Chapter II - Stranger

A heavy man, whose body shape would definitely require a seat for each buttock if he were to try to ride a train, sat in a red recliner that molded to his body perfectly, as if he had used it for an eternity. Behind thick square glasses, dirty with his own oily grimy skin, his eyes looked fervently at a white screen; no different than a deer looking at a truck’s headlight, moments away from experiencing the thrill of sudden change of momentum.

The screen was a thin bezel TV that only showed a white bright light, with a constant noise, like what an old CRT used to make, but instead of a single high-pitched, ear-piercing noise, it sounded closer to heavy rain on a roof. However, if you paid close attention, it kinda felt like you could pick out a voice in a sea of voices, or an instrument within a thousand simultaneous orchestras.

A crunchy sound, followed by an orgasmic hum came out of the lard ass entertaining himself. The taco, filled with carne asada, lettuce, tomatoes, and thick chunks of cheddar, became a single mush of flavor explosion in his mouth, all brought together by chimichurri sauce. But the flavor explosion didn’t last long, for it was quickly sent down his gullet by a refreshing, frizzy light ale that had a slightly bitter and malty taste that gave way into a slightly sweet aftertaste.

“Arrrrgggghhhh—hmph.” A loud burp nearly turned into vomit as this man’s stomach struggled with another horde of pig slop coming down his esophagus, but as soon as his stomach relented, he shoved down the last bite into his food hole. The saucy taco spilled down the sides of his mouth, then down his chin, and dripped on his chest.

Laughing out loud at the white bright light on the TV, the heavy man finished gulping down the beer, and with a lazy fling, he threw the bottle aside, careless to look, or bother where it would land; the bottle did not make a noise. Instead, it vanished into the darkness not soon after leaving his hands.

With widened eyes at the TV, his laugh turned into gasp. Without looking away, his grubby hands felt around three tacos to his right, knowing exactly what the flavors were: carne asada, campechanos, and chorizo. Feeling adventurous, he selected the campechanos this time as every time he chewed on it, he felt a burst of a unique combination of leftover meat, plus special seasonings like cumin and cilantro, that his favorite taco shop would create—like opening a loot box, but rather than useless crap; it was a unique flavor experience.

Eating the taco with the same voracity as the previous one, he then gulped down a large glass filled with Vienna lager like a camel. Putting the glass aside, he was ready to send in another taco when he paused his grubby hands, using it to bend his body to the right instead. His face contorted, and reddened—like a baby trying to poop. His butt cheeks, now spread out apart, gave way for a sudden gust of stench air to blow through, sounding like someone trying to whistle for the first time in their life.

With that pressure out of his system, he brought himself back to his original position, and grabbed a chorizo taco, and pigged out on it, followed by another bottle of beer. Meanwhile, the TV’s white light, and it’s kinda-like-heavy-rain noise remained perfectly steady, but its brightness was slowly, but progressively diminishing, letting the darkness encroach closer.

On what would be just another taco-beer-burp-taco-beer-taco-beer-fart-taco-beer loop, the white light began flickering the moment he was practicing playing his built-in smelly trombone. With blinking eyes, as if he had just come out of a long daydream, the corpulent man looked around; darkness to his left, darkness to his right, and darkness swallowing the backside. Everything around him was nothing but darkness. A feeling of being somewhere supposedly familiar, but yet feeling completely foreign gripped his insides; it was not another fart.

He remembered something painful—he had had a heart attack in that same chair, and fell to the floor as he tried to reach for his cellphone. The memory felt so real, as if it had just happened. He grabbed his heart, thinking he was still having a heart attack, but instead he felt a normal heartbeat, and a cold sauce that now laid on his chest. I’m alive? But I?—where’s the light?—wait? Isn’t this the living room?

The TV, with its last flickering light, finally gave its last burst. The darkness, that forever waited patiently, now finally had the opportunity to strike.

Feeling a sense of nothingness taking over, he clung tightly to his chair, no longer even knowing what color it was, nor its shape. He breathed out, but could no longer breathe in, and the more he tried, the more pain he felt from his collapsing lungs. The pain mutated into sheer agony, bringing the certainty of death to his door, causing his life to flash by in his head. However, the memories did not look vivid, but rather closer to old photos left to rot, barely being able to recognize what the memories were to begin with. He saw places that faintly felt familiar, but as he tried to remember them, he saw many more rotted memories pass by—like an unstoppable train disappearing in the horizon, never to be seen again. With each passing moment of pure darkness and agony, everything he knew, as corrupted as it was, became nothingness.

However, amongst the remaining memories, not as yet faded, he saw himself holding a knife against his own chest as he sobbed. He did not look as fat, but he did look just as worn out. Dropping the knife back in the kitchen counter, he felt misery, emptiness, yet a faint hope. He wanted to live because of that single thread of hope, but the sweet relief of death kept gnawing at it.

A playful balance with his life threaded on that same line.

Another memory that rose was of a place that looked like a cubicle farm. He knew he spent most of his time there, but he did not know why. Not that it mattered as it passed by, and disappeared into the darkness.

He felt his gut churn as one last memory rose, appearing as if it was unlocked, his soul unable to kept it protected any longer—he was a young skinny boy, back in his lovely childhood home, with a large grin on his face as he sat in between his parents, eating tacos, while a black-and-white chubby dog begged for food at their feet.

He looked at his parents’ faces, but he could not see their expressions, or even how they looked. He looked back at the dog, but he was gone, and so were his parents. He now sat by himself, in a small apartment, looking much older than what he currently was.

Tears poured out of his eyes as he felt nothingness taking his last memory away from him. Amidst the tears flowing through his greasy cheeks, a white sparkle of light appeared in the distance, moving randomly, with disregard to the laws of physics, searching for something as if it was a UFO in the sky. One second it was barely the size of a penny, then next it was the size of a car as it zoomed around in the darkness, appearing as if searching for something.

The fat man felt the darkness pulling him away from it, hiding him, consuming the rest of him like he was trapped in the belly of a beast. Just like the sensation he had when he pointed the knife at his own chest, despair and misery took over, but with it a nearly shredded thread of hope. “I DON’T WANNA DIE!” he screamed, but no sound came out. Sobbing like a baby, his hand moved towards the light.

The light stopped zooming around, and in the next second it struck him like a light cannon, taking away his senses.

The stranger opened his burning eyes to a blinding light, barely recognizing a blurry white ceiling above him. The stranger felt the blood pumping in his veins, a steady heartbeat in his chest that pricked his extremities, and his back uncomfortably resting against something hard that felt slightly moist, sticky.

His ears heard the usual sounds of a busy city, but somehow it felt amplified, as if they were screaming in his ears, obnoxiously loud. A soothing, slightly chill wind blew through the room, but he shivered as if someone just poured a bucket of icy water over him.

