The sound of cursing and hollering wafted into the farmhouse from outside, warming the hearts of those within. The torrent of swearing was as much of a tradition as the fine china set on the table. But while the china might get hauled out for a few special occasions each year, Great-Grandpa Jack reserved his cussing exclusively for Thanksgiving.

“I don’t know why he insists on a live turkey,” Beth said as she carefully placed cutlery on the table, shaking her head at the antics of her grandfather. Mark, her 20-year-old son, barked out a laugh and pulled his attention away from the football game for long enough to raise an eyebrow.

“Mom, you made most of the food last night, and now you’re setting the dinner table at 11 a.m. Grandpa Jack doesn’t own exclusive rights to weird traditions in this house.”

While technically Jack was Mark’s great-grandfather, the whole family simply referred to him as “Grandpa Jack.” That included Mark’s older sister Angela, who was currently seated next to Mark on the couch, snorting out a laugh over her brother’s comment. Although four years older than her brother, a childhood spent well outside the confines of suburbia made them closer than most siblings with that kind of age gap. Perhaps they would have drifted apart when Angela went off to college, but that timeframe coincided with the first appearance of Mark’s symptoms and his subsequent struggles. It was a hard time for him—still was—and Angela had made sure to come home frequently for visits.

“Did you take your medication?” Beth asked Mark.

“I know when to take my medication,” he said, shaking his head in annoyance.

“That wasn’t an answer.”

Rather than respond, Mark rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the football game.

The screen door banged open and in walked Peter, Beth’s husband. He was burly and tall, with a bushy beard that did its best to hide the pudgy neck of a man well past overweight and flirting with obese. He also had a haunted look in his eyes.

“Your grandfather is insane,” he said to Beth. “In what world does a 95-year-old man think he can catch a turkey in a 400 square-foot pen?”

“Why don’t you help him!” Beth mock-shouted, throwing a cloth napkin at her husband.

“What do you think I was trying to do! I figured I’d wait until he tired himself out, but when he started talking about going inside and getting that old Luger from his room so he could ‘cut out the middleman,’ I figured it was time to get the hell out of there. Piece of advice for everyone: Don’t walk by any windows.”

A shout of triumph reverberated from outside, followed by another bang of the screen door as a wiry and stooped old man entered the room with a triumphant grin on his face. He had been tall once, over six feet, but age had bent his spine, and arthritis had bowed his legs, forcing him to hold onto the wall to stay upright. Still, his rheumy eyes showed a gleam of triumph behind glasses that perched atop of a large, aquiline nose.

“Finally got the bastard!” he shouted, holding up one hand to reveal a wildly flailing turkey, his ancient fist wrapped around the bird’s neck to prevent it from getting loose.

“Why are you bringing that in the house!” Angela shrieked, pulling a blanket over her head. “It’s bad enough that you’re killing an animal; I don’t want to meet it first!”

Grandpa Jack waved the turkey at her. “Pah, the only reason you don’t eat meat is that you’ve never been hungry enough. Next Thanksgiving, we’re gonna starve you for a few days first and then let’s see who wins the fight between moral and—what the hell?”

The family went silent as all of the light in the room dimmed in a decidedly unnatural manner. In fact, it wasn’t so much that the light was dimming as the walls were fading. Everyone was too dumbfounded to say anything, and it was only when they were left alone, floating in a sea of black, that anyone was able to pull themselves together. The whole scenario was only made more bizarre by the fact that the wooden slat floor and furniture remained, including the table and all the china.

“Uh, what’s going on?” Mark said. He was met with silence—it was hardly a question any of them were equipped to answer.

Angela was the first to compose herself, standing up and walking to the edge of the floor where she could peer off into the darkness. When it was clear there was nothing below them, she waved her hand through where the wall used to be. Again, nothing.

“This is like, seven different kinds of messed up,” she said.

“Seven?” her dad said. “Kiddo, if all you can think of is seven, then you’re not as creative as I thought.”

Their conversation was cut short when a door of light opened in the blackness, right at the edge of the hardwood. Everyone tried to see what was inside, but that was impossible given that whoever opened the door had done so directly behind a bookcase.

