University of Vermont. May 19, 2019. The Human World.
It had been several days since Alexander Lobe had mysteriously vanished from the face of the Earth. Nobody in the college knew where Alex was. Alex's best friend Mitchell Crumble had to do Alex's assignments in his absence on top of trying to do his work. Mitch had spent many restless nights worrying where Alex was and why he suddenly disappeared. He hoped that Alex would return soon. No one knew whether Alex was alive or dead. Mitch tried to continue his studies without worrying too much about Alex. He couldn't stop thinking about Alex. He tried to continue college life as normal without having to worry so much about Alex.
Mitch was watching an episode of Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theater. Faerie Tale Theater was a television show hosted by the legendary movie actress Shelley Duvall, an actress who was well known for playing Wendy Torrance in The Shining (1980) and Olive Oyl in the Popeye movie. Shelley Duvall hosted Faerie Tale Theater, a show that starred more celebrity guest stars than Saturday Night Live and the David Letterman Show combined. It starred the likes of: Shelley Duvall, Jeff Bridges, Jean Stapleton, Christopher Reeve (I'm not kidding), Malcolm McDowell, Robin Williams, John Lithgow, Beatrice Straight among several other actors. It was similar in style to Shirley Temple's Fairy Tale Theater show that aired back in the late 1950s. The episode of Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theater that Mitch was watching was Rapunzel.
Rapunzel is a Grimm fairy tale that revolved a girl named Rapunzel (I'm not kidding, that's her actual name. Or it could be a pseudonym) who had insanely long blonde hair that reached down to the ground. Rapunzel used her long hair to use as a makeshift ladder for anybody to climb up to get access into the tower that she was locked up in since the tower is the only building in existence except the pyramids of Egypt and Stonehenge to not have a door on it at all. It meant that there wsa virtually no way to get inside the tower without climbing Rapunzel's insanely long hair. A witch had locked Rapunzel in a giant stone tower that had no door or stairs. Each time the witch needed to get inside the tower, she called out for Rapunzel to let down her long hair to climb upon. Apparently, ladders don't exist in the world of Rapunzel.
One day, a prince came by the tower. He saw a girl up on the window. He had no way to enter the tower. He returned to the tower often, listening to Rapunzel's beautiful singing voice. The prince one day saw the witch climbing Rapunzel's hair. He followed her example by calling out Rapunzel's name to let down her hair. He climbed up Rapunzel's hair. The prince and Rapunzel soon fell in love. The witch was having none of it and she proceeded to cut Rapunzel's insanely long hair. The witch casted Rapunzel into the wilderness to fend for herself. When the prince returned to the tower, the witch tricked the prince into the tower by holding Rapunzel's cut hair braids. The prince climbed up the hair braids, thinking it was Rapunzel waiting for him.
Upon reaching the top of the tower, the prince was surprised to learn that the witch was waiting for him instead of Rapunzel. The witch pushed the prince through the window of the tower where he fell down to the ground. A bush broke the prince's fall. The thorns of the bush pierced his eyes, rendering him blind. He was forced to live his life as a blind man. He eventually stumbled across a desert. It turned out that what was where Rapunzel was spending her time. She had just given birth to twins. Rapunzel somehow magically restores the prince's sight. The prince, Rapunzel and her twins journeyed to the prince's castle, where they lived happily ever after. The end.
Mitch wanted to choose Rapunzel as his first Grimm fairy tale to write for his thesis on The Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Rapunzel was one of Mitch's favorite fairy tales from The Brothers Grimm. He'd heard about the countless plethora of adaptations that Rapunzel recieved throughout the years, including the Disney movie Tangled (2010). Mitch was always perplexed as to how the infant Rapunzel and the witch entered a tower that had no stairs nor door on it. Did the witch chuck the infant Rapunzel through the open window of the tower like a football quarterback? Did the witch use a ladder to get inside the tower?
And what was the deal with people being forced to use Rapunzel's insanely long hair to climb up on in order to gain access into the tower? What if a heavy set guy tried climbing up Rapunzel's hair and he accidentally pulled on her hair a little too hard and it sent Rapunzel flying through the window of the tower to the ground where she broke her neck and died? Those were the questions Mitch couldn't figure out about the Rapunzel. How would someone trap a girl in a tower with no possible way to enter that said tower? It made no sense.
Mitchell Crumble was a 20 year old Caucasian adult male who had short brown hair that was parted to the left side of his head. He had hazel eyes. Mitch was wearing a plaid flannel shirt over jeans. Mitch wore Air Jordan sneakers on his feet. Air Jordans were his favorite shoe brand besides Nike and Chuck Taylors (which he liked to call Chuck Paylors since he loathed the name Chuck Taylors). Mitch had been in college for two years going on three. He was an excellent, straight A and B student.
