The screen faded to black abruptly, cutting off the vibrant image of a funeral that never happened. Earbuds snapped out of the iPod and both landed on the grey quilted bed, tangled together with various bits of abandoned stationery. I glanced from the notebook of incomplete assignments and blank iPod. Making a split second decision I grabbed my bag, throwing on a coat and headed for the door. I was stopped just short of exiting the small townhouse, my blonde haired aunt covered in flour, and what looked like brown sugar, waving a wooden spoon at me from where she leaned halfway out the kitchen door.
"Where ya headed?"
"Library, summer assignments."
She wrinkled her nose a little but was stopped from responding by the fire alarm letting out a tremendous squeal. Her expression melted into one of horror, but she took a moment to point to the table by the entryway.
"Taylor picked up the new meds from the pharmacy, don't forget them on your way out."
She whirled away, leaving a small trail of flour on the floor. I rolled my eyes fondly,
"Thanks, Sam."
I grabbed the pill bottle from the basket, double checking that it was mine before dropping it into my bag. I didn't bother to lock the front door after me, Taylors keys were still in the basket and my idiot brother wasn't likely to have remembered his phone either.
The thought had me checking the inside pocket of my coat, making sure I had my own before I stepped out onto the sidewalk. I briefly touched the pill bottle to reassure myself that I could prevent a panic attack before turning right and beginning the twenty minute trek to the library. It was just long enough that I bothered to attempt entertaining myself. The scenery was nothing new, especially for someone with an eidetic memory. That same memory that made anti-anxiety medication necessary.
Ever seen any depiction of Sherlock Holmes, ever? How miscellaneous details appear out of nowhere and aid him in solving cases? Take that, but put it in a child and make going literally anywhere with a lot of stimulus almost debilitating. For most of my life a walk to the library like this would leave me sitting down and doing deep breathing exercises every hundred feet. Those flowers? Here's their latin name, slang name, how to care for them, what their seeds look like, wait another flower! Same thing, except, uh oh, a tree too! Here you go, useless shit you read a long time ago, here it is stealing brain power!
Ironically enough the solution came from Sherlock Holmes. My brother introduced me to the theory of a 'mind palace', and I was somewhat able to keep things pseudo organized. But no method is foolproof, thus, the meds. Their presence made me feel comfortable enough to bring up various strings of information and then dismiss them.
It was only by chance that I saw him, a man dressed in blue and lying in a slump at the end of an alley. I froze for a second before kicking myself into action, breaking into a sprint to reach him. As I drew closer I recognized the uniform from the anime I had only just been watching. I was searching my memory for if there was an anime convention happening nearby when I slammed into something solid, landing in a heap on the ground. I wheezed slightly as I sat up, rubbing my right cheek where I'd caught most of whatever it was. I got to my feet, trying to ignore the new aches and pains blossoming in my everywhere and toed aside a crumpled can of Fanta. Or rather, I tried to. The soda can hit something in mid-air, bouncing back to me.
After a seconds pause I reached a hand forward, trying to ignore the whimpering man for a moment. My fingers met a blunt surface, beige ripples spreading from where I touched it. My brain was throwing up error messages, and I kept up the tapping, eventually moving to knocking on it, knuckles tingling slightly with every impact. My mind was whirling, unable to come up with an explanation. I couldn't leave, I could clearly see that guy was bleeding, but I also couldn't get to him or figure out what the hell was going on.
I kept rapping at the nonsense wall with my left hand, right pulling out my phone. I'd flipped it open and was trying to figure out who to call about this when the entire alleyway whited out in front of me. I was probably gaping like a fish when the creature appeared out of the white, both familiar and impossible. My mind ruled out projectors from my own shadow cast on the things face, as well as any sort of screen or glass based on both the non-pixelated nature of the image I was seeing in front of me as well as the fact that the ripples had surged outwards from the flat surface. Whatever this was, it was three dimensional.
Before I could do any sort of desperate rationalizing the fuzzy edged creature turned its eyeless face towards me,
"And just what do you want?"
Face feeling a little numb from the shock of everything I pointed into the white abyss behind it,
"There was a man there earlier, he was injured."
"And?"
I tried to summon up an indignant scowl but the best I could do was a small frown and manage not to hyperventilate.
