1. Tyler

The red Miata barrels towards me on the sidewalk, sending a trash can spinning through the air like a baton. The car clips me and I hit the concrete, ringing my noggin like a bell. There are voices, shadows, people shouting in my ear. As the tunnel of darkness closes around my vision, I see my arm stretched out onto the pavement in front of me. My hand clutches tightly around something.

What is that?

A wooden figurine, a carving of a bird.

I'm not supposed to be here.

My thoughts are confused. Muddled. It's like I'm a ball of melting taffy being stretched into a long strand by two hands, each belonging to a different when and where.

I'm in Bakerville. I'm a security guard. I have a one-bedroom apartment with a leaky bath faucet and rent I can barely afford. My parents still believe that their twenty-five-year-old gay son is "having a phase." I haven't seen them in years, since I moved out of state. Good riddance.

The wooden bird floats across a black sky full of stars. My head is absolutely pounding.

I'm in Circeana, wrapped in a blue chiton robe and the arms of an alpha phoenix named Kalistratos. I'm an omega—his omega. I'm pregnant, but it's not his. It's not anyone's. We're trying to figure that out.

"This is where I belong," my mind echoes. "With him."

I can feel the press of his warm chest against my cheek, and when I draw in a breath, it's filled with his comforting scent. It's almost enough to make this damn headache go away. But then, he's gone too.

Kalistratos is the dream that's supposed to save me, but now it feels like I'm trapped in a nightmare. Slowly, bits and pieces come back to me in the black of my unconsciousness. His hand reaches out for mine as I'm pulled away and sucked into a tear in space. I know that someone wanted to pull me away from him, but who?

I'm awake. An unfamiliar ceiling comes into focus, and it takes time for me to digest that what I'm staring up at isn't painted mud brick, but the pockmarked fiber of a hospital drop ceiling. The smell isn't incense, fragrant oils, and dry earth; it's the bitter chemical bite of disinfectant and antiseptic cleaner. The rhythmic beep from off to my right is shrill and unnatural. It feels like it's been ages since I've heard anything electronic.

It"s really hard for me to make sense of my thoughts. I once read somewhere that an entire dream happens within a few short moments right as you're waking up. Right now, I can't tell what parts of my memories are real and which are dreams. I'm in a hospital bed. I remember the car.

But Kalistratos…

And…

The monitor beeps faster as I slide my hand over my stomach, and what I feel tows my heart down like an anchor.

Nothing.

The baby bump is not there, and why would it be? I'm not an omega, and I can't get pregnant.

My heart feels like it's shredding itself into pieces, leaving me with nothing but an empty black hole in my chest that will swallow me from the inside out. I squeeze my eyes shut and pull the memories of Kalistratos into focus. I see the bright copper flashes of his eyes, the shape of his grin, and feel the roughness of his calloused palms against my skin. I can hear his voice in my ear like a soft rumble, and his laughter, too.

I hear the door open, and it takes me a stupid amount of effort to tilt my head to look. My room is small. There's a window to my right, but a sheer white curtain is drawn over it, cutting the sunlight to a soft glow. On my left is an empty counter, a space that might normally be filled with flowers, get-well cards, and stuffed animals. A woman about my age wearing a white coat walks up to my bedside.

"Good afternoon, Tyler," she says with a warm smile. "I'm glad to see you're awake. I'm Dr. Luna. You've been unconscious for a little while, so it's understandable if you're feeling a little bit confused. Do you remember what happened?"

Yeah. I remember perfectly. I'd just managed to sling a stone through a soul reaver's face like a gray laser beam, destroying it and saving Kalistratos, when the dark shadow man from my dreams came and pulled me into a fucking portal.

"A Miata decided to give me a little love tap," I mutter.

I want to ask the doctor whether there were any reports of me appearing out of thin air. I want to know what happened to my baby. But I don't want her to think I've suffered brain damage. As clear as my memories are now, there's still that lingering, nagging thought in the back of my head that maybe I am crazy.

"That's one way to put it," she says as she jots something onto the file she has in her hand. "Drunk driver, I'm afraid. The good news is that it was a glancing hit, otherwise you might not be with us."

"Have I been out for a while?"

"Just a few hours. The bad news is that you've broken a couple of ribs, which is why you feel so sore. Fortunately, they're not displaced, so no need for surgery. We'll manage the pain and monitor you to make sure no complications arise, but with some rest, you'll heal up just fine. Looks like you've got a story to tell about dodging cars, eh?" She tucks the clipboard under her arm. "Tyler, is there anyone you'd like us to call? We couldn't find any emergency contact information for you.

Yeah, the Great Phoenix. Someone to transport me back to Kalistratos. Back home.

Doubt I can reach him on a cell phone, though.

"No," I say.

Dr. Luna smiles reassuringly at me. "Well, if you need anything, you just hit that button right there next to your bed, and there's a remote if you'd like to watch TV. Any questions for me?"

I just want to be left alone so I can put this jumble of puzzle pieces that are my memories back into place. This pain in my chest, this crushing feeling of loss, should be evidence enough that Circeana, Kalistratos, and the baby quickly growing in my impossible womb weren't just a delusion that happened in the moments before waking up from bonking my head. My mind is desperately looking for some keystone to keep it from pulling itself apart. Pop, pop. The threads are snapping.

