Chapter 2

  With the thought of facing the twentieth anniversary of Jimmy’s passing, Matt got out of bed, went to the kitchen, gave Beth a kiss and sat down at the table as she brought him over a plate of bacon, eggs, and pancakes along with a cup of coffee. “I know how hard today is going to be,” she told him. “Why don’t you call in today? I’m off, and we can take the day to relax and not worry about things?”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “I want to take a trip to the cemetery though. After twenty years, I think I owe him that.”

  “If that’s what you want to do, I’ll be by your side while you do it.” She said, reaching over to give his hand a squeeze.

  After breakfast, and a quick call to his construction boss to take the day off, they got into Beth’s little Prius, and made the drive to the cemetery. When they got there, it took them a little bit of time to find Jimmy’s grave. Beth pulled up a website that let her search Jimmy’s name and pinpoint the exact section of the cemetery. Once they figured out the row numbers, they found it quickly.

  When they pulled up, they saw a Ford F150 parked as well. They saw a man who looked to be close to their age standing in about the same spot that Matt thought Jimmy should be buried. When they walked over the man turned to look at them, and Matt gave a nod. The man did a double take and turned towards them. “Matt? Is that you?” he asked. The face looked familiar, but he could not place it. It felt like he recognized the man from another lifetime.

  “It’s me, John Henderson from school.”

  “Holy shit, that’s a blast from the past. How have you been man?”

  “Pretty good man. Honestly I had heard you had died, but looking at you, it looks like you might have been better off if you had,” he laughed.

  “Yea” Matt said, “the years haven’t exactly been kind to me. Luckily things are starting to look up though. This is my girlfriend Beth by the way. Beth this is an old friend of mine and Jimmy’s.”

  After a few minutes of small talk, John said “Well, alright Matt, I’ve got to get out of here, but see you at the reunion on Saturday?

  “Reunion?” Matt asked.

  “Yea, they’re doing the twenty year class reunion this weekend at the school. Would be great to see you and catch up some more.”

  “We’ll see how things go. I still don’t know how great of an idea it would be to show back up there.”

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  “I’m sure it will be fine man,” John said. “After twenty years, I’m sure people will just be happy to know you’re alive and doing well! Hope to see you there. Later.”

  That evening, after dinner Beth asked Matt if he was wanting to go to his class reunion.

  “I don’t know” he replied. “I haven’t seen any of those people in twenty years. I don’t have a relationship with any of them anymore, and it’s not like I was exactly Mr. Popular in school anyways” he laughed.

  She laughed at him. “Yea, but I guarantee you’re not the only one that’s changed, and it could be fun for you to maybe rebuild some of those relationships.”

  “Maybe you’re right” he told her. “We’ve got a couple of days. I’ll think on it.”

  After they sat on the couch watching a movie, Beth told him that she was going to bed and asked if he was going to come too.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes” he told her. “I’m going to hop on the computer for a few minutes and see if Keith emailed me anything about work for tomorrow.”

  “Ok, just be quiet when you come in. I may already be asleep.”

  He gave her a kiss goodnight and got up off the couch and sat down at the computer. He logged into his email and saw a message from his boss Keith. Then he saw another message that caught his eye. The subject read “Post-Reunion oneshot”, and was from an email address .

  “What in the actual fuck?” Matt thought. He read the subject three more times trying to understand what this was. “One, who from his class would even have this email address? I only created it a few months ago when I started looking for work,” he thought. “And two, what kind of email address is that?” Curiosity got the better of him, and he decided that Keith’s message could wait five more minutes. He clicked on the strange email. It read

  Have you lost your adventuring spirit?

  Been swept away in this thing we call the real world?

  Join me Saturday night after the class reunion for a D&D one shot

  We’ll meet at Ye Olde Game Room

  Just decide the race and class you’d like to play

  Come up with a short backstory for yourself

  Don’t even worry about dice or character sheets

  I can provide those for you

  Hope to see you there

  “Who the hell is this?” Matt asked himself after reading through this several more times. “No one knows me anymore. Apparently, people think I’m dead. I don’t even play D&D anymore. This is just fucking bizarre” he thought. Matt shook his head, Keith’s email could wait. “ I’ll take a look at it in the morning to see what site I need to head to,” Matt thought.

  Matt went to bed, but laid there for at least a couple of hours trying to understand the email and who had sent it. Eventually, exhaustion won. His thoughts blurred and bled into something else… something older.

  He was sitting at a table. Everything looked strange. Fuzzy. Unreal. He heard the clank of a die hitting the table, and clinking off of a glass as it came to rest. The people around him, blurred like an extremely out of focus photograph, cheered.

  Matt turned trying to make sense of where he was. “Was this Jimmy’s old place?” It certainly seemed to be, he realized. Even out of focus, he recognized that old stained wallpaper. The stove from the 70’s that Jimmy’s parents had never bothered to replace when they bought their house. He even thought he caught a whiff of their Friday night game night pizza that Jimmy’s mom would have ordered for them.

  Then finally something came into focus. Jimmy sitting there looking at him. “It’s your turn Matt. What would you like to try to do next?”