Someone fails to live up to expectations

Twilight accesorized the sky when the pair arrived. Alan and Henrietta were on the way to their three story mansion, but they saw a crowd straight down the street. Curiosity guided their steps so as to arrive at the scene and Alan tapped a man on the shoulder. He turned around, saw that Alan and Henrietta were the ones asking for his place and wordlessly got out of their way. Alan got to see what the fuzz was all about: a brawl. Two teenagers were fighting over a reason unknown to Alan. They were both wielding knives. Much to Alan's dismay, the fight ended as soon as he arrived, by way of one of the teens stabbing the other fighter right in the gut.

The onlookers celebrated the end of the fight, except for the ones who had betted for the loser. Nobody really cared for him, as evidenced by the fact he was on the middle of the road bleeding out and not a single soul helped him.The winner looked at Alan in the eye and spoke:

"Mister McAvoy! Did you see me destroy that guy?"

The crowd next to Alan and Henrietta took a step back. Alan responded to the boy:

"I saw the very end of the strife. You did well. You managed to brighten up the day of everyone who gathered here. That deserves compensation."

Alan turned to Henrietta and gave her instructions:

"Go home and fetch my concubine number fourteen. Effective immediately, she's the property of this youth."

"Understood."

The boy jumped out of excitement and expressed his feelings:

"Whoa! You're so generous, Mister McAvoy!"

"Please call me Alan. And it's no problem, I have women to spare, little one."

After transferring ownership of the concubine to the boy, Alan and Henrietta entered their home. Alan's fourth wife happened to be on the lounge. She approached the man of the house.

"Welcome back, master. Tell me about your day."

"Well, we climbed a mountain and everything went swimmingly. Not much else to say."

"Master, you know that I'll get cranky if we don't get to baby making today."

"I'm sorry, Rias, but I'm celebrating the anniversary of my marriage to Henrietta right now. She's into the illusion of exclusivity, so I gotta provide it to her. Maybe another day."

Rias left the room after the rejection, presumably to cry into her pillow.

Alan dined with Henrietta, Rias and his other three wives in the same table. After that, the marriage celebrating their special occasion ascended by means of stairs to the third floor where their bridal bed was located. When their natural obligations were performed, Henrietta slept like a log. The husband got a chill down his spine. He said aloud:

"Show yourself, you coward."

The figure materialized into the room as if it was translucent and a fade in effect was applied to its visibility. It was nine feet tall, so it had to bend its back in order to fit in the room. It was white, not fair skinned but literally white. It had a deep appreciation of bedouin culture, so it wore a turban and robes. Its fit was completed by brown chinos and white strap shoes. In short, the apparition looked the same as it did when Alan first dreamed of it.

"You're the coward, really. I wasn't the one crying the last time we met."

This sentence was communicated to Alan via telepathy. Alan replied:

"You just caught me off guard. But now, I can vanquish you from this dream."

The creature recoiled when it noticed the floor had a great amount of critters. These animals were dark blue and posessed six legs, a pincer arm and a mouth with sharp teeth. One of the animals crawled up the shoes of the apparition and sank its pincer into the lower leg. Then it started to bite the creature.

"I see. You made up these animals and summoned them into this dream world."

Alan replied to the creature with psychic powers:

"I call them crabanhas. I came up with them when I was five by combining the features of a crab and a piranha. They might not be the most original chimeras, but they get the job done."

"Hmm. You may have won this battle, but the war is not over yet. I am much more dangerous in the real world than in a dreamscape. You will crumble in my presence. Ha ha ha ha ha!"

The monster faded out of existence. Alan reflected on how the monster made him feel: That moron ruined the vibes of my dream. Oh well, I can just live out a week inside my idealized paradise. His alarm clock rang.

Alan was mortified. He covered his face with his hands and stamped his feet on his bed. An ambulance was heard in the distance. He then held out hope. That's right... This must be an awakening from a dream into another dream. I'll check. Alan opened the drawer of his nightstand. He reached for something. He touched a metallic object, so he pulled it out to see. Nah, this is my pistol. Where the hell did I leave my watch? He ran his hand through the bottom of the drawer and found it. He stared directly into the watch. He could see the time at which it had stopped, three seventeen. The reality check was passed, he was in the real world. This frustrated him, as he longed for an extensive lucid dream. And he still hadn't turned off the alarm of his clock.

The guy couldn't catch a break. When doing his morning chores, he noticed he ran out of bread and butter. Alan thought: I'm not going to the supermarket just because of two items. I won't have breakfast tomorrow. But then he remembered something else that required him to use his car. Wait a minute, the table I broke needs to be disposed of. Argh! I'll really have to take to the asphalt today.

As a consequence of those two chores, Alan left his house at five thirty one in the afternoon. He attracted looks while he was carrying the two halves of the table to the garbage. Alan thought: The atemporal look of this combination must have boosted my charisma to levels unattainable by even the most in vogue normie. Indeed, these reactions were the work of the outfit: sunglasses, a denim jacket, a red T-shirt, jeans and black shoes. Alan was pointed at by a boy no older than eight while dumping his trash. When he was done, he turned to the kid with a stern expression. His mother shielded the kid's eyes while making clear with her visage that she despised him. Alan pierced through the veil of civility with his third eye in order to uncover the noble truth. Too bad for her. The kid has already recognised the attractiveness of this work of art. Even if she covers his eyes, he will be forever shocked by my image, burned in his retinas. He will compare himself to me and when he fails to live up to my gracious and effortlessly good looking standard, his self esteem might come crashing down.

Alan entered the supermarket. He navigated the business looking for the bread aisle, but he couldn't find it. He cursed the need for constant renovations internally. He was on his way to ask an employee the new location of the product when he was accosted by a celebrity pushing a cart full of products. He could tell he was a streamer because he had a cameraman and two bodyguards near him. Alan's eyes opened wide. He knew this entertainer. Personally.

His name was Peter Hines. They went to the same high school. Alan thought this odd, because Peter's parents were loaded. It really wasn't all that strange, as the rich parents just followed the simple rationale that it was better to be a king in hell than a slave in heaven. The young Hines outshone everyone without effort. He was a great baseball player and a better student. For that, he was appreciated by everyone and treated like a legendary hero at school. After high school, Alan tried to find what happened to him through social media, but his attempts were fruitless. A few months back, Peter had pivoted towards live spectacle, and he became a streamer.

"Alan? Is that really you?"

The streamer then introduced his acquaintance from high school to the whole world:

"He really is! Ladies and gentlemen, my buddy from high school, Alan McAvoy!"

Alan removed his sunglasses. I suppose these are useless now, was his reasoning behind taking them off and putting them in his pocket.

"Say something, dude! You're on live web streaming!"

Alan remained silent for a bit in his attempt to aura farm, unaware that he was just making himself look slow. He then uttered the words that most people in the world would know him for:

"I challenge you to a..."

He took out two knives from his pocket, held them by the handle, making sure they were in clear sight and smiled before finishing his sentence:

"Knife Edge Death Match!"