F3 Sunrise

     Dawn.
     Philosophers and scientists discuss its cosmic significance and place in the heavens.
     Poets and artists try and capture its beauty.
     Millions of people watch every morning as that first glimmer of light finally crests the horizon.
     I'm not usually one of those people

F3 A Day Gone Wrong

     The explosion still rang in my ears, and my vision wavered somewhere between double and infinite. I closed them, hoping the images would go away. It mostly worked. My vision wavered into double, but finally resolved into reality. A haze of dust and smoke hung in the air. The wall with the chalkboard held a hole the size of a truck. A . . . thing, stood silhouetted in the dust. Its proportions were all wrong for a regular human being. It was taller, and one arm was longer than the other. Not much, but enough. It hunched over and craned its head sniffing at the air.

F3 The Arcade

     Ciro and I loved the arcade. Most of us kids did. We'd pick up pennies shining shoes for people or selling papers on the corner just so we could rush into the arcade to drop our pennies into the mutoscopes. I liked the ones that showed magic tricks, even though Ciro and Tommy thought they were fake.
     One day Mr. Arnold added in new machines. These were taller than the rest, and had names above like

F3 Lightning Relay

     "We're here," Jake had undisguised joy on his face as we floated down from the high cirrus clouds down to the fluffy grey cumulus.
     "Where?" I looked down in disgust at a dusty town. It looked like those old Westerns where a tumbleweed would roll across the main street, proclaiming it a ghost town. Not quite so deserted as that, I saw a few cars going up and down the street. We were too high up to really see people.
     "Welcome to the most awesome place on Earth," he spread his arms in proclamation. "Welcome to Tornado Alley."

F3 The Stash

     The room felt like that warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This room was nowhere near as big, perhaps eight feet by six feet, and instead of wooden crates stacked upon one another, metal shelves stacked to the ceiling. The shelves weren't even close to full, either. Yet there were quite a number of items on those shelves, covered in a layer of dust that could only come from a decade of neglect. Dozens of them. I swallowed hard, and rolled the floppy composition book into a tube. The faded red cover bore Max's scrawl in black magic marker: "Inventory of Artifacts". Not archaeological artifacts, though I knew many of the items would be old. Magic. Sorcery. Enchantments. Every item in this room except the notebook I found held some kind of mystic mojo.

F3 Thunderer

     Breathing. Breathing came first. Heavy breaths that went all the way down to the stomach, pushing it out as far as it could go. Each breath in gathered strength into me. Not physical strength, the strength of the storm, the strength of the cloud around me. I was going to do this.
     My fist opened and closed in time with

F3 One Too Many

     Shots of pixie nectar tasted like honeyed rose water, and had absolutely no kick. No burn, no taste whatsoever of alcohol because, well, there wasn't any. It intoxicated worse than absinthe. Most people were off to lala land after two shots. Hardcore could go as high as four. I wasn't hardcore. I was six shots in.
     "Y'know what's wrong with this place?" I told a dwarf who wanted to sip his beer. He didn't look happy that I was still talking to him. Why was that? "It's the damn forests. They're everywhere. And there's two kinds, y'know?" I held up a shot in my left hand. "The good kind, and the bad kind." I lifted another shot in my right. I slugged them both.
     My vision swam, and I could swear I saw actual pixies fluttering around for a moment. They wanted to braid the dwarf's hair. I was fine with that. Maybe it would improve his mood.
     "But, see, it's not just good forest and bad forest. They gotta go and call 'em separate names. Y'know, the Forbidden Forest, Darken Wood, Forest of Despair, Nightmare Wood, Forest of Shadows, Murky Woods, and too many to fucking count. 'S not like the good is any better with the Golden Wood, The Sunshine flying out of my ass Forest, and the Fucking Elven Glade!
     I slammed a hand on the bar. "Another round. The shock went up my arm and through my entire body. My ears rang, tongue suddenly tasted cherries, and ears heard pipes and chittering laughter.
     The pixies rimmed the dwarf's beer, one of them actually dove in, swimming around and spraying beer out of her mouth. The dwarf brought the beer up for another drink. He was going to swallow one of the pixies!
     "Buddy, wait! There are pixies!" I grabbed for the beer, but somehow missed. Instead the mug upended, spilling the beer. Sorry, bud—"
     Dwarves have small fists, but they still hit hard.
     The world faded into black as I stared at the ceiling.
     Pixies flew everywhere.

F3 Gone Fishing

     In the Catskills there's a small lake at the head of a stream. The lake didn't have a name as far as I knew. It was perfect for fishing. It didn't have many fish, which made it all the better for drinking a nice, cold beer.
     Fishing in the Fairy Tale Realms wasn't as peaceful. The fish insisted on biting entirely too much. Why couldn't they understand I wanted a nice nap along with my cold beer. If I actually had a cold beer. Igloo coolers didn't exist in the Realms, so I took my beer coolish after sinking bottles into the water around my little rowboat.

F3 Nimble Fingers

     "So, you want into the racket, eh. Live life out here on the streets, huh?" I put a fresh toothpick between my teeth.
     The kid in front of me nodded vigorously. "Yeah. I'm tough. I can do this. I get right in people's faces. I got no problem staring a guy down with a gun or a knife."

F3 Part of The Plan

     Dying was always part of the plan. Not the smartest part, mind, but necessary. It was one of those things that I would leave out of the plan if I could. Unfortunately I just couldn't make the math work out without dying. I didn't get to go out easy, either. No clever drugs to simulate death. No magic spells that eased my passage. No gently falling asleep and then waking up in the everafter. No, this was going to hurt.