A loud “bonk” sounded as the bookcase shook, sending a few volumes tumbling to the ground. There followed some swearing in an unknown language before the door slammed shut much quicker than it had opened.

The family looked at each other in confusion. Angela walked over and picked a book up off the ground, then gestured to the shelf. “Everyone saw that, right?”

Her brother nodded slowly. “Yeaaaahhh… why did—”

Another door opened, this time on the other side of the room and free of obstructions, finally allowing their unknown visitor into the room.

Even in such an unusual situation, it was fair to say that what stepped in was not what anyone was expecting. Because really, who expects a 7-foot tall brown-and-purple striped lizard in a zoot suit and slightly crushed bowler hat to walk into their living room?

The lizard hadn’t yet looked at them, choosing instead to remove its hat and inspect the damage. After popping the hat back into shape, another inspection, and a sigh of relief, the creature placed the hat back upon its head and looked around the room.

If a lizard could look displeased, that was the look on the lizard’s face.

“And you are…?” he said. His accent was crisp and educated, with an air of British aristocracy, but it was a bit off—as though he had just moved to Hollywood and was trying unsuccessfully to start a career in voiceover work.

“Who are we?” Grandpa Jack barked, his bushy eyebrows waging war against each other as he waved the still-struggling turkey around the room. “Who the hell are you! This is my living room!”

The lizard’s eyes widened slightly—which is something much easier to notice on a lizard than a person—and he reached into his breast pocket to pull out a notebook. It was the kind you’d see on a police drama, where the pages flipped over the top. As he read, he began to shake his head.

“No, no, no… this isn’t right,” he mumbled. He glanced up at them. “Why don’t you have Australian accents?”

“Because this is California!” Grandpa Jack roared, only calming when Beth put a hand on his arm.

“Now, sir,” Beth said. “I don’t know what is happening, nor do I know why I seem so remarkably calm about it, but I’m sure there’s a logical explanation? Let’s just talk it through so we can understand where the mistake occurred, and then you can return us to our farm so we can have dinner. Perhaps you’d like to join us?”

Not surprisingly, that last sentence elicited a chorus of shaking heads from the other family members, but it also prompted the same from the lizard.

“Dreadfully sorry, but that won’t be possible. You see, you’re all dead.”

Everyone froze in place. It wasn't every day a person was forced to confront their mortality, but everyone has an innate sense of their own proximity to it. Not surprisingly, it was the occupant of the room who had been closest to death that snapped out of it first.

“CHIRUCK!” the turkey shrieked, flapping madly as it sought to take advantage of its captor’s momentary distraction. Grandpa Jack was equal to the task, though, resetting his grip and wrestling the turkey under his arm, pinning its wings to its sides.

When the chaos died down, Peter took a step forward, his face showing anger as he glanced at his children, whose lives had apparently just been cut short. “Now you look here. You’re telling me this is the afterlife? That we all somehow died simultaneously? I can say for sure that you don’t look like an angel, so I’d like an explanation about what happened.”

The lizard looked at Peter in utter confusion before coming to a realization and bursting into laughter. “Oh! No, oh dear, you’re not dead dead. Not any time soon either, barring an exhibition of utter incompetence. No, I meant that when you were transported here, I arranged for it to appear as though you had died on Earth. To return you there would be exceedingly problematic.”

“How did we ‘die’?” Mark asked.

“Gas explosion.”

The family exchanged another round of glances. “We don’t have gas at the farmhouse,” Beth said.

The smile faded from the lizard’s face. “Oh dear. That is going to… I will… oh, they will not be pleased.”

He again consulted his notebook, tapping a finger at the pages. “It says right here: Ignacius “Iggy” Stevens. 22-year-old Australian. Avid gamer, no living family and—most importantly at the moment—resides in a house with natural gas. That is who I should be speaking with, not you. Are none of you Iggy Stevens?”

Grandpa Jack’s eyes narrowed. “I got a question, kid. You’ve clearly got some way of plucking people off the planet. How’d you target us?”

“I simply enter the coordinates. The system takes care of the rest.”

“Okay,” Grandpa Jack said, nodding. “And what were the coordinates?”

