//------------------------------//
// Curiosity Killed the Cat 
// Story: Blind Luck 
// by DarkZonker 
//------------------------------//

        Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! A hand shot out and grazed the top of the alarm clock, just barely catching the snooze button. The hand pulled the covers off a shock of messy blonde hair. The hand threw the covers off of the rest of the body. What it revealed was a pale, lean man in his mid-twenties, clad in only his plaid boxers. He rubbed his eyes, swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He reached out blindly and searched his bedside dresser for the clothes that had been left out for him the previous night. Carefully putting on the clothes, the man groped his bedside for another item. He reached under his bed and pulled out a long white pole. 

        The man put his index finger and thumb into his mouth and blew. Fweeep! “Come Daisy! Come here girl, lets get ready,” he called out.

        A golden retriever ran in with a harness in it’s mouth and brushed up against his leg. The man found the harness and strapped the dog in. Daisy sat patiently as her master tugged and pulled on the straps to completely secure the harness. Once he finished, the man grabbed his long cane and walked out of the bedroom. He walked down the hallway touching the ground in front of him. He reached the kitchen and felt for the landline base. He pressed a button on the side and a robotic female voice rang out, “you have three unread messages.” He pressed the button again.

        “Message one,” a male voice came out, “Hey James, we heard that you had already gathered all the money for the surgery. Why didn’t you tell us? We could have given you the money ourselves! We’re your parents for god’s sake!” The man pressed a different button.

        “Message deleted. Message two,” another man’s voice came out, “Hello Mr. Baker, this is Dr. Smith. I’m just calling to remind you that your appointment today is at one o’clock. Have a nice day,” the man pressed the delete button again.

        “Message deleted. Message three,” this time a cheery female voice rang out, “James! It’s Kendra; i’m coming to pick you up at eleven so that there’s no way we could possibly be late for the appointment! See you soon, love you, bye!” it ended with a click, “you have no new messages,” the voice said one last time.

James walked over to the sink and felt the wall above it. He found the clock and pressed the button on the rim. “Nine thirty nine,” the clock said in a jerky robotic voice. 

James smiled and felt the counter in front of him for any mail. He didn’t find any and walked around the counter to the door. Daisy heard the doorknob click and ran to her master. She positioned the handle of the harness under James’ open hand. James pushed the handle away, “I’m just going down the stairs to the mailbox Daisy. I’ll be fine,” James said reassuringly, but Daisy didn’t feel assured. James heard his dog whimper so he pet her muzzle and closed the door behind him. 

James tapped the pole on the concrete that made up the floor of the level his apartment was on.  He lived on the first floor of his apartment and decided to just walk down the short flight of stairs to the lobby. James felt the pole fall a little too far, and he knew he had found the stairs. Halfway down the stairwell, James felt the stair disappear underneath his pole. Well, you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat. Thank god I’m not a cat, James thought as he approached the emptiness.

James tenderly stepped onto where he knew the stair should be. His foot fell into nothingness, which caused James to become unsteady and fall into a sitting position on the stairs. He suddenly felt a suction on his leg, and James clutched onto the edges of the stairs as he got slowly pulled into the emptiness. “OH GOD! I’M A CAT, I’M A CAT!” James screamed as the lower half of his body fell into the hole.

The suction increased as more and more of James fell into the hole. James reached for the next stair up, but the second he let go with one hand, his other hand slipped off the stair. The rest of James fell into the vacuum. 

James couldn’t feel or hear anything; it was a deafening silence. He flailed his arms and ended up hitting his cane. James quickly grabbed it before it could fly off and stuck it in the crook of his arm. James clapped his hands hard. It didn’t make a noise. This is bad, i’m somewhere that doesn’t have a medium for sound to transfer through. I’m obviously breathing so it’s not a vacuum, but still some kind of vacuum. Is this even real? Am I still dreaming? Am I in some kind of limbo, James contemplated.

James felt something pull him downwards, or at least what he thought was down. As he got closer to whatever was pulling him, James picked up speed. James felt like he was going very fast when he finally felt an actual gravity. His heart leapt into his throat as he sped towards what he hoped was something soft.

Thump! Well look at that, I did land on something soft... ish, James thought joyfully. He felt around what he landed on. There was a coarse fur, feathers, and a spiraling bony protrusion.

“Why hello there, crazy animal thing,” chuckled a crazed James, as the shock of everything that just happened caught up to him. He crawled off the animal and laid down on his back.

“Ouch,” James heard shuffling and wings flapping, “what just hit me?” James heard a female, regal sounding voice.

“Princess Cadence! We heard...” the new, gruff sounding voice trailed off, James figured they were looking at him so he gave a small smile and a quick wave.

“What are you and what did you do to the Princess?” the gruff voice questioned. James felt a sharp point poke him in the center of his chest.
“Hey point whatever that is somewhere else, you’ll poke your eye out kid,” I always wanted to use that line, James thought as he gingerly pushed what he thought was a spear away from his organs.

“Hi, I’m James Baker. Nice to meet you,” James held out his hand for a handshake.