He loved the college life; with the fraternity groups and the campuses and all the white and Latino hot chicks he liked to hang out. Mitch wasn't very good at playing sports. In fact, he was pretty terrible when it came to playing sports. Mitchell never forgot the day he was humiliated at playing tennis or volleyball at high school. One day, fifteen year old Mitch was trying to impress some pretty girls by trying his hand at tennis at the high school gymnasium. He had never played tennis before. His gym teacher, Mr. Chris Plume taught Mitch how to play tennis.
He didn't start pretty good. He was too inexperienced. He tried hitting the tennis ball with his Wilson tennis racket. People laughed hysterically at Mitch's failure to hit the tennis ball properly. They started calling him Bitch because he always acted like a little wimp when it came to sports. Mitch didn't like being called a bitch. He hated it. From that day on, Mitch avoided playing sports all together to avoid further humiliation from other people.
Mitch was researching the tale of Rapunzel to write for his college thesis on the Grimm fairy tales. Mitch wasn't particularly interested in fairy tales. He felt that fairy tales were for "babies". He liked a few fairy tales. Mitch continued watching Rapunzel on TV. It was night time outside. It was getting late. He wanted to get some good nights sleep. He had a history test he had to study for on the atomic bomb that blew up Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War 2. The last thing he needed was for him to get a lack of sleep and for him to fail at the history test. He didn't want to break the streak of straight A's and B's he was used to getting.
After the Rapunzel episode of Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theater was over, Mitch walked over to his desk to write his notes on the Rapunzel story and what he would change in the story's narrative ife he was in the Rapunzel story. Mitch began writing his paper on Rapunzel. He worked all throughout the night. Mitch also looked over his history notes of J Robert Oppenheimer and the Hiroshima bomb. He read Wikipedia articles and went on historical websites about the atomic bomb to compile his research for his World War 2 history test.
While Mitch was studying for his history test, a person suddenly materialized from the Grimm fairy tale book in the corner of the dorm room. The person was a man, a 23 year old man to be percise. He had short, shaggy hair that was combed back in a emo hairstyle. He had piercing sky blue eyes. He was Caucasian. He wore a burgundy GAP hoodie with sweatpants over Nike shoes. He was handsome looking. The man looked around the college dorm room he was in. It looked nice. A lot of the stuff in the dorm room was familiar to the man. He was hundreds of years old, even though he looked like a 23 year old man on the outside. His name was Andersen Grimm, or Andy for short. Andy Grimm was the keeper of all the fairy tales written by The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.
He knew everything that went on in the Grimm and Andersen fairy tales: all of the characters, the titles of the stories, the events that transpired in them, everything. He had the magical ability to transport anybody from the real word and put them in any of the Grimm or Andersen fairy tales and assume their identies and nobody would ever suspect that he put anybody in a fairy tale. Andersen Grimm's goal was to have everyone experience the fairy tales for real. To make them feel like they were a character in that said fairy tale. To hopefully change and alter the fairy tales to his liking.
The man walked over to the student who was studying for his history exam. He stood over him. He began to speak to Mitch.
"I see you're studying pretty hard there." a voice called out to Mitch. Mitch immediately stopped what he was doing and turned around to see a 23 year old man standing behind him. He had no idea who this person was or why he was in his dorm room.
"Who are you?" Mitch asked the man in front of him.
"My name is Andersen Grimm. People call me Andy. What a nice place you have? Where am I anyway?" Andy asked Mitch.
"You're in my college dorm room at the University of Vermont." Mitch answered. "What the hell are you doing in my dorm room?"
"I'm here to speak to you, Mitchell Alan Crumble. I hear you're studying the Grimm fairy tales for research in your English thesis on the Brothers Grimm." Andy said to Mitch.
"How do you know my name and what I've been doing for my English class?" Mitch asked worriedly to Andy. He was shocked by the fact that some random person he never knew and just met who showed up in his college dorm room and somehow knew his name out of the blue.
"I know everything, Mitch. I've been watching you for some time now. You're a very impressive student, Mr. Crumble." Andy said.
"That still doesn't answer my question as to how you know my name and how you know about my thesis on The Brothers Grimm." Mitch said.
"I don't want to talk about that right now. We've only just met." Andy said.
"Ok. Why exactly are you here? Can't you see I'm trying to study for my history test tomorrow." Mitch said.
"You don't need to worry about that." Andy assured Mitch. "Let's talk about your Grimm fairy tale thesis. Tell me, what is your thesis about exactly?"
"My thesis is supposed to cover most of the fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm. I'm planning on doing as many fairy tales as possible." Mitch explained.
