A broken wire sparked overhead, and the close proximity of such a dangerous voltage woke Hank Guilds from his stupor. One moment the world around him was in complete darkness. The next, there was a hint of light. For a second he could hardly recall his own name… but that lapse passed after a second of bleary, eye-rubbing numbness. Figures of his greatest companions lay around him, all in various stages of consciousness. Automated demons and cheap gargoyle machines fumed smoke from small fires, and the tracks before their ride car were twisted off their intended course.

'What the hell happened here?' he thought, his mind struggling to form it hit him: they were back at the carnival.

"Here! They're over here, Dylan!" someone yelled, waving a flashlight into the collapsed tunnel. "There's an entire cartful! Don't worry, kids. Don't try to move: we're getting you out of this mess!"

"Sheila?" Hank groggily asked, elbowing the unconscious figure beside him. She woke with a jolted start, as though running from a nightmare.

After a moment of taking in her surroundings, Sheila's eyes became round as dinner plates. "What happened?"

"I think the ride broke and we were knocked unconscious," Hank said, unsure of the answer himself. They must not have been out for long, but man did he have the most vivid and crazy vision ever. There was something about him being a… a hero? Him battling an evil force with his friends with a magical bow and… something about a unicorn?

"God, I have a headache," Hank mumbled, trying to wipe the dream away from him.

"We were knocked unconscious probably and are suffering amnesia," Eric chimed in from the back row he said with little assuredness, sounding as though he was to convince himself.

"Oh…" Sheila said, brow furrowing.

"I don't think that was it," Diana said. "I don't feel like I had a concussion… I think that it was real."

"What?" Eric laughed nervously.

"You know what I'm talking about. The realm. I know you know what I'm talking about, because you were there." She looked around the cart, daring anyone to contradict. "We all were."

"It couldn't be… that's crazy," Hank said, but Diana shot him such a dark look he shut up real quick.

"It was real," she said with complete certainty.

"Holy hell, Fred," the firefighter, Dylan, said, helping Diana out of the car. Hank found it odd that Diana, an accomplished gymnast and equestrian, was being carried out of the demolished theme park attraction like a helpless puppy. Her legs buckled and swayed underneath her, as though they had been cramped in the ride for hours.

"Steady now! Take it nice and slow…". The two rescue squad people began helping Eric and Presto out from the seats and began leading them out of the tunnel. Getting into the Dungeons and Dragons ride was the hard part: the entirety of the ride was destroyed, save for the single chamber of the tunnel where the survivors were. Amazingly, even the lap bar of their car was still in functional order, and only dirt and light debris touched them. "Are you guys okay?" Fred asked.

"Never better," Bobby replied, only to be greeted with a pinch of emotion at his side that he couldn't pinpoint the origin of. At Dylan's kind and helping touch, Bobby couldn't help but let a few tears out, and then a cascade of silent emotion.

"Hey kid, it's alright," Dylan said, not knowing what to do under the extreme emotion of the kid. "No real damage, you see? You're going to be good. You're going to be good."

"God, you all are lucky. We thought for sure that everyone on this car was a goner," Fred chattered to Bobby as he led him away. "It just fell. Simply fell. No loud noises. No rumbling quakes. The roof just gave in."

"Our parents…"

"We'll get you to them real soon, kid. First you guys need to be taken to the hospital for the checks. Amazing… hardly a scratch on you all. What luck…"

"Our parents?"

"Yes."

"Thank you," Bobby said, voice tight.

"No problem, kid." The group disappeared down the cleared path, towards a hint of natural light.

"Come on Sheila," Hank began, helping her out to follow the others. "Let's go home."

Hank's eyes were blearily met with piercing moonlight and floodlights out of the wreckage of the Dungeons and Dragons ride. Past a line of police officers and yellow tape, news reporters pushed against barriers to get their exclusive coverage of the "Catastrophic Ride Collapse Victims (6)".

Fred and Dylan competently shielded the six as best as they could from intrusive photographers fifty yards out, whose cameras contributed to the blinding as much as the sudden sunlight. A line of prepped and anticipatory ambulances idled in line, waiting to receive Hank and his friends.

Hank saw a swirl of candy-colored, garish rides, the concerned face of his ambulance technician, then the ceiling of the ambulance as he was sped away. It all happened in a blur, as though the present was going too fast for him to comprehend it. The beeping and moaning of the machinery inside the ambulance fascinated him even though the journey gave him motion sickness. After all, it felt like it had been three years since he last saw technology or rode in a car.

There were more news reporters at the hospital parking lot, crying out for gossip and updates (whilst being corralled backwards by impatient PA's and HR). And more damn cameras.

"Are they hurt?"

"Is anyone dead?"

"Can we get an interview?!"

And…

"Not a scratch." Dr. Ahmad closed the ER room door behind him, drowning out the noise in the hallway. "That's what the nurse told me: heart rate is fine. Blood pressure too. No bruising. No swelling. Nothing."

"Pleasure to meet you too," Hank muttered, offering his hand to shake with the physician. "Nothing?"

"You're joking," Mrs. Guilds said, clutching her chest.

"Only one of the lot with anything was Albert, and he only sliced his hand tripping out of the place," Dr. Ahmad said cheerily. "Get some good rest tonight, but besides that, you can even go to school tomorrow."

"Absolutely nothing is wrong? And if his contacts were in too long?" Mrs. Guilds prattled, looking rather sweaty with relief or anxiety.

"Not much of a problem. It was only a day."

"No internal bleeding?"