The lizard consulted his notes. “33°05'06.99" South and 115°43'48.91" East.”

“Any chance you entered those numbers as North by West instead of South by East?”

A slow look of dawning realization came over the lizard. His shoulders sagged; an action made even more impressive by the prodigious shoulders of his zoot suit.

“Oh dear. I am going to be in a great deal of trouble.” He looked up at them. “Just a moment.” The lizard again opened that strange door into the blackness and disappeared, leaving the family to stare after him in confusion.

“Weird Thanksgiving this year,” Angela noted.

“You think?” Mark said.

Beth gave a pensive nod. “I still don’t understand why we’re we all so calm about this.”

Her husband slowly turned towards her, his eyebrows raised. “Are you sure that’s not just you? Because personally, I want to wring that lizard’s neck when he comes back.”

Beth waved him off. “Well, of course, we all want to do that, but that’s not what I mean. It’s the situation. Shouldn’t having our house disappear and suddenly finding ourselves floating in a black void be a little more shock-inducing?”

“Maybe it’s just part of what’s going on,” Angela said. “I mean, I get that this is super weird, but this has clearly happened before. Maybe tinkering with our heads to make us a bit more chill is something they do to smooth out the process.”

“I don’t get the impression this is going smoothly,” her father noted.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously. I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first time that fashion travesty has done it, but I mean in general.”

Her brother nodded. “That makes sense. Still—what’s the point? I mean, this is clearly leading somewhere, and I’d really like to know where that is. So maybe I’m just kind of waiting to decide whether I should panic or not.”

Beth sighed and shoved the handful of silverware she was still holding into the pocket on her apron. Walking over to her husband, she quietly rubbed him on the back for a moment before pulling out a chair at the dining table and sitting down. “I guess we just wait.”

They sat there awkwardly, waiting for the bizarre lizard to return. When the strange door finally opened again, the lizard was wearing an uncomfortable smile as he entered the room. Taking a deep breath, he clapped his hands together and left them clasped before him.

“Good news, people!” he said. “It has been determined that we won’t be pushing you off into the void today!”

Mark’s eyes went wide. “That was an option?”

“Well, not really. I mean, none of you has had a psychotic breakdown yet, so we aren’t legally allowed to do it despite what Gryphlex in accounting was… err, let’s not get into that. What’s important is that we will be able to move forward with the transition as though you were the intended targets. Isn’t that great?”

“What do you mean by ‘transition’?” Peter said.

The lizard nodded and pointed a finger at Peter. “And now we’re at the meat of the situation! You see, the universe is a much broader place than you’ve been led to believe, with a lot more working parts than your scientists and theologians could ever understand. Not that it’s their fault, mind you. Earth lacks many of the advantages of other worlds that would allow for a more comprehensive investigation.”

“Great, Earthlings are idiots,” Peter said. “Why are we here?”

The lizard smiled, and his tone became lecturing. Clearly, he had spent time rehearsing this speech.

“There is a world called Arenia. It is a special world, one of particular interest to many powerful beings for reasons I am unable to get into. What makes it special is that the people who live there are blessed with an uncommonly thorough understanding of who they are. This is because each Arenian possesses a personal Tome of Knowledge; a book which is bound to them and unreadable to others unless they choose to share it. The pages of that Tome express their lives numerically, allowing a person to progress through their lives in a logical, thought-out manner. They—”

“Holy shit, you’re talking about a character sheet!” Angela squealed.

“Language!” Beth said.

Angela cringed. “Sorry, mom.”

“It’s okay,” Beth said. “Now, what is a character sheet?”

“Like from a role-playing game,” Mark said. “That’s why you wanted that other guy, isn’t it? You said he was a gamer, which means he’d be familiar with the mechanics.”

The lizard grimaced. “It is not a ‘Character sheet.’ It is a numerical representation of your status and classification, as well as the means of choosing how you want to advance over time.”

“Dude, that’s a character sheet,” Angela said.

The lizard threw his hands up in the air. “Fine, it’s a character sheet. Once you get to Arenia, you’ll be able to ‘level up’ and progress your ‘stats.’ Are you happy?”

