[center][h1][b][color=00a99d]Boris[/color][/b][/h1][/center]
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	It happened again.

Sleep Shifting wasn’t something that Boris enjoyed, and it certainly wasn’t something he had any control over. It just happened now and then; waking in a place that he hadn’t gone to sleep in. There was one instance when he woke in the strange forest of a land he’d never heard of before, at another time he woke on the sidewalk of a street in an unfamiliar town, and on another occasion he woke in a strange bed beside two newlyweds trying to make babies. In fact, there had been so many strange places Boris had woken in over the years, he was having a hard time keeping track of them all. Yet, of all those places he’d found himself in, none of them were quite so bizarre as the place he woke up in today; far above the Bay of Keol, in the large wicker basket of a hot air balloon.  

It was the screaming that actually woke him, the shrieking of a young girl clinging to her daddy in terror at the sight of the large man who appeared on the floor at her feet. The girl’s mother soon follows suit, screaming like a tortured hyena while using her handbag to beat Boris repeatedly over the head as he fumbles to his feet. By the time Boris finds his footing and realizes, to his own dismay, that he is floating in a basket a few hundred feet above the water, the woman’s husband is also bellowing in terror, and no less following his wife’s example as he too starts assaulting Boris with a frenzy of punches. 

Several seconds later, the passengers aboard a large boat on rout to Trios would have likely heard the approaching screams of a man and a woman as they fell from the giant red balloon in the sky and splashed into the water nearby. 

After tossing her parents out in a panic of both self-preservation and confusion, Boris turns to the little girl, staring down at her with bulging eyes of instant remorse for what he’d just done. The girl stops screaming when she sees Boris throw them out, her terror now turned to deep, silent, traumatized shock as she cowers into the far corner of the basket, trembling in mortal fear. 

“I sure didn’t mean to scare you, little miss.” Boris tells her with a genuine apologetic tone; “But those people were being mean to Boris. I sure don’t like people hitting me like they were, gosh.” At this point Boris had come to terms with the fact that the two people he’d just ditched into the bay were actually the girls parents, and that acknowledgement just made him feel even worse, so he just had to ask the question: “Would you like me throw you out as well, so you can be with your mommy and daddy?” 

There really aren’t any words to describe the look on the girls face as she forces her eyes to meet with his and shakes her head, no. 

“Well I sure am glad about that, little miss.” He tells her, “I don’t really want to throw you over.” He then removes his backpack, opens it, and starts groping around in search for something inside, saying; “Would you like to suck on some candy instead? I’ve got some [i]very[/i] tasty candy if you want some. I don’t mind at all.” He produces a tin from his pack and gives it a shake. The sound of hard candy can be heard rattling inside. He smiles, opens the lid and squats down low, extending his reach to offer her some. “Sometimes, when I’m sad like you, candy makes Boris feel better.” 

Meanwhile, the winds over Keol Bay pick up, pushing the hot air balloon fast across the sky towards Trios.