Chapter 2

'What the hell did I just stumble into? What even is this?' Daniel thought as he backed away from the body. He scrutinized the words that seemingly manifested in his head every time he so much as thought about the tattoo on his arm. 

Flicker Between Worlds 

Legendary 

Space

Timer: 54 Minutes Remaining

Upon the timer reaching zero the wielder of this card will flicker between one of two distinct worlds. Upon which point, the timer will reset and begin to count down once more. 

The wielder of this card can at any point choose to remain between worlds for a limited amount of time.

(The timer will not be reduced while between worlds.) 

'Okay, before I start dissecting whatever any of this means I need to get out of this cave. The odds of this being a hallucination brought on by poisonous gas is not zero. My equipment is far from infallible. Honestly speaking it'd actually be more accurate to call it shoddy.'

Daniel moved to leave, but just before doing so he turned back and quickly rifled through the corpse's pockets, paying no heed to the stench or the feel of the corpse's uncomfortably rotten body. 

But in the end Daniel didn't find any more cards, or the dead man's wallet for that matter. What he did gain, however, was the need to burn his gloves after all this was over. Given just how saturated they were with something wet from the corpse.

So with that quick and uncomfortable task done, Daniel hustled over to his rope still dangling along the wall and climbed his way out from the pit, squeezing right through the fissure with no complications and hastily beginning his crawl out of the cave.

Five or so minutes passed in the relative silence of the tight and compact tunnel. No noise could be heard in the cave except for the sound of Daniel's shuffling and heavy breathing. If an outsider were watching they'd just see Daniel making the same trip he had a dozen or so times before, but internally Daniel was anything but calm. 

The timer the tattoo displayed was continuing to count down, and it was taking a worrying amount of willpower for him to not speed up his little trek to the surface. The more responsible, less suicidal part of Daniel knew he couldn't rush in this portion of the cave. The cave could collapse if he was too rough with it. It wasn't especially likely, but it wouldn't be an impossibility if he rushed down the tunnel like a bat out of hell. So Daniel had the time to think through what exactly the card he'd picked up in that pit was. 

'Am I actually going to be sent to another world in-', Daniel checked his mental image of the tattoos text, '48 minutes?'

Part of him wanted to wright off the whole experience right then and there as cave gas wreaking havoc on his mind, but he couldn't. He had a tattoo etched into his arm as physical evidence that this was real, and if he was going to be launched into another world in less than an hour, he needed to get back home, grab some food, weapons, clothes… and say goodbye to his family. 

'If I don't explain all this to them and just up and disappeared, they'd probably assume that that the inevitable finally happened and I got crushed by forty tons of stone. All because I kept buying wood from the discount bucket at Home Depot to use for structural braces. And as dumb of a death as that would be, I can't let them think that's how I died.'

At that moment Daniel came upon the exit. This particular cave never really widened out and was capped with a small wooden door made from cheap scrap wood that he'd built as a way to keep animals from using the cave as their home. It worked, most of the time at least. Daniel still had vivid memories of the time that a skunk had managed to wedge its way past the door and make it far enough into the tunnel that he'd been been uncomfortably deep when he ran into it.

Not that it mattered now as Daniel threw open the door and scrambled out into the harsh midday sunlight, not even bothering to reset the door. The light hurt his eyes, and only after giving them a moment to adjust did he begin running back in the direction of his house. His family owned a large piece of land with the majority of it being a mixture of forest and farmland. Normally it would be a leisurely forty-minute walk back to his house, but he couldn't afford to go slowly with the timer ticking down.

So Daniel ran down the small trail that he generously called a path, his heart beating through his chest and his breathing quickly becoming heavy. The trip felt both faster and shorter than usual, and by the time he'd broken through the tree line and out onto the road leading to his house the timer only had fifteen minutes left.

Daniel rushed past the fields of crops growing on either side of the road. This time of the year it mainly consisted of a healthy mix of corn, cabbage and tomatoes. Though none of that registered in Daniel's mind as he sprinted past it all and barreled through the front door of the house.

