The visions and the blood welling up out of his lips and eyes and ears and then creeping back into his body…all of it is there in his mind. But like it is hiding just behind him the man cannot bring it into focus. Every time his eyes start to drift away from the constellation of flickering stars before his eye’s reality shifts and his attention springs back to the display before him.

  When the new voice speaks again it forms directly in his mind. It is distinguishable from the man’s own thoughts only by the innate authority resonating in every note.

  Tutorial Selection: The endless forces of the multi-verse pay tribute to the system and welcome you with an offer. They offer their wisdom, knowledge of their ways, a chance to share their path in this new reality. All must choose. Even if the choice is to turn away from outstretched hands and forge a new path the journey must begin today. Before you now are the paths offered. As you consider the futures that lay before you know the binding law of the system that no tutorial my violate: No tutorial may guarantee survival, yet every tutorial must offer a chance. Endure and be returned home in five years.

  As the last words take shape in the man’s mind, he can feel something radiating out from his body and into the cloud of shimmering stars. As whatever it is coming from him spreads stars begin to wink out. In moments a galaxy fades to just a handful of lonely stars. The man’s eyes pass over the remaining stars and each gives off a faint feeling. Pain and suffering for a deep red. And endless lust from a cluster of green. A sense of deep hunger for murky white.

  His eyes pass a shimmering blue-green star and his focus is drawn in with a sense of ecstasy. Focusing for just a moment conjures a display.

  Tutorial: Endless Growth of the God Cap

  Sponsor: The Mycorrhizal Monastery

  Description: Spread your conscious beyond. Become more and less and many.

  As he takes in the bare description a small feeling of primal rejection begins to well up in the man’s guts. A sense of anger and territorial aggression that jerks his eyes away from the alluring feel of the pulsing blue green. The sheer rejection breaks the trance, and his eyes catch something beyond the simmering cloud of tutorials; Hopper and something. An entity here with them. Here in his apartment stands what must be a god.

  Exposed pale purple skin is stretched over dense muscles. A faint distortion around the figure. Hopper standing on his little legs and casting a hopeful gaze up at the towering mythical entity.

  “Hop?” The man’s voice cracks. He was unaware of how dry and sore his throat is. The flash of aching breaks the lure again of the tutorial cloud. He realizes he is floating. Just inches off the ground but floating. His body is not before the cloud of hazy stars but inside it and yet with his focus his own, for the first time in how long he doesn’t know, panic begins to build.

  “Hopper, don’t. No. Get away from that thing. Hop down.” He sees Hop lean forward and lick the being’s leg with his tongue. The panic redoubles and he twists and turns trying desperately to tear himself free, sure that in seconds whatever that thing in his apartment is will attack Hopper.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The entity lifts a hand and from nothing a massive slab of raw meat drops from the air to splat against the ground. The man isn’t sure if it’s the overwhelming stench or the rippling energy radiating off the raw meat, but it invigorates the cloud around him. First one, then another, then thousands of stars reappear in the air around him. In seconds he is blinded by the strength of their light. No longer does he need to focus on one to feel the emotional attunement and his mind is buried in a chaotic swirl of sensations sharp and persistent.

  He doesn’t know how long it takes before the stars begin to fade again but when his mind clears enough to open his eyes the man sees the constellation before him has returned to the paltry few lights he had before. Except for one. A deep purple that slowly flares before almost fading completely in an endless cycle. The fading stops just before the star is completely gone and its weak light hints at something that feels more complex, more like a blend of concepts than the loud yet simple impressions of the others.

  The short and sharp yaps of Hopper barking are what break the man free once again from the trance of the tutorial selection. The man turns his head and sees a portal has formed and before it stands the entity. It’s stands paused before the murky shimmer of a portal looking down at Hop. Hopper looks to have been following the entity before pausing to look back. The dog is letting out short yaps, hopping with just his front legs with each bark.

  The man’s eyes meet the eyes of his dogs and in them he sees a command: come, come with us, come with me.

  “Hop! Come. Here, Hopper. Don’t go with that thing!”

  This time when the entity speaks it is not in the man’s mind but aloud. “Come, dog. Your fate awaits. Do not trouble yourself over that human. See his stars. Just seven sponsors have offered him a place. He is pitiful and weak.”

  Hopper’s sharp barks turn to low growls. As his hackles rise his tall ears turn out like the wings of an airplane.

  The entity lets out a deep laugh that vibrates the glass of the windows. “Spirited! You are absorbing the power of the boar flesh quickly young one. So, this human has given you many good things to eat too? Perhaps that is worth something. Perhaps a debt is owed.”

  With a casual gesture something appears on the entities upturned hand. With a flick the small item blurs. The man feels a pinch at his ankle as something impacts his skin and clings. The moment it touches the man’s skin the faded out pale purple star erupts back into life. The complex conceptual essence of its feel rushes outward, and the man is filled again. There is something like greed and something like an ancient sorrow, yet the two twisted concepts seem alien to one another—like one has been lain over the other but can never truly hide what is beneath.

  “Luck to you human. That is a choice some would not linger on before embracing. It is a wise fisherman that knows the hint of a hook exposed may catch light and intrigue an old predator grown warry of the sweet lure of bait. Yet such a fisherman may not be kind when a fry’s greed leads to a bite. Now come, dog. Hop, if that is the name you insist you shall carry forward.”

  With another gesture of purple fingers, the portal plunges forward. Like the inflating gullet of a pelican, it sweeps up the entity and Hopper both before fading away.

  “Hop!” the man screams, “Not my dog. Hopper. Don’t take him. Don’t take Hop!”

  As if responding to the longing, the dread and fear, an aching sadness drowning all else in the man, the twisting impressions of the strange purple star shift and churn. The man can no longer feel the specificity of the sensations that refused to mix. The alien concepts sharpen in his focus and with only purple light they seem to speak a promise. A sense of commitment grows and grows and grows and climaxes with an intensity that leaks out of the man’s own lips, “I am coming.”

  The man’s eyes conjure the display with a name, sponsor, and description. He does not read them. His hand passes through the hovering words and his fingers stretch around the purple. As his fingers close around the star the light grows in intensity until with a flash the apartment is left empty.