The danger sense that was going off like a fire alarm in his head moments ago stopped as quickly as it began, the wailing of the two women was painful and grating to his ears, but worse than that was the despondency on their faces. The fact that they’d more or less broken into his home was no longer relevant in his mind. The way they knelt and keened toward the ceiling showed the most unutterable depths of despair that he’d ever seen outside of a mirror.

Albaer set the broom aside at the wall, it slid down and fell to the carpeted floor with a thud that was drowned out by their cries.

The fact that they were creatures out of mythology and fantasy, or worse, or maybe better, out of some anime series, was less relevant at the moment. A thudding from upstairs began which brought them up short. “Hey! Keep it down, brat!” His upstairs neighbor shouted and stomped on the floor several times.

The pair of women were caught off guard by the sudden noise, so much so that their faces froze.

Albaer took advantage of that in an instant to crouch down in front of them, he held a finger up to his lips and whispered, “Shhhhh.” Foreign as they were, they understood the request to be quiet, though with the noise above stopped, little choked sobs began again.

“I… I’m not quite sure what to say here… I really don’t know where to begin.” Albaer said, their eyes were full of tears through which they stared at him, so luminous and bright they were that he looked away, unable to bear what he saw in them. “You would think my years of video games and anime would prepare me for this sort of thing… but no. No it definitely did not.” He looked sideways at them with a fragile, shaky smile, though they clearly didn’t understand, if he read their pursed lips and curious eyes right, they returned his smile with ones of their own.

“So… um… I guess… names. Yes, names first. “My name is Albaer, Albaer Babtiste Lamark.”

“Albaer Albaer Babtiste Lamark?” The pair repeated.

He shook his head and his hand back and forth in front of the space between them. “No, no… just Albaer Babtiste Lamark.”

“I-I see.” The angel said, “I am Lialah,” she then put her hand on the demon’s shoulder, “and this is Raziel.”

“Right… so… Lialah, Raziel… no family names?” He asked.

“Camilla.” They said at once, and that at least brought a smile to their faces.

Albaer flopped backwards, catching himself on the carpet when his hands thrust back behind him. “Okay… one of you is adopted I assume…?”

They shook their heads, and Lialah was the one to explain, “The name comes from the training house where we prepared for…”

“For?” Albaer asked, she’d trailed off and looked away, taking some of her long blond hair, she fidgeted with the locks, winding her finger around them over and over again.

Raziel thrust her sharp looking red finger down at the floor between them. “This… which we failed.” She grimaced enough to bare sharp fangs, and then the angry look faded to one of woe again. “We failed…” Her back arched and she looked up to the ceiling, “By the Lord of the Undead… we failed.”

Both of their sets of wings were shaking, and Albaer felt a rush of panic that they would begin that keening wail again.

“Wait! Failed at what?! What were you trying to do exactly, maybe there is some way to fix it!” He urged in a rushed, hoarse voice, going up to his knees and curling his legs under him, in a bold gesture he grabbed both of them at the shoulder.

That brought them around for a moment, and their faces met him again. The demon woman had bright, sparkling ruby eyes, while the eyes of the angel were a brilliant sapphire blue.

“You’re not dead after all, so there’s still something, maybe?” Albaer faltered a little, but flailing for something to say, it was the best he could do.

The pair traded looks, “Do you know ‘Kami’?” Lialah asked in a hopeful voice as smooth as silk.

“Oh boy…” Albaer moaned and ran a hand through his sandy hair.

They cocked their heads at him. “Well?” They asked at once.

Albaer fumbled for words, “Do you have ‘video games’ where you come from?” He asked as delicately as he could.

“We have… games.” Raziel replied, her dark eyebrows furrowed, “But that doesn’t sound like you mean what we do.”

“It’s easier to show you, I think.” Albaer replied and grunted a little when he stood up, he went to the television which had gone into power save mode and swept his hand across the base of the screen to power it back on.

The music picked up again and the pair stared at it in disbelief. “Where are the musicians?” Raziel asked, she pointed up, “It doesn’t sound like it’s coming from up there.” She focused her eyes on the television, “And that is a weird… wait that isn’t a window…” She snapped her mouth shut, but Lialah was already quiet and watching with fascination.

Albaer seated himself in front of the screen and scrolled to the character ‘Kami’. “Is this who you were looking for?” He asked and pointed at the screen.

“Yes!” They exclaimed at once and clapped their hands together.

“Now if we can just get him,” Lialah said with joy, “go ahead, summon him, I don’t know how we ended up here but… maybe if he’s a summoned being instead, well that should still do!”

“Alright, I’ll summon him.” Albaer said, and he felt Raziel staring at the back of his head, she picked up on his tone and that something was amiss in all this even if Lialah had not.

He tapped the green button on his controller and the scene shifted, as did the music. Albaer made the character go into third person and began to move him across the screen.

“That is Kami. He’s just a character in my story, he’s not a summon to the real world… just lines of code expressed as a visual for me to play with. He’s not real… fiction… fantasy.” Albaer said as gently as he could, then set down the controller and turned to face them both again.

