Chapter 3

I woke to the muffled thump of someone hammering on the front door.
Peering mole-like out from under the blankets, I tried to keep myself 
awake, and (barely) succeeded, the subconscious note that knocking on 
doors was important, and probably meant some (hopefully interesting) 
mail just about stopping me from collapsing back into a comatose state 
resembling hibernation more than sleep.

Groaning, I slid out of bed, my eyes feeling hot and gritty, grabbing 
for a robe as I staggered upright, heading for the front door. Sure 
enough, there was a small pile of mail inside the doorstep.
I shivered; even with the heating on, it was still freezing. I couldn't 
believe it was late October, it felt more like mid-January, and a cold 
January at that. Maybe the Gulf Stream's on vacation, I thought muzzily.

Bracing myself, I unlocked the front door, slipped it open, and grabbed 
the thick envelope on the mat before slamming it shut before more that a 
little of the sub-arctic air outside could get to me. Even so, and 
despite my tiredness, it was easily enough to wake me up completely.

Grabbing the rest of the letters, I moved on to more important, nay, 
vital matters, like morning coffee. Heading for the kitchen, I quickly 
sorted the letters...Bill, bill, junk, junk.. Ordinary letters into the 
basket, junk into the bin, bills into the `pending - too difficult' 
tray.

Left was the packet I'd picked up on the doorstep. As I waited for the 
coffee to brew, I examined it curiously. A padded envelope, about a foot 
square, addressed to me. No details, no return address, indecypherable 
postmark. I couldn't recognise the stamps, either, they seemed to be 
Scandinavian, but I couldn't see any customs sticker, and the packet had 
obviously not been opened.

Shrugging, I put it aside for a bit while I put on shirt and jeans, and 
got my coffee. Finally wandering back into the lounge, I found to my 
surprise that I was holding the envelope in my hand again, slowly 
turning it over and looking at it.

That was odd, I couldn't remember picking it up.

Shrugging mentally, I finally got around to opening it. Carefully 
peeling back the wrapping, I discovered the packet contained a disk of 
some sort. More curious now, I opened the inner box, and slid a polished 
disk about 8" across into my hand.

I looked at the disk with some puzzlement.

While it looked like a fairly standard LD, faint rainbow hues from the 
light reflecting off its silver surface, I couldn't make any sense out 
of the writing on the label. Frankly, inscription would be more accurate 
than writing, it reminded me of script, but I couldn't quite place it. 
It wasn't greek... it was angular? Maybe runes, or one of those old 
middle eastern languages? It didn't look like Hebrew, but I knew there 
were a lot of others I wasn't familiar with at all.
I couldn't think of anyone who'd send me an LD from there. Very odd.
Rubbing my eyes, which were watering a little as I tried to make some 
sense out of the inscription, I considered aspirin. Must be lack of 
sleep, I thought.

Well, the simplest thing would be to play it, see what was on it. I 
carefully looked at it - no cracks, not warped. OK, it can't do any harm 
to the player. At the time, I never gave any thought to what harm it 
might do to ME!
I gave the packaging and disk envelope a final close check. Nothing. And 
the postmark was completely illegible, as usual...

I shrugged, and replenished my coffee, then set the cup down and popped 
open the LD player, carefully placed the LD in the centre holder, then 
did my usual game of find-where-you-left-the-right-remote-control-unit-
THIS-time. As usual, I could find all of them but the one I wanted, 
which finally turned up tucked into the side of the couch, no doubt 
where it had crawled to keep warm at night, its avoidance of me of 
course purely coincidental.

Sighing, I settled down and pressed the play button. Looking back, I now 
realise that this wasn't the best thing I could have done, but at the 
time it seemed like a good idea...
With a faint whirring noise, the player speeded up, and after a few 
seconds an image appeared on the screen. Some sort of video company 
logo, I assumed, I certainly didn't recognise it. All the accompanying 
text was in the same strange script I had been unable to recognise 
earlier.
As the introduction faded, the picture changed into what seemed to be 
some sort of very weird special effects, audiovisual images that changed 
colour & appearance with bewildering speed and subtlety, the soundtrack 
odd, seeming to almost appear and then fade out when you weren't paying 
attention. The visuals were really odd, strange flickering colours that 
seemed to remind me somehow of flickering flames. I shivered suddenly, 
involuntarily, as something about those flames seemed - scary. Silly, I 
know, but...

I frowned, trying to make sense out of this, beginning to get a bit 
concerned. The effects were starting to make me feel a bit queasy, and 
the colour effects were getting more vibrant, an effect that seemed to 
be generating the equivalent of an unscratchable itch behind my 
eyeballs. I gulped, and tried to look away - and found I couldn't!

