Age: 19

  There were no Mists, when Proto emerged from starry grey obscurity into the waking world—just ordinary bleariness. It took a while for his sight to clear, but when it did, he only felt more confused. Nothing was right, but everything was familiar.

  His sheets were dirty, even by his bachelor standards. There were unidentified stains of the sort you quickly covered up when guests came over.

  A dim blue glow was emanating from a CRT T.V. But it was an old model with a curvy screen, the kind you showed off when 27” was impressive and there were only 35 channels.

  His Ikea cassette rack was reassuringly present. But it was only half-full, and it was missing lots of indie rock.

  In contrast, his pile of SNES games looked big as ever, and his game controller was lying on the floor as usual. But it’s not wireless . . . ?

  His eyes went wide as he pondered the implications, for this could only mean one thing.

  I really am nineteen again!

  Many and varied are the places one lives between ages nineteen and 29.5. It therefore took Proto a moment to recall this place—a sublet, his first home away from his family’s house. He’d heard the college dorms sucked and were overpriced, so he’d found a cheap apartment within walking distance of class. But it wouldn’t open up till November, which was too late.

  So, Proto had found some GSI who was desperate to sublet his studio, while he studied abroad in Russia—this was pre-Ukraine, you see—and Proto had sealed the deal at $1,000 total for July to November.

  At least, that was the story he’d told his mom, when she asked why he was renting a sublet in the middle of the Summer. In reality, he’d mostly just been looking for a place that he and Karen Black could do the things that couples do at nineteen, since aunts’ basements weren’t reliably available.

  Unfortunately, the pair only got to enjoy it for ten days before they were no longer a pair. Which made the sheets thing all the more remarkable. Zero to thirty-eight in ten days! I’m like a shitty race car.

  In any event, here he was—bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and very much nineteen. He stretched, yawned, and heaved himself to his feet.

  In his gaze, the world lagged behind his movements, blurring dizzily into place.

  He frowned. Did I drink way too much last night?

  The answer was yes, of course. He’d just had his first major breakup! But it took a lot to have a hangover like this, especially at nineteen. And he didn’t even feel sick.

  Also, on closer observation, this wasn’t like the drunken dizziness he knew, with the bleary world getting all spinny and jerking back into place over and over.

  Instead, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion—even himself—and trailing shadowy afterimages as it did so. It looked like he were in a movie, and having a flashback to a poignant moment he’d not recalled in years, and feeling wistful about some decision he’d made.

  Which, come to think of it, pretty much summarized his current situation.

  The one difference was, this was reality, not a work of fiction. This was no vision of another time. This was Proto’s present.

  And it’s about time!

  Proto coolly brushed his post-high-school shag off his face, brushed out the wrinkles in his tracksuit—which, incidentally, looked the same as ever—brushed aside a pile of wires and laundry, and took his first bold strides toward Time’s salvation.

  And he found himself zombie-walking.

  Frowning, he shuffled over to the mirror, wondering if he was just imagining things, and watched himself take a few steps.

  Nope! Definitely zombie-walking!

  For whatever reason, whenever he attempted to walk the ordinary, human way he’d walked since age two, he instead found himself hobbling along with dragging feet, slack arms and a slack jaw.

  He’d begun shambling back toward his bed, ready to sleep his way back into Flua-Sahng’s Palace and give her a piece of his mind—“‘No, Proto, you won’t be zombie-walking,’ huh?!”—when he noticed that he could make himself walk normally, if he really tried.

  He took another few practice steps, focusing, and confirmed he looked reasonably human in doing so. It just took a deliberate effort—like staying straight while doing push-ups, or eating with your fork in your left hand, or remembering people’s names after meeting them.

  Well, alright. He could make himself look normal. It was just annoying that walking normally now fell in the category of Things That Require Deliberate Effort. He’d just have to be careful not to lose his focus and be mistaken for the walking dead.

  Makes you feel sorry for one year olds, doesn’t it? It’s always like this for them! came Flua-Sahng’s voice. Maybe next time, instead of nineteen years, I’ll make you nineteen months.

  Proto frowned. Please don’t. I like it when my adventures end in Possibilities.

  Who said anything about changing that? mused the Mother of All. One year olds make very important choices. For example, binky, bottle, or from the font herself. What do you say?

  Proto shook his head. Sheesh!

  No, probably something more like “goo goo,” “gah gah,” or “mama,” she corrected. Depending on your selection.

  Sheesh!

  He forced himself back into the moment. Time was flying, and he had a cane-sword to burgle.

  He looked up 1860 South University on his Windows XP tower computer, then made sure to clear his recent browser history so Wakey-Wake Proto wouldn’t see it—perhaps the first-ever legitimately innocent clearing of browser history.

