Breakfast was cold and mostly devoured by the time Ty made his way down the stairs. The flash of the lizard being and the view of an entirely different planet had been so startling that Ty was in pure emotional and mental shock. He sat down in a near daze, not quite sure what he was doing.
"Are you on drugs, Ty?" June said sharply. "You look high. I bet he's on drugs!"
"No, no, ma'am." Ty said at a near whisper. "I just don't feel well."
"Probably the computer." Mark said accusingly, pointing with soggy eggs on a fork. "Need to get outside more. No more computer from now on."
"Yes, sir." Ty nodded.
A silence fell over the table, like it usually did, and Ty caught the acidic glare of small youthened Dustin, boiling with rage at Ty. Through trembling bites of his food, Ty stared back. He wanted to undo it all. He wanted life to go back to normal. He...
"We'll be away for the weekend." June said. "We're going to mom's farm."
"Ty, I expect the yard to be cleaned up." Mark ordered. "Dustin, you can help him. Maybe build up some muscles."
At this, Dustin visibly bristled with rage, well aware of how big and strong his body normally was.
Breakfast ended and Mark and June prepared to leave on their road trip. This left Ty and Dustin alone together in the kitchen as they cleaned up.
"I know what you did to me." Dustin finally whispered. "Nobody else believes me, but I fucking know, Ty."
"I know you know." Ty whispered back, blushing red. "It was an accident. I can change you back. Wait until they leave and I'll make everything right."
"I don't know how, but you better." Dustin spat, tossing a plate to Ty and laughing as he fumbled with it.
"All right!" Mark said finally, announcing their departure as he wheeled a suitcase towards the door. "We'll be back Sunday evening. It wouldn't hurt if the house was cleaned up as well."
June nodded as she stood by Mark's side, and without affection the two adults departed towards their Lincoln. Once they were safely out of view, Ty breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Dustin.
Except he was suddenly standing in a pitch blackness devoid of anything at all. Gasping, he wheeled around and saw a blank dark void of total nothingness. Though somehow he could clearly see himself, there was nothing anywhere. It was especially traumatizing when a seven foot two inch tall reptile woman blinked into existance five feet in front of him.
"HOLY FUCK!" Ty screamed, falling back on his rear and throwing into full blown 'nope!' as he desperately clawed backward into the non-existant ground.
"Really?" The lizard put a clawed hand on her hip and her tail fell flat behind her. She cocked her head to the side and sighed heavily, the slits of her nose twitching at the end of a long leathery snout.
Panting in sheer terror, Ty watched with round terrified eyes as the reptile offered her hand. Staring in utter astonishment, fear, disbelief, and a number of other emotions and mental states, Ty took her hand in bewilderment and rose, gripping a cool scaly palm and five powerful digits capped with hard dark claws.
Ty simply stared. Thank God she was wearing a jumpsuit of sorts. He probably couldn't have coped with her being naked.
"I suppose..." The lizardess began calmly, with a hint of playful sarcasm in her voice. "I could have warned you. I did say things were going to get weirder, didn't I?"
"This... this is weird." Ty said, panting in a near full freak out.
"Yeah." The lizard nodded, releasing Ty's hand. The reptile looked around in the total but somehow illuminated darkness and shrugged slightly. "I haven't done this for a long time."
"What... the fuck... is this?" Ty managed, barely able to get the words out.
The reptiless chuckled in response, a strange and human movement with an inhuman form. "In general, a sort of point between dimensions. Halfway between my dimension and your dimension. Think of it as, uh, the space in between space. So! We are currently nowhere."
"Nowhere but somewhere." Ty gulped, nervously wringing his hands before the awesome sight of a seven foot monster.
"Yeah. More or less. I don't want to overwhelm you. Not yet." The lizard said calmly, her voice oozing with a sort of patronizing calm, a near obvious amusement pemeating her form. As if all this was normal. "Do you know... the last time I was face to face with a human being, about forty years ago, it was some idiot satanist trying to meet the devil. Got high on DMT, that's the stuff in cough medicine, you know, so he could have a drug trip. I made sure to scare the living shit out of him. Last human I talked to..." She motioned her clawed finger in a circle. "Before you."