His brow furrowed. A strong stench of death mixed with a strong oily musk raped his nose, burning deep like taking a big whiff of bleach; his bronchioles deep within his lungs screamed in agony. With no warning, he suddenly sneezed his brains out, popping their eyes out of their sockets—at least that's what the sensation of pain felt like as no actual brain matter came out, nor did his eyes free themselves.

The stranger placed his hands over his eyes and ears, trying to stop it all. His nose was still raped by the stench, but as the seconds passed, the stench no longer burned, but rather it just kept turning his stomach, with a slight nausea on the side. Meanwhile, stars popped and faded in his vision as a result of the troglodyte sneeze.

As the stars disappeared from his vision, a memory appeared in the soft darkness of his vision; it was himself, seated in something comfortable, reddish in color, but he could not remember the details other than knowing it was a recliner.

“Huh?” He slowly revealed his face, easing them into the noises and sights from the world; the sounds of a brisling city now sounded like a symphony of normalcy: People talking and laughing, animals trotting, birds chirping, and even sounds of something hard steadily hitting wood not too far away.

The pupils of his eyes adjusted themselves to the light in the room, allowing him to see a textured white, but blurry white ceiling. Slowly sitting up, his stiff body cracked all over, sounding like someone just popped a roll of bubble wrap. With a huge yawn, he involuntarily stretched himself, causing additional cracks, with one on his neck sounding like someone just snapped it. A constrained, nearly orgasmic, grunt came out of the stranger, feeling his tensed up muscles relaxing, like oiling up an old machinery.

Squinting his eyes hard, he tried to make out the room he was in. He saw a large—maybe broken—window, and a large splash of something red against the wall. Bookcases to the left and right of the window, and other wooden cabinets and a sink spread through the other walls—it had a strong utilitarian, doctor’s office appeal to it, especially with the table he was sitting at being dead-center in the room—the only thing it was missing were cringy posters of pharmaceutical companies trying to push medicine into patients, and a call-a-nurse button.

What is this place? He kept squinting as he looked for something familiar, but there was nothing amongst the pile of stuff thrown all over the place that hinted at it.

Prepping to get off the table, he looked down on his lap, and saw a white cloth with red stars embroidered suspiciously covering his manhood. His inquisitive eyes turned to the cloth, realizing it was a pair of boxers. That’s not mine—actually, this seems kinda small. Wait a minute! My dick! I can see it now? His jaw dropped while his hands reached to his not-as-swollen gut, grabbing the no-longer-as-thick-and-juicy blabber folds of his bottom belly. How did I lose all this weight?—or was I even that fat to begin with?

The stranger, feeling his sense of balance off, like he just got out of a rollercoaster, slowly stood up with his boxers in hand. Leaning his weight against the table, he put his feet through the holes, and started pulling the cloth up his legs. It felt quite comfortable at first with its higher quality breathable cotton rubbing on his skin, but as it got up closer to the waist, it certainly felt like it was not meant for him, leaving a clear imprint of his privates up front, and a slightly scratchy sensation on the stretchy fabric that rubbed on his waist.

Is that blood? He noticed the red stains on the wall meeting a pool of darker red liquid down on the floor. His thighs were still tensed up and sore, so he used his left hand on the bookshelf, and crouched down towards it like an old person—grunting like one as well. As he went down, the stranger’s nose pierced a cloud of stagnation; a rusty, slightly pungent air entered his lungs, making him nauseous. Stiffening his face, the stranger breathed out through his nose, trying to keep the odd smell at bay. “Oh, shit, it is!” He jumped back up like a skittish cat, his heart skipping a beat, and a primordial fear striking his core. His head moved around the room furiously, searching for an enemy he did not know existed. His squinting eyes quickly followed a trail of bloodied footprints from the pool near his feet that led out of the room, stepping on what appeared to be a fallen door. What should I do? What if they killed me?

The stranger looked at himself, his skin completely fine. Plus he still had all limbs attached. But I am fine—Were they protecting me instead? But from what? What is this place anyway? Hmm?

Something caught his attention, he saw a green thingy that looked thin and pointy, like a weird pole weapon. Picking it up, he saw it was composed of multiple small green woody objects covering a diamond-like stone, with each woody thing containing a red line that zig-zagged in pseudo-squares, connecting to each other in the middle point of the left, and right borders.

N-A-R-I—nari? Huh? What is this? The stranger, with both hands, accidentally split the nari chain in half. His lips thinned into a nervous grin, while his hands quickly placed them back where he found them.

Turning his attention to the broken window, he carefully peaked his head through and saw a sprawling city as far as the eyes could see. At least it looked like one, as it was a blurry mess of boxy-shaped buildings of all kinds, with a somewhat repeating color palette of white with bluish or brownish roofs that seemed to be on fire. Actually, the entire city seemed on fire. Is that fire? Wait. No. That’s a chimney! A wind blew through, bringing the smell of pastry, smoked meat, and fish. The stranger looked at the people past a grayish wall of some kind, and saw blurry humanoid figures in the distance that did not seem to be in any rush, at least most of them. Well, except a pink and white eye-catching humanoid running by herself, zig-zagging through the populace appearing to hold something.

“Hey! Come on down!” A friendly voice caught his attention amongst the rustles of the city’s noises. Following the source of the voice, he saw the walls with a beautiful splash of flowery colors hugging its insides, separating the city from a green field with a large boxy castle in the middle. Right below him, he saw a patch of what looked like a splash of blood contrasting the beautiful green, with three adult humanoids in blue and golden hues standing around it. Meanwhile, zooming randomly around like a headless chicken, a small pink humanoid on top of a large, round black thing rushed by the purple-hair humanoid, nearly crashing against it. He could not make any details of what was happening, but he clearly heard the echo of a child's laughter, shrieks of a distressed bird, and a girly, somewhat angry, voice that screamed back “CUT IT OUT, NINA!”

Feeling compelled to know more, the stranger made his way out of the room. Near the entrance, he saw a broken glass and wooden container that had two white stones within it. It was blurry, but he could see glass shards littered around it. Leaving that aside, he carefully placed his weight on the wobbly fallen door, only to see more glass-looking things with more whitish stones inside hanging from the ceiling as if it was a lamp. That’s weird. The stranger squinted his eyes as he passed underneath it towards the stairs.

At the top of the spiraling stairs, his vision could not distinguish where one step started and the other ended, and it felt like a long way down if he dared to misstep. He held onto the blue, with accents of drying blood rails, as if his life depended on it. One step after the other, he made his way halfway down the flight of stairs, to another open window inviting him to see outside. He saw the same blurry bustling city from another angle, yet he could not recognize anything remotely familiar.

Reaching the floor below, the floor setup was nearly the same, two main doors, one right in front of the stairs, and another to the side. Nothing special, but nothing familiar either.

