by Jennifer Torres
“Fuck.” The whisper escaped her.
Phoebe Briarwick had always thought that if she ever made a terrible decision at work, it would involve yelling at a customer, giving a very public two-minute notice, or finally telling the district manager exactly what he could do with his labor budget.
Instead, it involved her assistant manager’s nails dragging slowly down her back.
“Oh, that’s not fair,” Phoebe breathed.
Mara laughed against her neck. Not loudly. They were in the storage room, after all, and the walls were thin enough that Phoebe had once heard an entire argument about expired yogurt from three aisles away.
“Fair?” Mara murmured. “You pulled me in here.”
“I said we needed to check the overstock.”
“We are.”
Phoebe made the mistake of looking at her. Mara’s hair was coming loose from its bun, her cheeks were flushed, and she had that awful, smug little smile that made Phoebe forget she had ever been a functional adult.
“You’re very bad at your job,” Phoebe whispered.
Mara leaned in, teeth grazing the side of Phoebe’s throat. “You keep saying that like you want me to stop.”
Phoebe’s hand tightened on the metal shelf behind her. A box of instant mashed potatoes wobbled dangerously over her shoulder.
“I have a conference call in twelve minutes.”
“Then we should be efficient.”
“I don’t think that means what you think that means.”
Mara bit her.
Not hard enough to hurt. Just hard enough to make Phoebe’s knees forget their responsibilities.
The sound Phoebe made was embarrassing. Worse, it was honest.
Mara’s smile softened. Her fingers slid beneath the hem of Phoebe’s shirt, warm against her spine, nails tracing the sensitive line between her shoulder blades.
“There she is,” Mara whispered. “You are so easy to find when you stop hiding.”
Phoebe wanted to make a joke. She had three ready. Something about workplace conduct. Something about OSHA. Something about how there were probably security cameras and she was too tired to become a training video.
None of them made it out.
Because Mara kissed her again, and Phoebe’s brain, traitorous little thing that it was, decided that cleverness had never done anything useful for anyone.
For a few seconds, there was only the storage room.
The metal shelf cold against her back. Mara’s hand warm beneath her shirt. The faint chemical smell of floor cleaner and cardboard and overripe bananas. The low, steady hum of the walk-in cooler vibrating through the wall beside them.
Then Mara’s radio crackled.
“Manager to register three.”
Mara froze against her.
Phoebe opened one eye. “That’s you.”
“I heard.”
“I'd be a bad manager if I let you ignore that.”
Mara sighed like the entire world had personally wronged her, then rested her forehead against Phoebe’s shoulder.
“I hate customers.”
“You work in retail.”
“I'm a complex creature.”
Phoebe laughed, breathless and shaky, which was annoying because she was trying very hard to seem unaffected. She failed at that often around Mara. It was one of the many reasons this was a terrible idea, right up there with “corporate policy,” “cameras,” and “they had both agreed this could not become a thing.”
Mara drew back just enough to look at her.
Her lipstick was slightly smudged. Phoebe tried not to be proud of that.
“You good?” Mara asked.
There it was. The shift. The teasing dropped away for half a second, leaving something gentler underneath.
Phoebe swallowed.
“Yeah,” she said, a little too quickly. “I’m good.”
Mara’s eyebrow rose.
“I am,” Phoebe insisted.
“Mm-hm.”
“I’m extremely good.”
“Clearly.”
Phoebe pushed lightly at Mara’s shoulder, mostly because she needed something to do with her hands that wasn’t pulling her back in. “Go save register three before Mrs. Hampton starts explaining coupons to a teenager.”
Mara groaned. “Cruel.”
“Efficient!”
Mara smiled at that, quick and wicked. Then she leaned in, close enough that Phoebe forgot what efficiency was actually supposed to mean.
“One minute,” Mara whispered. “Cooler. Get the oat milk case before I come back.”
Phoebe blinked. “That sounded suspiciously like an order.”
“It was.”
The warmth that moved through Phoebe at that was deeply unfair.
Mara noticed, because of course she did.
Her smile sharpened.
“There she is again.”
“Go,” Phoebe said, but there wasn’t much force behind it.
Mara went, leaving Phoebe alone in the storage room with her shirt half-untucked, her back tingling, and a bite blooming hot against the side of her neck.
For a moment, she just stood there.
Then she covered her face with both hands.
“Get it together,” she muttered.
The walk-in cooler hummed beside her.
Right. Oat milk.
Normal task. Normal job. Normal life.
Phoebe straightened her shirt, smoothed her hair, and grabbed the cooler handle without looking. The metal was colder than usual, cold enough that it bit into her palm.
She pulled, the door opened, and cold air rushed over her.
Not refrigerated air.
Night air.
Phoebe stepped through before her brain caught up with her body.
Her sneaker came down in wet grass.
She stopped.
The cooler door clicked shut behind her.
For a second, she did not move.
