If this leprechaun-looking creep thinks he can fool me, he is probably high on something that I wouldn’t wanna smoke. I am in control here and I am going to show him that by tricking him with my clever trap. I am going to lure him in.

I cross the street, doing my best to act casual. My legs have that giddy feeling, close to panic, that makes you want to run, but I resist the urge. Letting someone follow you is a tricky business.

It's not natural. It goes against all instincts. There is an itch right between my shoulder blades. I keep expecting to hear the clap of a gun and feel a sting.

At the next corner, I hang a left and then flatten myself against the wall and wait for "my friend" to catch up.

He comes stumping around the corner on a bum leg. I grab him by the collar, spin him around, and pin him against the wall. He impacts the bricks with a high-pitched squeal. I knock the fedora off his head and hold up a clenched fist. He's got an unruly mop of short, dishwater-blonde hair and a wide face. One eye is lower than the other. He looks up at me with fear etched on his deformed features.

"Start talking, little man," I tell him.

He holds up hands with stumpy fingers in surrender. "Don't hurt me, Jasper Debolt Reardon."

"How do you know my name?" I ask.

"I know lots of things" he says wheedlingly . "I can help you."

"Yeah?" I don't lower my fist. "How?"

"First you have to help me" he says.

"What? You need something off the top shelf?"

The humor isn't lost on him. He gives an eager, if sheepish little grin. "Meet me tomorrow morning at the corner of Coolaid and Seventh Avenue. Help me, Mr. Reardon, and I'll give you information about the girl."

"You know Sarah?"

He shakes his head. "Not that girl. The other girl. Olivia."

A cold weight settles into the pit of my stomach. Something took my sister from me. Olivia was my whole world. Now she is gone. I have been running down leads ever since. "What do you know about Olivia?" I demand as I brandish my fist under his nose. "What happened to my sister?"

His toe connects just below my kneecap with brutal precision. It's a lot like cracking your shin on the coffee table in the middle of the night on your way to the toilet, only this coffee table is made out of icy razor blades. I hit the sidewalk, holding my throbbing knee and curse. "You sawn off, half sized, little."

But he's already gone. I swear a few more times, rubbing my knee. When I think it will hold my weight, I climb back to my feet and hobble the rest of the way back to home.

A few hours rest on the sofa is all the sleep I get, but it's enough to energize me and relieve some of the aches and pains. Then I am back on the street with the rising sun-the revolver in my pocket-headed toward the corner of Coolaid and Seventh Avenue.

It's not yet eight o'clock and already hot enough to cook an egg on the sidewalk. Stepping outside is like walking into a sauna.

I find the little hunchback on the corner across the street from the Coolaid Elementary School, still wearing his trench coat and fedora. Sweat is running down his deformed face in rivulets and he smells like a locker room.

"Alright," I tell him. "How come we are standing across the street from the school? And what's this got to do with Olivia?"

"One thing at a time." He nods his misshapen head at the elementary school and says, "Watch."

Across the road, kids are milling about on the sidewalk, schoolbooks in hand, talking and laughing with the occasional squeal. Cars stop in front of the steps, let children out, and then rumble off. A young school-teacher rounds the corner, a stack of notebooks clutched to her chest. She's young and pretty in a long tweed skirt, a conservative button-down blouse, and her blonde hair up in a bun. A pair of black-framed glasses slip down her nose, and she pushes them back up.

The midget draws a sharp breath. "There she is."

"She doesn't look particularly villainous," I say. "What's her racket?"

A dopey smile hitches up one side of the little hunchback's crooked mouth. He's up on tippy toes, with his head cranked forward, like he might float up off his feet and across the street to plant a sloppy wet kiss on her cheek.

He gives a long sigh. "She's the reason I get up in the morning."

I feel anger bottling up inside me like steam in a boiler.

I am here to find out what happened to Olivia, and, meanwhile, I have to enroll in the academy to gain a license, and on the verge of becoming homeless due to the lack of any income source.

If the hunchback brought me all the way down here in the withering heat just to show me his crush, I just might wring his neck.

Working hard to control my temper, I tell him, "Listen, I have an academy to enroll, bills to pay and about to be homeless. I don't have time to stand about gawking over school teachers, no matter how good looking they might be. How about you tell me what we are doing here?"

He holds up a hand in a placating gesture. "Patience, Mr. Reardon. Patience. I would not have brought you here unless it was important. Just w-w-wait a moment longer."

The needle on my pressure valve climbs higher, but I resolve to wait.

