I was on my couch, in the middle of yet another play through of Dragon Age 2, happily settled in my favorite comfy spot on the sofa and snuggled warmly under a blanket to fend off the surprisingly cold weather. It was winter, but Florida winters were rarely this cold. A thunderstorm raged as I worked my way through the various quests in the second act of the game, happily oblivious to the severe weather outside. My friends had called earlier, trying to convince me to go out with them, but I couldn't imagine anywhere I would rather be on this cold, stormy Friday night than right where I was.
Lightning struck somewhere nearby and was followed immediately by an impossibly loud clap of thunder, giving me pause. I wondered if I should turn off the PS3, not wanting my only gaming system to be fried by lightning, but not wanting to stop playing, either. After a brief pause in which the only sound from outside was the rain falling on my metal carport, I continued the game.
I was pleased with my progress this play through. Marian Hawke was a fairly badass dual-wielding rogue, currently wandering through Hightown at night and taking out bandits with Sebastian, Fenris and Anders. I finished a fight, searched the bodies and then took a moment to set aside the controller and stretch, finding myself growing sleepy. The soft patter of the rain was lulling me into a drowsy state, and I leaned back into the sofa, closing my eyes. Within a few minutes I was sound asleep.
I was ripped from sleep sometime later by a very near lightning strike. Seconds after opening my eyes the house was plunged into darkness as the power went out. Tired and bewildered, I sat up and was rubbing my eyes when I noticed an odd smell. I scrambled for my (thankfully fully charged) cell phone in the dark, finding it and switching on the flashlight function.
I was horrified to see the room filled with what appeared to be thick smoke, but what mystified by its' presence because the room didn't smell of fire or smoke. As i shined my light around the room the smoke (mist? fog?) was already dissipating in the air but seemed to be settling on the floor. I decided to grab the fire extinguisher anyway and take a look around the rest of the house and started heading towards the kitchen,distracted by the way the smoke completely obscured my shins and feet as I walked through it. Suddenly I stumbled over something on the floor, dropping my cell phone and only source of light into the dark, swirling smoke.
"Damn it!" I bent down and fumbled for the phone. It had, of course, landed flashlight part down, so it wasn't immediately visible. I finally found the phone and picked it up, aiming it at whatever I had tripped over, and immediately stated trembling when I noticed it was a boot-shod foot.
I backed away from the person lying prone on the floor, my heart racing, gripped with fear. Had someone broken into the house and been electrocuted by the lightning strike? I cautiously stood up and edged around the room, keeping the light from my phone pointed in the intruder's direction as I went. I made for the front door, easing it open and slipping outside.
The first thing i noticed outside was a fried, electric ozone-y smell from the lightning strike, followed by how very cold and nasty the weather was. The storm was still raging, rain coming in at me sideways as I huddled near the door, light still pointing through the screen door at the mist-shrouded figure on the floor. I wanted to keep the prone trespasser illuminated, but needed to use the phone to call for help.
After one last, long look inside, I shut off the flashlight and pulled up my keypad to dial 911. The wind whipped the rain in different directions, soaking the legs of my flannel pajamas as I pressed myself against the wall, shivering from the damp and cold. I dialed and moved the phone to my ear, praying that whoever was inside was still out cold. The phone made two flat beeping sounds, and when I looked at the screen it was flashing "NO SERVICE".
"Oh, God, no. Roam! ROAM!" I ordered the device, desperately pulling up menus in an attempt to get the phone to find service somewhere, anywhere. I was cold, wet and alone, there was a strange person out cold on my living room floor, and that's not even mentioning the inexplicable misty fog stuff that filled the house.
I went back to the door and, hands shaking, turned the flashlight back on again and shined it through the door, searching for the figure on the floor again. My heart plummeted when i saw that the mist/smoke/fog had mostly cleared, and the person on the floor was no longer there. Instead there was someone standing but doubled over near the couch, coughing harshly, leaning for leverage on something long and narrow that I couldn't make out in the darkness. Gun, most likely, probably a rifle, the worst case scenario pessimist in my mind told me helpfully.
I quickly turned off the flashlight in the hopes of avoiding notice and looked at the phone again, the dreaded 'NO SERVICE' now flashing in my notification bar. I deliberated on my next course of action and finally decided to run to a neighbor's house, to see if they had service on their phone. I started quietly working my way down the porch, hoping the weirdo hacking up a lung on my sofa was too distracted to notice me . I was almost off the porch when the person inside the house called out, freezing me in my tracks.
"Is someone there?" the voice said, weak and plaintively. "Please, if someone is there, speak up." Man's voice, I noted, still not moving. British accent. Vaguely familiar, but now didn't seem the time to wonder where I had heard my burglar's voice before. "Please." the man said again, followed by another coughing spell.