Raziel gave a little nod. “That explains it. That’s why we failed… that is why the spell rebounded and brought us here…”

“What?” Lialah asked, scratching her head, she looked over to the demoness beside her.

“You can’t summon fictions, Lialah. You just can’t. If we could do that, we’d solve our problems just by making up heroic stories every year and recycling old plots with new names and descriptions. But we can’t. Even a normal summon might do… But when they’re not real at all?” She shrugged her shoulders, spreading her arms and wings out as she did so.

“There’s nothing there.” Lialah whispered and her bright blue eyes were blurred by tears again. “Then we really did fail.”

Albaer picked up on the meaning behind their exchange, ‘Thank goodness for all the anime isekai shows I watched.’ Albaer thought with a mental sigh of relief to go with it.

“Wait so… if we didn’t actually get the hero we wanted, then we can just go back home again!” Lialah brightened, and then so did Raziel.

The pair stood up and almost synchronized, they interlocked their hands and stretched out, “I hate to be rude and just leave,” Raziel said with a smile, “especially after you’ve been nice to us, but we have work to do.”

Lialah’s wings fluttered a little and she even blushed a faint rose shade on her cheeks. “Right, work, I’m so sorry Albaer, we didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Ah… Okay, this is something I’ll never forget, but always doubt happened… Now, since you’re leaving anyway,” he gave a bold smile to them both, “you’re the prettiest guests I’ve ever had.”

“You are a nice… whatever you are, aren’t you?” Lialah said with a demure little smile in return.

She then tightened her hand in that of the demon.

“Thanks a lot for the explanation, Albaer, and ah… have a nice life.” Raziel said with a fangy smile that felt friendlier than it looked, they then raised their hands overhead and spouted off a series of syllables that Albaer couldn’t follow.

And nothing happened.

The pair looked at him, each other, and with their arms still raised straight overhead, they repeated the syllables.

Again, nothing happened.

Albaer simply watched and waited.

They did it again.

Nothing happened, their arms tensed.

Raziel found Albaer’s eyes, “You… wouldn’t happen to be a supremely powerful sorcerer using barrier or nullification magic right now… would you, Albaer?”

“No.” He said with a decisive shake of his head.

“What about magic items enchanting your home against travel spells?” Lialah asked hopefully.

“If I had that, you probably wouldn’t have gotten in here in the first place.” Albaer replied, and the pair gave quiet nods of agreement at that one.

“Then… why isn’t it working?” Raziel asked him.

“I’m not sure what is supposed to happen right now,” Albaer replied and took a step away from them, “but if I had to guess?”

They let go of one another and bent forward at the waist to look at him more closely with intense, hopeful expressions. Their lips pursed, their eyes brimming with expectation, they addressed him together. “Yes?”

“Then I’d say it’s a lobster trap situation.” Albaer suggested.

“A what now?” Lialah asked. Raziel’s face began to darken at the suggestion of a trap, even one she didn’t recognize, and Albaer held up his hands with palms facing her to settle them down, then backed away another step.

“Lobster, it’s a kind of crustacean, an animal that lives on the bottom of our oceans, traps for them are wire mesh cages, there’s a hole they go through to get at bait placed inside, but once they’re in they just can’t get back out.” Albaer proposed, and Raziel’s darkening face was unchanged.

“Who would do that?” Raziel demanded, her fingers closed into fists, but her hostility at Albaer dissipated with his evident helpfulness.

“Maybe no one.” Albaer said and started to relax. “Look, magic… I guess it is a thing in your world, so you were able to use it to travel, even if you didn’t mean to. That got you here.” He thrust a finger down at his carpeted floor. “But magic does not exist in this world.”

“So that means… we’re stuck?” Lialah gasped and her hand darted up to her mouth.

“Maybe?” Albaer rubbed his chin and thought about it, “Maybe, I mean that was just an analogy, you got to this side and can’t get back, but maybe somebody on the other side could pull you through… how should I know what magic can do?”

“Wait, I want to try something.” Raziel interjected, she held out her hand and concentrated. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to growl like she was pushing some horrible weight.

Then, in her hand, there appeared a simple little black sphere the size of a ping pong ball.

“So, that works.” Raziel said and glanced at her companion. “Try yours.”

Lialah did the same, and after several seconds of concentration a little white sphere appeared in her palm as well.

“Internal magic works fine,” Raziel thought out loud and looked back over to Albaer, “show us yours.”

“I told you, that’s not a thing here.” Albaer crossed his arms, beautiful or not, strange as it was, he felt annoyance building up.

“Don’t be ridiculous, how else could that thing work, pictures don’t move, and-” Raziel snapped her mouth shut when he started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” She demanded with a grimace.

“It’s not ‘real’. It’s not moving by magic, these are just digital renderings, in this world we use science to do things.” Albaer explained.

“Sounds like another word for magic.” Raziel retorted and put her hands on her hips, closing her fingers around the little black ball.

“Magic is just what people call stuff they don’t understand until science figures it out.” Albaer retorted.

