Strange Happenings
Midnight. They always came at midnight. The chimes from the old grandfather clock in the den jolted Daniel out of his restless dreams. It wasn't the chimes that woke him so much as the knowledge that They were coming. It was the same horrifying ritual, every single night.
The room was illuminated by an eerie pale green glow. Three figures in haz-mat suits stood around his bed. One of them held a large briefcase, another held a gun, and the third--the apparent leader, from the way he acted--was making entries into a large handheld computer. Daniel tried to escape, to run, to even move, but some unseen force held him in place, as immobile as the bed itself. The leader looked up from his computer and signaled to the one holding the briefcase, who set the case down and began to open it. Daniel strained to see its contents, but couldn't from his position. If only he could move...
The leader reached forward, grabbed the bedcovers and--
The shrill blast of Daniel's alarm clock filled the room. He'd had that dream again, the same one he'd been having every night for nearly a month. Except that it didn't feel like a normal dream. It felt more like a memory, but one that had been partially forgotten. Anyway, Dan had more important things to worry about, so he pushed whatever it was aside for the moment. Today was the last day of school, finally. All he had to do was survive his last few final exams, and he'd be home free. He wasn't about to let a creepy dream get him down.
***
Dr. DiCaoz glanced over his biology classroom. "Is anybody still working on the final?" he asked tiredly. He paused for a moment, then said, "If everybody is finished, you may talk quietly amongst yourselves for the remainder of the period." As the class erupted in chatter, he went back to nursing his hangover.
Daniel loved his biology class. It wasn't just that he was good at it, or that it was the last class of the day. By some bit of luck or fate, he happened to be in the same class as his four closest friends, Gassan, David, Pammy, and Jake. Gassan, David, and Pammy had become absurdly popular since coming to high school. Gassan was Lebanese and therefore "exotic," David was a star swimmer, and Pammy was a cheerleader. In retrospect, popularity was an inevitability. To the other popular kids, Jake an avid follower of the Furry subculture (he called it a craze, but nobody else did) and Daniel, the introspective writer, were social liabilities. Still, Gassan, David, and Pam never let their newfound "friends" keep them away from Jake and Dan. Privately, Daniel was grateful that he had managed to befriend the four people who appeared to be immune to high school drama.
"So, what'd you guys think?" Pammy whispered.
"I'm pretty sure Dr. Di is a nutcase," Gassan answered quickly. He was met with a chorus of approval from his companions.
"Anyway," Pam continued, "are we having our annual Thank-God-The-Schoolyear's-Over party tonight?"
"I can't go," Jake said, "I've got a convention."
"I can't go either," said David, "My dad's taking me camping. He's on a back-to-nature kick."
"I'm visiting my grandma," Gassan said. Pammy rolled her eyes.
"Alright," she sighed, "when do you guys get back?"
"Sunday"
"Sunday evening"
"Sunday, but it'll be late."
"So," Pammy continued, "is Monday night alright with everyone?"
***
The days passed quickly. By the time Monday arrived, he had gone an entire weekend without his mysterious dreams. He was mostly relieved, but part of him wished the visitors would come back so he could find out what they were up to.
The streets were charged with an eerie calm. A summer storm was coming. As Daniel reached Pam's door, he couldn't help but feel a strange foreboding. Something was decidedly wrong. He rang the bell.
"Come in," called Pammy. Dan opened the door and found friend sitting on the floor in a tidy circle. They were all staring at him, an unsettling hunger in their eyes. "We are playing Truth or Dare," Pammy intoned mechanically. "Please, join us. Truth or Dare?"
"Please choose Dare," Gassan said, in the same unearthly voice.
"The Truth is never any fun," agreed David, still in the same tone. Throughout the exchange, none of the four took their eyes off of Daniel.
"Is everything alright?" he asked. "You all seem...different."
Pammy answered in the same monotone as before: "We are collectively unnerved at a series of recurring dreams we have been having. Perhaps you too are experiencing these visions?"
