The bass of the music vibrates up my legs, and the shitty overhead lighting reflects off of my body glitter as I dance on the bar top. My girlfriends thought body glitter was too much for just the local bar, but life is only as fun as you make it. A few of the patrons hoot and I throw my head back, closing my eyes.

  “Alright Lori, come on,” I hear one of my friends, Cece, say. When I look down at her, she’s holding one of her hands out to help me down. My first instinct is to tell her I’m not ready to stop dancing, but at that moment I start to feel a shift. Oh god.

  I quickly take her hand and climb off the bar. At first, she looks relieved, but then she sees my face.

  “You feeling okay?” she asks me. She receives her answer when I turn away from her and throw up on the floor.

  “Seriously?” another voice, clearly exasperated, calls from behind us. Morgan, apparently back from playing pool with some random group, is back to call me out on another screw up.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell both of them, feeling my eyes start to water just the tiniest bit. “I didn’t realize I drank that much, I’ll clean it up!” I turn around to ask the bartender for a towel to do just that, but instead bump into the chest of the next person annoyed with me: security.

  “Actually, it’s time for you three to go,” he tells us, clearly having heard my well-intentioned cleaning plans. I apologize to him too, but the three of us know when to admit defeat, at least this time, and head for the door.

  When we get outside, the chill in the air is extra noticeable thanks to our outfits. I had managed to convince the girls to at least wear clubbing dresses with me tonight. We look hot, or at least we did until now, hunched over with our arms around ourselves to keep warm.

  “Well,” I start, clapping my hands as I perk up. “It’s still early, let’s make this a bar hopping night!”

  “I don’t know, I think I’m ready to go home,” Cece says with a grimace. She’s so sweet, and clearly feels bad about wanting to be done with tonight, but she has always been the most homebody of the three of us.

  I look at Morgan to see what she thinks, even though I can already guess what she’ll say, but before she can respond I feel this strange popping in my ears, and a bright flash of light fills my vision with white.

  At first, I thought I was dying, but when my vision clears after only a few seconds and I look at the girls, I can tell by their faces that they experienced it too. I suppose we could all be dying.

  “What the fuck was that?” Morgan asks, but Cece and I only shake our heads, equally confused. Then, stranger still, there’s another voice.

  “Hello citizens of Earth,” it says, and I snap my head around to look for who could be talking. It’s clear as day, so they have to be close by, but when I turn around there’s nobody there. Cece and Morgan are also looking around though, so at least I’m not going crazy.

  “You may call me General K, to keep things simple for you,” the voice, seemingly masculine, continues. “While I am the head of the Delnam Corporation’s military, there is no reason to be afraid.” The girls and I share wide-eyed glances at that.

  “What the fuck?” Morgan repeats herself from before, but this time she’s whispering.

  “Many years ago, my people came to your Earth and helped your society advance…to the point it has,” I swear that pause sounded a little condescending. “We very graciously gave you satellites, paving the way for so much. We have never, in all these years, required anything back from you. But now we are in negotiations with another world, and they have problems that, luckily for us, you can solve.”

  Morgan has a look on her face that shows she’s tired of the bullshit she thinks this is, Cece actually seems terrified, and I feel like my eyes are going to pop out of my head and my blood is going to pulse so hard it just bursts from my skin.

  “After speaking with your leaders, we have decided that the least traumatizing way to proceed is to ask for volunteers. So, people of Earth, if you are interested in starting a new life in another world, we will have people at any of your police stations for the next 48 hours that will provide portals. That is all for now.” Portals?

  “WE HAVE TO GO,” I can’t help but scream from my excitement, my hands both in fists and shaking. Both girls’ eyes snap to my face.

  “WHAT?” Cece responds with a panicked screech to her voice.

  “Oh come on, can you imagine how exciting it would be to move to another world?” I ask.

  “It’s obviously fake,” Morgan says with a roll of her eyes. “It’s just some prank or social experiment or something.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Okay, but what if it’s not? We should at least go to the police station and see if anybody’s there.”

  “The cops will be there. Maybe they’re the ones that did this, trying to lure out anybody on meth,” she squints at me then, acting like she’s trying to see if I fit that category. It’s my turn to roll my eyes.

  “If there’s only cops there, we’ll just leave,” I say.

