Jeff blinked as his vision cleared. He felt like he'd just been picked up by an invisible alien spacecraft and then plunked down in a random place somewhere else. Which, maybe, was exactly what had happened. Except for the invisible alien spacecraft part.

He was standing in a spacious hallway with blank, pale walls. Except for the walls, it was exactly the same as all the other hallways Jeff had seen in the convention building. Just behind him, the corridor ended at a door. It was closed. There were several other such doors dispersed on both sides down the hall.

Although everything was displayed before him in perfect detail, Jeff felt like he'd just walked into a dream. Apparently, the laws of the universe had suddenly stopped being a thing. All he knew was this: He had walked into a room, and then he found himself standing somewhere else entirely. Simple. Except not really.

Jeff's only explanation was that the world was trolling him. And when the world was trolling him, he had exactly one strategy: Troll the world back.

Unfortunately, however, Jeff was unable to put his strategy into effect, because at that moment a door crashed open and a monster came storming out.

His first thought was that it was a small T-rex, except totally different. The thing was about seven feet tall and had a single eye at the tip of its oversized head, right above its enormous sharp teeth. Above it was a large black spike. It had two arms that each ended in a shiny black talon. Its tail was at least three feet long and one foot wide at the base, and for some reason, there was a giant gray target on its belly. He could see its muscles bulging beneath its pale reptilian skin.

Swinging its head from side to side, the monster let out a roar that, honestly, struck Jeff as just a little cliche. "Really?" he said. "Can't you be more imaginative than that?"

In response, the creature gnashed its many fierce-looking fangs and began to stomp toward him. Its heavy footsteps rattled the teeth in his mouth. "Hopy shit," he muttered, involuntarily taking a step backwards.

His back bumped up against the door behind him. Gripping his cosplay cane by the dragon's head, Jeff held it out in front of him in an effort to keep the monster at bay (though, let's be honest, it wasn't going to work). With the other hand, he fumbled for the doorknob. It wouldn't budge. Locked...cliche.

Jeff whipped back around just in time to witness the monster give another bone-shattering roar. It didn't sound quite so unimaginative this time. He gave a really threatening jab in its general direction with his cane, which did nothing, but he did feel the bite of pain in his palm as he gripped the dragon's head way too tightly. What, it's that sharp? He quickly flipped the cane around and pointed it menacingly at the monster.

"Don't come any closer, Cyclops. I'm really scary," he said, grinning nervously.

To his utter surprise, the monster did not heed his very threatening warning. Instead, it took a step closer. Jeff hesitated for a fraction of a second before he slashed out with the cane, landing a long gouge down the monster's arm. Blood trickled from the wound, but it didn't seem to notice, raising its talon as if it was about to retaliate. Jeff swallowed.

Instinct told him to aim for its eye. He did, jabbing the cane at the single eye, but the creature moved its head so quickly he was barely able to glance a few blows off its jaw. The monster recoiled, shaking its head like a dog, and its bright eye focused viciously on him. Time seemed to slow down. In a crazy moment of total calm, Jeff thought, There should be a sick strife soundtrack for this. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the monster raise its talon. A deep gray glow burned at the base of its throat, like it had just swallowed an ember. It opened its mouth-

And paused. The monster tipped its head to one side, like it was hearing some kind of call. Then, all at once, it turned and scuttled back through the door it had come from.

Shakily, Jeff lowered his cane. What? Shakily? No, that's gotta be a lie. This guy was too cool to be shaky. This guy had his s*** under control. He-he-he just defeated a seven-foot lizard thing. Yeah, that's right-he kicked its butt! This guy was a total boss. He'd never do anything shakily-

Clang.

Jeff nearly jumped a foot in the air. Every nerve on edge, he turned to stare at the open door through which the lizard monster had come. For a moment, he thought there was nothing there. Then something popped out into the hallway.

Jeff yelled and brandished his cane. He lowered it, however, when he saw that the creature was barely bigger than his head and fluffy. It had started backwards into the room and now, quivering, poked its nose out again and blinked up at Jeff.

Jeff stared at it. "Oh, it's just...a bunny." The bunny gazed up at him with frightened black eyes and took a few hops out into the open light of the hallway. "With...wings." He leaned against the wall, eyeing the creature distrustfully. "You're not going to try to kill me, are you?"

It gave him the most innocent look possible and crossed the remaining distance, nuzzling against his foot and looking up at him pitifully. "Uh." He blinked at it. "Okay." He wasn't entirely sure why he was talking to it. Something in its big black stare made him need to fill the silence, almost like it was a person.

That thought made him just a little uncomfortable, so he turned his back on it, absently pushing his apparently red glasses up his nose. Zing! For the second time in two minutes, Jeff jumped higher than should be humanly possible as twin beams of bright light shot out of his glasses and scorched two marks into the wall. The blackened circles smoked slightly, the acrid smell of burnt paint reaching his nose.

Jeff raised his eyebrows at the scorch marks in the wall, then at the rabbit, which was now flapping in agitated circles around his head with its ridiculous little wings. Cautiously, he raised a hand to touch the bridge of the glasses again. Instantly, two laser beams shot straight out to burn another pair of marks into the wall.

A beat passed. Then Jeff was drumming on the glasses at a rate of about a million taps per second, burning marks into the wall and laughing maniacally. The flying bunny squeaked and hid behind his leg as the glasses went pew-pew-pew-pew-pew.

Still laughing a little bit, Jeff turned away from the slightly smoking wall and started down the hallway. The flying bunny hopped after him, quirking its ears questioningly. "Go back to your hole, little mutant," he said to it over his shoulder. "I'm going to find out if there are any humans in this place."

Some undetermined amount of time later, Jeff came to an unmarked pair of double doors. He had encountered only one more creature as he walked through the maze of hallways, a three-legged aggressor that reminded him of a mechanical spider. He had killed it easily by slicing his cane through a diagonal slit in its spherical shell. The bunny with its fluffy little wings had followed behind him the whole way, despite the number of times he'd startled it by shooting laser beams out of his glasses and then laughing. Jeff wasn't really sure what to do with the rabbit, so he'd mostly ignored it.

Jeff opened the doors. He entered a large, circular room, mostly empty but for a fountain burbling in the center. One door was standing open, revealing a stairwell that went up to a second floor. The ceiling was a glass dome, but there was no sky visible on the other side-instead, all he could see was a strange white mist that pressed against it, swirling soundlessly. Halfway up the wall, a second floor opened into the room with a number of balconies spaced evenly around the circle. It seemed to Jeff that he had found some sort of central room.

Turning in a circle, Jeff froze as he spotted the shape of a person crouched on one of the balconies. For a moment, the figure stared at him with huge eyes. Then it turned and fled through a door at the back of the space.

"No-hey, wait-" Torn for a moment, Jeff raced for the open stairwell. He pounded up the stairs, hoping as he did so that he would not be too late to catch the first human being he had seen in hours. He reached the top of the stairwell and rounded the corner, panting slightly, just in time to see the figure dart around a corner at the end of the hall.

Jeff chased it through the hallway, skidding around a corner and dodging through an open door. He came to a halt unexpectedly on a second balcony overlooking the main room, where a girl cowered and stared at him with wide, panicked eyes.