The cheap white wine, poured generously from a box depicting a sun over rolling vineyards Alex doubted actually existed, tasted like piss. Not just any piss, he mused, swirling the plastic cup, but the particularly acrid kind one might encounter in a frat house bathroom on a Sunday morning. Still, he drank it.

  Outside Nathan’s living room, the world was disappearing under a relentless barrage of snow. Inside, the air was warm, thick with the scent of stale beer and the fruity tang of Alex’s weed pen, from which he took another long, satisfying drag.

  A comfortable haze settled over him. College was out for the winter, the fall semester a rapidly receding memory of caffeine-fueled cramming and mediocre grades. Now was the time for regression, for sinking back into the familiar comforts of old friends and older habits. He could feel the buzz settling behind his eyes, a pleasant counterpoint to the wine’s dull thrum in his temples. Laughter echoed from the living room, where a few of their cohort were already gathered, their voices a familiar, soothing drone.

  Then the doorbell chimed, a bright, innocent sound that cut through the cozy fugue. A pit instantly formed in Alex’s stomach. He didn't need to see who it was; a grim certainty settled upon him, a premonition honed by years of unwanted, unshakeable obsession.

  Nathan, ever the affable host, swung the door open. "Alice! Ben! Come on in. It's a ‘fuckin blizzard out there."

  And there she was. Alice, her dark hair dusted with snowflakes that melted into shimmering droplets under the hallway light. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, her eyes bright. Alex remembered that brightness, had chased it in his dreams for years. They’d dated, briefly, a lifetime ago in high school. A fumbling, awkward affair that had meant the world to him and, apparently, little to her. Now, his feelings were a festering thing, a limerence he knew was unhealthy, weird, obsessive. He hated it, hated himself for it, but it clung to him like a shadow.

  Beside her stood Ben. Ben, with his easy smile and muscular arm slung confidently around Alice's shoulders. Ben, who was everything Alex was not: steady, uncomplicated, and, most importantly, Alice’s. Dread, thick and cloying, rose in Alex’s throat. He took another deep pull from the vape pen, the chemical cherry flavour doing little to mask the bitterness welling up inside.

  “Hey everyone!” Alice’s voice, cheerful and clear, preceded her into the living room.

  The air shifted. Or maybe it was just Alex. He forced a smile, nodding a greeting. "Alice. Ben. Good to see you." The words felt like sawdust in his mouth.

  The hum of conversation resumed, louder now, infused with Alice’s energy. Someone, probably Ian, who owned the only surviving Wii in their extended social circle, was fiddling with the ancient console. The menu screen for Wii Party eventually flickered onto Nathan’s big flatscreen, its resolution just slightly, noticeably crunchy and outdated against the sharp clarity of the modern display. It was a nostalgic kind of ugly.

  “I love this game!” Alice exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Who’s playing?”

  Names were called, controllers—the iconic white Wiimotes—were distributed. Alex found himself with one, its plastic cool in his clammy hand. He ended up playing with Sarah, a quiet girl from their calculus class, Alice, and Nathan. Ben watched from the couch, nursing a beer, an amiable spectator.

  They played, the silly mini-games eliciting bursts of laughter. Alex tried to focus, to lose himself in mindless button-mashing and motion-waggling. He caught up with Alice between rounds, the conversation stilted but polite.

  “How was your semester, Alex?” she asked, her gaze open, friendly. Too friendly. It was the look one gave to a cousin they saw once a year.

  “Good, yeah. Busy. Art history is… surprisingly demanding,” he managed, the lie feeling slick on his tongue. His art history class had mostly been about nursing hangovers in the back row. He made sure to glance at Ben, to include him. “You guys drove up together?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said, nodding. “Traffic was a beast with the snow starting. Alice was really nervous.” He grinned, and Alice playfully punched his arm. They looked comfortable, easy. A matched set.

  Alex’s smile felt brittle enough to shatter. He focused on the screen, on the little Mii avatars bouncing and competing. He could feel the cheap wine and the weed swirling into a disorienting cocktail in his head. The room seemed too bright, the laughter too loud. He was acutely aware of Alice next to him, the faint scent of her perfume, the way her hair fell across her shoulder. Each small detail was a tiny stab.