“Extremely,” Angela said, unable to wipe the smile from her face. “So what’s the deal? Do we pick our race and class when we get there, or can I do it now?”

“Pick your race?” the lizard said. “You mean your species? But you’re—” He burst out laughing. “Oh no! My dear, no. Absolutely not. You’re a human!”

Angela scowled. “That sucks. I wanted to be an elf.”

“Why couldn’t you be an elf?” the lizard asked. “I mean, aside from the fact that they’re notorious xenophobes. But there’s no reason you couldn’t become one in time.”

“Uh, you just said that wasn’t possible.”

The lizard cocked its head. “My dear, there are plenty of other species, but you’re a human. You’re like a… a larval stage. You possess the inherent potential to Evolve into a higher being—something most humans strive toward—but at the moment, you are merely,” he gestured at the family, “this.”

Grandpa Jack scowled. “Ain’t nothing wrong with being a human.”

“It’s adorable that you believe that.”

“Look kid, I didn’t fight Nazis in five countries just so I could switch planets and become a racist.”

The lizard crossed its arms and started tapping its foot. “You keep referring to me as ‘kid.’ You should know that most advanced species are longer-lived than humans. It is one of the benefits of evolving and the reason I look so youthful despite being 91-years-old. Where I come from, we respect our elders.”

Grandpa Jack leaned in. “Well, kid, I’m 95. I still got four years on you. How do you like them apples?”

The lizard got a sour look and glanced around the room for a distraction. When Beth raised her hand, he sighed in relief and gestured for her to speak.

“Are you saying that we’re going to be the only humans in Armenia?” Beth said.

“Arenia, mom,” Angela said.

Beth rolled her eyes. “Fine. Ah-ren-ee-ah. Happy?”

The lizard cleared his throat. “No. There are many humans on Arenia. In fact, they’re the most common species on the planet. However, an Arenian human has but one life to live. Which is what makes Earthborn humans so unique. Only you, amongst all the humans in the universe, are capable of reincarnation.

“Wait, what?” Mark said. “Reincarnation is actually a thing?”

“This isn’t common knowledge?” the lizard said.

“Hardly,” Mark said.

“Oo! Does that mean all of us have past lives?” Angela said.

The lizard made a teeter-totter motion with its hands. “Maybe? A human from Earth is only born with a certain number of reincarnations, and that number varies between individuals. Truth be told, even on Earth, most humans only get one life. That is why when we select a human to bring to Arenia, we make sure it’s an individual with many rebirths left. The whole goal of the transplantation process is to introduce greatness into the universe. To create legends. For that, you need legendary individuals of a kind that can only be formed when the rebirths of an Earthborn human are combined with the Tome of Knowledge of an Arenian. This is because the Tome serves to anchor an Earthborn human’s spirit at the time of death, allowing them to be reborn near-instantly without losing any of the growth they’ve accumulated over the previous life.”

“This is so fuhhh…” Angela spotted her mom glaring at her “…uh, frigging awesome! What does the Tome look like? Can mine be an iPad or something? A tablet would be super helpful.”

“A tablet…? No, of course not!” the lizard said. “A Tome is a book. That is literally what the word means.”

“Oh. Well, it’s still cool.”

Mark and Angela quickly bent their heads together and started buzzing about what the future held. Angela with unrestrained glee, Mark a bit more hesitant. As for Beth, she took the news pensively, while her grandfather simply looked grouchy. It was Peter though, who raised a point everyone else had missed.

“Alright, Mr. Lizard,” he said, crossing his arms. “May I call you Mr. Lizard?”

“No.”

“Okay. So, Mr. Lizard, I was wondering. This Iggy fellow you selected. I presume he has many lives?”

The lizard’s eyes darted around and he began fiddling with a button on his suit. “Yes.”

“But we were not your intended targets today.”

“Er, no, you weren’t.”

“So, one could assume that we do not, in fact, have an abundance of lives?”

“Umm… that’s not exactly true. It’s not easy to determine an individual’s total number of lives, so it’s not something I even know. Maybe you have a lot of lives? Maybe you have none. It’s hard to say. I can say that it tends to run in families. If one of you dies and is reborn, it’s safe to assume that you all have at least one more life.” Seeing Peter’s ire building, the lizard raced ahead in his explaining.