"What the hell, Daniel are you okay?"

Daniel's father had been sitting at the kitchen table eating a light lunch, consisting of a sandwich and some chips when Daniel rushed in. He was a heavy-set man, with a thick dark beard and a balding head. His skin was tanned from the days spent working outdoors and his face was currently fixed into a look of concern as he watched his son enter his house out of breath and with panic in his eyes.

Daniel stared at his father for several moments, both to catch his breath and to figure out how the hell he was going to explain what was happening to him.

"Uh, Dad. I think I've been cursed?" Daniel managed to say in between breaths.

"Son, what are you talking about?" Daniel's father asked him before he turned and shouted down the hall.

"Martha, get in here something got the boy spooked!"

Daniel didn't sit idlily and wait for his mom to make her way into the room. Instead he speedwalked his way into the pantry, which also served as a storage room of sorts for the family.

Daniel picked up a durable black backpack sitting in the corner alongside a dozen other miscellaneous items and began to shove nonperishable food and water bottles into it. By the time he'd managed to get an amount he was satisfied with his mom had finally made her way into the room.

"Daniel, sweety what's wrong?"

Daniel took a very brief moment to organize his thoughts before speaking, but even then he wasn't very confident that organizing his thoughts would help him much.

"Okay, so this is going to sound crazy, but I found a dead body in the cave I've been excavating. You know, the one out near Jefferson's property. Anyways the body had a golden card-thing on the ground next to it, so I picked it up, but when I flipped it over it turned into this tattoo on my arm."

Daniel pulled back the sleeve of his shirt so his parents could see the tattoo.

"It's putting words in my head. It says that in… fourteen minutes I'm going to be sent to another world, and that I can remain between worlds, whatever that means. Look I'm freaking out a bit, and I'd really like some help here."

A moment of silence passed between the three of them, and Martha was the first to break it. She spoke carefully and slowly, as if she was talking to a startled deer, "Honey, are you sure you're feelin-", but was quickly cut off by Daniel's father. 

"You said you had fourteen minutes, right? If you're still here when that timer of yours ends we're going to have a talk, but right now we'll help you prepare. Martha, go get my revolver and the box of bullets from my nightstand."

Martha hesitated for a moment, "Paul, are you sure about this? He may have hit his head while he was down in that cave. He may need to see a doctor."

Paul though had already begun digging through a drawer in the storage room, throwing lighters and miscellaneous items into Daniel's pack. 

"Honey, either something dangerous is really going on, and you'll sorely regret not helping him right now, or he went and got a temporary tattoo to mess with us, and he will very much regret it if that's the case. Either way we'll know when that timer of his reaches zero."

Martha hesitantly looked between her husband and son, before silently coming to a conclusion, "...okay, if that's what you think is best honey." 

Paul stopped digging through the drawers long enough to unloop the knife he wore on his belt and toss it into the bag. Which surprised Daniel to no end. That thing was a family heirloom, and something he'd never seen his father not wearing on his belt. 

"Daniel, go get the hatchet from the garage and grab my whetstones." Paul told Daniel before turning to shout into the kitchen, "Martha, pack the boy some clothes, make sure they're good for the outdoors! Cold weather and warm weather, and a rainproof jacket!" 

Daniel followed his dad's orders and ran through the house and out into the garage, but stopped after he'd picked up the hatchet and whetstone from where they sat on a work bench.

'I'm misusing my time, aren't I. The supplies can wait. I need to try to use the card now, before I actually need to use it. It says that I can go between worlds, and that the timer will stop while I'm inbetween worlds, but how do I even do that?'

Daniel sat down the hatchet and whetstone and tried to focus on the tattoo, and was surprised when he felt a response of sorts from it. It felt odd, strange, like a muscle he'd never used, but responded as easily as any other part of his body would.

Immediately every object surrounding him took on a black chitinous appearance, and dark unpierceable smoke hovered a foot or so off the ground, obscuring it completely. Though none of that captured Daniel's attention in that moment. No, the thing that commanded Daniel's attention above all else was simple.

He couldn't breathe.