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Prologue

Part, The Second

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The sun wasn't even up yet.

I blearily gazed up at the dark early morning sky, pulling my jacket tighter around myself. The air was chilly and my breath came out as puffs of vapor. The few commuters who shuffled past me were still a little woozy from sleep and so they didn't notice as I cursed my luck under my breath.

It was bad enough that I had to be at work for the early morning shift, but now the cold winter months were in full swing. The mornings were freezing and the walk from the apartment to the subway station didn't help matters any. Add in the fact that I was still yearning for the warmth of my bed, and you might have an idea as to what I was going through.

I sighed and pulled my jacket's hood up. Better get this over with; I still had a job to get to. I shuffled down the steps and entered the station proper. Even the guy at the ticket counter seemed half-asleep. Or half-dead. The fluorescents made his skin look corpse-like and pallid. We exchanged the usual preprogrammed greetings and I quickly paid and grabbed my ticket. He had this tired, put-upon look on his face when we made eye contact, the kind that told me he wasn't being paid enough for this crap. I sympathized.

The train arrived three minutes later, which were, thankfully, usually almost empty this early in the morning, meaning more free seats. I shuffled inside and plopped myself down on the nearest, sighing. The subway journeys were always long enough that I had to bring along a book or my tablet, a hand-me-down from my cousin. In fact, I had both in my backpack right now.

But I had little motivation to pull either out. In fact, I don't think I felt like doing much of anything. I suppose it all had to do with me sitting up last night, processing the fact that my girlfriend of two short weeks had broken up with me just yesterday. I was exceptionally upset about this because I sincerely thought me and Carolyn were becoming something special, even though we'd only gone on a few short dates. Maybe I'd been a tad overoptimistic...

Another contributing factor to my somewhat glum demeanor was that I was also evaluating my life choices last night and wondering where my meager existence was going. Everyone else in my old class was already on the fast track to becoming an athlete or a surgeon or on a music career. And me? Well...I have this really cool collection of postage stamps. That counts, right?

Oh, who am I kidding... Everyone's on the road to being something big and here I am barely scraping through college, working part time at a convenience store and watching old, outdated cartoons and documentaries in my spare time.

That said, on the upside, things could be worse. Much, much worse...

The doors swished shut and I felt the train lurch. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. It was risky, and I'd probably miss my station, but maybe I could catch a few more winks. The rumble of the train had a nice steady rhythm and I could already feel my mind being lulled to sleep.

"Long day ahead?"

My eyes snapped open.

There was a person sitting across from me. He wore an old fashioned business suit, dark green with white pinstripes. My first thought when I laid eyes on him was 'What the hell is a Joker cosplayer doing here?'

Could you honestly blame me? I mean the guy had the look down to a T; thin face and jawline, messy green hair that stuck up everywhere with bits of purple mixed in, and a smirk on his face like there's a bomb rigged to your junk and only he knows. Heck, I was actually looking around for Harley Quinn. It was that good.

But as I shook my head to clear it, I realized that this was no cosplay; there was no psychotic aura around this guy, and I don't think the Joker ever carried a ruby-tipped pimp cane around.

And besides, with all the green, he seemed more like the Riddler type...

"I...I'm sorry. Were you talking to me?" I asked.

He spread his arms out wide, still smiling that smile of his. "Do you see anyone else in here?"

When I boarded, the only other passenger in my car was an old guy with a salt-and-pepper beard. I remember because he'd been sitting three seats away from me no less than a minute ago. Looking around now, not only had he disappeared, but it seemed that the compartments on either side were empty as well.

"Wh-...What happened-"

"Oh, nothing you should be worried about."

I frowned and leaned away as far as possible from the stranger. I'll call him Pimpsuit for now because... Well, a pimpsuit was exactly what he was wearing.

"I'm sorry, do I know you from somewhere? Have we met before?" I asked.

Pimpsuit shrugged. "Possibly," he said. "But that's not important. I'm more interested in you."

"...Think you have the wrong guy."

"That remains to be seen," he said. He still had that damn grin on his face. "You look like a very bright young fellow. But so dreary and glum! Tell me, what do you think of a change in scenery?"

I blinked stupidly. "Excuse me?"

"A vacation! Blue skies, white sand, the wind in your hair! What do you think?"

"What the hell are you trying to say?"

"You know...A holiday! A chance to get away from the daily grind, away from chores of the work day..."

I blinked again. It was probably the only appropriate response. "...What are you, a crack dealer or something? Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying."

