Working for 24 hours + Magic Portal = Bad Idea
by TheTrueInsaneGamerI was just your average lunatic. A man without a plan, guided by my heart. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing. I still don’t, but I’ve managed to survive. I don’t know what would better describe the events of my life, “Fake it ‘til you make it” or “Failing upwards.” Probably both. That said, shall I start from the beginning? My parents met- just kidding. Heh, couldn’t resist, sorry.
Though, starting with my childhood would give a lot of context to my actions, my thought process, or at least how I turned out this way. But, I don’t know if I can. My childhood wasn’t exactly ideal. Just thinking about it is…
…
Yeah, I’m just going to begin with the day everything happened. That should provide enough context as to who I am and why I did what I did. You’ll find those other things out eventually, so it doesn’t matter right now.
It was a lovely, chilly spring day. There was nothing unusual about it. The sun shone above, enough to warm the face but not the ground, where bits of snow lingered from winter. Of course, being born in Wisconsin, this was fine to me. While the weather can get rough where I lived, right on the lake, it’s not unbearable.
I was taking a nap at home as I had just gotten off from a long day at work. Of course, life has a funny way of changing your plans.
I was dozing in and out of sleep when my cell phone began to ring. Looking at the caller, I sighed, seeing it was from work. I swiftly picked up the phone and flipped it open.
“Hello, is something wrong?” I asked.
“O-oh, good!” the person on the other end said. Their voice was female. My thoughts rushed around, trying to pinpoint who it was. I couldn’t recognize them at first, though it was familiar. However, it quickly clicked in my mind who this was: the new assistant manager of the Shipping department.
“Uh, hi, sorry about the sudden call,” she said. Her voice was shaky and fast, seemingly panicked. “I just needed to inform you that Shipment 82-B1-1835… hasn’t even left.”
“Can you give me a bit more detail?”
The woman fell silent for a second before sighing. “Y-yes, um. That’s the shipment to the Children’s Hospital in Chicago. It should have been there four days ago, but processing wasn’t finished and still isn’t.”
I went quiet for a moment, thinking about the situation.
“Um, is everything okay?” she questioned.
A light bulb flickered on in my mind. I knew what needed to be done, “I see. That shipment, I vaguely remember it. Easter shipment, a few hundred stuffed animals. It should only take a handful of car trips. I’ll go over and deliver it personally.”
“I, that’s not- it-it’s like a three-hour drive from here, and… You live two hours away already, right?” she stuttered. “And it’s already getting late.”
“Then it’ll be an all-nighter and will continue on tomorrow. I need you to go to the shipment information and refund the shipping cost,” I replied.
“But, I can’t, I mean,” she rambled. “Wouldn’t we get in trouble?”
I chuckled. “Don’t worry. You know the store policy is to compensate for shipping errors on our end. If I say you can remove the shipment cost, then it’s fine. And it’s the children’s hospital, so making them pay for a delayed shipment feels wrong. We’ll lose some money, but would you make them pay hundreds of dollars for something that’s almost a week late?”
“I-I, I guess not… I,” she replied, but quickly fell silent.
“Then, let’s get it done,” I continued. “I’ll be there in about two hours.”
“Okay,” she whispered meekly before hanging up.
With a sigh and a grunt, I stood up. There was a lot of driving to do.
It took the entire night and much of the next day, but the shipment was delivered bit by bit. It was almost 6 PM when I was finally done, and I still had a five hour drive to get home. I was dead tired, but I felt content. I sat down in a chair in the hospital lobby before pulling out my phone. I had to call Shipment to let them know it was delivered. The manager picked up and was annoyed, to say the least.
“That was hasty, reckless, and thoughtless,” she scolded. “You need to stop doing things like this. Filing the shipping information is way more awkward when I have to write, ‘General Manager shipped it himself,’ Ugh.” Despite her lecture, I could hear the smile in her voice.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You make it sound like a daily occurrence. It’s only happened once or twice before, right?”
“Seven, actually. This makes eight,” she corrected.
“Dang, I was hoping for double digits. Oh well.”
The joke managed to make her chuckle. “Seriously? What are we going to do with you? Well, be careful driving home.”
“Same to you. I mean, once you’re done with your shift.”
The rest of the day went as one would expect. Ninjas, wizards, kaiju battles, and all sorts of insane hijinks. Well, perhaps after I fell asleep. I don’t know much about the nightlife in Manitowoc and Milwuakee. It wasn’t a noteworthy drive, either. The most exciting thing was a gunshot sounding somewhere in the distance. By the time I got home, it was nearing midnight. I was exhausted and looking forward to a nice, long sleep.
Remember how I said life has a funny way of changing your plans? Yeah, that’s what happened here.
A strange, unplaceable noise woke me from my deep sleep. It was like thousands of voices whispering at me, telling me to awaken, but their combined voice was nearly deafening. I looked at my clock, which read “3 AM.” I was wide awake despite having slept so little. I got up, somewhat thankful I had fallen asleep in my clothes, though I felt a little embarrassed for falling asleep in my shoes. Well, one shoe, which is arguably worse.
I ran downstairs to find and put on the other shoe before racing out the door. Once outside, I looked around. My eyes settled on a bright light shining in one of the parks at the end of the street.
