“Getting old sucks,” Amber growled as she started to wake up.

  “I didn’t even drink that much, did I?” she asked herself as she went to grab her blankets to snuggle in and roll over on her bed. She struggled to think through the haze. She had only maybe two glasses of wine with dinner? Then she downed that martini. She didn’t think that was enough to give her this bad of a hangover, but they always said the best cure for a hangover is being under thirty.

  While she was expecting to roll over in her nice soft bed and snuggle up with her blankets, she rolled and fell and landed in some grass and dirt. “What the hell?!”

  She wasn’t in her warm, inviting, comfy bed. Someone propped her against a tree in the woods.

  “Uhhhh,” she said dumbly.

  It was the only thing she could think of to say. Her mind raced, and she jumped to her feet and tried to remember the night before. She had gone to that very disappointing dinner with her parents, where she ended up just feeling bad about her every life decision. She didn’t go to the woods or anything, did she? Where would she go in the woods at? She lived in an urban landscape.

  She supposed the night after dinner seemed a little hazy. Her memory of what happened after dinner was unclear. She remembered taking a cab home and then playing with David and having her nightcap, and then there was that butterfly.

  Her eyes went wide. “Oh, no.”

  She blinked. The butterfly. It all came rushing back to her. David had a serious problem with that butterfly, and there was a lightning storm.

  “Wait, there couldn’t be a lightning storm in my apartment,” she told herself. She blinked as she tried to think.

  “Maybe that damn butterfly was radiated somehow.” Maybe she should have just disposed of it like her lab partner had told her to.

  She shook all those thoughts off and looked around. She steeled her resolve and said. “Alright then, let’s figure out where we are.”

  She was a researcher and brighter than the average person, so she should be able to figure this all out pretty easily. She was moving through the woods and looking at the bright morning sky. It was hot and muggy, and she wished she were in something other than her fuzzy winter pajamas. This was unsettling weather for February.

  As she moved, she thought she was walking in circles. “Haven’t I seen that tree already?” She narrowed her eyes and stopped to think. How the hell could she tell everything looked the same? It was all just trees and rocks and, well, the woods! That’s when a butterfly flew lazily by her. A butterfly that glowed with a soft blue hue.

  “Hey!” she shouted and pointed at it.

  The butterfly seemed to hear her and flew faster. No longer drifting around and taking its time, it started to beeline its way east. She blindly followed it. If she could get her hands on it out here, maybe she could figure out more?

  She didn’t realize or hear the glowing red eyes watching her from her left. The butterfly was fast, and it held the girl’s attention. She didn’t think there’d be anything too dangerous in the woods outside of Chicago. She almost squeaked when she realized she was gaining on her prey. Then, just as she ran up and leapt off a rock to try to catch it in the air, a boar narrowly missed her feet while she was in the air.

  She missed the butterfly and now she stood frozen in fear as she looked into the animal’s glowing eyes. It’s more afraid of you than you are of it, she told herself, mentally too scared to actually say anything out loud. The animal had black leathery skin and tusks that seemed much too large for its face. It was fat and large. It came up to about the girls’ hips.

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  Amber watched the boar lower its head and dig into the dirt, and she gave a very audible gulp. If it attacked, she didn’t think she’d be able to dodge. She may be in shape, but she was not an athlete. The world seemed to slow in that moment, and while it had been hot and muggy just a moment ago, the air seemed to have a chill to it.

  A blink of an eye , the boar charged towards her. She was a scientist, not a fighter or animal tamer. She didn’t know what to do. Should she jump? Dodge? She was frozen in place with her eyes wide open in fear. She was going to die getting gored by a boar while she was wearing her fuzzy pink footie pajamas that had Ura’s face on them.

  “MOVE!”

  Her mind didn’t register the yell coming from her left. She barely even felt the hand grab her by her arm and pull her out of the way just before the boar killed her. She was pushed into a tree and was able to turn back just in time to watch the man that saved her.

  A haggard-looking man in threadbare robes that looked like he came from that movie with the laser-wielding knights in space. Scraggly graying beard and dark sunglasses over his eyes. His hair was greasy and in a topknot, and not the sort of greasy that looked like he had just styled his hair. She was pretty sure he hadn’t bathed in quite some time.

  The sound of metal scraping on wood as he pulled a sword from the cane he used and he leapt into the air over the boar’s charge. He plunged the blade downwards towards the animal’s head, but the animal’s leathery hide seemed to just deflect the sword. She heard the sword scrape against metal, and he lifted the weapon back into the air.

  The boar rounded, and the man landed on the ground. She stood there slack-jawed as she watched what looked like a scene from a kung fu movie.

  “Snake!” the man yelled once more. That gruff voice echoed through the woods.

  She blinked as a single two foot long bullnose snake came slithering out from the opposite direction of the boar. She blinked a few more times.

  “David?!” she yelled incredulously.

  The snake looked at her with its beady little eyes and then back at the boar. All of a sudden, there were two snakes and then three. Amber blinked furiously as she tried to comprehend what was happening. The boar charged at the small group of snakes, but then they seemed to disappear and reappear around it. There were more now. The snakes had the boar surrounded, all slithering and shaking its tail furiously. A few of them lashed out in strikes that the boar dodged.

  The boar circled as it looked for an escape from the new enemy. It tried to attack the snakes, but whenever it did, they dodged or just dissipated before reappearing. That’s when Amber noticed some. No, most of them didn’t quite look right. Save one, the first one that emerged. They all had a sort of translucent quality. She rubbed her eyes, not believing what she was seeing. This was David Hisselhoff, right?

  The boar squealed and charged towards the group of them. Amber wasn’t sure if it was making a last-ditch attack or just trying to charge its way out to an escape. When it charged, the snakes in its way once more dissipated, and instead of turning again, Amber watched the boar lower its head and run away with its tail literally between its legs.

  The swordsman gave a low chuckle, watching it, and all the translucent copies of David were suddenly gone. He slithered over to Amber and watched her stare in shock. She got a very distinct impression that David was telling her, “I tried to tell you to get rid of that butterfly.”

  “That snake of yours is powerful,” the man said, breaking her from her shock.

  Amber blinked and looked at him. “Uh, yeah,” she said, unsure of what else she really could say.

  “You’re lost,” he said. He didn’t ask her if she was. He stated it as fact before he continued. “And quite far from home.”

  She now looked away from David, who was at her feet, and nodded at him. “You’re blind?”

  The man frowned, but nodded. “Sometimes you can see more without eyes,” he said as he sheathed the sword and once more carried a simple cane.

  “Uh, okay.”

  The man pointed off into the woods to the west. “Go in that direction. Don’t turn or veer from this direction. Go until to get to a village and ask for Nakayasu. Tell him the beggar sent you and that you’re quite far from home. Follow your snake.”

  “Uh, okay,” she said, not sure what else to really say. She didn’t notice David had already slithered away in the direction the blind beggar had pointed her in.

  “Go!” he shouted and made like he was going to once more unsheathe that sword. Before he could, the girl nodded and then took off after David.

  M/W/F postings for a bit.

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