on vacation in a place you won’t find us, and I made sure that you won't find us this time.” The phone passed back and Dan heard Chris’ voice once again. “Elise, please stop that. Sorry Dan, Elise bribed me pretty hard not to tell you. Sorry. I’ll see you in a few months. Don’t get arrested before I get back.” he finished cheerfully.

There was a beep and a few seconds of silence before Dan utterly exploded in a chorus of furious screams. However, his screaming accidently caused him to release his hold on the couch and fly back into the portal. Yelling in shock, the familiar sights of his apartment vanished as he followed Mr. Mumbles into the unknown. Dan was overcome by a sense of free falling, almost as if he had leapt out of a plane. Complete white enveloped his vision. Then complete red. Then green. Then azure. Then citrus. Then chartreuse. Then the colors came at him randomly. Xanadu, falu, fulvous, even wenge. Eventually, Dan lost track of the colors as they came at him far too fast for his brain to recognize them, much less recall their weird obscure names.

Then, all at once an invisible wall slammed into Dan, stopping his fall. Realizing that he must’ve hit some kind of ground, Dan got up and stretched his back, surprised by the fact that he felt no pain. Looking around, confused as to where he was, Dan began to feel a sense of panic rushing through him. It seemed to him that he had landed in some weird color space. It was mostly white and black, but blotches of many other colors existed there. They moved around ethereally, some mixing with others and creating whole new colors that Dan had never seen before.

Before he could voice his thoughts, a splotch of brown flowed off of the space and flew right past him. Turning around, Dan noticed that he wasn’t alone in this this strange place. He watched as the brown flew right into what seemed to be a tall clear glass, held in the arm of a strange creature with its back turned. The second the color touched the glass it seamlessly transformed directly into a liquid state. Dan watched in befuddlement as the creature seemingly drank from glass itself, tossing the color so that it splotched right back onto some invisible surface.

Finally, Dan had enough of this confusion. He wanted answers. “Hey!”

The creature jumped in surprise and turned back to Dan, leveling a cocked finger at him. “Oh,” he sighed with relief. “It’s only you. For a second, I thought Moon Butt found me.” Uncocking his finger, he went back to lounging in the air, this time facing Dan.

Now that Dan had an upfront look at the creature, he could see that it was worse than he had originally thought. “My god… I KNEW IT!” Dan threw his hands up into the air and started doing a small dance in celebration.

Discord simply looked at him in confusion. “Knew what, pray tell?”

Dan turned and threw a finger his way. “I knew my mouse was a mutant! A filthy mutant… chimera... thing!”

Discord staggered back in shock and disgust. “My word! I’ve been called a lot of things, mutant and rat included, but what part of me even resembles a mouse?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Mickey Mouse! I can see your round little mouse ears!” Dan gestured up the the round black ears that currently sat upon Discord’s head.

Discord scoffed and removed his hat. “I will have you know that this is a present from my dear Fluttershy. We just returned from a theme park… well… banned from a theme park is a bit more accurate. Either way, I suppose that this is enough to convince me.”

“Save your dirty mutant double talk for the X-people! Where am I?!” yelled Dan.

Discord proudly gestured around himself. “Welcome to the transitional world. Or as I like to call it, my first apartment. I’ll send you along shortly.” A piece of paper and a pen appeared in his claw with a flash. “I just need your name and what dimension you came from.”

Dan shook his fist at the chaos lord. “I’m not telling you anything! Putrid scum of Marvel!”

Discord calmly wrote down what he heard. “Dan Mandel. Home world: Vs. Earth, Los Angeles. Got it!” The paper and pen disappeared and Discord gave Dan a bright grin. “Perfect! Listen, you look like an fairly vengeful and angry little man. I have an important job for you.”

By this point, Dan was fuming from being so ignored. “YOU CAN TAKE YOUR ‘SPECIAL JOB’ AND STICK IT UP YOUR MUTANT PIE HOLE!”

Discord nodded. “Yes, I can understand your excitement. It is very important. The Princess herself bestowed it upon me, but I’m lazy and in no position to complete it. Just know that as soon as you finish it, you’ll be sent home immediately.”

“ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO—

“Good luck, Daniel!”

Dan’s jaw once again hit the ground. When he recovered, his face had turned red and he furiously bumrushed the mad lord. “WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!? I’LL—”

Discord snapped his eagle claw and the mad man vanished in a flash, and the second he was gone, Discord burst out in a fit of laughter. Wiping away a tear, he stuttered out one final phrase.

“This is gonna be hilarious!”