Ridley suddenly was. Coming to out of a dreamless sleep like waking from anesthetic. He'd been patching old games on his budget rig and gambling very small sums on his phone. At some point he walked to the small kitchenette on the other side of his annex, hoping to find a cheap Cordon Bleu in his freezer that'd he'd missed somehow since the last time he looked. There was -something- there. A specific happening that might have bridged the gap. Then this. There was a relative certainty that time had passed, and that some distance was crossed. The mechanics of it were beyond him and wispy. Outside of the reach of his focus.

  He clambered to his feet and studied his surroundings. He was nowhere in or near his apartment. Not near the school. He was nowhere that he recognized. He stood in a wide stone corridor. The brick work was irregular in shape but all the pieces were of a very similar tone of blue-gray. He could make out a better lit place near him. He moved, leaning onto the wall as he went. A general numbness made his body half real. It all looked perfectly real to Ridley, but it didn't quite -feel- that way. Even his palm and forearm drifting against the stone wall was muted. It was more like remembering the sensation of touching something than being in actual contact.

  This next room had a canal of sorts, and roughly ten feet of stone on either side. Patches of dull green moss grew in the gap between the running water and lip of the stone on either side. It moved smoothly and made little sound beyond the hum of it rolling over the stone itself. The room was quite long and more of it was obscured in darkness in the gaps between the wall sconces than was properly lit. He felt an incredulity at what he was seeing, his face twisted into an odd smile.

  "This doesn't feel like a dream... I'm not sure what it feels like" He said aloud to himself. He took another pair of steps towards the canal, squatted to touch the water for himself and know if felt like water or just the recollection of water. As he did a light appeared in his periphery. He turned his head to study it and let out something like a laugh. It was green and round and seemed to be moving over the ground. It was indistinct at first but grew larger as watched. It was coming closer, he understood that much. But why did it appear to be glassy and round? It didn't fit neatly into any familiar categories in his mind.

  "Hello?" The light approached at the same even pace and eventually emerged into the radius of a burning sconce and his heart dropped. It was some kind of viscous puddle, holding the shape of a bowl turned upside down. The size of a large cat. It pulsed gently with yellow-green light and appeared wet. It had no attachments, no wires or strings. No wheels or limbs. It even shuddered as it went, and summoned in his mind the image of a very overweight cat's skin reacting to touch. He heard himself giggle in a manic kind of confusion. He wasn't a biology student, but this thing didn't meet any taxonomy of life that he was aware of. He was certain that he wouldn't have found anything like it if he suddenly had a phone to google it. He also had no idea where he was, and these things together formed an obstacle in his mind that he wasn't getting around. As the ooze neared him he turned and sprinted back the way he came. Returning through the smaller corridor he had been and then traveled further. Taking a rough turn to his right on the opposite end of the hall. This new room was tiered. He ran over a heavy wooden balcony built over a lower stone chamber that was scattered with straw and grit. The sound of his feet thudding over the wood made him cringe. Afraid he would attract more things like it. He gave the lower floor a cursory glance as he ran, but saw a lowered portcullis on the wall to his right. He rounded another turn to his left and twisted to force his way through a half open iron barred door. This room was squared and smaller. A relief in the wall to his left housed a treasure chest, like in any game he'd played. He glanced back over his shoulder momentarily and approached it. "Could there be a trap? I can't believe I'm asking this" He got his fingers between the jaws of the chest, flung it back and scurried away and waited. After ten or so seconds he glanced back at the doorway. Still no sign of the slime. He reached into the chest and retrieved a wooden sword. It wasn't particularly large, but felt sturdy in his hands. He set his jaw and tried to still his wild breathing. "Collect yourself. We're going to have to fight this thing" He waited with the sword pointed to the doorway and after what felt like minutes the strange shape poured itself over the threshold and under the door itself. He felt a thousand needles of freezing cold run up and down the nape of his neck. He could see the sword blade out ahead of him, shaking like a fencepost during an earthquake. HIs fingers ached with the intensity of his grip on the wood, but that seemed small and inconsequential compared to the amorphous horror gliding towards him. He took a few tentative steps and swung low like the sword were a golf club. It passed through it like it were water. In the places where it had made contact the wood was scorched and darkened. He yelled in terror and took another half-step backwards. Slashing and stabbing again. The slime giggled and shuddered, seeming to shrink and lose elasticity with each hit. The blade was thinning and black at the end. He stabbed twice more and it became still, collapsing into itself turning opaque like a hard candy. The light and verdant color drained out of it until it looked like a fist sized lima bean in a matter of seconds. The air was thick with the smell of charred oak and vinegar. He paused and poked it again. Seeing bits of carbon flake away from the edge of the sword. "Didn't know if that would work" He took two large gulps of air and straightened himself. "I guess we had better find a way out of here. Maybe we'll find a better sword" Ridley pried the door open and let it swing and batter the wall. He took a moment to examine the room from the vantage of the balcony. There were barrels and crates with heavy iron nails and bands arranged against the far wall on either side of the portcullis. There would have to be a lever, and it was probably close by. He plodded down the stairs with his burnt sword out ahead of him like an antenna. The area beneath was decorated with shelves that held clay jars and various small wood crafts. There were small lock boxes on the lowest of the shelves. As he knelt to open them he felt unease. Glancing around he saw nothing at first, but the feeling persisted. He opened the first of the boxes and found a ruby the size of a plum. He blinked several times.

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  "This stone might get a me a better sword"

  He went to open the second and the feeling of dread magnified. He stood and stepped backward scanning the room as quickly as he could. Something had moved. In the darkest corner to the right there had a lattice of boards creating a kind of shelter. Out from behind this lattice came a large thing. Humanoid and taller than himself. But no kind of person. It's eyes were as large as apples and yellow with slits as thin as a blade of grass. It was scaly and stooped and moved comfortably on all fours, a curved sword held tight in it's toothsome lipless mouth. It looked like an Alligator, but it's face expressed a real human sense of amusement. Once it was clear of it's hiding spot it stood on it's legs and took hold of the sword. Now grinning savagely and advancing towards him. He turned to run back up the stairs and felt an explosion of heat and pain down his back. Some of the light and clarity of his vision drained. He knew he'd been struck, but it didn't feel at all how he'd imagined. The pain was diffused between all parts of him, including his thoughts. Like Ridley was a reservoir that expelled a full third of itself. He took another step, but his leg was much heavier and the labor of it caused him great strain. He listed forward and used his fist, clutched around the Ruby to act as another leg. A second blast caught him from behind. An even greater pain and instability than the time before. The thing made a deep rumbling sound from it's snake-like belly that he intuited to be laughter.

  "Fine!" He barked loudly and turned to swing the damaged sword. The creature tried to shield itself with it's sword but was too slow. The impact was solid enough to make it take a half step backwards. He tried to stab at it and the charred end of the wooden weapon crumbled entirely. It laughed again in it's way and leapt at him.

  Pain. A sense of momentum. Ridley tumbled off his feet. Then fell until he felt the wood of the stair steps on his cheeks and fore-arms but he did not stop. He kept tumbling through the ground and into a windy black chasm with no beginning or end. Ridley was devastated. He didn't expect to die like this. He had imagined what a dungeon adventure would be like a thousand times. He had longed for it for since childhood. Now that his impossible dream had come to pass he failed spectacularly.

  "I thought I'd do better" He said without a mouth. The sting of his loss somehow surviving the absence of flesh.

  Out in the swirling nothing a mirthless voice answered from every direction like rolling thunder. "Next time, you must"