The other floor below was the exact same, except there were faint bloody footprints from the bottom stairs going into the main door. The stranger, feeling as if he was being peer pressured, even though there were no peers around him, stepped closer to the door, only to hear a constant beating rhythm—like an eagerly quickening clap. His hand clenched to a fist, ready to knock at the door, but looking at the bloodied footprints, his face clenched as well, making his hand avoid the mysteriousness of that side quest.

This other floor was different from the others. The room itself was an open concept room split into two sides, with a corridor in the middle blocked by an old-looking wheelbarrow that led to a large door on the opposite side. On the left, flesh, bone, and feathers pickled in bottles of who-knows-what were all stacked up to the ceiling against the wall. In front of them, small and large cauldrons, workbenches, and knives stood closer to the corridor—truly a witch’s wet dream. What the fuck is all this? The stranger felt as if he just entered a haunted house, where everything felt unnatural or surreal.

In the corridor, the wheelbarrow exuded a familiar odd smell. Taking a sniff of the air around him, the stranger’s mind clicked as to what it was. That smells just like the room I was in! Was I brought in then? He peeked at the wooden tiles in the ground and noticed the same faint bloodied footprints passing both ways in the corridor. Looking up, he saw the same glass, but this time metal instead of wood jars with whitish stones inside. That has to be a lamp, right?

On the right, bookshelves were filled with all kinds of books in different shapes and colors, with some looking so old that they would probably curse you or fall apart into dust the moment you opened it—truly the kind of gift to someone with rhinitis. But the books were not the only thing decorating the right side of the room; weirdly shaped two-finger rings, that looked like what a flashy rapper would wear, decorated a section of the wall. In front of that was a table with grinders dirty with blue dust and boxes in a familiar green wood color that contained blue stones and blue dust. At the base of the table, a large, raw, unpainted wood crate was filled with used diamond-like colored stones, looking pretty close to what the stranger had seen back in the room he woke up in.

Weird. The stranger took his time walking to the door, looking at how foreign everything looked.

The child in pink pointed her tiny finger at the stranger. “MOM! He looks like Uncle Alford!” Her eyes shone in delight seeing someone familiar. “Even his belly, too!”

“Nina!” A woman of dark skin and long black hair spoke with a firm motherly tone as her eyes stared daggers back at the child in pink.

“But Mom! This fatso looks like him!” Nina had a sweet, innocent tone to her childish voice, but her devious grin contrasted it like day and night.

With squinting eyes, the stranger looked from person to person, trying to recognize them, but it was to no avail; they looked like strangers to him, too. That is until his eyes crossed paths with a beautiful girl in long violet hair that sparkled in the sun. He had never seen her before, but he now wanted to see her more. With an interested smile, the stranger wanted to take a step closer to really see her beautiful pinkish, or maybe purplish eyes, but his feet were planted firmly on the ground; too shy to move. At least he could see a bit of how her skin looked spotless and radiant, and even her demeanor, too! She looked away from him, holding back her tensed up posture, clutching her elbows tightly against herself, forcing a neutral face, only to start playing with her hair as the stranger kept staring on.

“Yo! You got a name?” The towering man in a blue fish-scale-covered tank top stood up in front of him, giving him his hand for a shake, and blocking the way to the cute girl with long purple hair. The amount of gold-colored clothing, plus the bluish crystals on his neck, gave him the appeal of a grandiose figure. His eyes sized the stranger’s overall body thickness, and total lack of sex appeal—or clothes for that matter.

Feeling a squeeze on his breath, and a sinking heart, the stranger took one last glance at the cute girl in purple—feeling like she had already dumped him before he even had the chance to say hi. Turning his attention to the unwavering will coming from this tall man, he felt like he had no choice but to shake his hand. As their hands met, the stranger imagined his hand being crushed by his tight grip, but instead the handshake itself felt rather welcoming; his own slightly cold hands, and weaker grip, were met with a firm, supportive handshake. “Ah—sorry—ahhh—but I don’t know.” Muttering words came out amidst hums from the stranger, looking up to the red, fiery, but somehow natural-looking eyes of this tall man.

“Well, what do you know?” The towering man in white cape let go of the stranger’s weak-ass grip. His question felt like a blunt weapon by the quick timing, but his intonation seemed pretty curious about it, rather than just feeling rude.

Despite the bustling city noises coming from outside the walls, an eerie silence ensued; everyone stood by, eager to know more, even Nina, the child in pink, and the black soulless eyes of the “Extra THICC” goth chicken she was mounted on—at least it appeared interested for a little bit, as it then quickly bobbled its head towards the ground to peck at something. The stranger admired the sheer size of the maybe-more-emo-than-goth chicken, almost as tall as the child in pink. “Ahhhh—I woke up in that tower?” The stranger pointed to the tower he just came out of.

“What else?” The towering man’s tone grew even blunter as his eyes were keen on the stranger’s expression.

The stranger gulped. “I—I remember me and my parents were eating tacos when I was a kid—” The stranger felt the darkness come alive, grappling his heart, suffocating his lungs, but it was nothing but a vivid memory. “We’re watching—”

“Tacos? The fuck is that?—Is it good?” The towering man interrupted the monologue with another verbal blunt strike.

The darker skinned lady came closer to the towering men and put her hand on his left shoulder. “Honey, let him speak.” Her eyes glared at the stranger as well, appearing to analyze everything he said, or did, maybe even how quickly he was breathing.

“—I don’t remember much, but—Oh! The—doggo! I can’t remember his name either, but he was black and white. We were watching TV while he begged for food—he disappeared. Then—so did my parents. I, somehow, felt old and fat after that—lonely too.” The stranger’s voice tapered at the end. He looked at the ground, feeling an urge rising within him to cry out the darkness gripping his heart, but seeing the cute girl in purple glance at him, he held the tears back with all of the emotional strength that he could muster.

“Dear, please tell us everything you might remember. You can trust us.” She extended her hand as well, briefly meeting the stranger’s. “For I am Neferteri Sanbi Royal, the queen of Sanbi, and this is the king, Itagiba Sanbi Royal.”

Itagiba shook his head up-down with a nice self-important smile, pointing at himself with his own right thumb as if he was a political candidate posing for a poster.

Neferteri continued, “—and this lovely purple-haired-lady is the third princess Eori—”

The stranger felt his heartbeat go up by ten percent for every step Princess Eori came closer to him—his own drama and problems felt being shoved aside by sheer passion. With her standing an arm’s length in front of him, his eyes were now able to tell just how beautiful she actually was. Her face was slightly flushed, but her lips were tightly shut—it looked like she was biting her tongue to hold back something. She extended her hands, and shook his weak-ass grip with the same intensity as her father, but she kept her distance. Oh wow! The stranger felt his heart trying to get out of his own mouth as his cold, sweaty hand was caressed by her warmth. In turn, his grip became not-so-weak-ass while a funny bubbly feeling erupted inside him, further pushing the personal drama into the sidelines.