Against my better judgement, I slowly moved back towards the door, peering inside, still unable to make anything out in the darkness. "I'm going to turn on a light." I announced, pleased that my voice didn't reflect how utterly terrified I felt. "If you make one threatening move, I'm going to scream for help. Do. Not. Move."
"I wont." the man said, then coughed again. My hands shook as I unlocked my phone to turn on the flashlight again, wondering what on God's green earth I thought i was doing. Man breaks into my house, and I'm going back to make sure he's OK? Clearly I've lost it. I finally managed to get the flashlight on again and shined it through the door. The light finally caught the figure standing by my sofa, and what I saw was so unlikely, so completely and utterly ludicrous that my breath caught in my throat and I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I finally settled on an incredulous laugh, because I knew this man, and I uttered his name. "Anders?!"
At the sound of his name he instinctively pointed his staff at me, and I immediately threw myself away from the door, positioning myself against the brick between the door and window, which I hoped whatever magic he had been planning to sling at me couldn't penetrate. What the hell, I thought to myself, feeling hysterical laughter bubbling up in my throat. Anders. In my living room.
I'm asleep and dreaming, I decided, a pleasant explanation for the evening's events. Or, maybe I've gone crazy, I considered darkly. Or else I'm dead and in some sort of weird gamer heaven. Although I felt that a right and just God would know that my idea of gamer heaven would have featured Fenris, of whom I was much fonder of in my play-throughs. Broody as the tattooed elf might be, I still preferred him to an obsessed and tormented Anders, especially the third act Anders who turned into a mysterious, moody, deceitful...terrorist, for lack of a better word. Also acceptable and preferable to Anders would have been the devout-yet-worldly Sebastian, with his sexy accent and piercing blue eyes. But Anders? Ick. Maybe this was gamer hell, instead.
It was then that a much more plausible (though, for some reason, less palatable) explanation occurred to me - this was some nutjob cosplayer, some weirdo from a online forum or the Bioware site who had somehow track me down and then had broken into my home but was jolted by the lightning strike before he could do...whatever it was he had been planning on doing. It also occurred to me that, what or whomever he was, I was still cold and damp and outside in the middle of a lightning storm and needed to settle on a plan of action. Anders (or some Anders-like internet stalker) was still in my living room, and there was a decision to be made.
Before I could take a step in either direction, Anders (or freaky stalking Anders cosplayer, I chided myself) burst through the door, wild-eyed and panicked. He paused on the porch, taking in his surroundings before breaking into an awkward run into the front yard. I took the opportunity to flee quickly back into the house, watching him through the safety of my screen door.
Maybe-Anders slipped in the wet, slushy rain in the front yard and fell to his hands and knees. I found myself instinctively reaching for the door to go and help and then stopped myself. We don't help psycho cosplayers who break into the house, I reminded myself sternly. Just then thunder boomed across the sky, and the man in my yard cried out and curled into the fetal position. I sighed at my own damnable sense of compassion and stupidity as i grabbed an umbrella and headed outside.
He was watching me as I descended the porch steps, and I was unable to stop myself from rolling my eyes when he cried out again at the sight of the umbrella popping open when I pressed the button on the handle. I approached him where he lay, shivering and soaked in the darkness.
"Come on, lets get you inside." I said, weary resignation in my voice, holding out a hand to help him up. He reluctantly accepted my help, struggling to his fee, and joined me under the umbrella, leaning against me for support. I immediately noticed that he smelled incredibly rank, and had to fight the almost overpowering urge to gag and get away from him. Instead I sped up our progress to the house, nearly shoving him away from me once we were inside. He stumbled to the floor, weak and wet and shivering.
As I shook off my umbrella and tried to think what to do next, the power blinked back on. The house lit up around us and I started blinking rapidly, trying to get my eyes adjusted to the sudden onslaught of light. Anders shrieked again and started rocking and whimpering on the floor. I watched him disdainfully, reminded once again of how much I would have preferred Fenris. He might have ripped my heart out on sight, but it would have saved me from having to deal with the smelly, sniveling mage on my floor.
Good God, the wretched stink of him. I opened the door of my coat closet and rummaged around on the floor, finally finding what I was looking for, a bag of clothes that had belonged to my ex-husband. I dug through the bag and found a t-shirt that featured the Atari logo and a pair of faded grey sweatpants. No underwear in the bag, but I didn't think Anders (or homicidal cosplaying burglar! my subconscious shrieked at me in a panic) would mind.
"First you shower." I said wearily, holding out the clothes for him to take. "Then we figure out what the hell is going on."