  The final mini-game, a frantic scramble for coins, ended. Nathan reached the Gold Space and the scores tallied. Alex was dead last. Not just last, but humiliatingly so. A wave of irrational anger, mixed with a deeper, more profound despair, washed over him.

  “Rough luck, man,” Nathan said, clapping him on the shoulder before offering his controller to Ben. “Your turn, Ben. Show us how it’s done.”

  “Sure thing.” Ben took the controller, settling onto the floor.

  Alex mumbled something about needing the bathroom and escaped, the plastic Wiimote feeling slick in his sweaty palm as he set it down. The hallway felt miles long. He locked the bathroom door behind him, the click of the latch echoing in the sudden, blessed silence. He leaned against the cool tiles, his reflection a pale, haunted stranger in the mirror.

  Then the dam broke. Hot tears pricked his eyes, blurring the image of his own miserable face. A sob escaped, raw and ragged. He choked it back, clamping a hand over his mouth, disgusted with himself. Crying? Over a stupid game? Over Alice having a boyfriend? Pathetic. He raised a trembling hand and slapped himself, hard, across the cheek. The sting was sharp, focusing. Calm down, asshole! He splashed cold water on his face, staring at the red mark blooming on his skin. The man in the mirror looked wild-eyed, lost.

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  He took a deep, shuddering breath, schooling his features into something resembling neutrality. When he emerged, Nathan was waiting in the hallway, his expression etched with concern.

  “Alex? You okay, man? You were in there a while.”

  Embarrassment burned through Alex. “Yeah, fine. Just… not feeling great.” He couldn't meet Nathan’s eyes. “Think I’m gonna head out.”

  “What? No, dude, don’t.” Nathan stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You’re way too crossed right now. That wine’s garbage and you’ve been chiefing that pen all night. Just crash in my room for a bit. Sleep it off.”

  Alex shook his head, a stubborn knot of pride and self-loathing tightening in his chest. “Nah, I’m good. Seriously. Just need my own bed.” He knew he was too high, too drunk, the edges of his perception blurred and unreliable. But the thought of staying, of witnessing Alice and Ben’s casual intimacy, was unbearable.

  He pushed past Nathan, heading for the back door that led to the driveway. “Gotta go, guys!” he called out, a strained cheerfulness in his voice. As he fumbled with the latch, his gaze flickered to the living room. Alice and Ben were on the couch now, huddled close, Alice’s head resting on Ben’s shoulder as they laughed at something on the television. Ben’s arm was around her again. A sweet embrace. The image seared itself into Alex’s brain. Nathan watched him go, his brow furrowed with worry.

  The cold bit at him as he stepped outside. The snow was still coming down thick and fast, a swirling white vortex that swallowed sound and light. His Honda Fit was already draped in a thick blanket of snow. He brushed it off clumsily and got in the car, starting the ignition. The engine coughed, then reluctantly turned over.

  He navigated the frosted suburban streets, the tires spinning occasionally despite the slow crawl. He debated taking the backroads home. He could drive slower, maybe, but they were likely unplowed and treacherous. He fumbled in the glovebox for the shoddy USB cable he used to connect his phone, wrestling with the plug in the dim interior light. He jammed it into his phone. No connection. He tried again. Nothing. Just the staticky hiss of the radio. Frustration, sharp and petty, pricked at him. Fine. The freeway it was. At least it would be plowed.

  The on-ramp was a slushy ascent. Alex, fueled by a reckless surge of adrenaline and misery, stomped on the accelerator. The little Honda whined in protest but lurched forward, gaining speed. He was aiming for a gap in the sparse late-night traffic, shooting out of the on-ramp like a bullet. Too fast. He realized it a second too late. There was a pair of headlights in his rearview, closing rapidly, but another car was already in the lane beside him, slightly ahead. He had to merge now.

  He wrenched the wheel, his grip slick and uncertain. He glanced over his shoulder, a desperate, last-second check. In that instant, the car in front of him, the one he hadn't properly registered in his blind rush, slammed on its brakes.

  Alex’s world exploded.

