This wasn’t a dream.

Daniel stared ambiently at his decimated salad as the undeniable realization hit him square in the face. Dreams had their telltale signs and oddities, and this was too realistic to possibly be one. Was this the real world? Was it another real world? How did he get here in the first place?

As Mrs. Garcia took his empty plate away, he shook the thoughts away. Keep the act going, for now. Foreigner from another land. Right.

“Thank you,” he said. “The salad was pretty good.”

“Was that the first fight you’ve ever seen?” Carmen asked, adjusting her glasses.

“Uh…” This Carmen looked even better with glasses. Daniel averted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Yes. Yeah, actually. That was crazy! And you’re telling me that’s all real? That’s not a game?”

“Of course not,” Carmen said. “There’s a Fighting Center a block away where you can go watch Fights in person.”

Daniel gasped. “In person?”

He must’ve said the magic word. Carmen’s eyes lit up, and she looked at her mom. “Mom, can I take him to go see?”

Mrs. Garcia knit her eyebrows. “I don’t know…have you—”

“Yes, Mom, I did my homework, I cleaned my room, and I even cleaned the bathroom, too. Can I please?”

Mrs. Garcia sighed, smiling. “At least you’re asking instead of sneaking out. Be back in an hour, okay?”

“Thank you!” She pumped her fist and darted up the stairs.

Daniel chuckled. “She seems a little excited.” The Carmen he knew back home was talkative, sure, but never this enthusiastic about a specific topic.

“A little?” Mrs. Garcia chuckled. “Please watch her, Daniel. She has a tendency to…get herself in trouble.”

Daniel shrugged and gave a salute. “Gotcha, Mrs. Garcia. I’ll be the chief ‘keep out of trouble’-er.

Carmen returned a moment later, descending the stairs with a small white purse bouncing at her side. “What’s your name, again?”

“Daniel Chase.”

Carmen nodded. “Alright, Daniel, I’m Carmen Garcia. Let’s go.” She followed him to the door and waved back to her mom as Daniel held it open. “We’ll be back, Mom!”

“Don’t stay out too late!”

Soon, they were a great distance from the bar, strolling down the sidewalk. The summer night air gave a cool breeze as he followed at a slow pace, staring at the sky and at distant, towering buildings.

Aside from the whole Fighters schtick, it didn’t seem too much different from the real world. Was this the real world, or was his world the real world? How did he even end up here? The distant memory of a crash whispered in his mind. He’d never been in a car crash before, but the last place he was in was on a bus. He chuckled to himself. Preachers would have a field day if they learned you went to another world instead of dying. The humor faded just as fast as it came. Was he thought of as dead back home? What were his parents doing? Did they think he was dead?

How would he get back?

“Hey,” Carmen called out, farther ahead. “Are you coming? You’re walking slow.”

“Sorry!” Daniel jogged to catch up. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he’d started meandering on the sidewalk. “Just thinking about a lot.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“I don’t know how to explain it. You read a lot, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind of books? Fantasy?”

Carmen nodded. “Fantasy and Sci-fi more than anything. I could never get into thriller books — they’re too realistic. Why?”

“Would you believe me if I said I came from another world?”

Carmen gave him a look. Standing a few inches shorter, she glanced at him over the top of her pink glasses. “Are you being serious?”

Daniel chuckled. “Rarely. But this time, yeah.”

“I wouldn’t believe you at all. That’s the kind of thing that only happens in books, or in really generic anime. Aren’t you from Boslovania?”

“No — wait, you heard that?”

“I might’ve been listening from upstairs.”

“Might? Alright,” he snickered. “No, I made that up. I hardly understand it myself, but I’m literally not from this world. I’m from St. Louis, for one, and for two, all this Fighter stuff doesn’t exist in my world. This is all…”

Daniel’s jaw fell as the Fighting Center came into view. Spotlights shot into the sky from a short, reflective building with a giant red fist logo above sliding double doors. Cars streamed in and out of the parking lot, just like the constant traffic in and out of the doors. Some normal pedestrians, some colorful, crazy figures.

“It’s all new?” Carmen grinned. “Come on. It looks even nicer inside.”

Carmen led him to the door, and Daniel’s head stayed on a swivel as they entered. A seven-foot-tall man went in beside them, with what looked to be a gun attached to his right arm, wrapped in cloth. Inside, a chandelier of crystalline fighters duking it out hung above the main lobby, lighting the room in a spectrum of color. The lobby split into two hallways. The abnormal, bizarre figures took the hallway on the right — those must’ve been the Fighters, Daniel guessed.

They followed the normal people to the hallway on the left, eventually arriving in a large room with bleachers on one side and small arenas closed off with glass. Fighters brawled on the insides, some recognizable from on the way in. They took their seats at the top row of the bleachers, sitting with their backs against the wall.

Carmen opened a bag of chips from her purse. “Want some?”

Daniel gasped. “How can I say no to barbeque chips?” he said, accepting a handful. “These are my favorite, you know.”

“Mine too.”

Daniel scanned the glassy arenas, focusing on a man clad in black with a large katana facing the seven-foot gunman he passed at the entrance. The swordsman lunged at the gunman with a slash. He raised his human arm, and a field of blue blocked the slash before the minigun on his other elbow opened fire. The glass muffled the gunshots, but Daniel still jumped. With his cape stained red, the black swordsman fell. A moment later, a blue referee appeared above the bloodied black swordsman, touching his neck. The swordsman rose to his feet as if nothing happened, and shook the gunman’s human hand.

“Did he just get back up after getting shot?” Daniel asked.

Carmen nodded. “The system spawns a ref that always heals the losing fighter after every round.”

“The system?”

Carmen swiped on her wrist, opening a set of white icons no different than the ones Daniel had opened at the bar. “The thing behind these. You’re telling me none of this is familiar to you?”