Eori was the first to pull her hand off the shake. Twitching her nose in disgust, she stepped back and put a fair amount of distance between them. Next, she seemed to isolate her hand from touching anywhere else in her body—acting like she had just touched a leper.

Feeling like she dumped him a second time, the stranger could not think of anything to say, instead an ass-licking smile appeared on him as he looked at his own self, realizing he was in the wrong, making the bubbly feeling inside him fizzle out like a soda left open in the fridge.

An eagerly energetic voice came from the child in pink. “Nina! The four-h, and best princess! With her tru-ted mount, Fanbiro!”

Neferteri’s elegant demeanor grew wary as Nina interrupted what she was about to say.

Pulling the goth chicken’s head feathers around as if it was a joystick, Nina, still mounted on the bird, stepped closer to the stranger. With her small cutesy right hand up in the air, she clearly wanted a high-five. The stranger took a second or so to realize her request, and as his hand went to high-five her tiny hands, she bamboozled him by slipping it downwards, and used it as a poking stick into his belly button. Spitting all over, she made a wet fart sound with her mouth. “Pfffff—ewww it’s wet!” Dropping her act, she quickly took out her finger, and, for no apparent reason, put it up right below her nose, only to take a deep whiff, and gag profusely from the je ne sais quoi smell of Bagarisa musk.

“Hahaha—that’s what you get,” Itagiba busted out a belly laugh, with Eori, the princess in purple, showing a pleasurable grin on her face as she held back a soft laughter.

Feeling violated, the stranger covered his belly button, nervously laughing along with Itagiba. Ehh? That’s weird.

“Nina Sanbi Royal!” Neferteri, the only one not laughing, called out to her in the same vibe that a Latino mother would right before taking out one of her sandals and performing a headshot with it. However, she did not reach out for hers, or whatever else she wore under her long blue dress. Rather, she remained calm, at least in how she composed herself.

“Fanbiro! C’mon!” Before Neferteri could even finish, Nina had already pulled the feathers of her goth bird, performing an exit maneuver with her mount.

The stranger chuckled as he saw Nina, with her hair flying up in the air, wildly giggling, and her trusted mount, leaving black feathers behind as they both ran towards the back of the castle, vanishing from sight.

“So, what else other than eating tacos and watching—what was it again?” Itagiba, the towering king, looked firmly back at the stranger.

“TV, honey,” Neferteri replied instead.

“Yeah. That. Do you know what that is?” Itagiba glanced at her.

Closing her eyes, Neferteri softly shook her head.

“Whatever, then—anything else?” Itagiba looked probing towards the stranger, appearing to not take “no” as an answer.

“I—I saw them disappear, and then I was left—alone. That’s it. Well, I remember everything being dark too—I thought it was my living room, but maybe it was a dream? I think?” The stranger’s eyes wandered away; he went silent as the crippling darkness began crawling back to his mind the further he pushed it to remember what happened.

“Huh? Really?” Itagiba exchanged a quick glare with Neferteri.

Neferteri softly smiled. “Dear, you do not recall anything about your persona? Not even a name?”

Biting the inside of his cheek, the stranger shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.”

An offbeat smile shone on Neferteri, appearing to partake in enjoying this stranger’s misfortune. With a joyous tone, she spoke slowly, “Don’t despair. Please take solace in the fact that we do know some facts about you.”

A sudden gleam appeared in the stranger’s eyes, focusing as much attention as he could muster to hear what Neferteri was about to say.

“Your corpse was discovered in the slums by the guards. We were aware you would lose a few memories based on your advanced state of decay, yet it is unfortunate to hear that you lost far more than the average person would.” Neferteri spoke like a president on live TV reading from a teleprompter—rehearsed, slowly, clearly, but kinda emotionless.

Is that why there was all the blood and such? The stranger thought back to the room he woke up in. He placed his hand on his chest, feeling his pretty-much-alive heartbeat. “—but how am I alive?” The words slipped from his mouth, picturing his own dead body, far fatter than what he actually was, rotting in the slums. “I thought once you die, you actually die.”

Itagiba hugged the stranger from the side, ignoring the Bagarisa musk coming from him; he spoke with a straight face right up close to his. “You can bug Gabiro for the details when he’s back! He’s like the smartest—smartass too—scientist in the block! But you still haven’t asked why we resurrected you! So let me tell you straight—we want you to marry one of our princesses—even if you stink like a Bagarisa.”

Marry one of our princesses. Itagiba’s words echoed in the stranger’s brain, unable to be processed, not because he couldn’t, but rather he never thought those words would be spoken. His brain, stuck on a BSOD, did not give any further instructions, so he was stuck in a paralyzed blinking motion until a ding occurred when his brain finally rebooted. His jaw dropped, and he immediately turned his head towards Eori’s beautiful face—his blue eyes widened so much it was about to fall from his eye sockets.

“Ew. I was not the one who requested such a corpulent thing,” Eori’s cold-sounding voice was elegant like her mother’s, yet just as blunt as her father’s.

The stranger felt like he was punched in the liver when Eori said ew, but that was only the start of it. With the rest of her eloquent speech, he felt like she, emotionally speaking, had just given him a fatality combo, akin to the gruesome, spine-ripping ones found in popular combat games. He could not muster anything to reply back, for he also felt locked in place by Itagiba’s strong arm around his neck.

Neferteri, seeming to realize the misunderstanding, spoke after. “The princess in question is our second princess, Maiara. Upon hearing the news, she decided to assist our courtroom scientist, Gabiro, and fell heart-struck once she saw you being resurrected.”

“That’s what she wants. So? Wanna marry her?” Itagiba cracked a wide smirk as his face was still right by the stranger’s, carefully watching for a response.

The stranger looked back and forth between the king and queen. Both were anxiously waiting for his response. He then glanced towards the beautiful princess, Eori, apparently busy looking at the flowers hugging the castle walls. I guess I can’t say no to this? They saved me after all. A nervous grin appeared on him as he imagined another princess in the same vein as the purple-haired one. “Yes!” the stranger said, with no further hesitation.

“Attaboy! Now come with me! I can’t have you smelling like a bagarisa’s asshole when you meet her!” Itagiba let him go, and gestured his hand towards the farthest-off tower.

“—Dear. Hold. We need a name.” Neferteri softly spoke, calling to her husband as he was about to herd the stranger away. Meanwhile, the stranger smelled his hand, frowning as he noticed his nose had grown accustomed to his own musk.

“Aww shit. I forgot about that.” The towering man scratched his short hair, turning to the stranger “So—got anything in mind?”

