Jason sighed as he stared at the bakery counter, his hands covered in flour and his mind a thousand miles away. It was late into the afternoon, and the warm smell of freshly baked bread and pastries filled the air that Jason barely noticed anymore. He had been working here for just two weeks, yet it already felt like an eternity.
"Jason, can you grab the sugar for the mixer?" shouted Rachel, the head baker, her voice cutting through the steady hum of machinery in the back.
"Got it!" Jason called back, his tone more enthusiastic than he felt.
He walked over to the supply shelf, scanning the labels hastily. His mind drifted to a million other things on his mind, as usual, thinking about his life recently and all the misfortune that had come his way.
"Sugar, sugar... there it is," he muttered to himself, grabbing a large bag with a white label. Without a second thought, he hauled it over to the industrial mixer, dumped it in, and started the machine.
He leaned against the counter, watching the dough spin lazily. For a moment, he let himself imagine what life would be like if he could finally stick with something... literally anything... long enough to make it work.
"Jason, are you done with that batch yet?" Rachel's voice interrupted his daydream.
"Yeah, it's almost ready," he replied, stepping aside so she could inspect his work.
The moment Rachel leaned in, her face twisted into a look of pure horror. "Jason..." she said slowly, her voice tight with disbelief, "What did you just put in here?"
"Uh... sugar?" Jason said, confused.
"That's salt, Jason. Salt!" she snapped, pointing at the now-empty bag sitting on the counter.
Jason froze, his stomach sinking. He turned to look at the bag he had grabbed, realizing with dread that she was right. The large, bold letters on the label read SALT in bright blue ink.
Rachel let out an exasperated sigh, running a hand through her hair. "This was supposed to be the whole batch for our big order tomorrow and now it's all ruined. That's so many ingredients and two hours of work down the drain because you couldn't bother to double-check!"
"I'm sorry, I... I wasn't paying attention," Jason stammered.
"That much is obvious." Rachel's tone was sharp, and her words hit like a slap. "Jason, this isn't working out. You've made too many mistakes already, and I can't keep fixing them. Pack up your things."
Jason opened his mouth to argue but stopped himself. What could he even say? He had messed up. Again.
As he walked out of the bakery with his few belongings stuffed into a tote bag, the chill of failure clung to him like a wet blanket. He trudged back to his run-down trailer home on the edge of town, each step heavier than the last.
The trailer creaked under his weight as he stepped inside, the smell of mildew greeting him like an unwelcome friend. He tossed his bag onto the sagging couch and sat down with a groan, staring at the ceiling.
"This sucks," he muttered to himself, running a hand through his messy brown hair. "Why can't I just get one thing right?"
Struggling through his years in school after his parent's sudden and mysterious disappearance, Jason believed that his life would finally be able to take a turn for the better, now that he could get a full-time job and earn enough money to finally be able to live a decent life; however, that wasn't the case as Jason continued to lose one job after another, making stupid mistakes and messing things up as if he was cursed. The last couple of months especially had been very rough for Jason.
Jason pushed his bedroom door open, flopping onto his bed without bothering to take off his shoes.
"I don't even care anymore," he mumbled into the pillow. The weight of another failure pressed down on him, pulling him deeper into his own exhaustion and It didn't take long before Jason dozed off to sleep.
*******************
When Jason opened his eyes, he wasn't in his bedroom anymore.
He now stood in the middle of a dark forest, but it wasn't like any forest he'd ever seen. The ground beneath him was soft and damp, covered in moss that glowed faintly in shades of green and blue. Above him, the sky was a mirror image of the ground, with trees growing upside-down, completely defying the laws of nature.
"What the hell..." Jason whispered, his breath fogging in the cool air.
Eerie sounds filled the forest, rustling leaves, distant whispers, and strange clicks that sent shivers down his spine. He turned around in a slow circle, trying to make sense of the bizarre landscape.
"This has got to be a dream," he said, his voice trembling. "Yeah, a really weird, messed-up dream."
Jason tried pinching himself to try and wake up this weird dream but nothing seemed to work.
After building some courage, he began to walk to try and find a way out of there but the forest seemed to shift around him. Trees stretched taller, their trunks twisting like living things, while others shrank down to shrubs in the blink of an eye. The colors of the moss flickered like faulty neon lights.
