Consciousness returned in waves, each bringing with it unfamiliar sensations—soft moss beneath fingertips, air heavy with fragrant pollen, and the unmistakable feeling of being watched.
Arin's eyes fluttered open, immediately assaulted by a riot of colors that shouldn't exist in nature. Towering trees with iridescent bark stretched towards a sky that shimmered like an oil slick, their leaves pulsing with bioluminescence in hypnotic patterns. Flowers that seemed more crystal than plant chimed softly in a non-existent breeze.
"Well," Arin croaked, throat dry as sandpaper, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."
Pushing up to a sitting position sent the world spinning, nausea rising like a tide. Arin breathed deeply, willing the vertigo to pass, and took stock of the situation.
Step one: figure out where the hell "here" was.
Step two: figure out how to get back to not-here.
Step three: never, ever touch glowing portals in suspicious alleys again.
A twig snapped nearby, the sound unnaturally loud in the hushed forest. Arin's head whipped around, searching for the source, and froze.
There, between two trees with bark that looked like polished abalone, stood... something.
It was vaguely humanoid, if humans were seven feet tall with four arms and skin that rippled with colors like a living mood ring. Its face was a smooth oval, featureless save for three vertical slits that might have been eyes. Or nostrils. Or something worse.
Arin and the creature stared at each other for a long moment.
"Um. Hi there," Arin ventured, waving awkwardly. "Don't suppose you could point me to the nearest bus stop? Or maybe a convenient portal back to Earth?"
The creature's skin flashed a rapid sequence of colors—blue, green, purple, red—before settling on a swirling pattern of gold and silver. It took a step forward, movements liquid and unsettling.
Arin scrambled backward, leaves crunching underfoot. "Okay, okay, no bus stop. Got it. I'll just be on my way then. Nice meeting you, thanks for all the fish, etcetera."
A sound like wind chimes filled the air—laughter? A warning? Before Arin could decide, the creature's form shimmered and stretched, elongating impossibly until it towered over the surrounding trees. Its body split and multiplied, resolving into a tangle of writhing tentacles, each tipped with a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth.
"Oh come on!" Arin shouted, scrambling to feet that suddenly felt very unsteady. "That's just excessive! Pick a form and stick with it!"
The creature—if it could still be called that—lunged forward with surprising speed. Arin dove to the side, rolling across soft moss and coming up in a crouch. Adrenaline surged, sharpening senses and banishing the last cobwebs of disorientation.
A tentacle whipped past, missing Arin's face by inches. The air crackled in its wake, leaving the scent of ozone.
"Right," Arin muttered, ducking another strike. "Talking isn't working. Time for plan B."
Plan B, as it turned out, mostly involved running and screaming.
Arin sprinted through the alien forest, vaulting over crystalline flowers and dodging between trees that hummed with energy. The creature pursued, its many limbs lashing out in a frenzied assault.
"This isn't how I pictured dying!" Arin shouted between gasps for air. "I always thought it would be something dignified, like choking on a pretzel or slipping in the shower!"
A tentacle wrapped around Arin's ankle, yanking hard. The world tilted as Arin fell, bracing for impact—
—and kept falling, tumbling head over heels down a slope that hadn't been there a moment before. Branches and leaves whipped past in a blur of color, the creature's furious screeching fading into the distance.
After what felt like an eternity of bruising, disorienting motion, Arin slammed into something solid and unyielding. Stars exploded behind closed eyelids as the world spun lazily.
"Ow," Arin groaned eloquently, not daring to move. "Everything hurts. Even my hair hurts. How is that possible?"
Slowly, carefully, Arin opened one eye, then the other. The technicolor forest stretched out below, a dizzying patchwork of impossible hues. Somehow, the impromptu tumble had led to a cliff overlooking a vast valley.
In the distance, mountains that looked like they were made of stained glass caught the light of three suns—because of course this place had multiple suns—creating rainbows that danced across the landscape.
"Okay," Arin admitted grudgingly, "that's pretty spectacular."
A glint of something metallic caught Arin's eye. There, half-buried in the soft earth of the cliff face, was a small object. With trembling fingers, Arin brushed away the soil to reveal a pendant—a silver disk etched with intricate symbols that seemed to shift and change when viewed from different angles.
As soon as Arin's fingers closed around it, warmth spread up through the arm and into the chest. The pendant pulsed once, twice, and then went still.
"Great," Arin sighed, slipping the chain over his head. "Mysterious artifact acquired. I'm sure this won't have any unforeseen consequences whatsoever."
With effort, Arin stood, brushing off leaves and what looked suspiciously like glitter. The creature was nowhere to be seen, but that was small comfort in a world where the laws of physics seemed more like loose guidelines.
As the strange bioluminescent forest darkened around Arin, a distant light flickered between the trees—not the cold blue of the portal, but the warm orange of a campfire, promising answers... or perhaps more questions.
Arin hesitated, weighing options that all seemed equally likely to end in disaster.
"Well," Arin said to no one in particular, "I've already fallen through a portal, been chased by a tentacle monster, and found a magic necklace. Might as well see what's next on the 'Definitely Going to Kill Me' bingo card."
With a deep breath and a silent prayer to whatever passed for gods in this realm, Arin set off towards the flickering light, the pendant a comforting weight against the chest.
Behind, unnoticed, the soil where the pendant had lain began to glow with a soft, pulsing light.