There were no shelves. No stacked crates. No buzzing fluorescent light. No pallet jack wedged badly in the corner because Trevor from produce never put anything back where it belonged.
There was only a field under a black sky full of unfamiliar stars.
Phoebe turned slowly.
Behind her stood no door.
No grocery store. No brick wall. No dented metal handle.
Just a dark line of trees, shifting in the wind.
“…Mara?”
The word vanished into open air.
Something howled in the distance.
Phoebe’s hand flew to the bite mark on her neck.
"What the fuck was that!?"
Phoebe stood with one hand still lifted to her throat, fingers pressed against the warm sting Mara had left there, and stared at the place where the cooler door should have been.
The air felt different here, denser and rich with the scent of earth and something sweeter she couldn’t quite place. Phoebe squinted ahead, where the forest loomed like a fortress, its trees stretching shadows into the moonlight. A luminous green moon hung impossibly large in the sky, casting an eerie glow over the clearing.
Phoebe hesitated, a silly reaction considering ominous dark forests that appear out of nowhere generally aren't seen as "inviting". Still, something inside her, however small and foolish, had her wanting to investigate.
"Hoooowwwwlllll!!!"
Phoebe leapt back from the trees as guttural, bestial howling pierced the dense woods. She quickly spun around, opting for the more open, and slightly better lit grasslands behind her.
"O-okay Phoebe, calm down, we've had this dream before, we can manage this… It's simple, really, Maybe Mara made me orgasm so hard it sent me into another world? Yeah, obviously! And if I just wait here, I'll wake up and-"
Phoebe stumbled back, her shaky breaths melding with the scream of another howl, closer now, the sounds of snapping branches and rustling leaves uncomfortably close. Her heart was racing. She laughed, a short, high thing without humor.
"Definitely dreaming…" she murmured.
One half-step back and her foot met something solid. A rock. She toppled, landing hard on her elbow, pain sharp and real. Too real.
“Shit!” She gasped, fingers curling into the damp grass, her pulse quickening at the certainty that this was, in fact, not a dream.
Somewhere behind, the underbrush parted.
Phoebe lurched upright, instinct overriding the pain of her bruised limb. She ran without direction, the cool air cutting her face, tall grass whipping at her ankles.
She didn’t know what pursued her, or even if she was being pursued at all. Her lungs burned, muscles strained, but fear drove her faster, until at last she she felt safe enough to slow and catch her breath. She bent forward, resting her hands on her knees as she gasped for air.
As her pulse began to steady, Phoebe dared a glance back, her mind a frantic puzzle of questions and images, looking for any kind of orientation under the green moon’s surreal glow.
"Okay, let's work through this… I was in the storage room at work. Mara chomped me," Phoebe felt at her neck again, a brief surge of pleasure running down her spine, "and then I had to grab something from the cooler. I miss Mara… I opened the cooler door, walked through and…"
Phoebe let that thought linger, there really wasn't any reasonable explanation she could come up with.
"Survival first, then we'll figure it out. What did he always say?"
She thought back to one of her favorite characters from one of her favorite sci-fi audio dramas.
"Start by taking inventory. So, let's see…"
Phoebe felt around her body. Her pockets were all empty, and a now useless walkie-talkie hung off her belt. To that end, she was at least wearing comfortable jeans and shoes.
"In most of the fantasy books I read, the protagonist is transported to a dangerous world without any shoes, so, at least I don't have to worry about that. Ugh, I couldn't imagine… No phone though, and I doubt the radio's going to help at all." She looked up at the alien sky "Belt, plain t-shirt, didn't even bother putting on makeup this morning."
She reached into her apron pocket, pulling out her favorite purple Sharpie pen. "Oh good, at least I have you! Suppose I don't need to worry about anyone stealing you anymore… what's this?" Reaching back into her pocket she felt something she wasn't expecting. Smooth, cool, broad, like a playing card.
"Hm? Shit, did I bring Magic cards to work again on accident?"
It was definitely some kind of game card, but not one she'd recognized. It looked familiar, in the sense that there was a card name at the top, an image of what looked like… muscles? And some illegible text in a box beneath the art, not text, so much as some kind of intricate runes.
Even in the darkness, she could somehow clearly read the card name.
[Lesser Stamina]
"What's this? It looks… so cool!" Phoebe focused on the card, trying to make sense of it while the gamer in her got excited at seeing something like this, momentarily forgetting the incredible situation she'd only just found herself in. As her grip tightened on the card, the runes in the text box started to glow. Her eyes narrowed, and then, poof!
"Woah!"
The card shattered into multicolored sparks that fell gently around her hand. Then, warmth filled her body, starting in her ankles, up to her calves, her thighs, and through her entire torso. Her breathing became steady, easy even, and she suddenly felt like she'd just woken up from the most rejuvenating nap ever.
