Drinks are on me!

IT’LL BE AN IDYLLIC VACATION, they said.

Heaven on Earth! The journey of a lifetime! You know, the kind of wonders travel agencies will tell you until you take the bait. And against all odds, it was true!

For a while, anyway.

The first few days were everything they’d advertised. Majestic landscapes, delicious food, beautiful women... the whole package, right as they promised!

But they didn’t tell me anything about a dead dragon, did they?

Or what about traveling to another world?

I read the fine print, you know? For a change, I slugged through the whole document, and there was no mention of supernatural adventures. Yet here I am, stuck inside some temple, with nothing for company but a dragon’s corpse.

So how the hell did I end up here?

Let us rewind, shall we?

You see, I just turned 30 the other day, with nothing worthwhile to celebrate.

Estranged family? Check.
Dead-end job? Check.
Bills to pay up to my eye balls? Double check!

Oh, but ask me about my friends, or my beloved girlfriend. They’re right here with me, so we’re all having a blast together… right?

Nah, that’s just the crickets.

For the life of me, I have no idea how that happened.

One day I’m in high school, swooning over my crush and hanging out with the gang. Then I blink for a moment, and I realize I’ve become a bitter old fart with no future to speak of!

Now, I have to admit, I didn’t handle turning into a wizard very well. My first reaction was to escape, to search desperately for something new in my life. So I went to my boss, asked for vacations, and booked a plane straight to Mexico. I did have to take out a loan for it, but hey. Details.

Before long, I landed on the exotic Península de Yucatán, and boy did I go to town. A few days in, I met these guys called Diego and René who taught me the joy of drinking tequila.

Then, oblivion.

Black out drunk before I knew it.

By the time I came to, I found myself alone in the middle of the jungle, with no idea how I got there. Had nothing on me, either. Just the clothes on my back, my sandals and my phone... cracked its damn screen at some point.

Oh, but the phone’s signal? In the seventh circle of Hell, I bet.

Couldn’t call one damn thing.

At that point, I was grasping at straws already, searching through my files for anything that would help me understand what the heck was going on. Then, I found it.

There was this video I’d taken a few hours before in the middle of the night, with some weird older lady called Doña Itzel. She claimed to be a mystic of some kind, and drunk as I was, her hocus pocus fascinated me.

“I want to start my life again!” I told her, “Somewhere far away! Anywhere! Anywhere, that isn’t here," I implored, bawling my eyes out. Watching the video, I even felt bad for myself. Whatever was going through my mind at the time, I really didn’t want to return home.

“Hay una manera,” she said. There is a way. And she explained to me, about some Mayan ruins hidden deep inside the jungle that could take me to another world. Once every few centuries, when the planets and the stars are properly aligned, a gate will open that would lead anyone who crossed it to the beyond.

And as it so happened, the time for the next opening was nigh.

So of course, my drunk ass entered the jungle to find the ruins, with the most fervent thoughts and prayers from Doña Itzel backing me.

The night went by, I sobered up, and soon I found myself near pissing my pants.

Couldn’t tell left from right, as far as directions went. Praying didn’t help, and neither did my phone, so I had no choice but to keep walking and hope for the best.

Two days passed, without supplies to speak of.

I was dying, eaten alive by mosquitos and flies. My time on Earth seemed over.

But then, on the eve of the third night… a miracle.

Those old ruins Doña Itzel had told me about? I actually found them.

And the gate she had mentioned?

Well…

It was there, too.

Glowing in a deep blue light, the portal shone through the jungle like a beacon of salvation. I forced my legs to run to it, to reach it before it closed. In my sheer desperation, I didn’t even slow down to think at all.

The jungle would’ve claimed me come morning. There was nothing to question, nothing to doubt. I could either cross over, or perish.

So I dove into the portal, gambling my fate on whatever lied on the other side.

And just like that, as the dimensional gate closed behind me, the new life I had begged for had just started in a new world.