“I—dunno?” The stranger spoke, revealing his hands, shrugging until he remembered the stone he found in the ground earlier. I guess that has a nice sound to it. “Nari?”

A small chuckle came out of Itagiba. “Pfff—you sure? That’s kind of lame, you know? We can give you a better name.”

I—guess so? The stranger felt his tense shoulders relaxing, “Thank you!”

Itagiba turned his head towards the castle. “HEY NINA!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

What appeared to be mere seconds later, a familiar pink humanoid, but no longer with her trusted mount, busted the doors open on the second floor. She jumped, leaning herself against the rails of the balcony, and screamed back “WHAT DADDY?”

The stranger could not see well, but he did see enough to feel a sense of impending doom; imagining this tiny girl falling, and splattering in the grass down below. A peak of energy rushed his body. He attempted to take off after her, but the king held him at the shoulder.

“Shhh—she’s fine, see?” The king smiled, releasing the stranger. “CAN YOU GIVE HIM A NAME?” Itagiba loudly spoke to Nina.

Nina, with her hand on her ears and somehow balancing herself purely on her stomach, nodded, then put up one finger with her left-hand, and four with the right-hand “TWENTY-SEVEN RAKUJAS!”

“THIRTEEN!” Itagiba shouted back, so enthusiastically that the stranger felt he was in the middle of a stock exchange.

Meanwhile, Neferteri was gritting her teeth, at least for a bit before holding back her emotions when the stranger noticed an aura of unspoken anger coming from her—like the warmth irradiating from a fire. Meanwhile, Eori was keeping her distance, and mostly to herself by appearing to now enjoy the large clouds forming in the distance—apparently just biding time.

After moving her fingers around, and speaking under her breath unintelligibly, Nina shouted back “ELEVEN!”

“DEAL!” Itagiba let out a laugh through his nose, while his face remained business casual.

Wait. Eleven is smaller than thirteen. The stranger computed the numbers on his head, trying to make sense of it all, at least until he saw Itagiba look at him and wink. Ohhhhh. I think I get it. The stranger kept muddling over the wink, and possible interpretations.

Nina hurled herself to stand on top of the rails, and like a cheerleader, she began making weird hand signs with her hands and arms. The first was a rectangle shape above her head. She then said out loud “H!” The second transformed into a triangle shape, and then she said “A!” The third and fourth were a hand wave that went up, then down to the right in a forty-five-degree angle for a bit, then halfway back horizontally, up to the middle, then right horizontally.

Is that a letter, too? The stranger felt an odd sensation as he felt Nina initially monkey around looking like she had a stroke, but as soon as she finished a stream of weird line motions, somehow the meaning of it made sense in his head. R? Is that really R?

She said “R” twice in a row, making the same weird symbol. The fifth was a horizontal line that looked like a heart monitor that spiked down, then up-down, then down again. “Y!” She then ended her presentation by putting both hands up, and screaming as loud as she could, “HARRY! YAY!”

“That’s my girl!” The king clapped with energy, of which Neferteri and Eori did not share.

The stranger clapped as well, trying to follow the same enthusiastic fatherly energy, but he was offbeat, for his concentration was also divided in noticing how the queen and Eori behaved indifferently to this spectacle.

Nina bowed before making her way back into the castle, savoring the victory of her newly struck deal.

“There you go, Harry! Now let’s get cracking!” A fatherly smile appeared on Itagiba’s face as he herded the stranger, now named Harry, away from the southwest tower he had come from, towards two other identical towers not far away.

Harry squinted back at Eori, trying to steal a last glance of her, but saw her looking firmly at him, almost with a suspicious gaze, before hiding her face away from him.

Neferteri and Eori both stood back. Eori kept averting her gaze, while Neferteri smiled as she carefully sized up, or rather analyzed, Harry as he was taken away by Itagiba.

“All right, Harry. What do you want for dinner?” Itagiba cracked his neck as he kept walking, passing by the middle tower.

Harry, passing by the south tower, walking towards the southeast one, instantly remembered one thing only. “Hah—tacos?”

Itagiba let out a good hum. “Hmmm—you mentioned that before—what is that? Actually, never mind. Do me a solid and write down the recipe for Eiri, okay? I want to be surprised!”

“I—guess I can try. I never made them before though—” Harry and Itagiba entered the main floor of the Southeast tower—the tower opposite the one he had woken up in. The main floor was wildly different; no longer a witch’s wet dream, but rather a large living room of sorts with couches, stuff for painting, books, and glass jars that looked like lamps, but with whitish, pearly stones inside them that sparkled in the sunlight of the open window—kinda similar to the other ones he had seen in the other tower. In the nearby ground, drawings, with an awful lot of pink, littered the floor as if a tornado had passed through.

“Don’t step on them or she’s gonna get cranky!” Itagiba warned as he stepped carefully around them.

Harry followed suit. As he got half-way into the room, he saw a two-person table with its top partly carved, looking like a three-dimensional painted wooden battlefield of sorts, containing clusters of statues on top, each forming battalions of humanoids, animals, or even monsters. By the stairs, he saw a bookcase that was filled with stuff other than books: additional figures, statues, balls of different shapes, and even additional boards that looked like pieces of battlefield. His mind suddenly clicked on a spoken foreign name. “Sorry, who’s Eiri?”

Itagiba waved his hand towards the stairs to let Harry walk up first. “King-maid. I will ask her to stop by and say hi. I mean, she would do that anyway.”

“King’s—maid?” A few steps in, and Harry was already out of breath.

“Yeah. She takes care of the maids, and the accounting of the kingdom,” Itagiba replied without thinking, as if this answer has been given to people many times.

With his heart rate up, beads of sweat formed on Harry’s forehead. His body looked as if it was climbing a mountain, but in reality he was just finishing the first flight of stairs.

“You okay there, bud?” Itagiba’s eyes grew concerned. He put his hand on Harry’s sweaty, stinky back, and pushed him forward. “C’mon! You can do it!”

Puffing, and huffing, Harry pushed his feet upstairs one at a time. His heart, pounding on his neck, as beads of sweat ran down his Bagarisa-musk-soaked skin.

For a moment, the king of Sanbi appeared to hold back wanting to say something. His concerned eyes then disappeared, pushing Harry to keep going upstairs. “One more! We can do it! Let’s go!”

Harry, huffing as he carefully watched his step, reached the midway point of the second flight of stairs. From the corners of his eyes, he noticed something quickly walking down towards him; gasping amidst inhaling, he saw a girl far cuter than sexy. Her fiery red hair contrasted her black maid clothing with blue accents. Her small mouth had a charming, embarrassed smile, and two cutesy canines poking from below that looked like inverted vampire fangs. Her flushed skin was so visible that it appeared as if she had rosacea.