  He was almost out the door when he realized he’d forgotten something. He headed back to his closet, scrounged through the piles of junk on the top shelf, and found what he was looking for.

  He admired it, in all its eldritch and maroonish glory—his squid mask. He’d bought it for a Halloween party in his senior year of high school, and then proceeded to wear it to two cosplay conventions and a video game exhibition.

  Will proceed to wear to it, corrected Flua-Sahng helpfully. I know, it’s hard.

  On balance, he decided not to put it on yet. If he was going to burgle a house in a mask, probably best not to show up in the mask on every hidden camera between here and there.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  He tried to think like a felon. I guess I need some sort of loot sack, huh?

  He grabbed a duffel bag he’d used for ski poles and stuffed his mask inside. Hopefully a cane-sword would fit.

  Now, he was ready.

  To the padlocked door and out went our Sleepwalker, striding beneath the fading pink of late dawn, with sunlight shimmering on the plastics of his tracksuit.

  Butterflies were flapping all about his front yard—orange monarchs, red-spotted purples, and others. But their colors looked slightly off, as did the grass’s green and the sky’s blue.

  He’d noticed earlier some quirks in how he saw the world while sleepwalking—the way things seemed to move in slight slo-mo, and trailing shadowy afterimages—but the differences showed more starkly out here in the daylight. Everything looked like an oversaturated photo, with colors bleeding over their edges. Like a recent Batman movie, it looked like someone had cranked up the shadows to eleven in postproduction. His eyes adjusted—or maybe his mind adjusted—but the world retained a dreamlike and hallucinatory feel.

  It was good that everyone else out there wasn’t seeing the world this way, or else they’d definitely be concluding he was a zombie. Try as he might, he often found his concentration slipping as he strolled toward 1860 South University. And when it did, his arms and eyes sagged, and he started shuffling. Shambling, even. There was no moaning yet, but he wasn’t going to let it catch him by surprise.

  Fortunately—as a dweller in isolated modernity, where neighborhoods are just brief pitstops on life’s journey, and neighbors remain mostly nameless—Proto didn’t have to speak to anyone, since no one tried to speak to him. They barely even looked. He probably could’ve groaned “brains!” and “hungry!” without drawing more than a glance. He probably could’ve eaten an arm, and they would’ve assumed it was some sort of performance, and a poorly acted one.

  So, before you could say “existential absurdism” three times fast, Proto found himself standing by a mailbox numbered 1860.

  In the yard stood a magnolia tree. It looked as gnarled and wizened as magnolias always do, except for a day or two in early Spring, like a grandmother who freshens up for a wedding or two each year. In the driveway was a wood-paneled station wagon with a rear-facing backseat.

  Proto’s gaze, however, was more focused on the house. On its face, it wasn’t remarkable—a red brick first floor, white siding on the second, and red-shuttered windows. It wasn’t the sort of house where one would expect to find a cane-sword on display above a desk.

  But then, concealing a weapon behind an inconspicuous facade is the whole point of a cane-sword, right?

  Surveying the area and seeing no one, he advanced behind the house, found the back door, and tried the knob as Flua-Sahng had instructed. But it barely budged, clicking against some barrier.

  WTF? He tried the knob a few times, nervously scanning again for any onlookers. The knob didn’t turn, but clicked and rattled as he did so. Anyone nearby inside was bound to hear it.

  He was on the verge of hurrying away when, absently turning his hand at a different angle, he found the knob rotating.

  Heart beating fast, he opened the door and stepped in. He found himself in a hallway with faded wallpaper, adorned with dark red carnations and teardrops in an alternating pattern.

  Step one—complete. You’re a felon. Now, step two.

  He had to find the den with the desk inside. This shouldn’t have been hard, in a house this modest and ordinary, but it ended up taking a while. He found a few quaint bedrooms that looked like they’d been furnished and carpeted in 1960, one of which had a desk, but no cane-sword. He also found what looked like a Colt revolver sitting atop a dresser, but it turned out to be a cap gun for kids—again, probably from 1960 or so, when toy guns looked real and didn’t have neon orange barrel-tips.

  As he explored, he kept feeling like someone were watching him. He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t see any shifting shadows in the corners of his eyes, or hear any strange creaks. And, as far as he knew, sleepwalking hadn’t given him any sixth sense for detecting hidden threats.

  It turned out that the den was ensconced in a corner of the basement. He had to pass through a big, shadowy, unfinished room to get there, whose only light was a bulb on the ceiling with a draw-chain attached. He almost didn’t bother exploring there.

  When he did, though, he discovered a white wooden door hidden around a corner. Opening it, he flicked the light switch.

