After assembling a meal out of a wide variety of low-cost and mostly-delicious street food, Zach returned to his room at the inn. To his relief, his money pouch was still under the mattress. He counted the remaining coins from his pockets and added them to the leather bag. Several food vendors had given him change in the form of small copper-colored coins called Chips, and it seemed that he had been wrong about their value.

The coins, which had a simple mountainscape on both sides, were actually worth one twentieth of a Hart, not one twelfth like he'd assumed. While their size was similar to that of a US nickel, their value was closer to 25 cents. Additionally, despite sharing their color with lightweight copper, Chips were actually heavier than a quarter, suggesting the presence of alloyed gold.

If a Chip had the buying power of 25 cents, then a Hart was worth $5 and a Crown was worth $100. Zach was a little puzzled by that, since $100 bills were rather rare and inconvenient in the real world. Twenties were far more common and useful, but this world didn't have anything like them. In fact, this place had fewer coin denominations than the US and had no paper bills. He found it all very odd.

But as much as Zach enjoyed thinking about the economy of this world, he was exhausted by his unusual dream day. He was pondering how many total coins it would take to make a $99.75 purchase with exact change when he found himself dozing off. He gave up on his calculations, took off his borrowed shoes, crawled onto the bed, and fell asleep almost immediately.

When he awoke, Zach was back in his own bed in his own apartment, with his alarm going off. The CD-player alarm clock was playing yet another song by Yes, and it was both loud and nonsensical, startling Zach awake.

"I've seen all good people turn their heads each day so satisfied I'm on my way!"

Zach turned the alarm off, then sat up in bed. Once again, he was wearing boxers rather than a stolen farmer's outfit. "So it was a dream after all," he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Wednesday means no class until 10, so I guess I can take it easy this morning, he thought.

He took his time getting out of bed, booting up his laptop, and putting on some pants. Then he looked at his phone. Five missed calls and ten texts? What the hell? Did I have my ringer on silent?

He started for the bathroom, planning to read the texts on the toilet. He didn't even get to the bathroom door before one of his roommates called out to him.

"Holy crap, you do exist!"

Zach turned to see a very surprised man standing in the kitchen with a carton of orange juice in one hand. Zach said, "Uh, yeah. I paid my rent just yesterday. Did you not get it?"

The short man with curly brown hair blinked several times. "I got it the day before yesterday. You were nowhere to be found all day yesterday." Then he grinned and added, "Did you have a hot date or something?"

Zach had no idea what Matt was talking about. "Nah, nothing like that," he said, then stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

By the time he emerged again, Zach had read his text messages and he was no longer convinced that it was Wednesday. All signs pointed to the day being Thursday the 6th of September, with Wednesday totally absent from his memory.

The missed calls and texts had been Erin letting him know he missed a quiz in Econ 202, Matt asking where he was, and Zach's mother coincidentally calling to say hi. There were also nearly a dozen more messages from Erin. It wasn't like Zach to skip an Econ class and Erin seemed rather worried.

"If it's actually Thursday, I need to get moving or I'll miss even more class," he said to himself. Thankfully Matt wasn't around to witness that or he would have feared for Zach's mental state. Talking to yourself is one thing, but people didn't normally lose track of the day of the week like that.

Zach still wasn't sure what was going on, so he spent the bike ride to campus deciding on a cover story. He didn't want to pass his stress and confusion on to Erin.

When he saw her in class, he said, "Sorry for worrying you yesterday. I wasn't feeling well and slept all day." Of course, that story wouldn't work on his roommates who had looked for him in his bedroom and only found his phone. According to Matt, Zach's cell phone had been sitting next to his bed all day, periodically annoying the other residents of the house with its prog-rock ringtone.

Erin smiled. "Well, you're looking better now. I'm sure if you explain it to the professor, you can get a makeup quiz, at least this one time."

"Good idea. Did I miss anything else important?"

"Hmmm." Erin hummed to herself for a moment, then cheerfully answered, "Nope! Other than the quiz, it was a pretty good day to be out. Not that any day spent feeling sick is a good one, but you know what I mean."

Zach forced a smile and said, "Yep. Thanks, Erin." He was genuinely glad for the information, and that Erin wasn't teasing and fake-flirting with him for once.

But in addition to the work of catching up on what he missed, he had the larger issue of needing to figure out how he missed it in the first place. A small part of him wanted to believe that his time in that fantasy kingdom wasn't a dream after all, but a much larger part of him was terrified at the prospect.

Zach zoned out after that, thinking, Losing a day of memories is bad enough, but believing that I went to a magic land for a day is mental-illness-level stuff. Maybe I ate something bad and hallucinated all of it? Though that doesn't explain why I wasn't home. Unless I wandered around the city while hallucinating?

He swallowed hard. He didn't even want to consider that unpleasant thought.

Zach spent the rest of the day thinking circles around the subject, never getting any closer to an answer that didn't scare him. With how little he was able to pay attention to his professors, he effectively skipped another day of classes. He did call his mom back, and talking to her about mundane stuff helped calm his mind a little, but it didn't solve his problem.

Going to bed early didn't solve it either. In fact, it made it even worse.