Dean woke to aggressive knocking that sounded like someone was trying to break down his door with their fists.
"DELIVERY! SIGN HERE! I DON'T HAVE ALL DAY!"
Dean groggily checked his phone—6:47 AM. "What psychopath delivers packages before 7 AM?" He stumbled to the door in yesterday's boxers and a wrinkled Deadpool t-shirt that read "Maximum Effort."
The hallway was empty. Just a plain cardboard box sitting on his doormat like an abandoned baby.
Bold red lettering across the top: ISEKAI PACKAGE - FROM NARADA
"Oh, come ON." Dean looked left and right down the empty hallway. "MIKE? This better not be you filming another TikTok!"
Silence.
Dean picked up the box. It was surprisingly light, almost weightless. No shipping labels, no tracking numbers, no "Fragile" stickers. The kind of package that should immediately scream "suspicious."
"From Narada?" Dean's voice cracked slightly. After last night's research, that name hit different. "What is that, some kinda Indian delivery service? 'Hello sir, your package is ready, please rate us 5 stars!'"
Back inside, Dean set the box on his cluttered desk, pushing aside energy drink cans and psychology textbooks. The box had no tape, no adhesive—it just opened with a soft click like it was some type of puzzle box designed specifically for him.
"Okay, that's actually pretty cool," Dean admitted, but his hands were shaking now.
Inside, nestled in what looked like expensive black foam, sat a metal wristband. Dark gunmetal finish, intricate etchings that seemed to shift when he wasn't looking directly at them, and a large red crystal embedded in the center that pulsed faintly like a heartbeat.
Dean's breath caught. His heart stopped. His brain short-circuited.
"No. Fucking. Way."
He'd seen this exact design hundreds of times. Read about it, argued about it in comic forums at 2 AM.
"This is the Tallus. This is THE TALLUS." Dean's hands shook violently now. "Someone made an actual replica of the Tallus from the Exiles comics."
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn't a replica. The craftsmanship was too perfect, the weight too substantial, the crystal too real. Dean picked up his phone and immediately started googling. "Tallus replica," "Exiles cosplay prop," "Marvel Tallus for sale"—nothing. No Etsy shops, no cosplay forums, no overpriced collectables websites. Nothing that looked remotely this professional.
"What kind of budget did they have for this prank?" Dean muttered, reaching for the device.
The moment his fingers touched the metal, it felt wrong. Not cold like metal should be—warm, almost body temperature. The etchings seemed to pulse under his fingertips, and the crystal's glow intensified.
"Okay, that's... that's some good special effects." Dean lifted it carefully, expecting it to be plastic or cheap pot metal. Instead, it had real weight to it, substantial and perfectly balanced.
Before he could think twice, Dean slipped it over his hand.
The wristband contracted immediately, shrinking to fit his wrist perfectly. No clasp, no mechanism he could see—it just knew the right size.
"Uh." Dean tugged at it. Stuck fast. "UH." He pulled harder. The band didn't budge, but it wasn't cutting off circulation either. It felt like it belonged there, like his wrist had been waiting for it his whole life.
"Okay, this is getting less funny and more 'call the fire department to cut this off before I lose my hand.'" Dean ran to the bathroom and tried soap. Nothing. Lotion. Nothing. Cooking oil from his mini-fridge. Still nothing.
But wait—who was Narada? The name had popped up in the delivery confirmation.
Dean opened a new tab and googled "Narada." The results made his stomach drop.
Narada - Hindu mythology - Divine sage and messenger of the gods, known for travelling between dimensions and delivering cosmic messages...
"Oh." Dean's voice came out as a whisper. "Oh shit. Oh, shit oh shit oh shit." His hands started shaking as he read more. Narada is depicted as able to travel at will throughout the three worlds...
The crystal was getting brighter.
"Oh no. Oh no no no no no." Dean stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. "This isn't a prank. This isn't a replica. This is—"
The crystal flared like a miniature sun.
Reality hiccupped.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Dean screamed as his bathroom stretched like taffy, the mirror warping into impossible shapes. His reflection multiplied into dozens of Deans, all wearing the same expression of absolute terror.
