I woke up that morning with a bad hangover and my nightstand was knocked over again.

This happened a lot. It's wobbly, and I tend to check my cellphone a lot in the middle of the night.

I'm still trying to get a job and move out of my mom's basement. I mean, I know, I should be grateful she's letting me stay here after the department store closed. Too many places around here have been shutting down lately, so where the hell am I supposed to get a job anyway?

After a quick breakfast, Pop-Tarts and Canadian bacon, still cold from the plastic packet, I made my way to the Clarksburg Public Library and my oasis of safety: the manga section.

I could spend all day here. Okay, all my cards on the table: I had. Several times. I never meant to, but after reading about the fantasy world of Rosario + Vampire and wondering what it'd be like to have classes at Yokai Academy, who the hell wants to climb down the stairs to their mother's basement with a folded Clarksburg Telegram under their arm and look through want ads again?

I sighed and checked my watch. I should probably get back home and check the mail.

No. I didn't want to look.

I stood beside Lana as she smirked. Her "I-know-something-you-don't-know" smile made my intestines want to slither and crawl up my spine.

We were back outside. Early afternoon.

I knew this place; I felt my insides grow cold.

"Kinda like a kick in the balls, huh, Andy?" she asked. "Oh, wait, I've got just the thing."

She took out her cellphone and started scrolling through YouTube.

I watched myself step out of the Clarksburg Public Library.

No.

Lana scrolled through her cellphone. "Damn it, now where is it? Oh, here it is!"

She tapped her screen and "Down With the Sickness" by Disturbed began playing.

I looked up and saw myself stepping onto the pavement as a car rolled quickly across the parking lot.

A mother and daughter were busy looking for an empty spot.

No.

Lane chuckled to herself. "Hang on, Andy. Just watch this. Come on, you're not feeling it. Listen to the music with me. Don't just look. Really get into it."

I saw myself bringing my left arm up to my face as I looked down to check the time.

Lana sighed and turned up the volume on the song.

And then I heard it everywhere.

Disturbed poured from the trees. It shook the grass and dirt at our feet. I heard it in the air.

"Hey! Come on, American boy!" Lana snapped her fingers around my face. "Hello, Earth to Andrew. Ground control to Major Road-Rash on aisle 44."

I watched: the car didn't slow down.

I saw the mother, a beautiful Japanese woman turn to her daughter.

Her daughter, pale, must've been about 16. She had gorgeous, sleek black hair and bold, determined green eyes. She was looking at me, the forty-four-year-old version of me, and screaming at her mother.

I saw this Japanese girl was wearing a Notre Dame school uniform.

NO!

Lana, beside me, was laughing like a maniac.

"Come on and get ready because here we go! Come on, Andy! Are you ready? Get down with the sickness!"

I watched as the car plowed through me, just above my kneecaps, and picked me off the pavement. It happened in terrifying slow motion.

"See!" Lana laughed. "I timed it just right, Andy! Blink and you'll miss it, but he was saying 'I see inside you the sickness is rising' and the car lifted you right off the pavement and flung you like a doll!"

I watched as I soared through the air in a beautiful arc, arms flailed like I was trying to fly, and I felt lightheaded as I watched myself in midair.

"Well, I'm afraid you're in the thick of it now, old chum," Lana said in Inego's voice.

And I splattered all over the pavement in front of the Clarksburg Public Library like a glass jar of ketchup.

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Lana sighed. "Fine. I guess you're not in the mood for jokes right now. You probably think this is serious or something. Oh my god! Someone got hit by a car."

My mouth hung open, jaw slack, and I stared at my own dead body.

"Andy?" Lana asked.

I turned to look at her.

And I saw a giant semi-truck bearing down on me, only inches from my face.

"Vrrrrooommmm," said Lana, playfully punching my shoulder.

I jumped up, and I was sitting on a bar stool with a whiskey in my hand.

Lana leaned on her cue stick beside the billiards table. An ancient television screen was chained to the top of a high cabinet in the corner of the room. Maximum Overdrive played, flickering on the screen beside the channel and volume knobs.

"I love this movie," she said. "The never should've given the trucks a reason for going nuts though. Took away all the tension, like, why explain it? It just happens, you know."

Her cue stick made a loud "clack" as it collided with the ball. "Like with everything. I mean, if you're an idiot, you can say something's good or bad, right? But saying it doesn't make it so. It's just something that happens."

The cue ball smacked the billiard balls, sending them in motion all across the table.

I looked down and saw the whiskey was still in my hand.

"So, you ever gonna drink that or not?" she asked, grinning. "The suspense is killing me."

I took a breath. "Am I… dead?"

Lana snorted a laugh. "Do you look dead? Are you Yuki now? Are you Shion?"

She shook her head. "No, Andy. You're not dead."

