Thanks! I thought a relatively mundane explanation could be fun, and a bit easier than trying to come up with a chemical or magical explanation. I'm glad you enjoyed it! :D

"Wait, it what?"

That I had made an embarrassing mistake nearly went without saying. That the scientists washed their dishes with the lab equipment, this mistake couldn't go without saying, so I said it:

"I told you that your unsafe lab practices would be the death of me, Mike."

Mike and I had been good friends for ages, and I knew that he must feel horrible, so it was nice to be able to get him to chuckle, as teary-eyed as he was getting.

"You son of a bitch, you just had to get one more joke in, didn't you?" He let out an odd noise that sounded like a sigh trying to hold back a sob. "How do you feel, Bill? Is there any pain?"

"No," I lied. I was getting a splitting headache, and the ringing in my ears alone was almost painful. There was another feeling, an odd not-quite-lightheadedness, not-quite-dizziness that I couldn't quite put a finger on...it wasn't painful, but it felt like I was walking in a deep fog. Everything felt heavy. I needed a nap. But, in spite of everything, my curiosity, which was apparently enough to kill a whale, rather than a cat, compelled me to ask.

"So, how does this poison work, again?"

Maybe it would be good, for Mike, to focus on the science, for a moment, instead of his dying friend. If I could do that much, maybe it would be worth it.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. "So, we know that whales' brains sleep one half at a time, right? While we were researching cetacean intelligence, trying to unlock the potential of their brains, we discovered that this compound had the unfortunate side effect of synching up both halves of their brains. When exposed, they would fall asleep -- completely -- and drown. It only took one drop, no matter which species. It..."

I didn't hear the rest of his explanation, as everything faded away.

I woke up a short time later, on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. It was a good thing that we were headed to the hospital, as I think I gave the poor paramedic a heart attack. I suppose I should be grateful he didn't try to bash my brains out.

Mike met us at the hospital, absolutely beside himself in relief. Neither of us were the hugging sort, but this felt like one of those situations where an exception could be made.

"I...I don't understand it. Don't take this the wrong way, Bill, but why are you alive?"

It was my turn to laugh. It felt great, and I felt more refreshed, more alive than I had in years. I supposed that dying might do that to a fellow, or maybe just the deepest, soundest sleep I had experienced in years. "I don't think that poison works the same way for humans, since both halves of our brains normally sleep at the same time. Though, I guess it is a good thing I wasn't in a pool."

Thanks!

Magic doesn't exist. There's no such thing as summoning portals, elves, pixies, or supernatural contracts.

At least, that's what the doctors told me. They chalked it up to a dream, or some sort of subconscious hallucination when I hit my head. But then, they also told me that I was extremely lucky, and that people don't survive car accidents like that one. I didn't bother asking them to explain the small pouch full of gold coins in my pocket, the one that I was given in exchange for my help on the adventurer's quest, the coins with the seal of the Kingdom of Arsenjia.

No car crash or head trauma could explain that. It did offset my lost wages from my time in the hospital, and helped pay for my new car, though. The old one was a molten pile of scrap metal, and that was before the jaws of life cut me out of it. None of it added up. Well, the gold added up quite nicely, so I couldn't really complain. So what if the wizard in my dream said that accepting the gold meant that the little adventurer guy could summon me back to this world any time that he needed my assistance -- it was a fun dream, anyway. Sure sounded better than nightmares about the crash and my near-death experience. Big stupid trolls have nothing on an 18-wheeler losing control and sliding toward you on an icy highway, anyway.

Time passed, as it does. Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, then years. I graduated from college, and got a job, and thoughts of that awful day and that very odd dream became fewer and farther between. A 9-to-5 tends to take up a lot of your time and thoughts. Staying ahead of rent and utility bills does, too. But that's not to say that I didn't have a little bit of time for hobbies, here and there.