"And I was trying to...help him?"
It came out as a question and I tried to keep from cringing but the creature was already moving on.
"So you bang on the gate?"
"This is the gate?"
The question slipped out before I could stop it, and to my surprise the creature actually answered.
"Not really, more a hole that I'm to guard for a while. Passage is only granted at a price."
My mind brought forwards the mantra from the anime the creature had starred in, equivalent exchange. Without really thinking the hand holding my phone raised up,
"Batteries are pretty much full, energy is energy?"
After a second of silence it tilted its head, I was about to lower my paltry offering when black hands surged forwards from the creature's fuzzy outline, the strange multitude of voices speaking again.
"It will do. Walk through then, and meet your injured man."
The white faded and I could see the man in blue, he'd crawled more towards the wall, leaving a smear of blood behind him on the ground. Thinking only of infection and blood loss I stepped forwards, feeling a rush of cold as I stepped into a completely new place. The change of scenery disoriented me, colors morphing drastically. I tried not to be too freaked out by being in an anime. My skin was itching and I desperately wished for a mirror, and maybe a hospital. What sort of havoc would that odd sort of change have on my biology, dimension traveling and perspective change and all of that? It was enough to start a headache pounding somewhere in the attic.
"Oh, by the way…"
I turned briefly back to the creature, motioning with one hand for it to just spit it out already, one eyebrow raised, almost surprised at my own impertinence. It chuckled a little, layers of voices causing the hairs on the back of my neck and arms to raise. It continued, grin growing impossibly larger,
"There's no going back."
The rift closed with a snap, outer edges falling inwards and sizzling slightly when they met in the middle. I blinked slowly at the blank alley wall, the (most probably) last glimpse of my world still burned into my retinas. I blinked a few more times as the reality of it hit me and I had to fight back tears. But I didn't have time for that. Repressing the memory of what had just happened (and boy was I good at repression) I turned back to the man behind me who had started this whole mess. I dredged up all my health class/first aid memories and set to work, cutting strips off my plain black t-shirt with my near dull pocket knife to use as makeshift bandages. And if I happened to curse myself to the depths of hell for doing something so stupid, then there was only one guy around to hear me and he didn't look like he spoke any Italian anyway.
When most of the t-shirt was gone, and I was revealing the bad fashion choice of a bright red undershirt I re-focused on the man in front of me, rather than his injuries. When I switched to English he let out a massive sigh of relief, going mostly boneless as he spoke about himself. I had learned that his name was Kyle, and his fiancé was at home with their 2 dogs and one cat, which in his opinion was possessed by some sort of demon. His attempt at humor fell a little flat as I flinched from the memory of the thing that had just trapped me here.
Finally I deemed him stable enough to move, with my dearth of knowledge in practical medicine. With Kyle leaning on me we stumbled towards the street, attempting to get out of the alleyway. Probably looking like quite the pair, burly military man leaning on a comparatively tiny teenage girl.
"Hey Kyle, not to pry or anything, but how did this happen?"
"I was helping in the pursuit of the Freezer Alchemist when I was shot by one of his rouge water bullets. I barely managed to pull myself out of the way of the fight before I collapsed. Thanks for the help, miss."
My heart skipped a beat. The Freezer Alchemist was the focus of the very first episode of Brotherhood. I was at the beginning of the series, if it followed the storyline at all. But if it did, I knew what would happen. For a while at least, I had given up after the burial of Hughes left me emotionally scarred. Though only God knew what details I had stashed away that Taylor had let slip.
As I stumbled down the street with an injured soldier weighing me down near to the point of collapse it finally hit me. I was in the world of the 'Brotherhood'. An anime, and not even the version of it I was familiar with. All I knew of this one, for certain at least, was what happened before Hughes' death, and that the plotline was completely different from the one that I'd actually seen. Trying to tear myself away from worries over 'plot' and if it was even accurate I nearly laughed at the irony. Not even an hour after I dramatically swore to never watch the show again I ended up living in it. I pushed aside the ball of crazy forming in my head at all that was happening around me, forcing myself to stumble forwards instead.
To readers new and old, welcome and welcome back. Please review, it's my key to motivation and inspiration.
~TimeLordOfPie