I remember it like it was yesterday. Well, probably because it WAS yesterday. At any rate, I was walking down to the store and decided to cut through the park. The sun was shining, birds were singing...it was just a pretty day and a walk in the park seemed like just the thing. So how was I supposed to know an extra-dimensional portal had magically appeared next to the twisty slide?

SO, after falling down the proverbial rabbit hole, I landed in an undignified heap in the middle of a dirt path. I stood up slowly, my entire body feeling bruised, and looked around as I brushed myself off. "Hello?" I called out, hoping to get someone's attention, maybe a cell phone to call home. But no one answered and it was getting dark. I could smell woodsmoke, so I decided to follow the road and see where it led.

It rambled on through rolling hills for miles, but I eventually came across a group of people having a camp out. Relieved to finally see people again, I ran to the group. "Thank god, people!" I said, trying to catch my breath.

One of the men (they were all men, except for these four guys who were twelve at most) looked at the others and said something I couldn't understand. Another one, a really old guy with horrible fashion sense, chuckled and replied in the same language. I started getting p.issy, 'cause it's rude to talk about someone in a language they don't understand. "Look, I didn't mean to interrupt your little NAMBLA campout or whatever this is, but do any of you have a cell phone? I'm lost."

The first guy stood up and said something to me again, but I still couldn't understand him. "Dude, I have no clue what you're saying." I put my thumb and pinky out in the universal gesture for "phone" and held my hand up to the side of my head. "Phone? You have phone?"

The man shook his head and went to sit back down, but suddenly stiffened and looked into the woods behind us. One of the other guys, this freaking GORGEOUS blond wearing Spock ears, pulled out a bow and had an arrow nocked in one fluid motion. "What the heck's going on here? Are you like in the SCA and WAY too in character or something?"

I never got an answer. Pain blossomed in my back and one of the little kids screeched in horror. Him and one of his buddies tried to drag me off to the side, but I'm not exactly a small girl and they had a struggle of it. But it didn't matter anyway, 'cause I was pretty sure I'd just been shot with the biggest freaking arrow I've ever seen in my life, if the one sticking out of the tree above me was the same as the one in my back. I could hear the sounds of battle and the one little dude that stayed with me patted my cheek and my hand, trying to get me to keep my eyes open. But it didn't matter, that arrow must have hit something vital, 'cause I closed my eyes and everything went black.

So, that's how I got to be where I am right now, dead. Oh sure, they SAY is was a drive-by shooting, since I had a hole all the way through my body. Drive-by, in MY neighborhood? More likely the Pope'll visit my house, really. At any rate, I died in one world but I'm stuck as a ghost in the real one. I figure I'll just hover around the twisty slide, 'cause being dead means I can see that stupid portal now. I'll just scare people away when it decides to get big enough to suck someone else in. No one needs to die like that.