FICTION | MASHUP | FANTASY
A Hell of a Hangover
Part 2 of A Hell of a Bedtime Story — Nathan wakes up without shoes but socks that smell like beer. He doesn’t know yet, but it is the start of a hell of a hangover!
Nathan woke up with a drill hammer at work in his head. For a moment, he wondered if he was dead, but he was sure the disgusting taste of stale vomit proved the opposite. His feet were ice-cold, and his face felt numb and sticky. When he lifted his head, it wasn’t only swimming, but something was actually sticking to his face.
“What the heck?” he groaned, slowly rolling onto his back.
He flinched when bright sunlight blinded him. Based on the position of the sun, it was already noon. Nathan recognised he was lying on a grass field in front of a tall building that looked like a library. What happened? Where was he? And was that a Canada Goose flying overhead?
“Sure as f**k, I’m not in Canada.”
A wave of nausea hit him when he tried to sit up. Nathan paused and took a deep breath before he tried again. When he sat up, he realised a piece of paper was sticking to his face. Nathan felt his skin stretch and burn a little.
It read, “Alpha-Teta-Omega Halloween Party!”
Another wave of nausea rushed in with memories of the last night.
His socks soaked with a mix of warm beer, cigarette ash, and his lost dignity, Nathan danced as if there was no tomorrow. Some guy in black robes walked past him, and he got that weird tingling feeling. The guy turns around and asks, “Why don’t you wear shoes?”
Nathan snapped out of the memories and looked at his feet.
“Where the hell are my shoes?!”
Taunting gabble sounded from his right like malign laughter. The goose had landed there and stared at him. He grimaced and bared his teeth, but the avian accuser wasn’t intimidated. As a joke, Nathan pointed his right index finger at the goose and extended his thumb. With a silly, hung-over expression, he pointed his finger gun at the animal.
“Pew! Pew!”
A ray shot from his fingertip, and it seemed the goose disappeared in the rainbow-coloured light for a moment. Then the animal appeared again and exploded in front of him. Nathan’s nausea returned. This time, there was no holding back. He puked for a minute or two while feathers rained down around him.
Nathan stumbled to his feet and looked around. He realised he had nothing on him but his clothes, except shoes, of course, and the look of several bystanders. At least, Nathan vaguely remembered the campus again. He pointed at one of the students staring at him.
“You there!” he yelled with his hung-over voice, “Where’s Alpha-Teta-Omega?!”
The young woman screamed and fled from his outstretched finger. The other bystanders joined her in a most chaotic mass panic. He held his finger gun in front of his face and wriggled his nose.
“Oops… I gotta get moving,” he babbled and looked around, “But where?”
Nathan didn’t have to search long to recognise the trail of rubbish and other leftovers leading from various directions, including his ‘camp site’, somewhere behind the library. Still feeling dizzy from his hangover, he rejoiced when he realised he hadn’t crawled far from the frat house. The building, located just behind the library, and the lawn looked as thoroughly trashed as Nathan felt. He wondered if a place could feel hung-over too. This profound philosophical thought was abruptly interrupted when somebody recognised him.
“It’s Shoe-man!” a drunken voice shouted, “Shoe-man!”
A beardy frat boy in speedos and a basketball jacket staggered out of the house and onto the porch. The guy wore a broken guzzler helmet on one side, likely because he had fallen asleep while still wearing it. The sucking pipes dangled next to his head like an improvised and horrible Twi’lek costume. What costume was that guy even wearing?
“Woo-hoo! Shoe-man! Shoe-man! Woo-hoo!”
Nathan facepalmed. Whatever the embarrassing speedo guzzler was going to reveal, it couldn’t be good.
“Dude! What happened to my shoes?!”
The guy laughed and ran staggeringly toward Nathan.
“You are shoe-man the writer!” he slurred, “You’re the party clo….”
The guy’s words were cut short when he tripped on the short stairs leading from the porch to the lawn and stopped his fall with his face. The remaining can holder broke off his guzzler helmet. Whimpering, the guy rolled on his back and held his nose, repeatedly crying, “Shoe-man!” Nathan walked over and glared at the guy that was at least as miserably hung-over as he was.
“Speedo dude?! What. Happened. To. My. Shoes?!”
“You … you threw them away just after you showed me the tiny stories!”
Nathan stands next to a table with drinks and tries to blend in. He realises he did too good a job at that because his vision is blurred already. But Nathan came with a mission and should see it to the end. He removes his shoes and retrieves the small folded pieces of parchment hidden under the insoles when somebody bumps into him.
“What’s that?” some guy in speedos and a guzzler helmet asks, “Little loooove poems?”
“Drabbles, dude! Little 100-word stories,” Nathan says ironically and frowns, “I’m a writer!”
Speedo guzzler turns around and announces to the room that he is thoroughly drunk and has just met a writer. Nathan pays him no attention because he has recognised a familiar face. It is not somebody in the crowd but looking at him from inside a mirror as if Nathan had another man’s reflection — an older, grey-beared man’s.