"Yeah," Dan said, "but I'm not acting that weird about it."
"Perhaps," Pammy said, "All will be made more clear if you answer this simple question: Truth...or Dare?"
Written by Zodiac on 31 May 2008
The Lab
The sound of the clock ticking filled the air as the young man sat opposite the desk of an older balding gentlemen, nervously adjusting his tie as his boss looked over the stack of papers that had been on his desk. "So the scientific ethics and health committee has looked over your request for expedited human testing of your matter teleportation device," the older gentlemen said. "They are happy to inform you that they will be flying in for a live demonstration of your machine, and pending evaluation you will be cleared to begin phase three human trials within two months."
"I can't believe it Craig!" Daniel nearly shouted in joy before he quickly regained his composure. "I mean I've already proven that this thing works on our phase two trials, I just didn't think they would actually abbreviate our trial schedule for it. If we succeed here we can bring our product to market within the next year."
"Well it's all due to the hard work of you and your team for sure," Craig responded as he handed the eager young man a thick folder. "I wouldn't worry too much about that time table, the reason we even have such a long phase trial time is due to our pharmaceutical division. Just make sure you put on a good show, we only get one shot at this and if they deny our proposal then we're going to have to wait the full two years until we can bring it to phase three."
Daniel reassured his boss that he wouldn't let him down and then let out a string of appreciations as he shook the other man's hand. As soon as he left the office he went straight to the lab and shared the good news, which drew a round of cheers and celebration from all the technicians involved in the project. Once they had finished their calculations for the day they held an impromptu party, which lasted long into the night before everyone either drove home or in some cases took a taxi. Soon the only things left in the lab were the remains of such festivities and Daniel himself, who labored over the glowing screens connected to one of the platforms that served as their matter teleportation module.
"Alright, so all the diagnostics are a go," Daniel muttered to himself as he watched the lines of code flicker by. "Fusion core is stable and at one hundred percent efficiency, tungsten coils charged, quantum particles locked..." suddenly the screen turned red as a warning flashed across the screen that coordinates failed to lock and internal calibration was required. "Not this again! Why is it always the last step that causes the most problems?"
Daniel sighed and took off his tie before he grabbed his toolbox and walked up onto the platform. A light haze of smoke from the liquid nitrogen tanks coiled around him as he opened one of the panels and looked at the crystal array that was housed underneath. For him it hadn't been the first time he was in this predicament, one of the problems he had been trying to solve was the stability of the matrix that told the matter where it would be redirected too. It was nefarious for becoming out of sync, and when he looked at the positioning compared to the computer screen he found it to be a similar case.
"Great, that's another fifteen minutes of waiting for realignment," he grumbled as he set the gears to relocate the crystals. He watched as the spires of glimmering stone began to shift and rotate for a few seconds, then shut the panel and began to screw it back into place. Before he could finish the last one however he heard the loudspeaker announce that the coordinates were locked and the machine was about to fire. Daniel felt his stomach drop into his feet as he heard the machine revving up to rip apart every molecule in his body and sent to a location that he hadn't even specified, which shouldn't have been possible since the only other platform in existence wasn't even charged yet.
Written by Serathin on 15 January 2017
Call for help
"Someone help!" he shouted in vain as he began to run towards the abort switch, only to feel his momentum cease as his body felt like it had begun to float. His cries grew quiet as his body shimmered and shifted, losing cohesion as the dynamos on either side of the machine glowed a bright white. When the countdown reached zero all the lights in the lab flickered out as an intense flash filled the room, followed by darkness. A few minutes later the power flickered to life, which revealed a completely empty platform as the computer screen chirped with the words 'Transfer Complete' flashing on it.