Something felt strange about it. I didn’t know why but I felt compelled to move toward it. I shook my head, resisting the bizarre urge. I was about to head back in when the door to my neighbor’s house swung open. His kid walked outside, dressed in his dinosaur pajamas. He barely acknowledged me, simply waving before he walked towards the light.
Confused and intrigued, I began to follow him to the park. “ I can see the headlines, ‘Space aliens capture children at Maydoe Lane park.’ Oh boy, ” I thought.
It wasn’t long before I reached the light. To my surprise, a small group of children were there, staring at this floating, glowing object. It didn’t have a defined shape, but it was close enough to a sphere that my brain accepted that description as not to strain itself. Given this impossible thing of impossible impossibleness was there, and several kids were too, I did what came naturally.
“Stand back, let me handle it,” I told them. Thankfully, they seemed to understand and didn’t argue. This was too freaky for them, so they backed away. It was too freaky even for me . Yet, despite that, I was curious. Naturally, this was a terrible combination, resulting in my equally terrible decision to approach it.
I reached out to touch it, but it suddenly flew forward, enveloping me. I didn’t have time to react. Everything became engulfed in a bright white. But as quickly as it had overwhelmed me, the light faded, leaving me alone in darkness.
Hey there, I’m here to review and give feedback on the first chapter here so far. Since this is so short, I’ll try to be extra thorough for you.
First, let’s get some nitpicks out of the way. In the summary, you’ll want to get rid of one instance of Saturday Morning Cartoon. It’s too long to repeat in the same paragraph the way it is now. And second, you used the wrong “its” in the last sentence of the summary. No apostrophe is the possessive version that you want to use in that sentence.
Anyway, you said that you wanted the focus of the commentary to be on impressions and evaluations of the main character, so I’ll put a section dedicated to that here. The summary alone gives the first impression that he isn’t necessarily going to be immersed in the world he’s become a part of so much as predicting it and trying to play around with it. It sets the tone before the first word that it’s going to be a parody but through the eyes of the main character, who may, due to the meta nature of the premise, become a reader surrogate. I’ll be going into this story from that lens.
The first line about being your “average lunatic” is a little trite. Are they ACTUALLY insane, is this a hyperbole? The rest of the overture talks about someone just trying to figure out life in a mundane way but it doesn’t really suggest being a lunatic, and the extremely casual, meandering prose doesn’t give much to go on beyond the tone of the main perspective. It being meta and conversational, almost second person, makes it surprisingly hard to get into that surrogate position just yet. But maybe the direction of the story is going to be different? That’s my thoughts after just the opening few paragraphs, which can be very important for a story’s first impressions.
In a couple of paragraphs right after, you start with “I was taking a nap” and then “I was dozing in and out.” The sentence structure and subject matter are too similar to be two sequential paragraphs and they seem to mess with the rhythm and pacing of the prose. In general, the first few paragraphs continue to meander, though the initial sentences describing where he lives and the weather do help to set the scene. However, all this talk about the outdoors, and it seems we’re inside, is odd. It gives the false impression that he’s taking a nap outside in a field or something. Instead, maybe you could describe how the light shines through a window, or other things about the weather that would affect you while inside.
The first scene is about a guy going on crazy deliveries that I’m pretty sure break a LOT of work regulations. Or if they don’t, it’s absolutely insane that he’d want to do any of that or go out of his way to deliver something four days late. In terms of impressions about the character, I’d say that he’s got nothing better to do than this delivery job, apparently, to think nothing of it. I guess “lunatic” works, but it’s a very mundane sort and not the first impression you’d expect from opening with that word.
So far, the other personality trait I can get from him is that he’s very muted. He doesn’t react much behind some light snark, does what he thinks should be done, and doesn’t seem to put a lot into his general health if that’s the case. It’d be some warped priorities and might be a character flaw that becomes relevant later?
The second scene at 3 in the morning with the countless voices calling to him, and the many children gathering along with not-a-child him, was strange, though that was clearly intentional. I’m a little skeptical that all the kids would immediately listen to him considering how impulsive kids can be, especially if they were, supposedly, being called similarly. If they weren’t being called, it’s crazy that it’d just be kids coming along to investigate this all at once at 3 in the morning… No, yeah, putting it that way, they definitely also heard it.
Anyway, that’s everything for this short chapter! I think my initial impressions stuck for the rest of it. Our main character is muted in personality and perhaps dutiful to a fault, taking on things he doesn’t necessarily need to nor should, which may be his main flaw and also drive going forward into whatever this adventure entails.
All things considered, for being a PMD fic, it probably should have a bit more in the way of Pokemon in the first chapter, structurally speaking. Though I suppose if that was the case there wouldn’t be as much of a hook of intrigue, maybe? But at the same time, how much of this prologue will actually be relevant going forward? The characters, the former job, and so on, that is. If it’s not relevant, I’d wonder if starting right in the action of whatever is next chapter would be wiser. If it is important, then giving a little more than what’s shown here might help. As of now, it’s a blank check.
So, hoping to see more so those things are answered! And hopefully more can be answered in the first proper chapter, too.
I can tell by just the protag alone, the title of the story, and the title of the chapter that this is MY kind of PMD story. I will love reading through it all. Hope you continue writing it.
being faithful to irl america I see /j
good ol’ orb of isekai