A bell clamors. I can hear the muffled shriek all the way across the street. The kids, along with the pretty young teacher, all disappear through the double doors on their way to their classrooms. Soon, it's just me and the hunchback on the sidewalk with the occasional car hissing past.

"Well," I say. "Here we are."

He looks first one way and then the other along the empty boulevard and then says, "Okay, follow me."

He leads the way across the street and around the side of the school building, down a flight of steps below street level to a weathered door with a rusted knob. The hunchback nods at the door and says, "Do your thing."

"What thing?" I ask.

He hunches up his shoulders. "What do you usually do when faced with a locked door?"

"Now you want me to commit crimes?" I ask him.

He gives me a flat look. "Would it be the first time you've un-lawfully entered a building, Mr. Reardon?"

It's true. The truth is that I have always known how to pick locks. However, I don't like admitting it so that I can show off "natural" talent in lock picking.

"It'll be the first time I've broken into a school" I tell him.

I take out my billfold for the lock picks and go to work. It's a simple lock, and in a few seconds I hear a satisfying click.

I turn the knob and the door swings inward on hinges that sound like all the damned souls of hell screaming for water.

I follow the hunchback into the cool, darkened school basement and right away my skin starts crawling. A shiver starts at the base of my spine and does the jitterbug up my back to the base of my skull, where it makes my hair stand on end. The hunchback says, "Do you feel it, Mr. Reardon?"

"I feel it." I tell him. "What is it?"

"Evil," he says in a hoarse whisper, "ready to break through into our world. Someone has weakened the barrier between realities."

I poke my head into a boiler room with a large coal furnace that probably keeps the school toasty warm in the winter. The rest of the basement is a long room with a low ceiling and pipes snaking overhead, shelving and wire cages with simple padlocks for school supplies. I see a few Algebra textbooks, but nothing that strikes me as particularly evil.

A few half windows set at street height let in pale bars of illumination. Dust motes dance and swirl in the bright shafts. An occasional pair of legs pass by outside the windows, momentarily blotting out the light. Rotting wooden steps lead to an upstairs door.

At the bottom of the steps is a bright red fire alarm, freshly painted, which says PULL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.

"Are you telling me there are other worlds out there like ours?" I ask.

"Not like ours," he says and then swallows with an audible gulp.

"Then what." I start to ask, but my words falter as a soft sighing, like a gentle breeze rustling dry leaves in the fall, fills the quiet basement. I spin around, trying to take in the whole basement at once.

Nothing looks out of place. The sound is coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"What the hell is that sound?" I ask.

"I told you," the hunchback says, his voice faltering. "Evil." He backs up to a wall. His lopsided eyes roll in their sockets. His lips peel back from crooked teeth in a frightened grin. "But you can stop it, Mr. Reardon. Maybe you are the only one that can stop it."

"Stop what?" I ask. "I don't see anything" And then I see it. The whisper builds to a howling tempest. Textbooks blow open, and papers whip around the room. I back up to the staircase. Right in the center of the basement, a dark void takes shape.

A black rent opens in the fabric of reality. It grows, shrinks, and then grows again, like the natural order is fighting against this unnatural invasion. The basement windows blow out in a shriek of glass. A pipe splits and spits out a jet of water, then a second and a third.

For one horrible second, a yellow tentacle slithers through the rent.

I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. The tentacle wraps around an algebra book and withdraws. The rent starts to shrink and I think the worst is over, but something slips through. The void sucks shut with a gasp. Papers flutter to the ground.

Standing in the absence is a tall dark figure. It looks like the product of a mating of man and reptile with long arms and dark, beady eyes.

It snags a loose textbook page from the air with clawed fingers, examines the writing, and then throws it away with a snarl. I can't be sure, but it sounded like there were words in that snarl. Apparently it's not a fan of algebra either.

The creature looks around the basement, and those black eyes come to rest on me. Its jaw opens to either side and it lets out a low growl.

A basement window violently slides shut on its own and I hear a slam, perhaps of a door from above.

I look for the hunchback, but he's gone. I think this guy's agility stat is loaded.

My first thought is to tell a joke and maybe get a little conversation going. I doubt the humor will translate, but it might lighten my mood. I could go for the fire alarm, but it's across the room and from what I know from National Geographic Magazine, predators can't resist prey on the run and pretty much all large animals are faster than people. And then there's the gun option.

"You look like you could use a drink" I tell him. "Inter-dimensional travel always builds a powerful thirst. First round is on me. I'm guessing they don't use money where you are from."

It cocks its scaly head to one side and says, "Thukquy-R'lyeh."