  “Even if it’s true, why would you want to go?” cries Cece. “They probably want to breed us or something.” I just shrug at that.

  “So we’ll be broadening the fish pool. I need out of Little Rock,” I emphasize ‘need’, trying to make them understand before I grab both of their hands and start dragging them in the direction of the nearest police station. They fight me a little bit, but quickly give in to my antics.

  I’m sure we made quite the scene, three girls in mini dresses and high heels walking up to the police station. Or we might have, if I hadn’t been right and this was real and happening. We must be the first to check this station out after the announcement, because there’s nobody blocking our view of the two…things standing outside. They look kind of human, kind of scaly, and apparently really scary to Cece because she passes right out when she sees them. I make sure Morgan’s got her before letting her know I’ll be back soon. She looks like she wants to argue but gives up before saying anything.

  “Uh, hi guys,” I start hesitantly as I reach the aliens. When they just look at me, I flash them my brightest smile. “So what’s this about getting to move to another planet?”

  They don’t seem to take to me very well, because neither of them smile back, if they can smile that is. I don’t know how alien mouths work.

  “If you volunteer,” one responds, and it’s clear they have some sort of translation technology because they speak in a foreign language and pause every few words to let the translator speak. “Then we will open a portal here and you will walk through. The planet is called Skellar, you won’t have heard of it,” they wave their hand dismissively. “It is habitable for humans though, and there are already humans that live there.”

  This has me truly excited now. “Really?” I ask. “How many people are going?”

  “We cannot say. We don’t want to worry the populace if there doesn’t seem to be enough volunteers. It is a first come, first serve basis for now though.” the alien responds.

  I pause then for a second, a little concerned with that wording, but I am so ready for this that I let my concerns blow past quickly.

  “Thanks!” I call out as I turn and run back over to the girls. Cece has awakened, though she still doesn’t seem to be handling seeing those guys very well.

  “Guys,” I say. “The planet we’d be going to already has humans there! They said it’s first come, first serve, so we should just go now.”

  Both of them look at me, one dumbfounded, the other terrified.

  “We’re not going near them or any supposed portal,” Morgan tells me. It’s my turn to stare, how can they not be excited at the idea of getting to travel to another world? This is exactly the kind of adventure life is supposed to have. I take a deep breath and look at both of them. I love these girls, but…

  “I’m gonna go,” I say. “I have to.” Both of them frown at me, but Cece looks sad and worried, and Morgan looks pissed off.

  “Look,” she tells me. “I don’t believe this shit is real. But if you do, how can you just ditch us like that?” My eyes get watery for the second time tonight at that.

  “I want you to come too,” I say, but she just rolls her eyes.

  “Whatever,” she turns her and Cece, who’s still leaning on her, around and they start to walk away. I’m frozen for a while, feeling torn, but then I see another person down the street, walking towards the police station. The idea that perhaps that person could take the last spot available kicks me into action, and I do a little jog back to the scaly dudes.

  “I’m ready,” I tell them, trying out my smile for a second time. I think it’s just their faces.

  The two of them are all business and don’t even respond before one turns around and does something because then what is clearly a magical doorway appears on the way. They just stare at me while my jaw hangs slack, so after a moment I try to pull myself together and start taking those final steps toward the portal. My heart feels like it’s in my throat, I guess I am a little scared after all.

  Right as I’m making that final step, I hear one of the aliens say to the other, “I can’t believe she didn’t pack anything,” and my face falls in realization. Shit.

  I groan as I open my eyes. I look around, and it appears I’m on a small dirt road that cuts through some woods, and I’m still in my mini dress. I must have gotten more drunk than I thought last night. This is how women get murdered. Then everything rushes back to me at once. Aliens. Portals. A new life. A smile starts to spread over my face before quickly turning into a frown. What the hell? Did that portal just drop me from out of the sky and knock me out? I don’t remember anything after that guy (or girl, not really sure on that one) pointed out my idiocy. I really wanted to know what it would be like to go through one.

  Before I can ruminate on that too long, I nearly jump out of my skin as I’m startled by a floating block of text in front of me.

  _________________________________

  |                 |

  |    Welcome to Skellar!     |

  |                 |

  |   You are now a level 1 Human.   |

  |__________________________________|