"The card's gone! The card's gone, and now I'm not even a little tired… I did just run for gods know how long, didn't I?" She looked behind her, searching for the tree line. "Lesser stamina, huh…"
Another distant howl snapped her back to the situation at hand.
She spent the next minute fidgeting with the purple Sharpie pen in her apron pocket before taking a deep breath and looking around in earnest. She'd have to figure out the whole magic not-Magic card thing later.
"Okay so, I'm almost positive I ran in a straight line from those trees, putting them in… that direction?" Phoebe pointed in the direction she came from, realizing she had no idea what direction that actually was. The grasslands had completely opened up, and in the darkness there were no notable landmarks.
"What's that? A light? No…"
Far in the distance, Phoebe could just barely make out a glint of light from a cluster of shadows. Not like a lamp or a fire, but a reflection as if something would move in the wind and catch the moonlight just right. She looked around, weighing her options.
"I guess I can't just stand here all night, alone, in another world… where there are definitely wolves…"
Phoebe's legs started moving.
Not quickly, at first. The howling had faded behind her, and now that she had something like a destination, panic subsided just enough to let her think. She twiddled her Sharpie between her fingers, finding some comfort in the familiarity.
"Stepped into the cooler, cooler was Narnia, we never really liked Narnia… feels like Narnia should have more snow. Probably not Narnia, plus I doubt I'm their demographic, haha." Phoebe scoffed a little as her hand returned to the bite Mara left on her neck.
"Besides, if the cooler was a portal we'd have lost a lot more of our clerks by now, and I'm sure I'd have heard Mara or Trevor screaming behind me. Guess I'm just lucky?"
She picked up her pace, noting how light and energized her body felt now.
"And that card! What the hell was that? I know I didn't have it on me back at the store, and I haven't run into anyone here who could have slipped it into my pocket. Sure wish I had a few of those for work. Focus Phoebs! Okay, no point wasting time on the how or why of it all. The insane reality is that I've been, what, magically transported to another world? Sure, fine, we've watched anime before, we know how this works."
Walked Through a Grocery Store Cooler and Got Transported to Another Dimension with My Sharpie
She chuckled at her own stupid joke, then jumped at the sudden chill on her neck, then her arms.
"Rain? Fuck! When did the clouds start… there aren't any clouds. Why the fuck is there rain and no rain clouds? Why the fuck am I arguing with myself over fantasy weather conditions!"
Thunder cracked in the distance. Phoebe broke out into a run.
As the rain started to pick up from a light drizzle to a steady shower, the far off shadows started coming into focus.
"That's a house! The light must have been the moonlight reflecting off the windows whenever the wind blew those tarps out of the way. I really hope whoever lives here is friendly…"
She didn't have time to weigh her options. The rain was now pouring down, soaking her to the bone. The situation became clearer as she got closer, finding some refuge from the rain beneath a wooden awning in front of the…
"There's no door. Wait, there it is." Phoebe looked down at the floor, a broken wooden door lay useless off its hinges. "Sure, okay, I guess I don't have to worry about anyone else living here… hopefully…”
Phoebe stepped inside, groaning as she lifted the detached wooden door and leaned it against the empty frame before looking around. The room was larger than expected with a long wooden table in the center of it, some chairs in various degrees of disrepair, and a dark brick fireplace on the back wall preceded by a sturdy stone hearth.
“That fireplace is beautiful. Is this some kind of inn? Maybe a B&B? Seems a little small for that.”
Off to the right, an archway opened up to a wide hallway-style kitchen, counters covered in various pots, pans, and utensils. A wooden stove acted as the kitchen’s centerpiece, while a small stack of firewood and what looked like a couple sacks of flour sat on the wall opposite it.
“The kitchen’s nice, maybe this was some kind of bed and breakfast? Oh, another door!”
Thunder rang again, closer this time as the sound of heavy rain echoed through the building. Phoebe cautiously opened the door at the other end of the kitchen, revealing a small room with a single window on the wall opposite the door. In the corner was a badly damaged dresser, missing drawers and with large cracks running along its sides. Across the room was a pile of rough blankets and more flour sacks.
“A bed? Oh gods I hope no one’s in there…”
Slowly, Phoebe moved through the dark room lit only by vaguely green tinted moonlight. She anxiously pulled back the top blanket to reveal bare floor.
“Oh thank fuck. I could not handle a…”
Her knees softened.
“…handle…”
The rest of the thought slipped away.
Phoebe dropped onto the flour sacks, dragged the rough blanket over herself, and curled up with one hand still wrapped around the purple Sharpie in her apron pocket.
The room smelled like dust, rain, and old wood.
It was cold. It was filthy. The door was broken, the bed was covered in dust, and she had absolutely no idea what world she was in.
But there was a roof over her head, and for now, that was enough.
[Property Acquired: Hearthseed Farmstead!]
Phoebe opened her eyes, just a little, ignoring the voice in her head, and drifted back to sleep.