I had gotten into target shooting last year. I got some odd looks from some of my coworkers when I talked about it, but it wasn't a big deal. I had grown up in a small town, where everybody had a few guns, and the first day of deer season was practically a holiday. I wasn't ever really that interested, but a rash of violent crime in my neighborhood in the city had me thinking about it, and when a neighbor invited me to the shooting range to give it a try, I was hooked. I got a license, a pistol, and even a rifle that politicians liked to argue about.

In fact, I was at an outdoor range, getting ready to "punch holes in some paper," as the neighbor jokingly called it, when it happened again.

The "dream." But it was different, somehow.

I wasn't in the sleepy medieval-looking farming village full of friendly little cat-people. This time, I was in what looked like a palace. Polished stone floors, marble columns, elaborate candelabras, the works. The only thing that was familiar was the little adventurer. But this was wrong. He was surrounded by several...I'm not sure what you'd call them, goblins, maybe? One of them had a short sword up to the adventurer's neck.

"Danshi, what is going on here?"

He looked up at me, and I could see he was most definitely not having a good time. The swollen black eye and fat lip were pretty universally understandable. Still, he smiled, just a little, when he looked up and saw me. "John, I wasn't sure if you could still hear me, after all this time. I'm sorry if this is a bad time..."

This...didn't feel like a dream. Neither did the flood of memories that came rushing back to me. Stumbling through the dark, musty dungeon of Sovmal, the frigid mountain pass in Dorheim, hundreds of mosquito bites in the swamps of Gar'glan... No, this is real.

The goblin-like creatures noticed that their captive had a guest appear about this time. Whatever magic let me understand Danshi and his people didn't seem to work as well for these other creatures, unless they normally sounded like they talked with a mouth full of mud. For all I knew, maybe they did. I got the impression that one of them asked Danshi if he knew who I was, and the one with the fancier armor asked me what I wanted here. Or what was haunted beer? Probably the former.

I realized that somehow the summoning portal had brought my rifle and range bag through with me, so I shouldered my rifle, aimed at the ugly one with his sword at Danshi's throat, and said "I want you to release my friend. Now, or you die." It didn't sound very hero-like, but I was still coming to terms with this whole thing being apparently real, and fancy speeches hadn't crossed my mind.

Several of the other goblin creatures drew their swords, and I realized that if I didn't want my friend to die, and if I didn't want to get stabbed by an angry bunch of ugly goblin-looking things, talking wasn't going to solve this. So I did what made sense with the tools at hand. I lined up my sights on the first goblin's head, squeezed my trigger...

...and promptly realized why you wear hearing protection at the shooting range. Of course, the goblin on the receiving end would have learned why you don't want to stand down-range when somebody is shooting, if he hadn't been the target. His comrades were stunned, both due to the horrifically loud report of the rifle, and due to the fact that their friend became terminally open-minded.

For a brief moment, there was no hostility, no "my side" or "their side." We all just stood there, ears ringing, dumbstruck at the bloody stump that was the goblin's neck. Eventually, it was Danshi that spoke.

"Now, if you will allow us to leave, nobody else needs to be hurt. If you try to stop us, my wizard friend here," he gestured at me, "will have to do that again. And none of us want that, right?"

The goblins looked around at each other, then at us, and nodded. "Yes. Please leave." I think one of them wet himself. I know I felt like I might, but that probably wouldn't help our situation."

Several awkward moments later, Danshi and I were outside of the goblins' castle, walking along a well-worn dirt path toward the nearby hills. Wincing and rubbing his right ear, Danshi asked me "what in the seven hells was that?!"

I stopped. "Wow, uh, so this is going to take a lot of explanation. And I have a million questions of my own for you, but first," I said, scooping the little cat-man-warrior-thing up into a big hug, "it's so good to see you, buddy! Do you have any idea how much I missed you?"

No matter what this was, no matter what happened next, this was real enough for me, and I never wanted to leave again.

Just wow. I would love to find out what happens next.