Now getting worried, I shut my eyes - or tried to. It felt like my 
eyelids were nailed up, even by squeezing hard I just couldn't shut 
them, despite the slowly increasing pain of my drying eyeballs. This was 
definitely NOT funny anymore.

The colour and sound shimmered, getting more and more obtrusive, and if 
I couldn't have sworn it wasn't possible on a TV set, pushed outward 
into a 3-D effect of swirling polychromatic turbulence as they pressed 
almost physically against me.

I half moaned in frustration, and to be honest some fear, and my hand 
scrabbled against the table as I tried to reach for the remote control. 
If I couldn't stop looking, maybe I could turn it off.
The images expanded wider and wider, filling my field of vision, the 
sounds loud, insistent, making it difficult to think, as I started to 
feel as if I were, impossibly, falling forward and upward into the 
turbulence, even though I wasn't moving an inch.

My hand finally touched the remote, and with a gasp of relief, I gripped 
it hard - only to find my fingers move past, not through, the unit! I 
think it was about then I started to panic seriously, but not for long, 
as the colours filled my vision, spiralling and swirling as I felt 
myself both sitting still and being pulled up into the pattern with 
increasing speed, as I tasted the red-orange flicker of the flames, and 
felt the scratching touch of the soundtrack against my skin, the images 
slowly turning to small pinpoints of coruscating brilliance, as I lost 
consciousness...

I have no idea how long I remained unconscious. I suppose if I'd been 
expecting something like this, I'd have checked my watch first - but 
who'd have expected something like THAT! That sort of thing doesn't 
happen in real life...so I'd thought.

I looked up. The colours edging my field of vision died away, my sight 
clearing with a burst of polychromatic static. 
Above me, I could see a pale blue expanse. I didn't do anything, I just 
looked at it. I guess I was still shocked by what had happened to me, a 
not-unsurprising reaction. The surface I was lying on seemed hard and 
cold, but it was nice just to lie there and look up, doing nothing, 
feeling almost entranced by the clear blue translucence of the sky.

My reverie was interrupted by a dark blur moving across my vision. I 
frowned slightly, and after a few seconds tried to focus on it. Finally, 
I mustered the energy to manage what seemed an unconscionably difficult 
feat of optical control.

Then I blinked. Hard. It didn't make any difference, so I blinked again, 
just to make sure. Nope, still no change.
I was staring up at a girls - no, a woman's face.
I recognised her.
Dark tanned skin. 
Check.
Long, platinum blonde hair. 
Check.
Incredibly beautiful, not to mention sexy. 
Check.
Small markings on cheeks and forehead. 
Check
It's Urd.
Oh shit...

At this point, I decided to do the only sensible thing under the 
circumstances.
I fainted.

Fortunately (?) I didn't remain unconscious for long.
I opened my eyes to the sound of a rather heated argument.
Urd was shouting and gesturing wildly at another girl, this one young, 
dressed in red and white with long ebony hair and similar facial 
markings.
Skuld too? I thought to myself.
This was crazy. Or I was crazy. Whatever.
In my current state, I hardly worried about whether they were real or 
not. I suppose I was still in shock.

The argument seemed to be getting more than a little heated, with the 
two girls almost standing on top of me as they yelled insults at each 
other in Japanese. For once, I was rather glad I didn't understand much 
Japanese... Interesting view from down here, though. Urd is definitely 
the sole supporter of two dependents...uhh, better not follow THAT 
thought through.

Still ignoring me, the argument got louder and more violent. Urd's hands 
started to move in some strange gestures, and Skuld  (from where, I 
couldn't see) had aquired one of those hi-tech grenade-bombs of hers. I 
decided I didn't really want to be this close to the approaching 
conclusion, I somehow suspected they'd both fire first, and worry about 
innocent bystanders (and presumably by-layers) later.
I essayed a soft interjection.
"Ano...?"
Nothing.

"Sumimasen..."
Still nothing.

This time I yelled. Loudly.
"HEY!!!"

This subtle approach seemed to work. Now they were both looking down at 
me. That was the good news.
The bad news was that they were still both looking extremely annoyed, 
and now this seemed to be aimed at me.

I smiled weakly in what I hoped would be taken as a friendly, innocent 
and harmless fashion.

Looking between the two goddesses, I decided that now was the time to 
essay some statements to demonstrate my wit, intelligence, and 
requirement to be assisted.

"Uhh...where am I?"

( to be continued)