A dozen, a thousand Tinkerbelle's cry "But what about me?" and then they try to toss you off their island and throw you into Charlie Brown's ballpark where Lucy over and over again tricks poor Charlie...
"Wake up. Wake up." You hear Carmine's voice. She's shaking your jaw with her hand.

You open your eyes laying on your back, a cold mist dripping from black clouds into the slick wet alley with the stench of hydrocarbons and cheap Chinese food in the air.

"I was worried. I woke up from weird dreams about the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and you were still unconscious for over a minute. And yes, you definitely died. I saw you turn to dust in front of my eyes."

She leans over and pauses before she smacks you on top of the head.

"You dope. Don't do that again."

PT

Great. Carmine is a Tsundere. Not that I mind the idea, just the abuse that comes with it.

"Well," I try and get up. "in my defense, I wasn't aiming to kill myself. The magic went a little wild on me. Probably the Black mana. Reanimate works in a similar fashion, only without the..."

What on Earth am I babbling about? Magic isn't supposed to work like that at all! Now I'm starting to worry. Dreams don't have this kind of continuity, and reality doesn't work like that.

Bah. Guess I'll figure it out. For now, bearings.

"Where are we anyways? Smells like a cheap..." I look around. I'm going to place a wager that a Chinese eatery is around here, and that I'm smelling an air conditioner.

"Well, I didn't expect the 'I believe in fairies' spell I learned from watching the school play of Peter Pan to mean I was giving up my own life either. I guess magic has unexpected wrinkles and tricks, kinda like reality. You know its reality when it surprises you." She pauses. "At least that was what my Air Flow Dynamics professor use to say whenever something weird happened to one of our plane models."

She nods.

"I could go for some Chinese about now. Of course, does our money work in this reality?"

She helps you to your feet, not that you need it.

You see an air conditioning unit twenty feet down the alleyway.

PT