King of the Goblins—Chapter 2

The science on what exactly happened was a bit fuzzy, so to speak. Several times in the past, I had read educated opinions from theoretical physicists about alternate dimensions and even alternate universes. They postulated that these places very possibly and even probably existed, but getting there was the problem. One theory even said entire alternate universes could be located inside black holes. Ours could have been one. Apparently they had mathematical equations to back that idea up, too. Hard to argue with math.

Well, I wouldn’t be able to follow their math anyways, so I suppose that part didn’t matter. All I know is that I woke up on the ground, still drunk as hell. But this wasn’t the ground I was expecting. My apartment building collapsed right as we were sucked into the black hole. So if I somehow survived that, I expected to wake up amidst a pile of shattered concrete and brick, and maybe some tacky furniture.

Even if I had been yeeted outside by some crazed gravitational forces, I would have expected to wake up on Cleveland soil. So there should have been litter everywhere, and at least two potholes.

Instead, I woke up on rich, dark soil, the type farmers probably dream of. A bush was right next to my head, something strange that I didn’t recognize, and that wasn’t just the beer’s fault.

I pushed myself up to my hands and knees, expecting pain but finding none. Just my head swimming. Looking to the side, I saw a tree.

My parents waited until they were older to have me. My dad was forty-eight when he became a father. The benefit of that was that my parents retired when I was pretty young. When I was seventeen, we went on a road trip all the way to California and back, because my mother always wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge and my father wanted to see those enormous redwood trees. I’ll never forget how otherworldly large they were.

What I stared at reminded me of those redwood trees, but somehow larger. The base was the size of a large house, and as I craned my neck back, the top was nowhere in sight. It just disappeared into the canopy above. Other trees like it were in every direction.

The strange thing was that I noticed stairs on the tree next to me. Not carved into it or nailed to it, but as if the tree itself had grown both stairs and a railing. It spiraled all the way up the tree. Squinting, I saw the steps were worn. People used them. People climbed these ridiculous trees.

What the hell?

Thoughts came through my alcohol-induced haze. First, it finally dawned on me that I was still alive. Considering a black hole had just destroyed the entire fucking Earth, that was a pretty serious revelation. 

The second thought I had was that wherever I was, it was similar to Earth. The foliage was different, but still consisted of trees and bushes and grass. The gravity felt the same. The temperature was quite nice, actually. I pushed myself to my feet and tried to get a better look.

Other than the fact that I didn’t recognize any of the species of plants around me, it looked like I was standing in a forest back on my home world. Even the forest sounds were similar; the chatter of animals, branches rustling in the breeze, birds chirping in the distance.

Perhaps it wasn’t that the place was Earthlike. Maybe the process of evolution just had a habit of making things a certain way, because those ways had the best chances of surviving. Made sense to me.

I took a step and immediately reached out for the nearest tree. That awful feeling in my stomach grew, reminding me that I wasn’t a heavy drinker but just pounded a dozen beers in two hours.

“Oh boy,” I said, and bent over.

Once I was done throwing up, I tried to spit the bad taste from my mouth and then gather my bearings. I was in a foreign place, so that was tough. I looked back at the stairs on that tree next to me. The ground was worn at the base of the tree, where the stairs began. I decided to try that direction. Climbing that many stairs didn’t seem like a good idea in my intoxicated state, so instead I went in the other direction and followed the path away from the tree.

Once I had traveled a hundred feet, I realized that I didn’t know who else would be on that path. Of course that much was obvious, but I didn’t know if they would be friend or foe. So, I went about twenty feet to the side of the path and continued. I had to step over bushes and push small branches out of the way, but I was able to keep an eye on the path. If I saw anyone, I’d be able to hide.

Five minutes later, when a branch slapped me in the face for what felt like the hundredth time, I began to question that decision. The ground was uneven, anyways, and I was drunk. At this point, I was just asking to trip and fall.

I stopped next to a large tree—it looked like one of those enormous ones, just much younger and thus smaller—and grabbed onto my zipper. My bladder had been full since I woke up here, so it was time to empty it. As soon as I pulled my zipper down though, I heard something unexpected.

Voices.

After yanking my zipper up, I flattened myself against the tree and waited. The voices grew louder. It sounded like two men talking. I risked a glance around the side of the tree. Wow, I had to pee, though.

A good distance away—I was still too drunk to say how far—two men walked down the path. Men with long blonde hair, and one of them had several braids. It was their clothing that first caught my eye. As they drew closer, I saw the unmistakable shape of a cloak around each of their shoulders. A cloak? What was this, a cheesy fantasy book? Were they going to call me “my lord” or something? Holy shit, I had to pee.

I peeked around the tree again and watched them. It took me a moment, but I finally realized what was so strange about them, other than of course their cloaks. It was their ears. The men had pointed ears. They were close enough now that I could hear them better. Whatever language they spoke, it reminded me of French. Maybe French mixed with Italian, but it certainly wasn’t English. Something clicked in my head, and I knew what they were, although I laughed silently at the very notion.

They were elves. Fuckin’ elves.

I ducked back behind the tree as they passed, then looked around the other side so I could watch them go. They both wore swords at their hips; I was far from an expert on them, but they were long and thin, maybe something like a rapier. One of the men carried a bow in hand.

I watched them until they reached the tree and began climbing the stairs. After that, I pulled back around the tree so they wouldn’t be able to see me. My bladder was flashing warning lights in my brain so I finally whipped it out and emptied it right there. Aside from waking up alive, it was probably the best thing I’d felt, ever.

Think. I had to think. Surely I wasn’t that drunk. Had I really just seen elves? Maybe I really did die and this was the afterlife, where I just dreamed for eternity. No, that was stupid. I glanced around the tree again and saw the elves, still climbing the stairs, still talking their strange language.

How would they feel, finding me in their woods? I didn’t want to find out if they were the xenophobic type or not, so I decided to get the hell out of there. But where would I go? I decided to continue on my current trajectory, following that path from the woods. It was the best I had, and maybe it would lead to a town or village or something.

After about half an hour of walking, the trees on my right thinned out enough to give me a better view. A strange mountain stood there, tall and dark, with a nearly sheer face. The other sides rose at gradual angles, but the side closest to me made it look like a cliff. I decided to walk closer. If nothing else, I could walk around it and find my way to the top of that mountain so I could see around myself. Maybe some signs of civilization would be visible from up there.

It took me another hour of walking and in several directions, but I soon found myself walking at the very edge of the forest, keeping an eye on the face of the cliff next to me. What I found strange was that I saw footprints all around. No, not footprints—boot prints. Could that be more of the elves? The prints were a bit smaller than my size eleven shoe.

I decided to follow the prints as best as I could. They continued along the face of the cliff, and I soon found myself facing a cave. At least, I initially thought it was a cave. It took my drunk ass a moment to realize that it was not a natural formation. This had been carved into the rock.

“People live here?” I wondered aloud. Carving a house into a mountain seemed like a pretty secure way to build a house, but otherwise…. I mean, no windows? It just seemed miserable.

And so then, I decided to enter the cave. Tunnel. Whatever. What can I say, drunk Aaron does not always make good decisions. But, for better or for worse, I decided to explore.