"Okay, this is seriously freaking me out," Jason muttered, quickening his pace.
Up ahead, a soft light cracked through a pair of trees. Desperate for an escape, he broke into a sprint, crashing through the undergrowth and reaching out towards the light until he emerged into a clearing. He quickly skidded to a stop at the edge of a cliff, his breath catching in his throat.
Below him stretched a vast battlefield, littered with the bodies of weird monstrous creatures that looked like something straight out of a videogame. Some had grotesque, scaly skin; others were covered in fur or strange metallic plating. Blood of various colors stained the ground, and the air was thick with the metallic tang of death.
However, the one thing that all of them had in common was their general appearance. Unlike regular living creatures with round and complex shapes, these creatures all had bodies that were made up of block-like shapes similar to the character models in old video games that couldn't render complex shapes.
Jason tried to turn away and look for another way to escape but as he did, he found himself face-to-face with the entrance of a massive cave.
"What the—where did that come from?" he said, stumbling back.
The cave exuded a menacing aura, its dark mouth seeming to pulse with a life of its own. Jason's instincts screamed at him to run, but he was now trapped with the cliff at his back and the cave blocking his escape.
He had nowhere to run!
A low hum filled the air, growing louder until it became a roar. Jason froze as a massive red dragon emerged from the cave. Seeing it up close, Jason could clearly see that the dragon was something straight out of an old video game. It had a straight and rectangular body covered in angular scales that gleamed like metal with its glowing yellow eyes locking onto Jason. Its nostrils flared, releasing thick fumes of smoke.
"Nope. Nope, nope, nope," Jason said, slowly backing away until he reached the edge of the cliff.
The dragon growled, its voice deep and mechanical, like the corrupted sound effects of an old arcade game. It began to slowly come closer, its massive sharp claws dragging the dirt on the ground as it floated towards him.
Jason's heart pounded as he raised his hands in a futile attempt to protect himself. "Hey! Let's, uh, not do this, okay? I'm just passing through!"
The dragon didn't respond. It lowered its head, opening its mechanical jaws wide. Jason barely had time to scream before everything went black.
********************
Jason jolted awake, gasping for air. His heart hammered in his chest, and sweat dripped down his face. He sat up, clutching the edge of his bed.
"What... what the hell was that?" he whispered, running a hand over his damp forehead.
It took him a few minutes to calm down. He was indeed inside a dream... no, a nightmare; however, the nightmare had felt so real... too real. The image of the dragon's glowing eyes was burned into his mind.
Shaking his head, Jason got up and shuffled into the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face, trying to shake the lingering unease.
As he reached for a towel, his eyes fell on something strange sitting on the sink. It was a small red metal case, its edges having a continuous flame design with a blank center.
Jason frowned, picking it up. "What's this? I don't remember putting this here."
The case felt heavier than it looked with a slit on one end and inside were a couple of blank cards. Each card; however, was made of a unique material that made it very sturdy and durable to the touch.
Jason was honestly very impressed with the quality of the blank cards but was now more intrigued and curious than ever as he definitely didn't own anything like this so how did it just appear on his sink?
However, before he could find the answers to his questions, the deck suddenly began to glow with a soft red light that quickly covered the whole room accompanied by a sharp, ringing noise that pierced his ears causing him to drop the deck on the ground.
He cried out, clutching his head as the sound grew louder and louder. The deck glowed brighter, filling the room with a crimson light.
When the ringing finally stopped, Jason collapsed on the ground, panting. His vision was blurry with tears that had begun to pool in his eyes from the intense pain of the notice piercing his eardrums.
The deck's glow slowly began to fade leaving Jason at a loss for words. He couldn't understand what had just happened and was now afraid to even touch the deck that he dropped on the ground.
He stared at the deck for a couple of minutes, hoping for something to happen again but nothing did. Eventually, Jason built up the courage to pick up the deck once again so that he could analyze it more clearly, still a bit afraid of it starting to glow and release that noise again but thankfully this time nothing happened.
Jason was very confused as to how could this deck that looked to be just made out of metal glow and release such a terrifying and painful sound. He slowly picked himself back up off the ground while analyzing the deck in his hand when all of a sudden he looked up at the mirror and froze.
Staring back at him from the other side of the mirror was the dragon from his nightmare, its glowing yellow eyes filled with the same terrifying intensity.