Daniel found himself floating, his consciousness slowly returning to him as his mind rebooted. Very quickly the events that had transpired came back to him and he realized he had just been transported somewhere other than the platform that was only few feet away from his origin. It was also possible, he realized, that he could be nowhere at all. Luckily no matter where he was it wouldn't be for long, part of the failsafes that had been built into the machine was that after eight hours if nothing appeared on the other pad the transferred matter would return to its original destination in the condition that it left. Of course he had no idea what that meant for him at the current time, especially as he felt a burning sensation in his lungs. When it grew more intense he also realized that the nothingness he floated in felt very... wet, and when he twisted his body around in sudden realization he could feel the water he was surrounded by shift around him.
After a few seconds of frantic looking around he saw a shimmering light and decided that was the best place to go to and began to swim, bubbles escaping him as he made a frantic push towards what he hoped was the surface. When his head finally broke into the air he let out a deep gasp and filled his lungs with fresh oxygen to abate the burning in his chest. When he finally got his breathing under control he looked around as he treaded water and when he saw a moonlit shoreline not too far away he started to paddle towards it. As he continued to move he was surprised at the ease of his movements through the water, normally he was not a very adept swimmer and had trouble treading water but at the moment he easily kept his head above the surface as he made his way to land.
When he finally reached the shore though he flopped onto his side and panted heavily from the exertion of the swim. The cold water seemed to have numbed his skin, he thought to himself as he laid there, as he felt the smooth stones of the beach press against him but not uncomfortably so. His mind raced with questions as he regained his composure; how did the teleporter send him somewhere that wasn't quantum entangled, and where exactly was he now? Wherever he was it was further then they had ever gone before, especially since there were no large bodies of water near their lab that he could think of.
As Daniel contemplated his situation he suddenly heard the crunch of footsteps coming towards him and he breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of someone coming that he could ask about his location and whereabouts. When the sound stopped only a few feet from him he slowly opened his eyes and looked up, only to have his eyes grow wide as he saw what stared down at him. An ear-piercing scream shattered the otherwise silent air as Daniel shifted backwards as fast as he could, landing on his back and causing him to cry out in pain as well as the creature looked at him with bewildered confusion until he finally stopped shouting and pointed at him. "It's a... a... you're a..." Daniel stammered before it interrupted him.
Written by Serathin on 28 January 2017
A dragon
"A dragon, yes," the reptilian creature finished Daniel's sentence as it sat on its hind legs and rubbed his forepaws against his ear fins. "Also deaf potentially, is a blood-curdling scream how you greet everyone or are you in some sort of distress?" All Daniel could do was stare at the dragon that sat in front of him; the creature looked every bit like in the fantasy stories he had read when he was younger except instead of a picture this was in real life. Ocean blue scales glinted in the moonlight as its tail waved about lazily in the air, his eyes a stormy grey that took up the entire scalera save for reptilian slits for pupils that dilated slightly as it looked at him.
Daniel put the hand that had previously pointed at the dragon and put it against his head as he shook it, and for the first time since he had emerged from the water he realized that something was off about the way his skin felt against itself. His heart rate, which had just started to return to normal, spiked once again when he looked down at his hand and saw something far different than the human hand he was used to. He watched in shock as the three thick toes of a draconic forepaw wiggled when he told them too, the strange muscles underneath the bright amethyst scales flexed as the tip of one of the thick claws tapped against them. "This... this isn't real..." Daniel managed to say as his eyes traveled up the scaly forelimb where what used to be his elbow bent at an angle previously unnatural to him.
With the sudden realization the former human quickly became aware of other changes he had previously missed in his previous panicked state. The pain he realized he felt as he laid on his back had been because he had pinched a leathery wing between himself and the ground which immediately flared out as he bolted up onto his feet. The other dragon continued to sit and watch with a look of mild confusion and slight amusement as Daniel turned his longer neck around and gasped as he saw the tail attached to him that swayed with a motion he could feel all the way up his spine, then turned himself around in circles in an effort to see where it attached. Daniel heard the other dragon say something but he was so lost in his own self-discovery he didn't even understand what was said as he crawled over to the water's edge and looked down at his own reflection.