"Are you the devil?" Ty said, going deathly pale against the pure black around them.
"Nooo!" The reptile laughed, a pleasant rumbling sound. "The devil's not a real person, Ty. In any case, do you really think the lord of eternal darkness and torment looks like me?"
"No." Ty said matter of factly, blinking as his color came back somewhat.
"You sure?" The reptiless smirked, showing sharp teeth in her jaw. "I thought we were all demons. Like, lizard people."
"Oh!" Ty said excitedly, momentarily forgetting what was going on and where he was. "I was on this one website where this woman met a leader named King Leo, and THEY were really nice and..." He trailed off, realizing he was talking about websites with a lizard woman in the middle of nothingness.
"No, go on!" She laughed, almost trembling with suppressed laughter.
"I guess you're not that scary. I mean... you seem nice." Ty shrugged.
"Nice enough. I mean, I'm no saint. But you know, lizard people implies... people." The lizardess snorted oddly, beggining to circle Ty with a graceful walk, a long tail swaying behind her as much for decoration as for balance. "In fact, you're here right now because I wanted to speak to you face to face instead of inside your head. A bit more personal. Although I can still read your thoughts here. You're wondering if I am in fact 'one of the bad lizard people,' right?"
Ty nodded slowly, comprehending but not believing. He stared at the reptile and she stared back evenly with very old very vibrant yellow eyes. "Sorry." He blushed. "I didn't mean to..."
"It's all right." She said in a suprisingly concilitory tone. "Probably won't surprise you too much if I tell you some of the stories are true. But that's not my group. That, uh, red planet I showed you. That's Sauros. It's a small world orbiting the star you call Capella. I'll just use your words, if that's okay."
"No, that's fine." Ty watched the creature walk and talk skeptically, studying her inhumanly angled legs. Her heavy upper body. The big claws on her feet, in particular, looked like they could easily cause serious damage.
"What am I? An emu?" She stopped cold, crossing her arms over a modest chest.
"What?" Ty blinked.
"Emus. They kick their claws out for self defense. Can disembowel a man." She raised an eye ridge. "If I was going to *want* to kill you, Ty, or hurt you, or eat your flesh, or whatever it is you think we do, then I would have done it already. Right?"
"Okay." Ty let out a nervous breath. "I guess so. What do you want with me?"
The creature stopped dead still and lowered her snout, staring down it at Ty in a 'are you fucking serious?' sort of way, conveying the same sarcasm in her body language as she crossed her arms over her modest chest. "Really? Come on now, you're smarter than that, Ty."
"So what do you want from me?" He gulped again, as the lizardess drew closer well within his personal space, almost snout to eye with him.
He could feel her breath on his face, smell the strange lizardy earthy smell. He could see every nuance and texture of her fine scales. In fact, it would be a disservice to call them scales. She was smooth and glassy, but not at all rough or jagged.
"A better question." She smiled coyly. "One worthy of our time here. Or... lack of time." She extended a hand again and her grin broadened across her lips and pulled into a warm toothy grin as Ty placed his open palm against hers. "I have an offer for you."
"So." She whispered back, kneeling down to meet his eye level, never letting go of his hand. "There have only been a few people like you in the history of your planet that can connect with this sort of power you have. A very keen ability to... change things."
Ty felt the coolness of her palm on his, and much to his blushing disbelief he found the courage to raise his other hand to touch the lizard's shoulder. She casually looked to his hand, smiled wider, and looked back to him with patience at his fascination.
"You want me to do something." He guessed, to which the reptile nodded gently.
"Yes. Correct." She whispered gently. "You see, I'm stuck here. In my own dimension. There are... rules. About what we can do. Where we can travel. Your dimension is off limits to us and... well, I know things. I can help you. And... your people. Humans. I want you to... bring me back with you. Into your world."
