Phillip groaned. The light wouldn't turn quick enough, and he only had ten minutes before his friend showed up at his house. If he wasn't there, his friend would probably drive off in a fit of fury. But he had no choice - someone had to get the milk - and with his car in the shop he had little option but to run down to the store. His wife surely wouldn't take the burden.
Finally, the light changed and he hurried across the street. The fading logo of "Pan8 Xpress" twinkled above him as walked down the parking lot. Gods, he thought, this place looks worse than my house.
It didn't take much. A little oasis from this mayhem, his house had been molded into a beautiful garden. Each day after working on landscapes, he'd come home, tend to his plants, and finally turn on the television and relax. Recently, without his car to pull him around, things had become complicated. Well, a man has to make sacrifices. The wilted herbs in his backyard were his sacrifice, and even as he crossed the scorched pavement he heard the plants begging for water.
Finally making it across the street and into the store, he grinned at the cashier. Probably some Muslim, he thought to himself, but the assumption wasn't entirely unfair. An Arabian with deep flushed skin and a crooked grin, he stared down every customer and made Phillip nervous. What was that Mahry called him? Punjab? Who cared.. In Phillips mind, they were all the same. Here, the unfairness began, prejudice compelling him to hate the man before him, knowing no more than the scar on his face and the grin on his mouth.
The cashier had been working too long at these stores, he knew what strange faces might show up, and Phillip could tell the man was pleased to be dealing with someone who wasn't on drugs.
Can't wait 'til I get out of this crap town, Phillip thought as he placed down the milk jug and a cheap bottle of vodka.
That's when lightning flashed across the sky, and Phillip glanced at the windows, covered with chain bars.
"A storm, huh?" he asked the cashier as he took his change.
"I'd say. It's supposed to be clear enough to see Venus," complained the Arabian, eying him cautiously. The man didn't trust anyone.
"Yeah. Sun's still out. Anyways, thanks."
He went outside, and that's when he saw it -
A great rift. A door, a portal, call it what you will. The street of Parkson and Beltown was torn into chaos, the intersection folding into another reality, one where hoards of figures grinned demonically, where monsters poured out, into his neighborhood.
Shocked, Phillip turned to the cashier, still unaware inside.
"Hey! Do you have any more vodka?!"
Last edited by Wanderer on Tue Apr 03, 2012 5:07 am, edited 3 times in total.
Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 6:38 am