I look at her, confused. "But the car…"

She waved her hand at me, like she was shooing away a fly. "I know. I'm sorry, but that never happened."

I dropped the whiskey on the floor, watching the glass shatter into a thousand pieces.

Lana sighs. "Hey, that's a waste of perfectly good Irish whiskey. If you want Scotch…"

I blew up. "No! I don't want a damn drink! I want answers!"

And for a full three seconds, she simply sat there. I heard Tears for Fears blending horribly with AC/DC on Maximum Overdrive.

She took a breath, and I saw her tongue resting behind her two front teeth as she thought about what she was going to say.

"Okay. You've been through a thing or two, huh? What do you want to know? Sorry for messing with you, Andy. Or Ryu. Which name do you prefer?"

I tensed, but she put her hands up apologetically. "Not a test or anything," she said. "I'm just asking for real."

I shook my head. "Honestly, Lana, I don't even know anymore. What do you mean? Like, and I supposed to pick my identity or something?"

She sighed. "What? That's ridiculous. What the hell does that even mean? No, Andy. Look, let's be real with one another, okay? I'll stop warping reality around us and I'll really listen. Like a good girl."

She sat down beside me and put her head on her hands as she rested her elbows on the table.

"I'm so sorry for messing with you. I'm just trying to get you to lighten up. You're so tense all the time. I feel sorry for you."

I scoffed. "Really? You feel sorry for me? Aren't you the one doing this to me?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, hell no. That's ridiculous. I don't do anything… well, not much anyway. You're the one who said you wanted to see this world. Don't you like it? I had it made for you."

I looked at the whiskey in front of me. "You… had it… made?"

She nodded. "Well… yeah. Why not? Why change what you call the 'real' world? It's fine the way it is, isn't it?"

I blinked. "No… for starters Kurt Cobain nev—

But she interrupted me. "I liked your idea, so I decided you'd just be Andrew Ryu Kazeyama here. You had a pretty good backstory, so I just changed a few things so you'd fit in better with what you wanted in the world I had made. For you."

I slammed my fist on the table. She jumped, surprised.

"Oh! Ha! You're so funny! Good one, Andy! You actually surprised me!"

I clenched my fist so tightly my fingernails brought blood. "My backstory? You changed everything about me!"

And she just tilted her head again. "Andy… take your fist. Open it."

I looked at my hand on the table. Blood oozing between my fingernails. I opened my fist.

"Look! Everything's changed! Things change all the time. Why are you complaining to me about it? You changed everything about your hand! No fist anymore. See?"

I opened my mouth and shut it several times before I managed to speak. "You… you… did this to me!"

She frowned. "What did I do, Andy?"

I gesticulated and stuttered. "You… took me from my home! You… put me in some weird world where I don't know who I am. I don't know where I belong. I don't even know what I am or what I'm doing!"

She nodded, really listening.

And she didn't say anything. She just slowly reached out and put her hand over my bloodied one. It felt warm. Real.

"And was that any different before you came to Shin'yume?"

I stammered. "What?"

She took a slow breath. "Was that any different before I brought you here, or whatever you want to call it?"

She shrugged. "Really? Did you know who you were before?"

I looked down at the ice melting on the floor beside the broken glass.

"When you were unemployed and living in your mother's basement, did you know what you were doing?"

I finally looked back up into her orange eyes.

"Because it sure as hell didn't look like it to me. So, if you're here, at Shin'yume, or in Clarksburg, Bridgeport, Junior, or the Moon, or Alderaan… does it matter?"

I couldn't answer her question.

And she smiled. "See? Andy? No one cares! Here."

She slid another whiskey across the table at me.

I picked it up, curiously.

"Look, let me explain something. You know what I hate?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Linear storytelling? Logic? Stories that aren't unnecessarily existential?"

She giggled. "Oh, you cheeky American boy. What I hate is when there's a really good, fresh television show and half the audience spends their time asking if the main character's dead."

I nodded. "Or like in Community where they asked if Abed knew he was on a television show."

"Yeah! Like, that's not even close to the message or the theme. If the main character were dead, then what's the point? How's the character gonna grow and learn if they're dead?"

I blinked. "I see what you mean."

She turned towards the television, watching Maximum Overdrive. "Enjoy your drink. You might as well, right? I know you're arguing with yourself. It's just a dream, you're telling yourself, right?"

I hated her. "Maybe."

She grinned, turned towards me. "Well… Maybe. But I know something that's really going to piss you off. You wanna know what it is?"

I winced, not knowing what was coming. "What?" I asked.

Lana's smile widened. "Oh, you poor, naughty American boy. You've got training with her tomorrow morning."

My eyes grew wide. "What?"

Lana picked up her left arm and looked down at her watch. "Oh, that's right now."

I woke up to the sound of the alarm on my new cellphone.

I had a text.

Ryu. How do you like your yokai girls?

Do not reply.

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