Her cheerfully cyan eyes were like pearls, but those pearly eyes did not dare gaze at him, instead she gazed towards the cityscape in the backdrop of the window beside them. “Hi King! Is this gentleman the new guest?” Her voice was a sweetly feminine voice that sounded like a lullaby—a rap lullaby that she ended with a stiff posture, anxiously waiting for orders.

“Morning, Sora! Yep, that’s him alright. He’s Harry by the way.” Itagiba gave off a cool smile, noticing where Sora was actually looking.

“Nice to meet you, sir Harry.” Sora glanced towards Harry quickly, then held her cutesy hands in front of her as she bowed slightly. “I’m Sora Sanbi Blue-glass!”

Harry, glancing at a blur that was Sora’s small hands, caught a red thing on the back of both of them. He worryingly pointed at it, his voice followed next “Ahhh—is that blood? Are you okay?”

Looking as if someone jumped-scared her, Sora quickly looked at her hands and arms, then at her clothing—appearing as if she was performing some form of senseless postmodern choreography. With her blush waning, she slightly furrowed her brow and tilted her neck. “I’m sorry, sir Harry, but where am I bleeding?”

The sheer panic in her voice made Harry anxious as well. “The—the red thing on—on the back of your hand? Yeah! That!” Harry gestured with his hands to replicate where he was seeing the supposed blood.

Itagiba chuckled out loudly. “Ah—ah! Oooh! That’s great! I need to use that one someday.”

Sora, looking at the tip of her middle and ring fingers, took note of the red vein-like pattern that bumped out of her virgin skin. She carefully watched the vein appear from the tip of her fingers towards the back of the hand where it merged into a larger vein as it continued down her forearm. She pulled on her black sleeve, revealing the same larger red vein-like thing going all the way up her forearm, getting as thick as a pencil with additional branches coming off the large vein.

“Sora, he’s talking about your Darfaries vein.” Itagiba tapped Harry on the shoulder. “Man, your eyes are really that bad, huh?”

A hum came out of Harry, his hand scratching the short stubble beard of his. “I’m sorry, but what is Darfaries?—”

Itagiba, with an increasingly devilish look, switched to a smoother tone. “Can you show it to him?”

“I—I—guess so?” A strained cutesy voice came out of Sora, feeling the pressure, and Bagarisa musk coming from Harry as she stepped closer, slowly extending one of her slightly shaking hands towards him.

“Your eyes are that bad, right? Well, grab her hand, and notice the bump. It is more like a nerve than a vein. See?” Itagiba smiled at Sora. “Give him a break, he just woke up from a near soul death.”

Meanwhile, Harry was looking at her cutesy hand laid out in front of him. Feeling a sense of peer pressure from behind, plus his own desires, he gulped as he carefully held it with both hands. It was slender, but just as warm, and comforting as Princess Eori’s. Still being careful, he touched the Darfaries vein; its red bumpiness was warmer than the rest of her hand, and had a certain toughness to it, but as his finger pressed slightly on it, it gave way to its squishiness.

A suppressed girly moan came out of the maid, Sora, while her body slightly shivered.

Harry’s ear picked up on the moan, while he felt her shiver in his hands; his brain immediately got swamped with an urge to rub his fingers all over her Darfaries veins, imagining the possibility of maybe licking it instead to see how she would react.

Meanwhile Sora’s eyes grew watery from the Bagarisa musk burning up her sensitive nose. Sounding as if she was stuffed, she tried to not breathe from her nose as she spoke up “Sir—is there anything else you need?”

Harry, realizing where his mind was at, let go of her nearly-violated hand. “Thank you—ah—Sora.” His hands and imagination still wanted to play with it some more, but then he remembered the words Marry a princess. Paying close attention to her humanoid figure as she stepped back, he then noticed her ears were pretty different from what a normal ear was; hers had a pointy shape, like an elf’s, but it flopped inward like certain dog breeds. Touching his own ear, Harry felt the normal roundness instead.

“You’re just like us, bud. I guess you’ve never seen a Wozefaries before, huh? Lemme tell ya, Sora is one of the cutest out there—right Sora?” Itagiba gave a wink to her.

Sora, quickly fumbling her fingers as if she was making gang signs, grew red as a tomato. “I don’t think I am, but—but thank you for your words, King.”

“Wait. What’s the difference between Darfaries and—Wo—Wozefaries?” Harry couldn’t stop looking at her sheer cuteness; her maid clothing revealed a bit of her breasts, but not enough to be scandalous.

“A—a race, like the Naked Bruntos, sir?” Sora replied in an inquisitive tone of her own.

“Naked Bruntos?” Harry furrowed his brow. “Sorry, I’m confused—”

“That’s us, bud! Long story, though, and I need to go get your badge ready. Sora, can you put extra soap in the bathwater?” A grin arose on Itagiba, the Sanbi King. “He’s gonna need it.”

Us? Harry’s mind searched its entire catalog of words, but nothing came up for it. Humans, yes, but not Naked Bruntos.

Quickly bowing, Sora replied in her usual rap freestyle fashion—at least in terms of speed. “Yes, King! I will do it immediately!” The maid then took off upstairs in a rush as if her life depended on it.

Harry went to take a step to follow her, but the king gripped his arm again, holding him in place.

Stating in a lower, mischievous voice, the king spoke into Harry’s ear. “Take a peek at the rails going up.”

Moving his attention to the rails of the upward spiraling stairs, Harry saw a small glimpse of a blurry image, of which his brain had just enough imagination to fill in the gap: yellow underwear with white embroidery belonging to the cutesy small legs of the fiery-red-haired maid.

“Hehe—that’s a new one—hey—remember to save it for Maiara as that’s why you’re here.” With a wink and a thin-lipped devious smile, Itagiba slapped Harry’s arm twice, then went his way down the stairs, only to turn his head back towards him. “By the way, you missed an opportunity to grab her hands, and give them a kiss.” Itagiba gave a smooth fingerbang, with a click of the tongue, then started walking down again. With his back to Harry, he said out loud, “But you can still ask her to wash your back! I will allow that!” He gave a thumbs up, disappearing into the stairs below.

Discombobulated, Harry stood there, watching the king disappear. The words “Thank you?” slipped through his mouth, followed by a bead of sweat running down his forehead, imagining himself asking her. With one slow step after the other, Harry went back to his primary goal of walking up the mountain in the shape of spiraling stairs. So I can really just ask for that? Harry imagined her small hands washing his back, exactly where an actual itch started to appear in the middle of his back, right where his hands couldn’t reach. As he reached the third floor, he saw that she was not there. The floor itself looked the exact same as the tower he got off—a small room with two doors, except this time the doors were bright blue. Stepping into the stairs going to the fourth floor, he focused on how she would look as she brushed his back—perhaps with the same embarrassment from when he touched her hands, or perhaps with a willful determination like when she ran up the stairs? But isn’t that asking too much of her? Hmm. But if the king says it’s fine, then I guess it’s fine?

