The bus occupants woke up all at once in complete darkness. Panic creeped through the atmosphere as they realized they weren’t dead. But where were they?

  Arthur had no clue himself, but he did like the feel of the luxurious pelt he woke up on. Feeling around, he groped for what seemed like hangers, making him think he was in a closet. Which looked to be the case as his class shoved their way through the darkness, pushing open the wardrobe doors by chance. Light filled the wooden box to illuminate various fur coats and hats. He continued to fondle these extravagantly soft attire as his class filed out unbeknownst to him.

  “Where are we?” said a girl to no one in particular.

  “How would I know!” said an unhelpful boy to a girl in particular.

  The group murmured in confusion as they looked about a vast white room without a ceiling. There were no lights in the room, yet it was perfectly lit below where the ceiling should be, and had a jet blackness above it.

  Everyone in the room focused their gaze on one point. A gargantuan bare man with gills that had the head of a lion. A mismatched fashion nightmare in terms of genetics, but no one dared laugh. His presence demanded their attention in a way they had never felt in their lives. It wasn’t fear or confusion that enraptured them, but awe.

  “I welcome you, humans of the lesser plane. I say this sincerely.”

  He raised both of his wrinkled sagging arms, each an opposite undulating skin tone.

  “Now, since you’ve made your way here, I have a job for you all. This is what humans would call a deal. I will revive the lot of you in return for a single favor.”

  The class stared at him, unmoving. Some were thinking words without cooperation from their vocal chords and others’ brain receptors had churned to a halt altogether. The patchwork deity let this continue for a minute before slamming his palms together in a fiery clap.

  “Well?”

  Without hesitation, nods and whispered agreement filled the room. Their gazes glued to the lion. He clapped again with a lighter finesse that signaled the floor to split apart. All manner of mystical objects floated out of the ground, arranging themselves neatly into a gallery in front of the students. From brilliant swords to raging pyres, the variety was beyond compare. The patchwork deity began speaking again when the students hesitated to move.

  “As your host, I’ve prepared gifts. Any item you fancy here you may take, and by doing so, its powers as well.”

  Three boys sprinted as those words left his lips. Soon, the other students reached the same conclusion. Hope and dread clashed in the room as they struggled through their varied reactions. Some were already fighting to get a leg up over their classmates.

  Arthur had heard none of this. He found himself in a daze. An unworldly fatigue gripped him while the others attended their post mortem lecture. No one had realized this, and no one cared to realize this.

  Fantastical items were seized, and other applicants rejected by the artifacts they coveted. A guiding force seemed to lead each student to the single item that spoke to them. And this was further enhanced by them believing it was their own choice. Despite coveting the more impressive items, each person found satisfaction with their destined partner of sorts. They didn’t question the origins of these items either. Curses or prices unknown to them didn’t cross their minds this moment.

  “As for my request. It is simple. Free my daughter, who’s fallen under my former disciple. In her bid for revenge, she fell along with him, and has been bound to him in cursed matrimony. Each moment they spurn on in eternal un-death, he defiles her spirit and flesh as they meld together in his mockery of me. They’ve become a deathly bundle untouchable by me. So I request you destroy that infernal traitor and bring my daughter back to my grasp.”

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  The lion headed man, previously serene and calm, shifted his tone as he described his predicament. And to accompany that tone shift was a searing change in temperature unexplainable by modern physics. The students were sweating through their shirts with their hairs on end just listening to him.

  “Will you return us home afterwards?” said a familiar frigid queen.

  “No. I simply restored your flesh here. I have no jurisdiction nor desire to return you. ^&#@* take care of them.”

  A winged, amorphous apparition appeared and disappeared with the twenty-nine students outside of the wardrobe. Leaving just one student behind.

  “You there.”

  His striking voice reverberated through the wardrobe. Arthur stumbled out to meet him drowsy and wide eyed. With a softer reaction compared to his classmates. He was embarrassed for falling asleep, but he wasn’t in awe of this monstrous being of charisma. They stared into each other on meeting, one through the other, and one into the other.

  “Is there a reason I’m here alone?”

  Arthur broke the silence with little thought.

  “None where you’re concerned.” The lion sniffed Arthur’s direction. “Though you have a use still. It’s been cycles since a mutt such as you arrived.” The lion opened its jaws in a mimic smile that looked more like it was miming chewing.

  “And what would that use be, sir, lion?”

  “To make a choice.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “You may.”

  He wasn’t expecting such a cryptic answer, though he wasn’t expecting much of what happened today, anyway. The mundane world he hated was gone. He wasn’t bound by the institution that kept him as a prisoner. He was free. Or only as free as this supposed choice would allow him to be. He could already feel the reins of his life falling back into his hands. He wouldn’t stop here, after death, and with nothing left to lose.

  “Tell me sir, lion, what must I do?”

  “Accept the miseries your kind has abandoned, in that you will find strength, lost to all but you.”

  Arthur had never been a whimsical fellow. He always rose to the occasion when it mattered most. This moment would be no different. An unease clenched his heart. He knew something would change in this moment, the crossroads in his life had arrived. And he leapt.

  “I accept it.”

  “In this choice, the world rejects you. Your strength overwhelms giants, your body unbreakable to stars, your abilities a worthy rival to the twice hanged of Helheim. Your power is the cruelty of your kin made true. Its only match is an absurdity that rises as an unyielding tide to meet it. Your will has become extant, but your hands will be forever bloodied.”

  His words reverberated into Arthur’s head. Each word echoing six times in multiple pitches. It was a thing of beauty to him. Like the first time he had sat in a Latin choir with his father, he was brought to tears. Only to be brought to his knees quickly after.

  A memory played out in front of him. Arthur was in a hospital room, one he’d seen dozens of time before in his life. And his mother laid in the center of the room, on a hospital bed and pierced with all manner of needles.

  “Grow stro-”

  An interruption.

  The scene in his mind was utterly foreign to him. A film that had been shredded was taped haphazardly, reforming his memories images. His mother was no longer in front of him. A crinkled wrapper. White bed sheets stained in viscous liquid. An empty hospital gown laid atop it.

  “What did I…”

  His mind went blank, but the monstrosity in front of him watched, he watched Arthur smile. An uncanny rush of emotion situated between an adrenaline high and nausea, he felt sick to his stomach as if insects were rummaging through last night’s dinner. Whose feelings were these? Arthur yearned to know if they were his, or an unexpected visitor’s. For a moment, his skin became a porcelain white. A newly wiped canvas ready to be stained. His limbs stretched at the protest of his every muscle fiber, tearing without restraint. He resembled a crumbled note being forced against an upright nail, each repetition leaving him with less unmarked canvas.

  Arthur suffered his new form all at once. And immediately receded, his limbs reset and his skin colored. His breathing stayed labored as he forced his gaze towards the deity standing over him.

  “You may be worthy, but you are weak.” The patchwork deity sneered.

  “Much alike a duck drowning in water, I dare say this pleases me more.”

  Arthur could only hope to utter a whisper in response.

  “What has happened to me?”

  “A passing remnant only. Your forefathers abandoned it. But failed to hide it.” The lion headed man took a seat, having a chair appear below him before he could fall.

  “A word of advice for my favorite of the thirty. Save my daughter with the greatest urgency, or you may suffer some unwanted desires. I’ll send you ahead to my servant’s gathering. I expect much of you, ashen one.” His face became a blur as he waved Arthur off his plane of existence.

  ***