"How many Grimm fairy tales are you going to cover on your thesis?" Andy asked Mitch.
"I don't really know exactly how many of the Grimm fairy tales I'm gonna cover. It's more of a class project than an individual project. Me and my friends are working on the thesis together." Mitch explained.
"Wouldn't it be nice if you visit the fairy tales instead of writing a paper about them?" Andy suggested to Mitch.
"What do you mean by visiting the fairy tales?" Mitch asked.
"I could take you into the fairy tales. That way you can get a "hands on" experience, if you know what I mean." Andy said.
"How exactly are you going to take me into the Grimm fairy tales?" asked Mitch.
"The same way I took your friend Alex into the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin." Andy suddenly said.
"Wait, you know about my friend Alex?!" Mitch asked Andy, wondering how the hell he knew about his friend Alexander Lobe.
"Of course I know Alex. Why'd you ask? Care to join him?" Andy offered Mitch.
"I'm gonna need you to get the fuck out of my dorm room. You're getting to be way too creepy." Mitch said to Andersen threateningly. The situation was started to escalate quickly. Andersen Grimm seemed nice and friendly toward Mitch at first. When he started mentioning his friend Alexander Lobe and the fact that he had kidnapped him, Mitch knew that Andersen had gone too far with him.
"I don't think that's going to happen." Andersen said back to Mitch.
"Get the fuck out of my dormitory now, you creepy stalker! I don't know how you know my or Alex's names. Have you been stalking me and my friends? Huh?" demanded Mitch.
"How can you accuse me of stalking you or your friends if we just met?" Andy asked.
"Some random stranger doesn't automatically know another persons name right when they've just met." Mitch said.
"I have powers." Andersen said.
"Sure you do." Mitch said sarcastically. "I suggest you get the hell out of my room right freaking now before things get ugly," Mitch said, pointing to the door. Or what used to be his door. The door to Mitch's dormitory mysteriously vanished. It was as if the door didn't exist at all. Where his door once stood was now a empty bare wall that had Mitch's various decorations and posters on it which wasn't there before. Mitch frantically searched his entire dorm room for his door. The door was nowhere to be found. It was as if the door had simply vanished into thin air. Mitch was at this point beyond terrified. His entire body trembled with fright. This was worse than any nightmare could conjure up in his mind. To say Mitch was speechless would be an understatement.
"What did you do to my door? Where the fuck is it?!" Mitch asked Andersen. Andersen laughed his head off as if it were the funniest thing in the world. His laughter was gradually growing by the minute.
"You don't deserve to have a door." Andersen said to Mitch. "I made it disappear."
"How the hell did you do that? That's not possible!" Mitch yelled in fright. His heart was racing very fast. He wished that he would wake up from this nightmare. That he could wake up from this event to find himself back in his room instead of the supposed nightmare he found himself in.
"You want to see what's not possible? i'll show what's not possible?" Andersen said.
"This is not real. This has to be a dream." Mitch said. Andersen took out a bottle of water and splashed it on Mitch's body. Mitch felt the water hitting his body. It meant that this was no dream or nightmare he found himself in. This was frighteningly real. Mitch's anxiety was sky high.
"Oooh. Tough luck." Andersen said.
"What the hell do you want? Are you going to kill me?" Mitch asked, hoping to God he wasn't going to die at this moment at the hands of Andersen Grimm. He was on the verge of tears. He never felt this scared before in his entire life.
"I want you to go save Rapunzel from the tower. Here's a grappling hook to help you get up into the tower." Andersen said before handing Mitch the grappling hook. "I'm counting on you, Mitch."
"I don't know about this. Wouldn't anybody know that I'm gone?" Mitch asked.
"That's where I come in." said Andersen. "While you are off saving Rapunzel, I'll be here assuming your identity. It'll be like you never left this place at all. Nobody will notice that you're missing." Andersen explained to Mitch.
"What if I really don't want to save Rapunzel?" Mitch asked.
"You don't have any say in this matter." Andersen said to Mitch. Andersen grabbed the Grimm fairy tale book and opened it to Rapunzel. He closed his eyes. Dust suddenly rose up around the room. There was what felt like a gust of wind blowing in throughout the room. The book started to glow brightly. Then, Mitch felt his entire body being sucked up like a vaccum. Then, Mitchell Crumble disappeared from the room, leaving only Andersen Grimm behind. He now looked like Mitchell Crumble, down to the clothes and everything. Andersen Grimm had successfully assumed the identity and body of Mitchell Crumble. Andersen closed the Grimm book and put it back on the shelf. He then went to Mitch's desk and resumed studying as if everything was normal. Mitch's door appeared again. Andersen listened to Lil Nas X on Mitch's laptop.