  Several lights flicked on—specifically, gilt Moroccan lamps, one of which was freestanding and taller than Proto. Their warm glow revealed a spacious den with an ornate red rug, a bookshelf-wall full of leatherbound tomes, a bust of Blaise Pascal (whose face Proto randomly remembered from Philosophy 101), a barley-twist clock that was stopped at 4:15, and a burgundy leather chair behind a grand wooden desk. Its legs were shaped like ghouls. Their mouths and eyes gaped hauntingly.

  Hanging on the wall beyond the desk was—indeed—an elegant cane. It had a silver handle and a black shaft, both with a hint of purple.

  Whose den is this? Hannibal Lecter’s?

  Glancing at the creepy basement behind him, then back into the refined elegance, he shook his head and entered.

  He supposed it’d be most prudent to walk straight up to that cane-sword, lift it from its wall-mount, slip it into his duffel bag, and stride away.

  That’s not what Proto did. Instead, his eye caught on blood-hued leather tome on the desk. Its cover was wordless, but it showed a dull gold orb with a ring around it. The book wasn’t open, but a ribbon bookmark was protruding from midway through.

  And that was just alluring enough for Proto to find himself reaching for the bookmark and opening the book to that page. His hand trailed shadowy afterimages as it moved, like all things seen by the Sleepwalker.

  Inside the book, the paper was yellowed with brown edges, and the text was large with curvy serifs, almost medieval in its ornateness. He started reading from a random point:

  “Many things are mutable, but your allotted time is not.”

  “That is the tradeoff. Others can decide the length of their days, and they will live half-blindly. You will see more fully, but your hours are numbered. And you have much to do, almost too much.”

  “Mind you, there is more to ‘doing’ than constant bustle. Talk, friendship, humor, and reminiscence are forms of doing too.”

  “How do you know what is worth doing? Your heart will inspire you along, if you let it. You had best do so, for you have much to do ere your allotted time expires, and this life-dream draws to its conclusion.”

  “For then, the mists will rise, and it will be too late, and it will be”—he’d reached the bottom of the page, so he turned it—“too late, and it will too late, and it will be too late, and it will be too late . . . ”

  The whole page was like that. So was the next, and the next.

  Proto felt dread swirling up in his breast. He glanced around him, suddenly surer than ever that he was being watched. He saw no one.

  But near the floor were whitish wisps of mist. And they were rising.

  He dashed around the ghoul-legged desk and seized the cane-sword. His fingers closed around the hilt, and they fit as perfectly as a new couple clasping hands.

  Without even thinking, Proto found himself drawing the sword from its cane-sheath. Its thin blade glimmered in the lamplight, flinging the warm glow back into the shadows, as it fleetly mirrored the many books.

  It felt right. It felt righter than anything Proto had done since—well, technically, since yesterday morning when Karen was over. But this felt awfully right too.

  . . . couldn’t you have started me a few days earlier? he grumbled inwardly at the Queen of Heaven.

  No response came, but some mists did tickle at his leg, sending anxiety tingling through him.

  Shit. He forced himself back into the moment, sheathing the cane-sword. He didn’t know what the mist would do to him. But, judging by his time visiting dreams at Somnus’ Palace, he suspected something would happen when it reached his head.

  The words he’d just read echoed through him: “You have much to do ere your allotted time expires, and this life-dream draws to its conclusion. For then, the mists will rise, and it will be too late, and it will be too late . . . ”

  He stared at the leatherbound red tome, his mind reeling. Whose house is this . . . ?

  Then, he shook his head. Time to go. He really didn’t understand this whole sleepwalking thing yet. But he’d have time to figure it out later, when he was safely at his apartment.

  At some point, he’d wake up and his sleepwalking would end. Judging by what Flua-Sahng had said, he probably should be back in his bedroom when that happened. If Wakey-Wake Proto woke up and found himself in this house, armed with a cane-sword, who knew what he would think?

  “That’s the one big rule here—Wakey-Wake Proto absolutely cannot find out about Sleepwalker Proto,” Flua-Sahng had warned him.

  Yes, time to go.

  Proto turned and rushed out of the den, through the creepy shadows of the unfinished basement, up the stairs and toward the front door—or so he thought.

  In reality, he’d taken a wrong turn. He found himself in what looked to be a family room, with a worn-in brown sofa, a blue rug, and a sliding glass door leading a backyard with a rock wall.

  Shit, he thought once again, glancing down at the mists. They’d risen another inch or so. Would he make it home in time?

  He could run, true. But this was recent-high-school-grad Proto at age nineteen, not recent-bronze-medalist Proto at age twenty-seven. How fast was he at this point? How was his endurance?

  A shriek split the air behind him.

  So distracted was he, so utterly discombobulated by this shrillness in the silence, that—before any conscious thoughts had registered—he found himself drawing his cane-sword and swinging it at the sound’s source.

  A cry followed.