Station 23

He fitted the headphones on and pressed play on the walkman. One of the mix-tapes made for him by the man behind the cardboard screen. KLF, 3am Eternal. Walking home, past the baseball diamond, over the tracks. After tonight's session - they had called it right when the gunfight was about to start on the subway. Leave it at a cliffhanger, keep them all excited for the next session.

He might be gone by then. Didn't know how to tell them yet. That he was likely going to be moving. Felt like he had just got here. New Order, Touched By The Hand Of God Remix.
It had been a strange few months. Tonight too, the way playing had started to feel. Like something more was happening than just a game.

Dan unlocked the front door to the small brownstone. Up the stairs quietly, the walls between apartments were thin. His room, number 23 on the door. He remembered the day the landlord first showed him the bachelor apartment and he knew it was where he was going to live.

Clicked off the walkman as he opened the door. Turned on the light and saw someone standing in the room, waiting for him. A Japanese woman in her early 30s. For a second he had the strange thought that she was supposed to be a kid.

"Hey Dan," Suki said. There was a clicking noise.

Dice & Demon

Dan dropped the pencil onto the table and it danced, hit both the positive and negative dice on top of his character sheet. He rubbed his temple due to the sharp pain in his frontal lobe. His eyes opened up and he was sitting at a table with several others.

"Headache?" someone asked.

Dan looked over and saw a fellow sitting there with thick black hair, glasses, and a goatee. And a sense of deja vu hit him; he recognized the face but couldn't put a name to him.

"Uh-huh."

"Did you make it?" another fellow asked. Dan looked over and saw a huge native looking at him over the cardboard screen.

"Wha..what?" Dan repeated.

"Did you make your saving roll?" the fellow asked. "Simon is having a splitting headache and I asked you to roll the dice to see if he could figure it out."

"Simon?" Dan said. "It's... supposed to be Max."

He glanced around at the others at the table. Other than the native and the dark-haired fellow, there was an athlete who was wearing a rugby shirt, a blonde haired girl that was sitting there with a smile on her face wearing a cowboy hat - she seemed to be in her teens, another fellow with dark and curly hair who looked like he could be related to the goatee fellow. And there was a young lad with dirty blonde hair and glasses sitting there looking at him.

"This is wrong," Dan said.