“Then use your science to send us home. C-Can you do that?” Lialah asked and folded her hands together as if in prayer. “Please… whatever you are, people are depending on us… if you can, but if you don’t… so many will die…”

The angel was clearly growing agitated, her wings shook, her fingers shook, the hands which clung together moved to cover her mouth, and her sapphire eyes were blinking rapidly as she fought against tears.

“Can you do that?” Raziel pressed, and as naturally as if she’d done it a thousand times, she put an arm around Lialah and pulled her close, and enfolded the angel in her arms.

“I can’t.” Albaer answered, his annoyance fading as their desperation and emotion mounted.

Raziel didn’t look away as Lialah shut her eyes.

“You can’t, or you won’t?” Raziel snapped.

“I-I can’t.” Albaer spread his arms open and shrugged, “First of all, I’m not a scientist, I’m just a student, I haven’t gone to learn any of the sort of science that would be needed to address even the possibility of getting you home. I’m something of a nerd so I know enough to know the existence of other dimensions… where other natural laws exist, is at least considered. But the science to even test that, let alone create a travel path? No, that’s not even on the drawing board… uh, explored, yet.”

“A student?” Raziel asked, she squinted at him.

“Yes, I’m in high school.” Albaer replied, “I still live here with my mother, I don’t have the slightest idea what to do about sending you home.”

“Could you take us to your scientists, maybe? Perhaps they could help us?” Lialah half whimpered it as if it were a plea.

Albaer went to his tan wooden desk, pulled out a chair and sat down heavily causing it to creak under him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Raziel asked, sensing his reticence.

“Because you two don’t exist here.” Albaer replied.

“We’re very real.” Raziel retorted with a little frown made from her dark lips.

“Alright… ah…” Albaer put a hand to his chest, “I’m a human being, we’re the dominant species on this planet, apex predators.”

“Really? Not orcs, or demons or angels or-” Raziel was about to list off too many things for him to go over, so he cut her off.

“None of those are real. This planet has only humans as intelligent civilized creatures. There were others once, but the last evidently intelligent species similar to us died off twelve thousand years ago on their last little home when a volcano erupted. The other species, we drove them all to extinction over the course of thousands and thousands of years. There are no orcs, angels, demons, goblins, trolls, or anything else. Those exist only in our mythologies and fictions.” Albaer explained it as gently as he could and then put his hands in his lap, clasping his fingers into an interlocked position and shifting uncomfortably.

“You don’t exist here… at all. You never did. If I took you to scientists of any sort, you’ll spend your lives being subjected to all kinds of experiments. You’ll both be prisoners, and our governments will exploit you like a resource.”

Raziel hissed like an angry cat. “I’d never allow that to happen to us.”

Albaer shook his head, “We’re not apex predators for nothing, we’re a species built for war and predation… we do a lot of great things… but trust me, you won’t be happy with the outcome if I do what you’re asking me to do.”

“If humans are so bad… Why aren’t you doing what you say will happen to us?” Lialah asked in a quiet little voice.

“Because I don’t like people, so I don’t want to be like people.” He snorted with contempt, “So…”

“So?” Raziel swallowed, “What happens now?”

Albaer put a hand on the desk at which he sat and began to drum his fingers over it, “I have questions about where you’re from… but that can wait, I guess.” He clenched his other hand into a fist.

Unutterable despair began to form on their faces again, and their fear, their sense of isolation was clearly growing by leaps and bounds as their lives hung by a thread and his hands seemed to hold the shears. ‘I can’t just throw them out…’ He realized, and he made a decision.

“My- My mother works very late, and sleeps a lot, she’s away, right now, for awhile. So… I don’t want to send you out into my world, ignorant and alone… that won’t end well for you. I guess… I guess you could stay with me for now at least. Maybe people where you’re from can call you back home, right?”

“Right… th-thank you, Albaer Babtiste Lamark.” Raziel replied.

“Thank you, Albaer Babtiste Lamark.” Lialah added.

“Just… call me Albaer, that’s easier.” He said and stood up.

“Albaer, then.” The pair affirmed.

“Let me get some sleeping bags for you, you won’t have to worry about my mother, she completely respects my privacy and never comes into my room, there’s only one rule in here… other than not bothering the neighbors.” He thrust his hand out pointing to the door behind him. “Out that door is a hall, at the far end is another room. That is my mother’s bedroom, and under no circumstances are you ever to go in there. She needs all the rest she can get, and… I doubt she’d handle you two very well. Myths don’t often spring to life in front of you, okay?” Albaer asked, though he tried to be light hearted, the steel in his voice was uncompromising in the extreme.

The pair nodded. “Of course, we understand.” They said and nodded again for emphasis.

“Good,” he relaxed, “it’ll be getting late soon, so I’ll get you some sleeping bags and extra pillows, you can at least be comfortable.”

“Thank you.” They said again as he showed his back and left the room, they bent forward at the waist, bowing deeply to their unexpecting host and wondering…

‘What do we do now?’