The face of a dragon stared back at Daniel from the surface of the water, emerald eyes blinking when he did as his gasp showed off his sharp fangs and thick tongue. Unlike the other dragon that was still watching him though he had a mane of black hair that was framed by a pair of white horns that swept back. "It can't be... I'm a dragon..." Daniel stammered as he brought a clawed forepaw up to his face just to see the reflection do the same. "How could something like this have possibly happened?!"
"Well when a girl dragon and boy dragon like each other very much they create an egg that you later hactched from," the blue-scaled dragon chided as it finally got up on all fours and padded over to the still distraught Daniel. "Seriously though you're starting to freak me out here. I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible to hit your head so hard on water that you have species amnesia? Of course I did see you take a dive pretty hard into the bay, so if you want I can go and get a doctor to come out here and take a look at you."
Daniel's head swam with questions as he listened to the other dragon talk, only to snap back to the present situation when he realized that it had stopped talking to await his response. "No... no I think I'm fine," he managed to say. He knew that no doctor, dragon or otherwise, would likely be able to solve his problem and such a story might rouse the wrong kind of suspicion. Somehow his teleporter had transported him to a different world where he now inhabited the body of a dragon, it would be up to him to find out not only why but how to reverse the situation.
Written by Serathin on 09 February 2017
Danielle?
"Well if you're fine we should probably get back to the festivities," the blue dragon said as he turned to head back up the coast. "I'm Rylac by the way, since now you seem calm enough to actually register my name."
"Oh..." Daniel replied. "I'm Daniel."
"That's a pretty name," Rylac complimented as he started to walk. "Pleasure to meet you Danielle."
"Actually it's-" Daniel's sentence was cut short as he stood up on his four legs and took one step forward before he crashed back down on the rocks. Rylac looked back at him as took his splayed out forelimbs and got back to his feet and started to walk, still feeling his legs shake slightly as he quickly learned how to walk on all fours. After the blue-scaled dragon asked once again if he was okay, which Daniel responded with a short nod as they once more walked down the moonlit beach around the rocky shore.
They padded over the stony beach in silence, which gave Daniel ample time to think about his current predicament and what on earth actually happened. With little information to go on the possibilities were near endless; all he knew was that dragons exist and he had somehow become one. His first thought was that the machine had somehow transformed him, but he quickly dismissed it since it wouldn't explain Rylac and plus it would have broken several scientific laws of matter and energy conversion. From the story that the other dragon had given him his mind turned to the possibility that he was having an out of body experience... and then his thoughts turned darker as he speculated the teleporter had ripped him apart and he was now dead and this was his neuron's trying to cope with his violent end.
As they passed by one particularly tall cliff face all those thoughts suddenly became background noise as Daniel's jaw dropped open in amazement. He looked out on a wide street lined with buildings and stalls that were decorated with lights and other ornaments as the whole scene was illuminated by street lamps. He would have sworn he had just walked onto any normal city street save for the fact the entire area was populated with dragons. There were no cars or other types of vehicles, though with wings one would not require such a thing he mused as they walked through the main gate and into the crowd, but there were many things that reminded him of where he had come from. He even saw two smaller dragons playing a modified version of a popular dancing arcade game, their tails flicking in the air as their heads swayed to the music.
"This is incredible," Daniel exclaimed as he walked by several stalls in awe.
"It's not bad as far as small towns go," Rylac stated with a shrug. "You've obviously never seen one of the big cities party, the fireworks display alone for some of them would blow your mind. Of course when it comes to the celebration to the standing of our peace agreement it's something that definitely deserves the fanfare."
"Peace agreement?" Daniel asked. With some careful digging he found out that centuries ago humanity and dragons struck an accord concerning the division of resources before they went to wore upon the discovery of a new continent. The dragons were all relocated there and the humans stayed where they were, and with an ocean separating them both species were allowed to flourish instead of a bloody war that could have eradicated one of them.
Written by Serathin on 17 February 2017