Madog face-palmed as he turned away from the circuit breaker he’d just finished working on, “And here I was hoping I’d finish before you got home.”

  A short man posed near the door leading from the dirty one-car garage into the small home attached to it, “And miss the opportunity,” he reached out towards Madog and looked at him with a feigned expression of hurt, “to thank my savior Mad Dog?”

  The man had a narrow face that was at the same time hard to read and too easy to read. Large, brown eyes dominated his face, and a mop of dark, well kept curly hair sat above. He had olive skin that was well tanned thanks to many hours spent outdoors. He was short, but in good shape.

  Madog groaned, “It’s Madog.”

  Madog had increasingly come close to changing his name ever since becoming acquainted with the other man.

  The man ignored him and put a hand on his shoulder, “Come! Now that the magic lighting my stage has been restored, I will put on a show as thanks!”

  Madog shook his head, and thought of the makeshift stage the man had built in the field behind the ranch house, “Are you going to make your mom pay again?”

  He turned to look outside at the Texas countryside that stretched as far as he could see. He had moved out here hoping to get away from this type of person and thought back country Texas would be the perfect pce.

  He then gave the man a sideways gnce and sighed. He had the worst luck as the man standing beside him was the worst he had ever had the displeasure of meeting.

  The man raised his hands dramatically, “Conrad Forest promises to repay his debt to the Mad Dog!”

  Madog raised an eyebrow, “You said that st time, too, but your mom paid for it, anyway.”

  Conrad’s posture shrank a little, “Well now... I reckon I'll tread a bit lighter this time.”

  Madog nodded, slightly amused at Conrad’s change to his Texan accent, though he fully expected to get another call sooner than ter, “Just, please stop plugging in so many lights at the same time, okay? Also, unless you want to burn the house down, stop trying to jam up the circuit breaker. Not sure how it didn’t with how many burned out wires I had to repce.”

  Conrad looked at the circuit breaker, and for once showed him a genuine show of guilt, “I hear ya, that ain't gonna happen again, y'know?.”

  Madog leaned over and picked up his bag of tools and work supplies, “Well, I better get over to the Stevens’ pce. Roy needs some help with the wiring to his well pump.”

  Conrad returned to his normal, well, normal for him state, and patted Madog jovially on the shoulder, “I hope we dost meet again soon!” He gnced at the circuit breaker, before turning back to Madog, “For pleasure! Not work! I dost promise to show thee the fruits of my bors!”

  Madog cringed, but just when he was going to reply, there was a bright fsh of light.

  Both men jumped and turned to the circuit breaker, sure it had just exploded.

  Conrad seemed relieved, “It wasn’t me…”

  There was another fsh, though this time Madog noticed it was directly between him and Conrad.

  Conrad didn’t notice, but before Madog could react, a rge void opened, engulfing them both.

  The scenery changed immediately. One moment Madog was standing in Conrad’s mom’s garage, and now they were…

  The room, wherever it was, was a mess and it looked like a bomb had gone off.

  Madog heard a crunch and the sound of breaking rock.

  He turned to see a hole leading into a room just below him, and Conrad ying on the floor.

  But before he could call out, the floor he stood on buckled as the broken stone surrounding the hole broke apart.

  Madog jumped away from the growing hole and scrambled over some ruined wood boxes that were more splinters than box.

  When he felt safe, he called down to Conrad, “Hey! You okay?”

  Conrad groaned, “I reckon I done messed up my leg...”

  Madog looked around at what he guessed was a storeroom to see if there was a safe way to get to Conrad. He found a door behind him and just to his left.

  He called back, “I’ll be down in a second!”

  Conrad groaned again, “Hurry on up! I’m bleedin’ too! I fell on a whole mess of stuff!”

  Madog took one look around the room and paused, horrified. There were body parts and other gore spttered across the room. Whatever had happened here, someone hadn’t survived.

  He shook his head as he suppressed the urge to vomit. There was nothing he could do to help the poor soul scattered across the room.

  The room wasn’t rge, and he hadn’t been far from the door, so it only took him a moment to cover the distance to the door.

  Madog noticed movement in the hallway and skidded to a stop, “I found someone!”

  Conrad’s pained reply nearly wanted to make Madog chuckle, “Y'all got any painkillers?”

  But there was no way Madog could ugh after taking the man ying on the floor’s condition, “Hey! Are you okay?”

  Madog rushed to the young man ying in the hallway in a growing pool of blood.

