‘Tis the Season
Troll the Ancient Yuletide Carol!
Deus ex machina
As I closed my eyes for the final time, expecting to open them again in God’s heaven, the door at the top of the stairway literally exploded off its hinges. “Oh good,” I mused, “more monsters.” I turned my gaze upward and there were no monsters. They were humans. More importantly, the humans seemed to be soldiers.
My ears began to ring as they were exposed to the crackle of automatic rifle fire. The noise seemed to be easier on me than it was on the otherworldly inhabitants of….wherever I was. Odin let out a final shout of anger and disappeared. The throne, reindeer, and elves went with him. I saw a handful of humans (I may as well say it: My kinsmen) throw spears at the newcomers. One hit a large man in the middle of the torso, and he collapsed like a stone. Another man, attempting to help the first, was also struck. He retreated up the stairs, where he paused on the landing and began to open fire on anything that moved. Two others rushed down and dragged the large man back up the stairs. I must confess that I never learned whether he survived or not.
One of the soldiers threw some kind of canister into the midst of the Al-Felet. Whatever it was, it made them all stop in place and then collapse. I don’t know if it killed them. All I really know is that I never saw them move again.
A second soldier, a woman, also threw a canister. Her target was the humans, if they could still be called humans. They had once been humans, and they had invited me to stay with them and “change.” At the time, I thought she threw tear gas, but now I don’t think she did. Whatever she threw, it made all of them fall instantly asleep.
In a short amount of time, my rescuers had burst onto the scene and acted much like my personal deus ex machina. I was happy, for the Roberts family has notoriously bad luck. I grasped at the banister, attempting to pull myself up to the landing and then out of the unholy hall. For me, there would be no Wild Hunt, but I still had to escape and the cruel magic charm was still affecting me. I was about to collapse when an impossibly strong woman who looked like she was of Arabic origin helped me out of the nightmare realm and back into the earthly sanctuary. From there she escorted me outside, where it was still snowing. I didn’t have to worry about riding through the snow, as my transport this time around would be in a helicopter.
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