Down The Krappenhole

"Stay here. Be very, very, quiet," she said.

"But-"

"I will explain. Everything. Later." She enunciated the words one by one as if to make sure that I understood them. Then she took the gun out of her purse and I flinched again at the sight of it, still trying to comprehend what the hell was going on. The shock was compounded further when she took out a silencer and screwed it onto the end of the gun. Then, she slung the purse over her shoulder and slid open the sliding door of the GODMORGON HEMNES, and left me alone in the elegantly constructed but entirely fake bathroom.

"What... what the fuck is going on?"

~~~

I suppose a rewind is in order.

I'm an Aquarius and I was born on February 13th, 1982 in Saint Martin De Porres Hospital in Lurleen, Texas. Texas was probably the worst place for me to be born because well, I wasn't that good of a Texan. I hate the outdoors, ranching and football- and if you hate the last one, especially in Texas that meant that-

Oh, you didn't want me to go back that far? You got somewhere better to be? You're trapped in a fake bathroom in an IKEA and your fiance is out there...

Laney Boggs. Let's start there, shall we? I was in my sophomore year of college and was totally miserable. I was a computer science major, a nerd, and looking back on it I was completely unhealthy and probably looked like hot garbage the day we met. She just came up to me and sat down and-

"Whatcha reading?"

"Um... hi?" I said, trying not to sound nervous. At orientation for college they had told us to do this- just to go up to people and sit down and make friends like it was no big deal. The very idea of just walking up to a table full of people I didn't know and making small talk made me want to never leave my room ever again and just become a complete hermit. My brain rebelled at the very notion. My skin crawled. My-

Did I mention I was painfully introverted?

"Hi," she said again. "Whatcha reading?"

"Um... The Silmarillion."

"The whodawhatnow?"

"Have you seen The Lord of the Rings movies?"

"Oh yeah, I love those! That Aragorn dude is pretty hot."

"Well, this is like... " I struggled to describe what could charitably be considered Tolkein's most inaccessible work. "Like his version of the Bible?"

She seemed impressed by this. She was a brunette and had brown eyes and the cutest glasses and extended hand, favoring me with a smile so beautiful that it made me a little weak at the knees. And that was the day I met Laney Boggs.

~~~

The sliding door to the GODMORGON HEMNES slid open and I flinched again as Laney entered, still holding the gun.

"Four down, five to go," she said, smiling that smile at me again. "What did you think about this bathroom?"

"What?"

"The bathroom? Is it too industrial for you? It's kind of dark don't you think."

"Um, what-" my brain struggled to keep up and downshifted into second gear again. "I guess it is kind of dark now that you mention it?"

"Should we go back to that first you liked? The VANERN?"

"Is that the one with the white tile?"

"Yeah, that's the one," she said.

"I did like that one, but-"

She snaked an arm around the back of my neck and pulled me down for a kiss so intense and so deep that I staggered into the shower for a moment and then she shot that smile at me and my knees went weak and before I could formulate any one of the four million, five hundred thousand, six hundred and twenty-three questions that were jamming into my brain all at the same time, she slid open the door to the GODMORGON HEMNES and said,