There is an inherent calmness to storm clouds. 

Specifically, the kind of storm clouds that billow and bulge with dark, rain-filled puffs, their skeletons illuminated by the occasional burst of lightning, punctuated by the inevitable arrival of thunder. It wasn’t until the storm was directly overhead that the concept of calmness would vanish. And man did they look beautiful. For that reason, Eric loved storm clouds: the calmness that reigned before the storm. And usually, Eric had time to get behind a window to enjoy the chaos that followed. These particular clouds that were about to come crashing down over Eric and his girlfriend seemed quite overladen with water, threatening to make their drive-in movie a wet experience. 

Unfortunately, he hated the rain.

Eric glared up at the sky. “Of all days for a thunderstorm to hit.”

“At least it smells good,” Rose said, gorging down a mouthful of popcorn.

Eric smiled. “I suppose.” A sudden anxious feeling overcame him and he opened the door to his pickup. “I’ll be right back. I want to get a drink before the movie starts.” He closed the door before he could see her nod. 

Eric weaved his way through the other parked vehicles towards the concession stand. But before he got there, he turned to the bathroom stalls to the right of the stand. 

He quickly entered one and closed the door, locking it.

Eric stared at the closed door and took a few deep breaths. The anxiety had waned and allowed his heart to settle. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. He flicked it open.

A beautiful diamond ring lay nestled into the slot of velvet inside, a solitaire gem set into a simple, thin white-gold band. It had taken every ounce of saved money from book deals and residuals to afford it. 

Today is the day, Eric thought. I hope she says yes…

A thunderclap shook the bathroom stall and tore Eric from his thoughts. A few drops of rain began to slap against the top of the plastic stall. Eric hurried to open the door and stepped out onto the gravel of the drive-in movie yard. He took a few steps, then stopped.

The sky was filled with lightning, crisscrossing across the dark sky like veins in a body. And only a handful of them seemed to make thunder. A few thunderclaps slammed into him but not nearly as many as he thought there should be. 

His hair began to stand on end. 

Eric felt a buzzing sensation travel through his whole body, every strand of hair threatening to leave his pores. Worried, Eric ran to his truck, looking like a crazy man. No one else seemed to notice the strange lightning, but a few had felt their hair going haywire. 

Suddenly, a large burst of static electricity arced from a car behind him to the hood of another, making people scream and get out of their vehicles. The commercials before the movie abruptly cut off, the screen going dark. 

Eric saw his truck and smiled when Rose met his eyes. Her red hair straight falling over her shoulders, petite features perfectly proportioned. He managed to open the door of his truck and help her out before an incredible shock erupted behind him. Rose held her hands up in front of her, covering her eyes. Eric turned to see a couple sprawled out the windows of their sedan, unmoving. 

Eric’s anxiety boiled up, panic beginning to set in. 

Rose noticed just after he did, and they met eyes just as a flurry of other strikes hit cars and people on the other side of the drive-in. Then, the very air seemed to warp, small bolts of lightning arcing through the air, looking like incandescent worms squirming through the space above the cars. Enormous flashes of light began to sprout up from the ground around them, engulfing people in waves of energy. Eric felt a deep rumble vibrate through the ground and into his legs. A few people had begun to run, but Eric and Rose were in the middle, making it seem impossible to avoid what was coming. 

Eric looked into Rose’s deep hazel eyes, then felt the flash before he saw it. 

That moment seemed to draw on, the fear of being hit by lightning, of seeing Rose scared,  impossibly freezing in time. Then, everything was enshrouded in light. But just before the light vanished, Eric heard an all-consuming, blood-curdling scream.

Eric felt the stone underneath him, a horrendous pain spreading from his back throughout his body. The pain wasn’t just from lying on stone but seemed to be a constant thrum of discomfort and soreness in every cell of his body. He groaned and turned, getting a mouthful of dirt as he inhaled. He coughed, then heard a scraping sound somewhere behind him. 

Eric opened his eyes and realized he couldn’t see anything. 

I survived? He thought. But…am I blind? And what hospital has stone floors?

After a few moments of feeling around, he also noticed the echoes of his movements across the stone floor and the odd clanking sound near him as well.

“Oh my,” a voice said near where the clanking sound was coming from. “I wasn’t expecting this.” 

Eric jumped, trying to scramble away from the voice. 

“Who’s there?” Eric said. “Where am I?”

“Oh, right. You can’t see.” The voice seemed perturbed. 

A fire came alive on a mounted torch to his right, illuminating the area right around Eric in what seemed to be a cave, but also shedding light on the person who spoke to him.

Person was a loose definition. Or at least, it seemed more accurate as the past tense now. 

The voice was coming from a skeleton loosely draped in brown robes. The only remnants of any kind of previous humanity were a handful of long black strands of hair still attached to the skull and two unblinking eyes. 

Eric grunted out a quite unflattering babble of fearful noises and scuttered away, backing right up into the rear of the cave. 

“Oh dear,” the skeleton said, eyes fixed on him. “It’s the eyes, isn’t it? Sorry. For some reason, everything else about me withered away centuries ago, but not the eyes!” Somehow, the bones of the face smiled. 

Eric just stared at the skeleton, fear holding him firm in place. 

“So, you’re the first being I’ve seen in nearly…well, I think it’s been a little over 800 years. I don’t remember much anymore, or my name for that matter. Come to think of it, I don’t remember why I’m here…” The skeleton had begun to look around the room in confusion. “You wouldn’t happen to know what’s the deal here, would you?”

Eric kept staring, unable to tear his eyes away from the floating eyeballs in the nearly empty eye sockets of the skull. 