"No."

"Brain damage."

"None that I could detect."

"That's not a joke?" she snapped.

"Not at all, mam. You are most certainly lucky that Hank is alive, though," Dr. Ahmad said, striking keys on his computer. "It took first responders twelve hours to safely reach the inner depths of the ride past the debris. It's unheard of. Here." Mr. Guilds was handed a prescription sheet. "Anxiety pills for the two of you. Hank is fine."

According to officials, the ride suddenly caved in. The theme park operator stated that there were no natural happenings that could have prompted such a freak accident, and the ride passed all legal checks at the appropriate times. There weren't any earthquakes or tornadoes even in their state. Not a cloud in the sky. All other rides were operational and well during the collapse, so it wasn't a park-wide electrical problem… nothing seemed to prompt such a disaster except maybe bad luck. Even more misfortune plagued the situation, as responders were stuck in a traffic jam (unheard of in the that side of town!) and slow to safely enter the rubble. In all, as Dr. Ahmad mentioned, it took them half a day to reach the survivors. It was a freak accident, with a frenzied and haphazard response that locked the children in the belly of the beast for an age.

Nevertheless, the theme park was being sued, regardless of whose fault the collapse was. They felt fortunate, though, that Eric's parents were too apathetic to press legal charges. They had little hope of financial survival if that occurred.

Hank slipped from his hospital room while the adults discussed vital signs and the other medical things, making his way to the reception area. Seeing his parents felt amazing: the accident aged him, and he felt like a great weight of homesickness was lifted immediately upon seeing his mother's face. It was wonderful, but… sitting confined to a bed with others telling him what to do was not his style. Once he ascertained that he was with his parents and safe (amazing!), Hank was ready to find some peace from the overstimulation he felt in the hospital. Dr. Ahmad vaguely waved him off when he slipped out the door, so certain of Hank's physical and mental health.

When Hank turned a corner (sneaking past the nurse's station: they would've asked questions), he was relieved to see two familiar faces. Eric and Presto sat alone amongst the magazines and empty chairs, chatting genially.

"Barely made it out of there," Hank smiled.

"You'd think that after all we went through in the realm, we'd be treated more like adults," Presto sighed.

Hank shot him a faux confused look. "Realm?"

Presto rolled his eyes, unimpressed. "Don't give me that bull, Hank. You were there with the rest of us. You wore tights for three years. Accept it."

"Yeah, and you wore a dress," Eric ribbed before receiving a punch to the shoulder.

"So… I guess it actually did happen," Hank finally admitted aloud, sinking in a chair next to them. "Catastrophic and unexplained demise of the ride… all of us having the same visions… it actually happened?" He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear up the confusion in his head.

"Yeah," Presto said. "We heard your initial amnesia theory in the ride. Pathetic."

"If it was a dream, we weirdly all had the exact same one and therefore are soul mates," Eric chimed in. "So either accept that you wore the same outfit for three years straight or let's all move to Utah and get married to each other."

Hank laughed, but most of it was relief. It was a relief to accept the story… a truth he had known but had been afraid of.

"So say it," Eric said.

"Say what?"

"Say, 'I went to the realm of Dungeons and Dragons, saved Venger, liberated hundreds, and peed and shat in bushes for three years while bossing around my friends.'"

"Okay, okay, I get your point. I'm sorry I doubted."

"Unfortunately for Presto, we did not maintain any physical changes," Eric continued, poking Presto in the stomach. "So you're once again a scrawny nerd." And, though it was a jibe, Eric was right. Everyone had gained muscle in the realm. Yet, under the halogens of familiar human invention, the three of them looked diminished and young again. Only their tired eyes conveyed the amount of growth they had gone through.

"Well… you still look a bit like that bogbeast, Eric. I guess some changes are hard to erase," Presto shot back.

"Alright, alright, no need for that here!" Eric's hand involuntarily touched his cheeks (to be sure). "We all have our faults so let's just be kind here!"

"Right, Eric. Because you always show such restraint when it comes to mentioning ours."

"I should've just stayed in the ream, away from you losers," Eric huffed. "I was almost the legal drinking age there, anyway. PLUS tomorrow is Monday! Remind me why I ever considered coming back!"

"Our families, Eric," Hank patiently supplied. Eric's glowing face sullied for a moment, and Hank's burned in shame. Of course: Eric's parents probably hadn't shown up. The young man Hank saw outside of Eric's hospital room was probably his dad's PA, Duncan.

"And the food," Hank tried to recover.

"Oh damn, I have a history test in the morning, and after three years, I've forgotten all about the… whatever it was on," Presto moaned, trying to change the subject.

"The Korean War."

"That!"

"I'm sure you're well versed in war tactics now," Eric jibed.

"Unlike you. You're versed in running away," Presto laughed, dodging a half-hearted punch that Eric sent his way.

"Maybe I'll just skip tomorrow…" Eric said. "If I saw Jimmy Whitaker in the hall, I don't know if I'd be able to restrain myself from strangling him."

"He called my card tricks dumb," Presto said flatly.

"To be perfectly honest, they kind of were."

A short, bespectacled lady came into the lobby, clutching a notepad and with a stack of messy, stapled papers under her arm. She was read-walking with an article in hand.

"Albert, it's time to get going," she said simply, not looking up from her paperwork. Presto stood obediently to leave.

"See you all tomorrow," he said. "Don't forget to study!"

They all laughed at the absurdity of it. Hanks new greatest fear was a Korean War test? He could live with that.