A Warm Welcome

Lile was completely paralyzed in fear. What, where, how… what the heck was going on! …A snake! On their body! And where had their room gone?! The air, the light, everything was wrong! Lile’s brain was flooded with inputs which they didn’t know how to compute, so they just stood completely still, staring at what was ultimately only one of thousands of question marks chaotically swirling through their brain. Their wiggly companion, though, didn’t seem too bothered. It was staring back at them with its big, marble-like yellow eyes, adjusting its body while trying not to fall off Lile’s stomach – whose warmth it clearly enjoyed. Lile, for their part, didn’t appreciate the snake’s icy body on their stomach at all: it was cold, so cold… it was freezing! Suddenly, their body jerked into motion, in an incoherent spasm which sent the small reptile flying down the side of the bed. Seemingly offended, it briefly flashed its tongue at its attacker, before slithering off into the grass.

Oh, right, speaking of… why exactly was there grass around their bed?!

Trying to preserve at least a semblance of mental clarity, Lile decided to set the snake encounter aside for a moment and began taking in their surroundings: their bed was, indeed, standing in the middle of a grassy field. A slightly inclined one, at the foot of a similarly gently sloping hill. Not too far downwards, behind them, a dense woodland circumscribed the edges of that meadow. The temperature was pleasant, the sky was clear, a nice breeze from over the hill carried the scent of the sea, while a joyful chirping could be heard from the woods on the other side. Were it not for the nonconsensual aspect of it all, Lile would have been ecstatic to find themselves in such a beautiful place.

Still, it was most likely a dream. It had to be. It was way too high effort to be a prank, plus Lile didn’t really have friends who would be capable of such a wild prank idea. Yeah, definitely a dream. A nice one, too. Going back to sleep would definitely solve the problem, thought Lile, letting their body sink back under the sheets and closing their eyes shut.

Going back to sleep was, however, easier said than done: their heart was racing from adrenaline, their mind rushing with thoughts, their body screaming that no dream had ever featured such a realistically warm and bright sunlight, such perfectly calibrated air density and gravity. Nevertheless, not quite ready to face the eventuality that is was all real, they stubbornly clung to the pillow, and let their thoughts wander back to the snake and its piercing gaze. Its eyes, those round yellow eyes, they weren’t scared or predatory, they just looked… curious. Lile felt a bit guilty, having launched it away like that; in retrospect, it didn’t seem dangerous at all. And, well, there was also the extreme coincidence of it looking exactly like a miniature version of their beloved virtual pet – Slushie – to consider: its scales of a bright, electric blue, with lighter vertical stripes and black accents. Except, Lile could have sworn that its body had briefly changed color when it “insulted” them right before leaving: in that moment, it looked like the lighter stripes were gone, and it sported red, horizontal stripes instead.

Is that something snakes do? just change the patterns on their bodies like that? It doesn’t sound that implausible, maybe some snakes do, as a sort of camouflage or to intimidate enemies… I should really google that later.

But, their phone was in their room. The room that was nowhere to be seen. Alright, well, it seems like I can’t keep avoiding this topic, can I – they thought shaking their head on the cushion, feeling the sunlight getting more and more intense by the minute and no sign of “waking up” other than what they were already experiencing.

Where… am I?

Lile opened their eyes again, sat up on the bed, hugged their legs with their arms, and looked around for a second time. Nothing had changed from their previous attempt, except the position of the sun which was way higher and hotter now. They instinctively began imagining how they were gonna describe the situation to their friend Maia once they figured out what was going on and how to get home:
«yeah, you see, the problem with an impossible situation like this is, I didn’t know which was more likely: that I was kidnapped by real people in the middle of the night, only to be left in a random field without context or anyone around, or that I was somehow teleported, through magic, or maybe some kind of cosmically unlikely quantum physics glitch. I mean, in such extremely weird circumstances, all the usual references of probability go out the window. For all I knew – that is, since I knew absolutely nothing in that context – it may have been more likely that humans weren’t involved, that it was in fact “just” magic. Or aliens. Some kind of alien experiment. So I looked around, I was so confused, but then I realized…» what? what did they realize? they were escaping in dreams again.

It was ironic really: for once in their lifetime, the dream was about a mundane situation, while the reality they were running from was a mysterious, potentially alien world, the sort of thing they usually daydreamed about. Yet, dreaming about those things was always exciting, or relieving, liberating. This… this was scary.

They clutched their legs closer to their chest, lowering their head on the knees. What if… I’m somewhere else entirely? Another world, or another time… what if… I can’t go back. What if I never... see my family again.

Tears started clogging their eyelids, a solid pain growing in their throat. Yeah, right, crying, that seems like a great solution to the problem. And now they were scolding themselves again. They hadn’t even stepped one foot out of the bed, maybe the situation had a rational explanation, maybe it was really just a stupid prank that they unfortunate enough to be the designated victim of, maybe…

“Hey, little human! Why are you sad? Do you need help?”

Startled by the thunderous voice addressing them as a “little human” – in hindsight, that should have really tipped them off about the nature of the speaker – Lile swiftly turned to the source of that query. Their breath was cut short. Their heart skipped a beat. A CYCLOPS was looking down on them, with a green eye the size of an orange, a wide grin on their face, and a GIANT SWORD – around the size of Lile themselves! – just casually leaned on their shoulder.