Someone was in the passenger seat.

This idea popped into Oren's mind suddenly, like a passing thought put inside his head by someone else. He glanced ever so slowly to his right and saw The Deer, hands folded in his lap. His long antlers skimmed the ceiling of the van, forcing him to bend over a little just to have enough room.

"Where are we going?" he asked. Oren wrinkled his nose angrily, and turned back around, staring at the road, unblinking, as if it were the only thing that existed.

"Are you ignoring me?" The Deer asked with mild annoyance, placing its animal head into its human palm.

"I don't need to ignore you, because you're not real," Oren answered, irritated.

"Oh, is that what you're telling yourself?" The Deer chuckled with amusement. "We live in a world of perception. It is not a matter of what is real and what isn't, but rather what we decide to be real." The Deer watched Oren for a reaction but was greeted only by silence and a stern expression. "Fine, I guess I'll have to show you an example." he sighed dramatically, snapping his fingers.

Suddenly, the road and the van were gone. Oren found himself back in the Deer's office, sitting in a wooden chair, his arms outstretched with his fingers still wrapped around where the steering wheel used to be. The Deer strolled up from behind him, observing the room with a prideful smirk.

"It's quaint, isn't it?" he said.

"Bring me back!" Oren yelled, standing.

"If you comply, you will be back shortly enough." The Deer said matter-of-factly. "Now, turn around."

Oren rolled his eyes, and reluctantly turned around, nearly falling into a deep, dark hole. He stumbled backward away from the edge in a frantic scramble. The Deer caught Oren before he could fall, holding him upright.

"At this very moment, your senses have worked together to conclude that this hole is "real". You can see its depth, its color, its shape, and by analyzing it you have concluded that if you had taken a faulty step, you surely would have plummeted to your death." The Deer smirked and shoved Oren forward. Oren let out a small scream, flailing his arms in an attempt to regain balance but to no avail. The blackness of the bottomless hole rushed up toward him. Pain rushed through Oren's body as it smacked against solid ground. Trembling, he lifted himself, the bottomless pit flat against his palm.

"An illusion?" Oren asked, turning back toward The Deer.

"Artists use this technique all the time." The Deer chuckled, stepping on the fake hole. "Add the right dimensions and shading, and suddenly a simple drawing can appear to be as real as any solid object." The Deer knelt, placing a finger in the middle of Oren's forehead. "The mind is very quick to come to simple conclusions, making it very easy to trick."

"But that's not how things work!" Oren snapped, slapping The Deer's hand away and getting to his feet. "The drawing is still real. There are rules to these things!"

"You were one of those Ap Chemistry kids, weren't you?" The Deer taunted.

"I simply believe in science and proven facts." Oren pouted. "An illusion is not the same as a girl stuffed with cotton, or a diner that's empty one moment and then packed the next."

"Charles Darwin hypothesized that it was not the strongest or smartest creatures who survived, but those most adapted to change. You've been thrown into a brand new world, and it's time for you to start adapting." The Deer said. "There are some things that simply cannot be explained, unusual forces that the human brain could never learn to understand. I'm sure that you've experienced a few: an unidentified bump in the night, the call of your name from an empty room, finding something moved when it was not you who moved it. Your brain will give a rational answer every single time, and sometimes it's right, but sometimes it's not."

"Ok." Oren sighed, lowering his head to his chest. "Let's say, just for a moment, that I believe you; That I believe that the things I've seen have been real. Then why is it that all these strange things are here? I've lived in the city my whole life, I've been on road trips, but I've never seen anything like this."

"You were right about one thing: there are rules. The world is made of them, even for beings like myself. If every person woke up with their thumbs missing, or their floor turned to splinters, it would cause chaos, and that wouldn't be good for anyone." The Deer explained. "But when a child runs away...and they don't come back...no one will believe a monster took them away." The way the smile never left The Deer's face as he spoke ever so slowly made Oren shiver. "He has built the perfect trap, to put it simply."

"He?" Oren inquired.

"Well, this is his domain, after all." The Deer chuckled.

His words repeated, like an echo down a cave, fading to nothing. Oren blinked, and the white room was gone, replaced by the road and the van. Taking in his new surroundings in panic, he didn't notice his hands weren't gripping the steering wheel, and the van swerved. The van slid off the road, rolling over the rough terrain. Oren felt as the van jumped, one of the wheels audibly popping. He pressed on the breaks, the van heaving to a halt.

Jackie, lazily, leaned over the driver's seat. "How on earth did you ever pass your driver's test?"