“I told you,” Daniel said, leaning in to whisper. “I’m literally not from here.”

“There you go again. You expect me to believe that you just suddenly woke up in another world? Are you sure you don’t have amnesia?”

“Yesterday I had a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, and today, I took a nap on the bus to summer school before I woke up in that park.”

“What day was yesterday?”

“Thursday, June 3rd.”

“Shoot.” Carmen ate some more chips, handing Daniel another handful. “How did you even get here?”

“That’s my question! I don’t know.”

“What about your world you apparently came from?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you have family there? How are they gonna feel about you going missing all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about your friends? Won’t they—”

“Carmen, please!” Daniel raised his voice, his throat tightening. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t…I don’t know, alright? I don’t know how I got here, I don’t know why I’m here, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I’m really freaked out, Carmen, and you’re not making it any better.”

Farther down the bleachers, cheers exploded from a large group of spectators.

Carmen put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. Is there any way I can help you right now?”

Daniel held a stare into her brown eyes. This Carmen was a lot nicer than the one back home. He wiped his eyes and nodded. “Distract me. What’s going on here? How are they doing all those cool moves? Why are they fighting?”

“Here is a Fighting Center, where Fighters come to train, matchmake in ranked matches, and where normal people come to become Fighters. We’re watching ranked matches right now, by the way. If the winner’s ranked lower than the loser, they switch rankings, and all Fighters fight to raise their rank. They’re doing all these cool moves by executing different combinations of movements and attacks, which the system responds to by letting them utilize the powers they gained by…”

As Carmen went on and on, Daniel lost track of where his answers were and where more questions sprung up. He put up a hand to stop her. “Please,” he chuckled. “I’m starting to think you know a little bit about Fighters. Can you give me the short version?”

“Sorry, sorry. Fighters fight each other to raise their rank high enough to enter the Ultimate Versus.”

Her words repeated in his mind, soaking into the wrinkles of his brain as he stared out at the different arenas. How they were fighting was clear enough. It was just like the games back home; their physical movements were like special move commands. “Ultimate Versus?” he asked.

Carmen nodded. “It’s the biggest day of the year. The top fifty duke it out in a massive tournament, and the winner’s reward is a fight with the number one ranked Fighter in the world. Whoever wins that becomes the new number 1 and has their ultimate wish granted.”

Daniel knit his eyebrows, glaring at her. “Any wish?”

“Anything! But, the number one hasn’t been beaten in a hundred years, apparently.”

As he nodded slowly, a bad idea formed in his mind. Daniel grinned. “So, any wish.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Even a wish to send someone to another world?”

Carmen pried her eyes away from watching the fights. “Are you insane?”

“It couldn’t be that hard, could it?”

“Yes! Yes, it could!” Carmen said, laughing. “People train and fight their entire lives to get into the Ultimate Versus to make a wish. There are millions of Fighters in the world. You really think you could beat all of them?”

“No! It’s like you said, the winner switches rank with the loser. Just gotta fight the right people.” Daniel leaned back against the wall. “And it’s my only way back. Unless you have a dimensional portal in your back pocket, I don’t have another option.”

Carmen sighed. “I guess, but you’ll have to run off and do that on your own. My parents won’t let me become a Fighter.”

“Why not? Do you have to be a certain age to become one or something?”

“No. The youngest Fighter in the world is some rich four-year-old that speaks eight languages. No, they don’t want me to become one because they think they’re protecting me. God forbid their smart, frail, innocent little angel would rather fight people on the street than study all day.”

Daniel nodded slowly, staring off into the arenas. “I don’t think you’re frail.”

“Really?”

“Not at all. Uh, I mean—” Daniel stammered, drawing off of his knowledge of the Carmen he knew back home, hoping he could hear himself over the blood rushing in his ears. “I don’t know you that well yet, but you seem like you have a tougher edge to you that most people don’t see, you know?”

Carmen snickered, adjusting her glasses. “If only my parents would see me the same way.”

“You sneak out to come here anyway, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well…” Daniel shrugged, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. “If I’m gonna become a Fighter tomorrow, I’ll need a guide,” he said, winking. “What’s the harm in sneaking out tomorrow?”

Carmen’s dreary expression lit up bright enough to rival the stars. The same mischievous grin spread across her face, too, and she rose. “Let’s head home. We don’t want them getting suspicious before our plan even starts."

When they got back home, Carmen’s parents had the guest bedroom set up for Daniel to sleep in that night. They didn’t mind him staying tonight, or tomorrow, or the night after that. It was a decent, simple room, with a bed and a nightstand across the room from the window.

Daniel sat on his bed, back against the wall, staring out at the window across the room. The bed was comfortable, sure, but it felt more like sleeping at a hotel on a trip rather than being his new home for now. Unfortunately, that’s what it was. This wasn’t a trip. However he got here, getting back home wasn’t a car ride away. He’d have to become a Fighter. He had to become number 1, with Carmen’s help.

How were his parents doing without him? He glanced at his watch. It was early in the morning back home and late here when he arrived. If there was a time difference, then it was probably early in the morning there. They’d be getting ready for work and helping him get ready for school, waiting for him to leave before leaving the house themselves.

Unless he was missing, that is. Then they wouldn’t have slept at all, they’d be up all night worried and trying to find him, unaware that he probably wouldn’t come back for a while.

At least, that’s how they would be if he had good parents. They hardly noticed him when he was there. Would they even care if he wasn’t?

Daniel raised his headphones over his ears, shaking away the dark thoughts. Music was all he had left. No communication, no connection, but he still had his saved playlist — his last remnant of home.

All he had to do was become number one. He laid down, and let the familiar tunes guide him to sleep.