Making his way up to the fourth floor, he was panting as if he was about to have a heart attack. Exchanging quick eye contact with a portable-size cutesy maid called Sora, Harry smiled, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

She instead averted her eyes from him, fumbling her hands in front of an open blue door. “W–welcome to your guest room, sir Harry! I apologize for not bringing you proper clothes. Is there anything else you need?” Flushing red, but not as intensely as before, Sora peeked again at him, then back at the ground in front of him.

Her voice reached Harry’s ears like a rap lullaby, but he then heard another familiar voice echo inside his head. You need to ask her to wash your back! “Can you?—” He tried to say it, but the words choked on his throat when her floppy ears and bright cyan eyes focused her attention on him. “Wash—eh?—I’m sorry. Oh! Humans! Is that the same thing as Naked Bruntos you mentioned early?” Harry let out an anguished breath.

“Yes, sir,” Sora hid her hands behind her back. “Do you need an explanation of the room?”

“Yes, please!” Nodding, Harry followed after Sora. At the blue door, Harry spotted a mid-sized living quarters. To his right there were a few wooden bookshelves, dressers, and a couch where Sora stood by.

Trying to keep some distance from the Bagarisa musk coming from Harry, Sora, standing at the door, placed her hand on the comfortable, leathery grayish-green couch. “Sir Harry—this is a couch—and you would use it to sit and read books and—” Sora trailed off mid-sentence, realizing Harry was looking elsewhere.

Looking towards the back of the room, Harry saw a window, and right below it, a neatly set, comfortable-looking single person bed. To the left of the room there was another normal-looking door, closed, and beside it a large painting of a guy, looking like an older version of Itagiba, fishing from the clouds while being pulled by an animal that looked like a horse. Below that painting, there was a desk with ink in five different hues: yellow, red, green, blue, and black, plus the same nari stone he had seen before, but now they were individually laid out neatly below the inks. “Can I ask what that is?” Harry’s eyes noticed a blur of a glass-and-wood lamp-looking thing with two whitish stones inside resting on top of a nightstand. “They are like—everywhere.”

“That, sir? That’s a fost stone lamp.” Playing with her hands, Sora tried to hide away the embarrassment swelling within her. “Excuse my question, but do you know what a couch is?”

Harry smiled, “Actually, yes, it’s just—some stuff looks weird to me. Like that. How's that a lamp?” Harry approached the supposed lamp, and picked it up. The top of the lamp had a hole about the size of a quarter, with two stones inside that had a glimmering radiance to them when inspected up close. How do you turn this on? Harry felt like there was something missing. “Don’t you have to, like, plug it or some—” He looked at the bottom of the lamp, rattling the stones inside as they clashed against the glass top. “There's no cable either—that’s weird.”

Sora’s hand reached out to an apparent danger. “Please watch out for the glass or you might hurt your hand.”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Harry flipped the lamp upright again, rattling the stones even more.

Letting out a faint exasperated sigh when the stones stopped rattling, Sora continued, bowing, “I’m sorry for my rudeness, sir Harry. This type of fost lamp is not meant to be hung, so it does not come with a cable. We do light it up for you every evening—” Noticing Harry’s puppy eyes, Sora continued. “But I can show you right now if you would like.”

“Please!” Harry’s eyes shone in a glimmering radiance just like the whitish stones.

Extending her hands as far as she could towards Harry, she acquired the lamp from him, then opened the normal-looking door to the side, revealing it was a modest-looking bathroom. Placing the fost lamp on a nearby sink, she opened a nearby drawer, picked up a wood funnel, and jammed its near perfect fit on the small top hole of the lamp that itself aligned up to a hole from the pipe in the wall. Stretching her arm towards a handle in the same pipe, she pulled on it with a bit of force, causing water to angrily rush out from the hole, into the funnel, shockingly gargling its way into the fost lamp—if Poseidon was ever waterboarded by a three-letter agency, it would probably sound like that.

That’s not how faucets work, right? Harry looked at Sora, as she carefully watched the fost lamp get close to half full before pressing on the lever with all her might. Next, she took out the funnel, dried it with a towel, put it away, then from the same drawer she grabbed a glass jar, filled with a white fine grain—that coincidentally also had a built-in funnel almost the size of the fost lamp hole. “Is that salt?” Harry followed the white grains plopping into the water, and falling towards the bottom.

“Yes, sir.” Sora put away the odd-looking saltshaker. Meanwhile, the mostly dissolved grains of salt reached the stones in the bottom, making white light sparkle across it, and forming small bubbles. As the salt-rich water further enveloped the whitish stones, the sparkles of light began joining together into a dim light that grew steadier.

“Wow!” Harry, mouth-opened, saw pure magic happen in front of his eyes. “That’s amazing!”

Sora, now the one huffing as she grabbed the half-full fost lamp out of the sink, used all her strength to shake the water to properly mix it, turning the dim lamp into a little sun that lit the bathroom in pure, blinding white light, alongside a steam noise that sounded like a tea kettle about to boil.

Harry used his hand to cover his eyes, stepping back from whatever Sora was doing. Soon after, the lamp light began to dwindle, including its steam output, leaving a faint bioluminescence. “WOW! That was cool! Huh—are the stones smaller now?”

Sora nodded, giggling as she glanced at Harry, looking like a kid in a ball pit for the first time. “Hehe—please don’t tell Eiri, but I knew you would appreciate it, sir Harry!” She opened the top of a boxy-looking thing, revealing a familiar looking bathroom staple, a toilet. The toilet also had an attached pipe that ran up the wall with a similar handle as the other pipe.

“So that’s a toilet?” Harry saw the light coming from the stone completely falter as Sora dumped the water down the toilet.

Closing the odd-looking toilet, she cradled the fost lamp with her both hands. “Yes sir. Is there anything else you would like help with, sir Harry? The tub is ready for you.” Sora waved her hand towards the tub in the back of the bathroom, patiently waiting to strip Harry from his Bagarisa musk.

Harry looked around the room and saw a few wooden cabinets and two square containers—one with a lid that looked like a trashcan, and another that looked like a laundry basket. “Eh—I think I get the rest. Thanks again, Sora!”

“You’re welcome, Sir Harry. Please take your time. Dinner will be served at Monnalow.” Sora, with a curtsy posy, pulled on the sides of her black skirt, getting ready to leave.

“I’m sorry—but what is Monnalow?” Harry held his face as if was about to be told that’s enough.

“It’s a half timehunk, sir.” Sora opened another drawer, and grabbed a round metal object, opened it in half, and pointed it against the window. “Have you ever seen a timekeeper before?”