  There was a screech of tortured metal, an ungodly, deafening impact that threw him forward against his seatbelt, the force stealing his breath. The airbag deployed with a violent thud, a suffocating cloud. His head snapped back, then slammed into something hard. Pain, white-hot and immediate, flared through his body. The Honda spun, a toy in the grip of a destructive giant, then careened off the freeway, tumbling down an embankment into the snow-filled ditch.

  Darkness, shot through with flashes of light. The smell of gasoline and something burning. A terrible, crushing weight on his chest. He tried to move, but his limbs wouldn’t obey. He tasted blood, coppery and warm, in his mouth. Internal bleeding, a distant, detached part of his brain registered. The pain was a living thing, consuming him, devouring his awareness. Dread, cold and absolute, settled in. This was it.

  His energy was fading, a guttering candle in a storm. As the darkness encroached, as the last vestiges of his consciousness frayed, his thoughts weren’t of grand regrets or profound revelations. They were small, pathetic. He was thinking of what he didn’t have. Alice’s smile, not for him. A future he’d been too scared or too listless to build. A song he couldn’t get to play.

  Then, even that faded.

  He was floating. Drifting in an endless, featureless void. A sensation of being pulled, stretched, as if through the nozzle of some colossal, cosmic vacuum cleaner. There was no up, no down, no time. Just an immense, silent nothingness. It wasn’t painful, merely… absolute. For how long, he couldn’t say. An eternity, or perhaps no time at all.

  Then, light. Not a gradual dawn, but an abrupt, overwhelming flood. It consumed the darkness, consumed him, searing through his non-existent eyelids.

  With a gasp that felt like his first, Alex’s eyes snapped open.

  He was alive. And naked. He lay on his back, atop a cold, smooth surface. Stone. An altar. His skin prickled with a thousand goosebumps, not just from the chill. He blinked, his vision swimming. Slowly, details sharpened.

  Above him, a vaulted ceiling arched into gloom, intricate carvings barely visible in the dim, flickering light. Stained-glass windows, depicting scenes he couldn't decipher, lined the walls. It was a church, or something very much like it. Candles burned in sconces, their flames casting long, dancing shadows. The air was heavy with the scent of incense and something else, something ancient and dry, like dust from forgotten tombs.

  And there were figures. Several of them, looking down at him from the edge of the altar platform. They were draped in dark, hooded robes, their faces obscured by shadows. Some were human, or human-like. Others… others were not. He caught a glimpse of scaled skin, of hands that ended in too-long claws, of eyes that glowed with an unnatural light.

  One figure stood directly over him, dominating his field of vision. An old man, human, with a weathered face and a pair of rectangular spectacles perched on his long nose. His thin lips were stretched into a crooked, unnervingly knowing smile. But it was his hands that seized Alex’s attention. They were held outstretched, palms down, hovering just above Alex’s bare chest. And they glowed, a soft, pulsating golden light emanating from the skin.

  Alex’s mind reeled. This wasn’t possible. He’d been in a car crash. Bleeding out. Dying. He tried to sit up, to scramble away, but his limbs felt like lead, weak and unresponsive. A jolt of panic, pure and primal, shot through him. He could hear murmurs from the robed figures, a low, sibilant chorus, but the words were meaningless, a language he didn’t recognize. His breath hitched, quickening into a desperate hyperventilation. He was trapped, vulnerable, utterly lost.

  The old priest’s crooked smile widened. He saw Alex’s terror, his confusion. With a slow, deliberate movement, he reached into the folds of his robe and withdrew a slender rod of dark, polished wood – a wand. Tiny, intricate symbols spiraled around its length.

  Before Alex could react, before he could even form a coherent thought, the priest tapped him lightly on the forehead with the tip of the wand.

  A shower of sparks erupted, cascading around Alex’s head. A sharp, throbbing pain shot through his skull, as if a nail had been driven into it. He cried out, a choked, involuntary sound. Then, just as suddenly as it came, the pain subsided, replaced by a strange clarity, a quiet hum in the back of his mind. The murmurs of the onlookers, previously incomprehensible, began to coalesce into recognizable sounds, into… words.

  The priest leaned closer, his glowing palms casting an ethereal light on Alex’s bewildered face. His voice, when he spoke, was raspy, ancient, yet carried an undercurrent of amusement.

  "Welcome to our world, lost soul."