“But that’s enough of that!” he said, putting some room between himself and Peter. “I think we’ve spent enough time discussing things. Let’s just clear out the legal formalities and move onto the transition, shall we? You’ll be happy to know that we will be giving you a house to live in once you arrive. A little compensation for our mix-up. Isn’t that nice? There will be plenty of room for all six of you, so—”

“Six?” Mark said. “There’s only five of us in this family.”

The lizard pulled his head back. Looking around the room, he counted them off. “I don’t understand. One, two, three, four, five, six. Six of you in the family.”

“You counted Grandpa Jack twice.”

The lizard shook his head. “No, I didn’t. See?” Once again, he counted them off, only painfully slowly this time.

Mark glanced at his sister. An unspoken question passed between them, and she responded with a hesitant shrug of confusion. Mark looked back at the lizard and said, “I feel ridiculous even saying this, but… did you just count the turkey?”

Now it was the lizard’s turn to look confused. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I count your turkey?”

Grandpa Jack’s face went red. “It’s a turkey! It’s dinner, not a family member!”

“How should I know you intended to eat the turkey!” the lizard snapped back.

“BECAUSE IT’S WHAT PEOPLE DO! WE EAT TURKEYS!”

“I don’t,” Angela said, holding up her hand.

Grandpa Jack glared at her. “Don’t you start.”

The lizard threw his hands up in the air. “It doesn’t matter! The turkey has officially been included in your family’s paperwork, and I have no intention of filing additional documentation. One way or another, she is going to Arenia with you. After that, I truly don’t care what happens. You people will be the death of me.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Peter grumbled.

The turkey, seeming to sense that attention had turned to it, puffed out its feathers and glared directly at Mark, somehow selecting him as the cause of her predicament despite Grandpa Jack’s role in her incarceration.

“So, is that like, a dire turkey now?” Angela said.

The lizard shrugged. “Was it a dire turkey before my arrival?”

“It was certainly in dire circumstances,” her brother noted.

“But the turkey itself was not dire?”

“No,” Angela said.

“Then I would hazard to guess that the situation remains unchanged.”

Grandpa Jack shuffled and grumbled. “Buncha loonies,” he huffed through his moustache. He turned the turkey’s head around and glared at it. “At least we’ll have something to eat.”

The lizard grimaced. “Ah, I would recommend against that.”

“Why?” Beth said.

“How do I explain,” the lizard said. “Customarily, when we bring multiple people over at once—which is quite rare—they are intended to work together upon their arrival. As such, we create a special connection between them called a familial bond. A bit of a ‘leg up,’ as you humans say. However, one aspect of this bond is that deliberate harm perpetrated by one bond member upon another is shared by both.”

The room went silent. And when one is floating in an endless black void, a room can get really silent.

“Hang on,” Grandpa Jack said. “You’re saying that if I kill this turkey, I’m going to die?”

The lizard nodded. “Correct.”

“But it’s a turkey,” Angela said.

“Nonetheless…”

Grandpa Jack raised a finger. “What if I—”

The lizard sighed loudly. “If you take any course of action with the intent being to harm a family member—ANY family member—without their consent, then the rules still apply.”

Grandpa Jack sputtered and held the turkey out by the legs and neck, gesturing wildly as he ranted. “But I’m not related to this damn turkey!”

“Grandpa, you’re hurting it!” Angela shouted.

A gleam entered his eyes. “I am, aren’t I? But I’m not feeling anything, so if I were to wring this damn bird’s neck right now—”

“And off to Arenia you go!” the lizard shouted.

Whipping out a comically large box from his pocket, one that consisted solely of a large red button, the lizard slapped his palm down hard and grinned widely as the family vanished from the room.

The lizard was still revelling in his coup when the door in the blackness opened again, only this time a furred creature with five eyes protruding on thick stalks leaned its head in and nodded toward the lizard. “Okay, Carl, we’ve got their landing coordinates synched up. You can send them down whenever you’re—hey, where’d they go?”

Carl stared at his co-worker for a moment before slapping a webbed palm against his face.

“Crap.”