I’d say that I opened my eyes, and all I saw around me was a bright white light, not unlike stepping from a dark room into a snowy morning. Yet, I was mostly sure that my eyes were already opened, but I was just not remembering anything before the white light. Before me stood a great mahogany door like I’d expect to see on a huge mansion. This door, however, had no mansion or even a frame; it was just a door, a huge ten-foot-tall door with nothing holding it up.

There was a latch on the door that was all bronze with a well-worn handle in the shape of a dragon of some kind. When I reached for the door latch, I noticed that the door was hand-carved with a single giant tree. The tree looked real, except it was a carving and only the deep dark shade of mahogany. The carving itself caused me to pause and ponder its intricacies.

A voice filled with disinterest and boredom cut through my inspection of the door. “Are you coming in today or staying out there for another?”

I fully realized that my hand was on a door latch, but I’d not opened it with how engrossed I was with the door and its ever-changing yet unchanging self. I depressed the top latch and pulled open the door, almost being caught back up in the carving, and just managed to get a reply out. “Err, thank you! I’m coming in,” I spoke as I slipped through the door.

My world had been all white, then it was all the door, and yet as I stepped in through the door, I was now in a study that would put to shame most if not all that I’d ever seen. I stood dazed yet again with my hand still on the door as I took in what was in front of me. It was both large and cramped at the same time. The mahogany of the door continued into the room. The desk, which was in the center of the room, and the floor to ceiling shelves were all the same rich deep red-brown mahogany. The floor, while covered with a huge oriental rug and pelts from large animals, of the like I had no knowledge, had places in which the same wood peaked through. On the back wall was a fireplace that was edged with a polished white stone that looked like marble.

There behind a desk no smaller than the door was, filled with stacks of papers and books, was the most outlandish man I’d ever seen. He appeared to be in his mid to late sixties with white hair and a wrinkled face and a hawk beak nose. Each eye was a different color, his right was blue like the sky, and his left was brownish-orange and glowing. He had a well-groomed, large handlebar mustache which went out to a fine point around four inches to each side of his mouth. While nothing about his face except his mustache was something he could’ve changed, it was his clothing that was most strikingly odd and completely inside this man’s power.

He wore what I’d expect to have seen at a renfaire. He had a black and gold brocade shirt with a red velvet drape over his shoulders. Around his neck were half a dozen necklaces with large amulets and devices and a black bow tie. On his fingers were rings of every shape and size, all gaudier than the next, some of which had faint glows. To top this off, he had a big floppy blue hat on with an oversized feather sticking out one side.

“Are you going to close the door like polite company or stand there letting flies in?” that same bored voice from before asked.

I stammered out my reply while I closed the door, “Sorry, your study just caught me by surprise.”

“I don’t know why it should. Have you never seen a study before?” He asked with disdain.

“I hav…,” I started to say that I had, but I couldn’t remember truly seeing one before I knew what everything was, but a memory of seeing something seemed not to be in my head. I had knowledge of what one was, but how my knowledge was there wasn’t there. “I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember seeing one; I can’t remember anything.”

“Good, good, then all is as it should be. Have a seat and we will get started and then we will be done.” He rattled out while pointing to a high-backed green leather chair that I somehow had missed.

When I sat down, he started speaking through his nose again, “name.”

I went to open my mouth to give my name. But my mouth started to just move like a fish. I tried my hardest but I couldn’t remember my name. I knew I had one I just couldn’t find it.

I replied as almost a question, “I don’t know.”

“What name do you want, we already established that you don’t remember anything but I need a name to fill this form out and get you processed.” He bit back at me.

I looked around the room and then, with great confusion, replied, “I don’t know my name so I don’t know what name to give. Do you have any suggestions?”

“You can give yourself any name that you want now. I could put in Firedancer, Cwqzkcks, or my favorite someone from your realm gave me one asdfjkl; whatever name you want we can put in.” The oddly angry man replied.

“I honestly don’t have any idea what to give as a name.”

“Fine I can just put in a placeholder we will come back to it. What race?”

“White, I mean Caucasian,” I replied with more certainty this time.

“Not what color of your skin you dim wit, what race, species what are you!” He roared in a nasally voice. “Souls from your realm are getting dumber and dumber yet somehow you still got here.”

“Human, just look at me what else could I be?”

“Drakon, elf of any type, dwarf, gnome, giant, lekaht, monitard, fairy, human, wild human. You name it and we have to make it happen.”

“So I’m not a human?”

“Strictly speaking right now you’re an idiot but I still have to give you options so please try to keep up.”