Pimpsuit's smile fell. "Well, so much for the enticement approach," he mumbled. He reached into his overcoat, and for a scary moment, I thought he was reaching for a gun or a knife, but instead, he pulled out an antiquated watch and chain, which he gave a cursory glance. "And we don't have much time either. I suppose I have to tell you directly."

He turned back to me and I was taken aback by the suddenly dead serious expression on his face. "You, out of thousands of carefully selected candidates, have been chosen to travel to another spatial plane far away from here, to help a strange people in a strange world to fight strange enemies. You will spend an indefinite amount of time in that place doing whatever you need to do to fulfill our objective and there is almost zero chance of you ever returning home."

I stared at him for a good long while, trying to process what he'd just told me. So far, all I could come up with was a blank stare. There was a camera here, secreted away somewhere and recording everything, I was sure of it.

"What are you doing down there?"

I was on my hands and knees now, scanning the underside of my seat. "Looking for the camera, what else?" I said. "This is obviously one of those crappy pranks that no one likes."

A sudden laugh drew my attention back to Pimpsuit. That damn grin was back on his face and he was wiping his eyes. "Skepticism!" he said. "Good, very good. That's what I like to see. 'Question everything' they always say, and they're right! You'll do marvelously!"

"Rrright... Well, I'm glad you're enjoying this, but I sure as hell am not. Especially not this early in the morning."

"Then you'll definitely enjoy what's coming next! I suggest you brace yourself."

"What do you-" I began, but I was cut off by, of all things, Pimpsuit's cane. The ruby affixed to the top was glowing faintly, flickering. But as the seconds ticked by, the glow picked up strength, growing brighter by the second.

Then the train car suddenly jerked, lurching upwards as if it had hit a speedbreaker in the middle of the track. I yelped and held onto a seat, and my glasses, for dear life. A harsh screech, not unlike metal being violently deformed, made me screw my eyes shut and grit my teeth. I looked up and, sure enough, the walls and a significant portion of the ceiling had been bent inwards. I had the impression that an immense hand had taken hold of the car and tried to crush it like a soda can.

Then the lights began to flicker intermittently, playing merry hell with my vision. An unseen wind suddenly blew through the car and picked up speed. Either they're upping the ante with these pranks, or someone slipped something in my orange juice this morning. Either way, the point still stood that I was now that much closer to shitting myself.

"Dude...What the fuck?!" I screamed. It was a miracle I could even hear myself over the worsening din.

"Just sit back and relax," said Pimpsuit. He had his arms behind his head and his eyes were closed. You would have thought he was flying First Class with the way he was so relaxed. "You'll have a whale of a time. Oh, and you might have some trouble staying conscious down the line. Just a heads up."

"What the hell do you mean-"

Another metallic screech cut me off and set my teeth on edge. The train lurched again and for a terrifying moment, I was suspended in mid air. My stomach was doing flips now and I was sure I was going to spew my breakfast all over the floor.

"Remember," I heard Pimpsuit say, "The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world...Or was it the other way around? Ah, it doesn't matter. Enjoy the trip!"

It was at that point, that space seemed to bend in on itself. My surroundings, the lights, the seats, Pimpsuit himself, suddenly began to distort and stretch as if made of elastic. I tried to yell or shout, anything, but my voice seemed to have been lost.

Then I felt something grip the back of my belt. I instinctively held onto a pole, but the unseen hand was pulling at me harshly. Another joined it, grasping the straps of my backpack and before I knew it, my grip on the pole had loosened and I was unceremoniously yanked into an abyss. The subway train, and everything in it, had disappeared. I could see nothing, hear nothing and smell nothing. I only felt an oppressive wind whip my jacket and chill me to the bone as I seemed to be falling.

And then I landed. It was by no means a graceful landing. My shoulder exploded in pain as I hit the ground and I felt my glasses slip from my face. I blinked stars from eyes as I slowly looked up from the metal floor. I could make out man shaped figures approaching me from what seemed like a garage, but I couldn't be sure. I attempted to call out to them, to speak, but to my surprise, I found myself breathless.

I felt hands grab my shoulders and lift me to my feet. I could feel my head getting lighter; my surroundings seemed to dip randomly, and my knees were going weak. As I was gently seated in a chair, I heard voices asking questions, but their words were muffled. And it was getting harder to breathe.

The closest thing I could compare it to was being thousands of feet high on a mountaintop. The air is very thin, you can't fill your lungs up enough and you start to slowly asphyxiate.

With mounting horror, I realized this was exactly what was happening to me. I tried to voice my distress, but the words bever left my throat. A pathetic wheeze was all I could manage, and as my world once again turned black, all I could think was:

'But I'm still a virgin...'