Chapter 1: My Last Day on Earth

90% pure hydroxybutyric acid—enough to teach Superman a real lesson. You have seventy-two powers? Well, I have Mendeleev. You wield the magic hammer? I wield the periodic table of elements. Taste this ultimate move from centuries in the future. That preacher’s mine for the taking—even Jesus couldn’t save him, I swear! But even with all that science, I couldn't save myself.

On a bright, beautiful morning in Fresno, I decided to end my life. The sunlight streamed through my apartment window, dust motes swirling in the warmth. It was just another ordinary California day, completely disconnected from what I was about to do. Somewhere below, a car alarm blared, then cut off. The smell of burnt toast drifted from a neighbor’s window. The low hum of a lawnmower mixed with the distant thump of hip-hop from someone's boombox.

I have lung cancer, with less than three months left to live. I heard the diagnosis from Dr. Richards at Community Regional—his words were careful, clinical, but the truth hit like a freight train. The PET scans left no doubt; my time was ticking out fast. Sometimes, walking through Save Mart, I wondered if strangers could sense it—my cough echoing in the produce aisle, a ghost among the living.

Worse yet, chemo took all my hair. For someone who actually cares about appearances, that’s the one thing I really can’t accept. Every time I caught my reflection in the microwave door or the chrome of my Honda’s side mirror, there it was: the blank dome, the hollowness under my eyes. I’d been proud of my hair—wavy, dark, always styled just right. Now, I looked like a plucked chicken. Even my old friends avoided my gaze.

So, this is goodbye. Damn it all. I didn’t even bother with a note. Who would I leave it for? My parents were gone, my brother too busy hustling real estate up in Portland. I wrapped myself in a white bedsheet—hotel style, swiped from a Marriott years ago—and headed for the balcony.

My hands shook as I gripped the balcony rail. The world below looked small, unreal—like a map I could fold up and walk away from. I wondered if anyone would even notice the mess. I wrapped myself in the bedsheet and jumped off the building.

The thirtieth floor is high. The wind roared past my ears. My stomach flipped. Then—nothing. Just black.

Then—bang! I hit the ground. My butt hurt like hell. The world didn’t blink out. Instead, pain radiated from my tailbone like a lit match, my teeth rattling. For a second, I wondered if this was what limbo felt like—nothing but embarrassment and a bruised ass.

Wait, by the formula for kinetic energy—mass times velocity squared over two—I should have been smashed into a meat pancake. I opened my eyes and found myself lying beside a cave, above which were three ancient, weathered letters: “Maple Hollow.”

But this wasn’t downtown Fresno anymore. The air was damp and cool, tinged with the smell of pine and earth—like Yosemite at dawn. And those letters—they looked as if they’d been carved by hand a hundred years ago, moss growing in the cracks.

A group of humanoid monsters surrounded me, staring at me with curiosity. Their shapes flickered at the edges of my vision—some with snouts, some with scales, some that could have played lineman for the Bulldogs. They whispered among themselves, their eyes glinting with something I couldn’t name.

“Bald head.”

“Robe.”

“I know!” one of the monsters suddenly slapped its forehead. “It’s that preacher on his cross-country journey!”

“Oh my god!” I nearly jumped out of my skin and tried to run. My feet slipped on loose gravel, sending a rock tumbling down the slope. I scrambled for the treeline, but they closed in fast—way faster than any mall security ever did when I tried to shoplift a six-pack back in high school.

But a monster grabbed me under the armpit, dragged me into the cave, and shouted as we went, “Boss! Second-in-Command! I caught that preacher everyone’s talking about—the one from Chicago!”

His grip was vice-tight, and the reek of his body hit me like a punch—sweat, old onions, and something worse. My mind spun, trying to process the words: Boss... Chicago... preacher...

I’ve been thrown into an American Journey to the West! As a science major, I was about to cry—of all the great American epics, I never dared dream of The Great Gatsby, but even Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn would be better than this. I could almost hear my old chemistry professor’s laugh—'Should’ve stuck to the classics, kid.' At least those worlds are for normal people, where the laws of physics and reality still apply.