I feel confident that translates to "No thanks, I'd rather rip your spine out."

[Emergency quest activated] Quest: Defeat the monster Reward (s) : One skill, one item. Penalty: None

Wow. Good timing. However, I don't think I can do it this time. There is no penalty either. That’s a relief, but I can't say that at the moment.

It squats low on powerful legs, spreads long arms, and hisses. Something about its posture tells me it's ready to pounce and its toned leg muscles tell me it is probably very fast.

Should I dive and roll, or should I just gun it down? What if it doesn’t work? No time to think! It's fast. It's almost here. Got to move fast.

I dive to the side, roll, and come up on one knee just as the creature launches itself. It impacts the wooden stairs and smashes them to kindling. It comes up growling, locks eyes on me, and readies for another leap.

I reach into my pocket for the revolver. The hammer snags on the pocket seam. I fight to free it. Panic sets in, but I finally drag the weapon from my pocket, square up the sights on the creature, and pull the trigger.

A deafening clap of thunder reverberates through the basement. It feels a lot like someone crawled inside my skull and kicked both eardrums with steel-toed work boots. The bullet punches a hole in the creature's head just above its left eye, and green ichor leaks out. Instead of falling down dead, the horror from the void spreads its jaws wide, showing me row upon row of razor sharp teeth, and lets out a roar that chills the marrow in my bones.

I square up for another shot, and the thing springs across the floor with wide arms and gaping jaw. Too late, I try to roll out of the way. It impacts me with the force of a runaway freight train and drives me to the ground. The gun slips from my fingers and skitters across the concrete. I feel razor sharp teeth sink into my shoulder.

This thing is heavy and strong. I don't know if I can rip free to get to my gun and in the meantime, I am being eaten! On the other hand, fighting this monster with my bare hands is crazy...

Teeth like white-hot saw blades rip at the skin of my shoulders and back. Clawed fingers tear at my arms and legs. Drops of blood fleck the ground. I can hear the thing growl and gurgle as it mauls my unprotected skin. The pain is maddening. My world narrows to an equation of just two things, the pain and the thing causing the pain.

I'm just an inch away from death, just a breath away. For some reason, I'm slowly losing my spirit today. I am reaching my edge, almost falling to the wings of death.

It looks like death has come to sting me with its poison and agony. Death is surrounding me, singing to me softly as it spreads its shadowy wings around me. The shadow of death is slowly creeping in my mind.

I am just a man, not a superhuman. How can I even win this? Someone save me from the doom.

I have always been selfish. I am not the type of person who sees the world from noble perspective. Want to know why? It’s because this world has always been cruel to me. I was just an orphan kid.

Not a single person was there for me. It was a hard life full of struggle.

I always struggled and reached the points of life where there was nothing but a wall of dead end.

There were times when I wanted to give up. However, I didn’t quit and carried on because I had to protect someone, and I didn’t regret it. Whenever I reached that dead end wall, I just had to break it. It was tough and hurt like hell, but I managed to succeed and carry on with shattered soul.

There was nobody but people who wanted to take advantage of me, people who treated me like a trash. Why would I care about a cruel world like that? What's in it for me? No. I am not a hero.

However, there are people like me who are suffering right now and they need a hero. A hero who is gonna fight for what's right and help them survive. Someone who will be there for them. Someone who will give them hope.

Right now I need a hero like that. Someone who is going to save me. That hero will arrive in just in time and save me from my doom. Please, someone, anyone....

Wait, I know someone who is like that. Someone who meets all the criteria.

That person is a hero and he will save me right in time. I've got a hero. I've got a hero....sleeping inside me! I have to make a stand.

I'm the hero! I will fight for what's right and if this heroism kills me tonight, I will be ready to die. It's because a hero is not afraid to sacrifice his life.

The hero is going to save me in time. I will fight for what's right. I must stand up for myself because if I don't, no one will. I will give everything I have.

No. I reject death. I am not going to die tonight.

Ha!!!

Skill [Low level Grappling] activated Grappling skill [Eye-gauging] is in use.

I twist around on the floor, get one arm around its neck in a headlock, and jam my thumb through the creature's left eye. The black eyeball explodes in a shower of gore.

The creature howls in misery. Before it can recover, I stick my thumb into its other socket. That eye turns to greenish-black mush.

The beast rolls off of me, whimpering and spitting. I scramble across the floor and grab my fallen weapon. With the monster blinded, I walk over and stick the muzzle against its scaly head. Fire licks from the barrel. The bullet punches a hole through the thing's skull. It takes another two rounds before it finally slumps over dead.