  The young man, probably in his mid teens, held a ring and a book up to Madog.

  Madog nearly wretched at the sight of the teen. His left eye was a bloody mess, and the rest of his face and body had fared little better, as it looked like he had taken a bst from a grenade that had left countless shrapnel wounds across his body. Strangely, it appeared his lips had grown together.

  The young man tried to say something, and proffered the objects again.

  Madog hesitated before deciding to take the objects. Who was he to refuse the dying wish of the teen in front of him?

  No sooner had he taken the objects, than a wave rushed over him and he felt as if his very soul had undergone a change somehow.

  The boy smiled, and his hand fell to the floor. He was still alive, but probably not for long.

  Madog closed his eyes, and said a silent prayer for the boy, before pcing the objects in his work bag, “Thanks, whoever you are.”

  Madog heard more breaking rock that reminded him he needed to go help Conrad, and turned away from the dying man, but first he needed to reorient himself.

  It appeared he was in a tower of some sort judging from the set of stairs that continued both up and down in a spiral and, after a quick look out of the window on the wall opposite of the door, he appeared to be two or three stories above the ground, with a vast forest that stretched as far as he could see beyond a small clearing around the tower.

  Madog raced down the stairs and soon found himself outside the door to the room Conrad had fallen into and opened the door.

  Conrad was now sitting and held his leg delicately, his face contorted in pain, “Madog! Y'all gotta tell me ya got some painkillers in that there bag, right?”

  Madog shook his head, “Nope, just my tools, ptop, my gun, and some stuff I need for…”

  Madog realized that he probably wouldn’t be helping Roy fix his well for a while. They definitely weren’t in rural Texas anymore. Well, unless a massive forest had suddenly sprouted from nothing.

  Conrad hissed in pain as he tried to move and looked at his leg, “Ya know CPR, partner?”

  Madog cringed, “Uh… You don’t use CPR for broken bones.”

  He looked around the room for something he could use.

  The room was the same size as the storage room, perhaps twenty feet across. The room's furnishings were light, containing a simple wood post bed on the far side under a window, a wood table and stool to the left, and a stand with several tunics that appeared to be straight out of a historical drama.

  Madog nodded at the stand. It had a nice pole just the right size for a walking stick. He gnced at the chair and thought the legs would make for a splint. He could also use the tunics for bandages…

  There was a loud crack, and Madog and Conrad both looked up to see a rge crack spreading on the ceiling above them and, more armingly, the wall. Apparently, the explosion had done just enough damage to the tower to make it unstable.

  Madog rushed to the rack, “We need to get out of here.”

  Conrad still looked confused, “What in tarnation, where we at? What’s the ruckus?”

  Madog shook his head, “Don’t know, but if that crack keeps getting bigger, this pce is going to come down on us.”

  Conrad looked at the crack, still looking not too concerned, “My mama’s pce got cracks every which way, but it's still doin' just fine.”

  Madog exhaled sharply. Of all the people to get spirited away with.

  He pulled the tunics off the rack and reflexively put them in his bag before wresting the pole from the stand.

  He then turned to Conrad and offered the pole to the man, “Here.” He then offered him his shoulder, “Let’s get out of here.”

  There was another, louder crack of stone as the crack widened, revealing the night sky outside and dropping a chunk from the ruined ceiling.

  Conrad stopped protesting, “Yup… let’s git along.”

  Conrad took Madog’s shoulder, and the two men slowly made their way out of the tower.

  Mercifully, they only had one more floor before they reached ground level and soon were out in the small clearing that surrounded the tower.

  Madog set Conrad down on a rock in what looked like a military test range filled with craters and broken rocks, and turned back to the tower, “I think that was the kitchen on the first floor.” He gnced at the thick forest surrounding them, “I’m gonna see if they have any food or water.”

  There was another rge crack, and the tower looked like it could colpse at any second.

  Madog swallowed hard, but neither of them had any food on them and he didn’t want to risk starving, so he rushed inside.

  ***

  As the tower finally colpsed on itself, a small dove with oily bck eyes watched as a man rushed out, arms filled with hard bread.

  It observed them as they coughed from the dust kicked up by the tower’s colpse. Listened to them as they bickered. Watched while the tall one tended to the injured one. Watched them as they slept. Watched as they tried and failed to find anything useful from the debris. Followed them as they followed the path leading away from the tower.

  The dove tittered in excitement before its eyes returned to normal, before flying off in search of food.