Ty blinked, seeing the total and utter seriousness that had taken over the lizard's face. Her meaning, though, much like feeling her emotions before, was something obvious and instant to Ty.
"You're lonely." He said sadly. He could feel it. "Like me."
"Yeah." She said softly, kneeling down and sighing. "It's a long story. Now... that's not something to take lightly, all right? I want you to think that in helping me you'd be breaking the rules, like I said. Could be dangerous. Could get us both into trouble."
"I understand." Ty whispered. He felt the compulsion to touch the lizard's neck, and she momentarily broke her gaze to offer a smirk as he did.
"No, I'm not as rough as you thought I'd be." She said with a playful annoyance. For emphasis, she took his hand, rubbed it against her face, and Ty blushed deeply as he realized he liked the texture of her skin. "Can we focus?"
"Right. Helping you." Ty smiled. "How do I know you're not going to get over to my dimension and, like, enslave humanity or something?"
"No, that's fair." She nodded. "You have no reason to trust me, do you? I'm just some lizard you just met. Like I said, there are rules. You, Ty... you are the rule breaker. I want you to think about putting your power to a very meaningful use. Because, you see, if I sense your abilities and found you like this... others will too. So just keep that in mind. You don't have to do anything right now. I just want you to think about it."
Ty nodded solemnly and stared back into the reptile's eyes and her wash of green/teal/yellow skin. She-
"Really?" She said curiously, suddenly switching tracks with a shocked smile. "I'm turning you on?"
"Oh shit!" Ty reeled, pulling away his hand and putting it on his head in a horrified blush.
"No, it's out there now." She chuckled, rising to her full height and shyly looking away. "Telepathy can be, uh, interesting. Between... two... beings."
"Sorry, I'm..." Ty turned beat red. "I mean... I've never seen anything like you before. I..."
The lizard gasped in surprise and turned away. "Holy shit, dude. I didn't see that coming, did I? And I mean, I'm partially psychic."
They stood apart for a moment in joint horror and then the lizardess turned back with a cautious hand covering her snout, eyes wide with a combination of sickness and curiosity. "Um." She blinked her yellow eyes, pupils contracting back to slits. "What if I told you that I'd be... uh... into cross-species.... romance. Like... if you helped me."
Ty gulped. "Okay." He said.
"Yeah." The lizard blinked. "I'm just gonna... send you back for now. I think we both have a lot to think about right now."
"That's probably for the best." Ty whispered, mortified.
The reptile slowly walked back to Ty, looked him straight in the eyes, and smirked playfully. "I don't think you're a freak. I mean, I am humanoid."
"Oh?" Ty looked down at the 'ground' in the blackness and blushed.
"You can call me Narissa." The lizard whispered gently, before standing in front of Ty and turning to walk away.
"Narissa?" Ty asked, not quite believing it.
The lizard stopped in midstride, not turning to face him, and swayed her tail playfully as she looked over her shoulder with a sly grin. "My actual name would rip your throat apart if you tried to say it. It's a pseudonym of sorts."
"Oh. A-All right." Ty said, putting his arms around himself and relishing how warm her embrace had made him feel. "Narissa."
"Incidentally." She called over her shoulder, vanishing into the shadows of nothingness and nowhere. "Might be useful to keep talking like this, in the comfort of your home, with your step parents away, don't you think?"
"I don't know." Ty said nervously.
He was alone. In the black. Total nothingness surrounded him, and in that moment Ty felt pathetically scared and alone, uncertain of what he had just gotten himself in to.
"Narissa?" Ty called into the black. "How do... how do I go back?"
Now back to a whisper in his mind, the lizard audibly laughed. { Click your heels three times, of course. }
Ty was about to protest, but was suddenly standing back in the kitchen facing Dustin. Not even a second had passed. He blinked, remembering it all, and found himself staring at a cross and pouting step brother.