“Ah!” The skeleton said while clapping his bony hands together, making Eric jump. “I remember! I was to remain here in the event of the Vineyard’s Roots bumping into each other since sometimes people get pulled over to Auron. Are you from another world?”

“This can’t be happening,” Eric said, then stood and did a walk around the room. 

“Well, sorry to say, but you’re now here. This world is known as Auron. A place of magic and monsters. Probably not what you’re thinking though.” The skeleton continued to talk, but Eric ignored him.

“How do I get out of here?” Eric asked himself, muttering as he went. “I don’t see any way this could have happened.” 

As Eric scrambled to think, his mind progressively got more and more panicked, anxiety building. As he searched for a way out, something deep inside of him, a part that accepted this reality, began to crack.

“I can’t be here,” Eric said. “I can’t be here!” 

“Are you listening?” The skeleton said. “It’s important stuff I’m telling you.”

“I was going to propose!” Eric yelled at the skeleton. The raggedy bones stepped back, surprised, its eye sockets somehow enlarging to portray surprise, which just made the eyes seem even more eerie. 

Eric slumped down to the ground, heart beginning to race, his proverbial cup near to filling. 

The skeleton hunched down and looked into Eric’s eyes. “I’m sorry about all of this. It’s very much out of anyone’s control. I think…” The skeleton trailed off, finger lightly tapping his chin bone. 

Eric suddenly remembered the last thing he heard before coming to that cave. 

“Is she ok?” Eric asked. 

“Hmm?” The skeleton said. 

“Rose. Is she ok? I heard a horrible scream before I…transferred or whatever.”

The skeleton stood straight, looking thoughtful. 

“I do hate to admit,” the skeleton said. “But with these cross-dimensional transfers, there tends to be a tremendous amount of energy used in the process, not all of it is consumed. Much of it is released in and around the areas where it occurs.”

“What are you saying you bag of bones?” Anger had begun to seep into Eric’s voice. Terror had accompanied it. 

“Well,” the skeleton began. “She was likely caught up in the blast. Was there any kind of lightning, or energy discharge that you remember?”

Eric’s eyes went wide. 

“Ah,” the skeleton said. “It would appear so by your apparent facial expression. Is this correct?” 

Eric didn’t answer but just sat there. He began to have a full panic attack, breathing going ragged, heart pounding in his chest. It dragged him to the ground in a sweaty and dizzy mess, even some spittle coming from his mouth in small spurts. Eric started involuntarily groaning, the grief overtaking him. Then, the cup overflowed, and that inner part of him that was near to cracking, fully broke, splintered like a dry twig. 

A sudden voice cried out somewhere in Eric’s head. Rose’s voice. It was a scream, but a distant one like it was above ground somewhere, but in his head, reverberating around in his skull. The scream seemed to shift to somewhere in his pocket of all places. 

In a rush, a wave of energy sprouted from his body, bouncing back and forth between his pocket and his chest. Then the wave blasted outward, enough to alert the skeleton.

Eric proceeded to vomit. 

“Umm…” the skeleton said. “What was that?” 

In a sudden realization, Eric noticed that he could feel a hole in his memories. What had I forgotten? The thought terrified him. When did it happen? He hadn’t felt a hole in his memories just moments ago in the drive-in theater. 

Despite experiencing a panic attack, he had begun to calm down, forcing himself to inch away from his pile of vomit.

“I don’t know what to do here…” the skeleton said. “I know a few jokes if you’d like.”

Eric sat up and stared at the wall. 

“She’s dead…” Eric said. 

“Well, I suppose there’s the possibility she came over too, but that might be impossible to know.” 

“I heard her scream, a death rattle of a scream.” 

“Well, that is hard to refute.” The skeleton said. “I was only trying to help.” It slumped down a bit. 

A part of Eric was somehow still fascinated by this situation, the physicist in him that wanted to know how in hell he had gotten here. But he couldn’t bring himself to fantasize. 

Eric saw a very dim shifting light above his head somewhere, noticing a hole in the wall not too far up. He stood and climbed the short distance to the hole. 

“Wait for me!” The skeleton said, moving to the same climbing spot Eric had used. Eric ignored him, beginning to walk down a short hallway, barely tall enough for him to walk standing up fully. 

A few moments later, Eric emerged into a small grove surrounded by towering evergreen trees, very few bushes below them from all the fallen needles. The temperature was cool, making Eric think it was a mountain cave somewhere. 

Eric heard a loud grunt somewhere to his right, followed by many footfalls. 

He turned to see a large band of thieves looking at him hungrily. Eric turned to run but they were upon him, lifting him off the ground and slamming him back-first into the dirt. Pine needles dug into his back through his shirt. 

“Loot him!” One of the men yelled. 

“He don’t have nothin’!” One said, after patting him down on his chest. 

“Oh, wait!” Another man said, pulling out a velvet box from Eric’s right pocket. “Got somethin’!”

Eric screamed. He had forgotten about the ring. He thrashed, desperately trying to get free to grab the ring, the last thing he had of his world, of his world with Rose especially. 

Eric felt the ring leave his person, felt it calling to him somehow in the thief’s hand. 

He felt a sudden burst of energy and ripped free from the men. He landed a full-force slap across the man’s face, sending him flying. Eric didn’t have the mind to notice how strong the slap was, but frantically reached out and grabbed the velvet box from the air. He opened the lid and snatched the ring. 

He could have sworn it was glowing faintly. 

Eric did the only thing that came to mind and put the ring on his pinky since that was the only finger it would fit on.

Darkness took him immediately. 

When he came to, he was standing straight in a ring of blood and corpses, viscera falling from his fingers.