“Look at you!” the man says, “You are a loser and a disgrace to the Arcane Order of Wizardry.”
Nathan gnarls angrily and throws his shoes at the mirror. They don’t shatter the glass but fly into the man’s face as if they were thrown through an open window. The grey-bearded man cries in pain, and the mirror returns to normal. His relationship with Master Elmhorn would probably never normalise after this. To make matters worse, the drunken student was watching him. Nathan had broken the Arcane Order of Wizardry’s most sacred rule and assaulted its leader.
“You threw your shoes through the mirror, writer! Haha! Let’s drink!”
Nathan sighs. Maybe one drink to calm his nerves. What could go wrong?
“I’m a wizard!” Nathan shouted triumphantly.
The hung-over student looked up at him, still bleeding from his nose, “You mean writer. W-R-I-T-E-R.”
“Dude, what was in those drinks?”
“I spiced the beer with extra shots. Hehe!”
Nathan rolled his eyes and ignored the guy. His finally returning memories consumed him. He had come here because he felt something big and wrong was going to go off. The frat boys had planned something, and he had heard about a summoning circle. Those parchments, which he couldn’t find now, had been spells he had brought in preparation.
Quickly, he darted into the house and looked at all the rooms that could house a summoning circle. He didn’t have to search very long. When he opened a pair of double doors, he immediately saw a large circle of intricate symbols drawn on the floor. Candles and discarded robes surrounded it. But the towering figure with a prominent bone ridge on its forehead was most striking. It stood in the room’s centre, and the sunlight streaming in from outside seemed to emphasise its sharp claws that nicely fitted with its pointy teeth and horns.
“Qapla!” Nathan said and beat his right fist against his chest.
“What do you want, worm?!”
“I didn’t know Klingons could have horns,” Nathan continued his mockery, “Where did you even land that bird of prey?”
“Eh? Speak clearly,” the demon bellowed, “and quiver before Drath’tar Xozath, worm!”
“Okay, not Paramount but Marvel! Got it, Drax!”
“You speak true, worm! I am paramount among my siblings, and my powers are marvellous.”
“Why don’t you demons ever get a movie reference?”
“Yes, worm! Indeed, I must move on to hunt down my brother and bring him back to our dimension.”
The demon held a mobile phone, its previous owner’s hand still attached, with a picture of last night’s party showing a vampire queen dancing with a skinny kid in black robes. He had curly hair and black-framed glasses. At that moment, Nathan knew why he had had that tingling feeling when he met the guy last night, but by that point, speedo’s spiced drinks had already made him useless.
“Have you seen him?”
“Cool Zelda-frames!”
When Nathan saw Drath’tar Xozath grin triumphantly, he realised he couldn’t hide the truth from this trans-dimensional threat. The demon grinned triumphantly, exposing his dangerously sharp teeth. Sweat built on Nathan’s forehead when he looked for a way out. Then, he realised that Drath’tar Xozath wasn’t only dangerous but also too self-assured of his strength and superiority.
Nathan snapped his fingers, and the candles lit up around the summoning circle. The demon’s eyes widened in surprise and anger when the young wizard recited arcane words in Latin, trapping the monster in the circle. The paramount monster of its clan had foolishly stood in the middle of the circle, believing himself safe among weak mortals.
“How dare you, worm! I shall feast on you!”
The demon was strong and fought Nathan with all it got. But Nathan wasn’t Master Elmhorn’s biggest disappointment because he lacked skill and power. To the old grizzled wizard’s displeasure, he was the most potent student in centuries but lacked discipline and obedience. Even with this terrible hangover, the demon had no chance while trapped within the circle. Within seconds it disappeared in a burst of flames, leaving only two burned footprints on the wooden floor.
“I have to find and warn that guy!”
Exhausted and his hangover worsened from the banishing spell, he tore his hair and found two small pieces of parchment sticking to it. Slowly, he unfolded them. In his hands, he held one spell to sober himself up and one to clean himself up.
“Damn. I actually prepared for this?”
He sighed in relief after the spells had cleaned and refreshed him. Then, he realised sending the demon to the Bermuda Triangle had been a terrible hangover idea.
Previous Part | Table of Contents | Next Part
This is my response to Jonathon Sawyer’s Monday Mash-Up №11.
Scorecard:
- A wizard wakes up from a terrible hangover with no memory of the night before… (2 points)
- A makeshift thrown weapon (Nathan’s shoes) (1 point)
- Somebody says “Pew! Pew!” while using ‘finger guns’ (1 point)
- The Bermuda Triangle (1 point)
- A bird of prey (Nathan jokes the demon arrived with a Klingon battleship) (1 point)
- Something seems to disappear (the goose seems to disappear before it explodes) (2 points)
- Include a flashback (Nathan has two flashbacks) (5 points)
- This tally (1 point)
Total: 14 points
Did you like this story? Why don’t you read my other fictional tales? You can also support me by subscribing to my email list or joining Medium with my referral link. You can also support me on Ko-fi or Patreon.