"No," I say, but as she's just about to leave the room, I blurt out, "Uh, when I was brought in, was I…bigger?"

She gives me a puzzled look. "Bigger?"

I place my hand on top of my stomach. Surely, she would've said something if… "By the way, Tyler, you're also a medical mystery. You were the first pregnant man on earth. Unfortunately, we couldn't save the baby…"

"There's some swelling if that's what you mean," she says. "It may get worse, but we'll keep an eye on it. Nothing to be worried about."

"Thank you," I mumble quietly.

She leaves the room, and I hear two nurses outside chatting about their kids' new obsession with Taylor Swift. The door shuts, and it's quiet again except for the beep of the heart monitor and the vague sound of traffic from outside of my window. All of this is real, but so is the place inside of my mind.

Emergency contact. Who can I call?

Jeff?

The name intrudes into my thoughts like an unwanted phone call.

Hell, no.

There was a time not too long ago when Jeff would've been an immediate call. Not anymore.

Anyway, the thought of having someone take me back to my apartment feels like surrender. I'm not willing to let myself accept that this is where I'm supposed to be right now.

Pop, pop. My head fucking hurts.

How can I return to Circeana when I have no idea how I got there in the first place? It wasn't something I made happen. It was like I was plucked randomly from here, like a prize in a damn crane game.

I close my eyes. I've probably prayed twice before in my life, but it's all I can think to do now.

Please, I think. Great Phoenix, if you're real, and if you were the one who brought me to Circeana, then please bring me back. Take me back to him.

Part of me really believes that I'll get an answer, but I only hear silence.

I was brought there for a reason, right? I'm practically shouting my thoughts into the ether. This can't be it. I'm not supposed to be back on Earth, am I? Come on, just open your little portal and transport me back through. Drop me back into that swamp.

I squirm anxiously in the bed. Nothing. Not so much as a peep or a squawk. Goddamn chicken.

"Yeah, that's right," I say aloud. "You damn flaming chicken!"

I feel crazy and terrified, and all alone. I feel gray, like a lifeless shadow. Tears brim my eyes as I turn into the pillow. God, have I really lost him?

Just let me sleep, then, I think. Let me go back in my dreams.

There's a knock on the door and I wince as I jerk upright. The door handle turns, and I fully prepare myself to see another world shimmering on the other side of the doorway—but it's a nurse holding a plastic storage box.

"Hey, Tyler!" he says in a voice a little too peppy for me to handle right now. "My name's Marc, I'm your nurse for today. Glad to see you're awake."

I deflate into the bed with a quiet groan.

"I have your things here," he says. "Everything that was on you in the accident. Bad news, bud." He holds up my cell phone and gives me an apologetic shrug. The front is completely shattered.

"It's alright," I say. "I don't need it."

Marc places the storage box on the empty counter. "Everything should be here. You just let me know if you need anything, alright? Take it easy. We'll have dinner coming to you in a little while."

"Thanks."

He leaves, and I carefully lean over and grab the box. I frown when I see that my clothes are neatly folded inside—the same set of clothes I'd been wearing when I was dropped into the swamp on Circeana. They're completely clean, untouched by the elements. They hadn't been when I'd traded them for the blue chiton robe that Kalistratos had bought for me. How is this possible? I hadn't even been wearing them when I was pulled through the portal. It was like I'd never left. Like everything I imagined never really existed at all.

But wait... The figurine. The little wooden carving of the phoenix, or chicken, or whatever it was. It'd been with me. I'd seen it on the ground.

Where was it?

I pull the clothes out of the box. Beneath them is my small backpack, and I turn it inside out, searching through the empty compartments. My wallet and keys fall onto the floor. The box is empty.

That figurine was there, I know it. I remember seeing it. It had to be.

Or maybe I'm just crazy.

I go through the bag again. I touch the smooth plastic bottom of the box and run my fingers along the creases, as though some invisible magical compartment might open up. I'm frantic. I can't stop myself from throwing the empty box across the room, and I take my clothes and twist them in my hands.

"No, no, no!" I shout. "God dammit, no!"

Tok.

Something falls out from between the folds of my jeans, bounces off the sheets and hits the tile floor. The monitor beeps deafeningly. I sit myself up and lean painfully over the edge of the bed.

Lying there on its side is a little hunk of wood about three inches long. I grip the bed rails and slide from under the sheets. I glimpse my body beneath the hospital gown, bruised and bandaged. It all hurts like hell, but I push through and lower myself to the ground.

I kneel over it and slowly reach for the piece of wood, afraid that the moment my fingers touch it, it'll vanish like a mirage. But it doesn't. Its surface is slightly rough, just like how I remember it. I turn it over. Its face is carved into the shape of a bird. To me, it looks like a phoenix. Kalistratos insisted it's a chicken.

Fresh tears fill my eyes and one splatters onto the figurine, darkening the wood. I squeeze the thing tightly in my hand as the biggest grin stretches across my face.

My garbled brain snaps back into focus.

Circeana is real.

I need to get back to him.