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The rank stench coming out of a bar covered in sweat, spilled beer, and lost dreams did little to dissuade Amanda as she stepped out of the Uber and began to walk towards her date with destiny.

Destiny was the name of a tall, muscular woman Amanda had matched with on one of the several dating apps she used.  The two had been talking for a couple of weeks, and, thus far, Destiny had passed the ‘will not murder me in all likelihood test’ that Amanda gave every prospective partner before meeting, and this meant that Amanda was more than happy to travel to the wrong side of town, at the wrong hour, to meet the right woman.  Her eyes flicked to the driver, who had a look of concern etched across his face as he pleaded with unspoken words once more for her to reconsider her actions and leave this place once and for all, never to return. Yet Amanda would not be turned away at the finish line.  If Destiny brought her to this crappy bar, then who was Amanda to deny her that?  Besides, she did not tell any of her friends where she was going tonight, so there was little chance that she could be interrupted here of all places.  Besides, Amanda paused the thought as she looked down at [i]the[/i] black dress she was wearing; she was dressed up for a good time.

Amanda turned her head away from the driver, but stopped in her tracks as she finally took in the scenery around her.  The front of the bar was littered with litter, from the broken bottles of beer to the numerous discarded cigarette butts.  Mixed in with the trash were several visible wrappers from fast-food burgers, a random shoe, and several scratch-off lottery tickets that had not hit it big.  Amanda raised an eyebrow.  It wasn’t the worst exterior for a bar that she had seen. Hell, back home, there was a dive bar called The Bar, which had people actively overdosing outside its doors.  In comparison, this was fancy.  Her eyes shifted from the trash and towards the front door.  It was open, and Amanda could see the interior of the door was padded with a black material to dampen the sound, what good it did with the door open however, as Amanda felt each kick of the bass as the electronic club music played from within.  There was a tall, strong-looking bouncer at the front door with his hands together and resting right in front of his hips, with both feet shoulder-length apart.  He wore sunglasses even though it was dark, and the twisted cable of an earpiece snaked down the side of his head.  Amanda walked towards the door with a smile on her face.

Even through the sunglasses and stone-cold facade of a face, Amanda could see the bouncer adopt a look of concern for her, and he reached out with the palm of his hand to block her path.  Yet Amanda could only look on in horror as his hand began to stretch towards her direction.  It grew closer, and closer, and closer still, accelerating each second until she stepped out of the way and watched as it began to stretch into the distance.  Amanda followed it as best she could.  Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see the building, the other people, and even the trash begin to stretch in this fashion.  Each stretching towards a single point, an impossible distance away, and soon everything began to be pulled towards this singularity, including Amanda.  She tried to dig her feet into the ground to stop it, but soon even she was caught, and she felt herself pulled into the unknown.

[hr]

After a second had passed that felt like an eternity, Amanda opened her eyes and her body lurched upwards.  Her breathing was coarse, and it felt like an impossible weight had only just been lifted off her chest.  Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and a trickle of blood flowed from her nose.  Amanda looked down at her hands, which shook with a violent twitch.  She chuckled.  It was no longer being pulled into an impossibly long shape.  It was back to normal.  Even as the others around her began to talk, she could not take her focus off her hands.  That was, until a sharp pain accompanied her breath and she realized that he body may be in a rough state.  

Her trembling hands quickly patted her chest, and she winced in pain as they touched a spot underneath the bottom of her breasts and across her chest.  It felt like someone had kicked or hit her across the room, and she may require a hospital.  How the fuck did she get hurt?   The last thing she remembered was the bouncer reaching to stop her, and the next thing she knew, she was in the middle of a strange place, surrounded by strange people.  Her eyes drifted as she tried to look at who was here, but they could not move past the flattened creature on the floor.  

[color=00FFFF]“What the fuck,”[/color] Amanda paused as she scurried backwards through the pain.  As she did, she became acutely aware of a bag that was suddenly on her hip.  She looked down and saw that the black dress she was in was gone.  Instead, she was in a striped multi-color sweater and beige khaki’s.  She did not know how her clothes had been changed, nor whose bag it was, but she needed something to quiet the growing panic in her mind.  She reached into the bag, fumbled around until she found a figit cube and a deck of cards, and began to play with the cube in one hand while she gripped the deck of cards tightly in the other.  

As the sound of something wet slopping about down the hall hit her ears, Amanda forced herself to her feet and turned her head in horror towards the source.  If there was a dead shark monster here, what was the likelihood that they were about to meet what killed it?  A panic swept through her body.  Her breathing became faster and sharper, even with the pain.  She could hear her heart beating like a drum in her ears.  Her face flashed hot, and a cold sweat began to drip from her forehead.  Her vision got narrow and fuzzy, as every sound became almost overwhelming.  Eventually, this panic exploded outwards.  [color=00FFFF]“Where the fuck are we, what the fuck is going on, and why the fuck is there a dead fish fuck on the ground and why the fuck does it sound like whatever killed it is coming back for more?”[/color]