"This is NOT happening!" Dean's voice came out distorted, echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once. "This is a good special effect, and I'm probably having a stroke! Or a seizure! Or both! Can you have both?!"
The walls began to melt. Colors bled into each other like someone had spilled paint across the world. Dean tried to run but discovered he no longer had legs—or a body, for that matter. He was just consciousness floating in a kaleidoscope of insanity.
"I'M GOING TO DIE! I'M GOING TO DIE AND IT'S GOING TO BE WEIRD!" Dean's thoughts/screams echoed through dimensions. "MOM, IF YOU CAN HEAR THIS, I'M SORRY I NEVER CALLED!"
The cosmic tunnel opened beneath/above/around him, and Dean found himself falling upward through what could only be described as "every sci-fi movie's budget blown on one five-minute sequence."
"AAAHHHHHHHHH—" Dean's scream stretched across realities as images flashed past faster than thought: Spider-Man swinging through New York, but the buildings were made of chrome. The X-Men are fighting Sentinels that look like giant stuffed animals. A world where Tony Stark was apparently a talking raccoon in a mechanical suit.
"IS THAT ROCKET WEARING IRON MAN ARMOR?!" Dean tried to yell, but had no mouth. "WHY IS THAT THE THING I'M FOCUSING ON RIGHT NOW?!"
More scenes blurred past: Captain America with a lightsaber, Thor but made of electricity, a version of the Hulk that seemed to be running a successful bakery.
Dean's consciousness ping-ponged between dimensions like a drunk cosmic pinball, accumulating increasingly ridiculous mental snapshots: Doctor Doom running a food truck, the Fantastic Four as literal fantastic beasts, and was that Galactus working as a mall Santa?
"I'M EITHER HAVING THE MOST CREATIVE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN IN HISTORY, OR I'VE ACCIDENTALLY STUMBLED INTO A WEIRD BLOOPER REEL!" Dean thought/screamed/existed. "EITHER WAY, I'M DEFINITELY FAILING VICTORIAN LITERATURE!"
Then everything went black with the subtlety of a brick to the face.
Dean hit concrete like a sack of confused potatoes.
"Ow. Ow ow ow. Everything hurts. Why does everything hurt?" Dean groaned, tasting dust and regret. "Is this what it feels like to get hit by Truck-kun? Because I was expecting more honor and less... concrete flavored pain."
He was sprawled face-first on the floor of what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Dust motes danced in weak sunlight filtering through broken windows. The air smelled like rust, neglect, and the vague essence of "this is probably where horror movies are filmed."
The Tallus had gone dim, its red glow now barely visible like a dying phone battery. Dean sat up slowly, every muscle in his body filing formal complaints.
Dean stumbled to the broken window on shaky legs. Outside stretched a city that looked like it had been colored by someone with access to every crayon in existence. The buildings gleamed in impossible shades of electric blue and sunset orange, their edges sharp and defined like they'd been outlined with a thick black marker. The sky was a perfect gradient from azure to violet that no real sky had ever managed.
Below, impossibly beautiful people walked the pristine streets—men who looked like they'd stepped off romance novel covers and women who could make supermodels weep with envy. Even the animals were ridiculously cute: pigeons that sparkled like living sapphires, dogs with fur so fluffy they looked like animated plush toys, and cats with eyes bigger than anime characters.
Then Dean saw him—a man flying through the air, completely engulfed in flames that danced around his body like liquid fire. The man's silhouette was perfect, heroic, and he was definitely on fire in the most aesthetically pleasing way possible.
"Okay," Dean croaked, his voice cracking as he watched the Human Torch's distant cousin soar between buildings that looked like they'd been designed by someone who thought reality needed more contrast. "I'm definitely not in New Jersey anymore. This is like... a comic book world. Everything's too pretty, too bright, too—"
The Tallus pulsed slowly on his wrist, and Dean slumped against the window frame, staring at what looked like a living illustration.
"Mom's gonna be so pissed I missed Sunday dinner."
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