Unsure of where to go next, Tony turned back to the door. He didn’t have a chance at evading them if he got cornered in an exterior bubble. But it was too late. A pigman was standing in the doorway, its weapon pointed in Tony’s direction. It grinned at him, exposing the white wolf’s teeth between yellowing tusks. It let out two barking grunts at Tony and, without waiting for a response, fired his weapon. Tony looked down to see that a small needle had lodged itself in his chest. A now-familiar warmth spread quickly from it, and the light faded from the edges of his sight the further it went.
***
Tony broke through the surface of the water and treaded for a moment to get his bearings again. When he looked around for the coaster, he was happy to see that it had landed almost right beside him. He paddled over and climbed onto the coaster. He did so tenderly, testing each arm and leg to be sure he wasn’t injured. It wouldn’t be his first miraculous landing, but he was very aware of how fast he had been going before losing control. Hitting the water at that speed probably should have killed him.
He coasted to the side of the lake where Cherie was now standing beside Chad. Chad was clapping enthusiastically, and Cherie looked perturbed. Tony stepped onto the dock in front of Cherie and hugged her tightly.
“Can we not try that again?” Cherie asked, almost plaintively, in his ear.
“Yep,” Chad said from beside her. “That was one hell of a tumble. Got it all on film for you, though.”
Tony felt a wave of nausea flow over him at Chad’s words. For a second he felt divided, as if he had been split between two worlds and couldn’t decide where he fit in either one. He found himself holding tighter to Cherie to keep from falling over. And then it had passed.
“Are you all right?” Cherie asked.
“Sorry. Just had a bit of déjà vu, or something. I’ll be fine.”
The three of them walked up the dock toward the lake house. Tony was pleased to have made it out of the tumble alive, and even more so to not have a scratch to show for it. But he didn’t feel the need to question it. To the contrary, he felt more calm and content than he could ever remember feeling. He tried to remember what could have made him take such a risk in the first place, and nothing came to mind.
BONUS: Alternative Scene:
As I was working on this short story, my six year old daughter insisted on helping. I typed the following narration verbatim. If you need a bit more context, this scene begins at the point when Tony awoke on the alien spacecraft and stepped out of his suspended animation tank. Enjoy!
He walked everywhere. And then… he saw something! He saw a cat walking through the door. At first he thought it was scary. But then when he looked at it, he wasn’t scared anymore. And then, he went back outside and saw a GIANT! It was one hundred feet tall. Its head was almost touching the clouds. And when he sneezed, it felt like it was raining. And the giant blew the man away. And then he kept walking. And then he saw a bluebird. He wanted to take a picture with the bird, so he went back home and got his camera. When he got back, he saw it was gone. So he kept searching. And he saw another bluebird. And then he wanted his binoculars so he could see it up close. And then he went back to his house again, and he got his binoculars. And when he got back, the bluebird was gone again. What will he do in the next story? Stay tuned to find out!
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