“Ohhhh!” Harry murmured to himself, analyzing what initially appeared to be a circular makeup palette. There were eight color zones in the circle, with a blue emblem of an engraved fish sticking out in the middle. The four colors on the left were warmer in nature, while the right ones were cooler. Within each of those eight colors, there was a white word splitting the color in two. Harry read them clockwise as Monna, Monni, Monno, Munnu, Sunna, Sunni, Sunno, Sunnu. “This feels—pretty different. Wait—why is this chunk kinda lightened up?” Harry noticed half of one of the colors, at around ten o'clock, having a certain bioluminescence to it. It contrasted the other half, divided by a word that spelled out Sunno, with a darker orange color, akin to the inside of a pink grapefruit.

“Yes, sir. Right now it is Sunnolow, which is why that half timehunk is lit up. When the other half lights up instead, it will be Sunnohigh. Please make yourself at home—and, sir Harry—please enjoy your bath!” Sora ended with a tone as if she was pleading her case to a policeman, right before being arrested. “—there is plenty of time until Monnalow!” Sora, holding her nose away from Harry, looked away, fidgeting with her hands, ashamed of what she was trying to say.

*One, two, three—*Using his finger, Harry counted a total of sixteen sections. The numbers look off. He looked at Sora, playing with her hands, as her black shoes and torso pointed to the door, apparently eager to leave the bathroom for some reason—possibly because of the lingering Bagarisa stench growing stronger. “Isn’t there like twenty-four hours?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but what is an hour?” Sora’s ear perked up, trying to listen to Harry as clearly as she could.

“Like—a part of a day? Twenty-four hours?” Harry showed the color swatch that somehow told the time to Sora, pointing at the lighted section. “Like wouldn't this be ten—ahhh.” Harry’s hands froze in the air like a mime. His mind clearly felt like there was something that came after ten, but it just wouldn’t come out. Ten hours? No—? Harry scratched his beard.

Sora looked up, towards the ceiling, “Eight. Sixteen, with quarter time hunk would be thirty-two in a day. I’m truly sorry, sir, but I do not know what twenty-four hours correlate to.” Sora’s toothy lips saddened, holding the fost lamp at her side, taking a longer bow.

Harry bit his cheeks, looking at the odd time-keeping instrument. Maybe I am just remembering wrongly, then. With a slightly strained smile, he looked back at Sora. “Thank you for showing me all of this!”

“My pleasure, sir Harry. A maid will bring you some tea on Sunnohigh.” Sora excused herself again, and made her way out of the room, closing the bathroom door.

Ask her to wash your back. Itagiba’s voice came to his mind again, but Harry blew the idea off with a quick head shake. There’s no way I can ask her that.

With the door to the bathroom closed, a stranger appeared on the back of the door. Harry raised his hand to say hi, but the stranger did it at the same time. Coming closer to compensate for his blurry eyes, Harry confirmed it was just a polished steel mirror pinned reflecting his own body. Touching his gut, he saw himself doing the same in the mirror. When did I lose weight, and become this hairy?—Maybe my time in the slums? But how did I end up there? Didn’t I work like—wait? Where did I work?

Harry looked back to the toilet, still with the time-keeping instrument in his hand. How do I know that’s a toilet, but not this time thingy? Was I born here? Amidst his thoughts, Itagiba’s voice came back to him. Soul Death. Opening his eyes wide, Harry remembered a piece of convo that slipped out of Itagiba’s mouth, which did not even register initially. So, the soul does exist—a toothbrush?

Meanwhile, Harry opened another drawer by the sink to put the timekeeper back, when he saw another familiar thing in purpose, but foreigner in aesthetic: a wooden toothbrush with red bristles, looking as if the bristles were pulled out of the back of some animal. By it, there was a fancy green porcelain jar with a greenish concoction inside that looked syrupy. Harry, placing the timekeeper back in a boxy wooden frame also inside the same drawer, grabbed the toothbrush, dipped it into the syrup, and brought it to his nose. A strong, but pleasant refreshing mint tickled it, then came the notes of green tea, and something citrusy about it. That’s an interesting toothpaste. Brushing a hearty amount of the syrup from the somewhat hard bristles on his tongue, it initially tasted something akin to nutmeg, then he felt as if someone punched him in the mouth. Ow fuck!—an explosion of flavor cocktail was so intense that most of his tongue grew numb. “Argh! Ow!”

Spitting some of the syrup into the sink, he then pulled on the handle attached to the pipe to let the water flow. Sticking his mouth into the pseudo waterfall, a refreshing taste came through, only to then turn into as if he was swallowing cold water from a freezing lake. Coughing his lungs out, while trying to breathe through the pain, he agonized, trying to use the toothbrush to scrape off this powerful concoction of his tongue.

With the intensity of the toothpaste dying down, a perfect amount of refreshing citrusy mixed with herbal tea remained in his mouth. All right. Tastes nice if it is just a bit—I guess. Gonna have to watch out for everything I think I know. Harry let out a deep breath, shoving the slightly wet toothbrush into the drawer, closing it, and making his way to the bathtub. He approached it with a growing suspicion, and slowly stuck his finger inside, waiting for perhaps what could be nearly boiling hot water to melt his finger away. Instead, the water had the right degree of warmth. Hmmmm. At least that feels normal. He took off his boxers in a fell swoop, slowly submersed one foot in, then stepped around to ensure it was an actual bathtub before immersing the rest of his corpulent body in, and letting it soak up the warmth.

Nothing strange happened, and with the certainty that he was relaxing in a bathtub, his shoulders involuntarily dropped, succumbing to the comforting warmth. With the tension melting away, it was time for his belly to rumble with an important request, one he could not deny as his intestines now felt like someone was twisting them. Harry let out a grunt, his face contorting as the twisting got lower and lower in his gut, followed by a small explosion in the water, making the whole tub vibrate like a phone ringing on a wooden table. The next second, a large bubble popped in the surface of the water, and with it the stench of death cursed the air around, far more pungent than a Bagarisa’s musk. With a blanching face, he tried to fan the smell outwards, but it was not enough. Turning his head towards the window, he sloppily attacked it with one hand, luckily making it open outwardly.

A slightly cold breeze flooded the room, bringing a salty air alongside the noisy rustles of the vibrating city down below. With a large breath of fresh air, Harry felt the stagnant air come out of his lungs. Damm. Those taco farts are still just as bad—wait—didn’t I have my own place too? Harry, looking at the blur of houses in this foreign city, tried to juggle his memory, but the only thing that appeared was a resemblance of a red recliner, and a TV in front of it. What happened to it? Did I lose all my money, then end up in the slums? But then why can't I remember anything? Is that why everything feels so off?

Harry watched the blur of this foreign city, and the people going about their business, while his mind slowly drew distant with conflicting thoughts, and no single solid answer.