The InBetweeners

The Inbetweeners Pt. 1

The sensation of something moist on Dimitri’s face leads him to open his eyes to the sight of snowflakes falling toward his limp slender body.  Confused as to where he is and what happened to him, he slowly sits up, cringing in pain as his whole body feels as though it has been put through a meat grinder. Staring at this surroundings panic quickly sets in.  He realizes that he is dead center in the middle of a frozen lake that is making ominous creaking sounds.  With his brain moving at high speed attempting to come up with a plan to safely remove himself from this situation.  The creaking sounds begin to grow louder. His body goes into fight or flight mode after he gains his footing on the ice.  He thinks to himself, “Time’s up. Plan or not I’m gone.”  He springs across the sheet of ice with reckless abandonment.  Every Foot step he takes gets him closer to safety but at the same time he is angering the element beneath his feet.  After 20 feet of sprinting, the ice caves in sending him into the unforgiving prison of -20 F temperature water.  Slowly sinking to the bottom of the lake with his back facing the bottom of the lake his body looked like the last leaf of fall tumbling towards the ground.  As he felt his life slowly slipping away with his eye lids struggling to stay open a little longer.  A cone of light beamed over his body casting a silhouette through the icy depths.  A sudden warmth flushed over his body.  The cone of light acted as a tractor beam pulling Dimitri towards the surface of the lake.  His near lifeless body didn’t stop floating upwards once it breached the surface.  The ascension continued until he was completely blinded by the strong light.
	Upon opening his eyes, this time he was greeted by a leathery faced old woman.  While he was passed out the woman wrapped him up in a thick warm blanket and placed him in a rusty colored arm chair. Vapors hit his nostrils and he knew that scent anywhere.  It was the scent of hot chocolate with three miniature marshmallows.  Nostalgia hit like a ton of bricks.  “How did this woman know his childhood favorite beverage?” he thought to himself.  “You look like his clone,” stated the old woman.  “What are you talking about ma’am?” “Your Father!”, she exclaimed. “They don’t like you because you are just like your father.” The blood finally returning to his feet he wiggles his toes while listening to the confessions of this mad woman ranting.  “You are able to kill them but they can’t kill you. They send you into extreme life or death situations and you think that you are having endless nightmares but you are much stronger than they can even imagine. You won’t die and they don’t know why.  Your love for humanity gives you the strength to defeat them.  They feed off of fear that humans show right before dying.” “Wait a minute. Who are “they” that you keep referring to.”  The old woman lowers her voice as if she is afraid someone will hear.  She whispers “The Inbetweeners.”  Upon the utterance of that word, a shadowy figure reaches out of the darkest corner of the room snatching up the old woman and pulling her off into the darkness as she kicks and screams.  Dimitri stumbles out of the chair backwards, repeating to himself over and over again.  “This can’t be happening.”  The more he says it to himself, it is like he is trying to convince himself what he just saw isn’t real. The more he says it, it begins to sink into his skeptic brain that this may very well be real. He runs out of the log cabin into the unknown.  He tries to digest all the information that the crazy lady had just given him minutes prior.  Looking at this surroundings he begins to notice something peculiar going on in the wooded area.  The trees appear to have a blurry effect applied.  Dimitri closes his eyes then re-opens them thinking his sight is being impaired but the blurry effect is increased to everything around him from the trees to the grass to the night owl off in the distance that is starting at him intently.  He looks down at his hands to see the same blur effect going on.  The sharp pain of a butterfly needle pierces his neck and his world goes dark.
	A great cacophony of grinding metal awakens him.  Dimitri frantically looks around to get a grip on his new surroundings.  He discovers the origin of the noise.  A metallic grinder inside of a scrapyard devouring its latest prey roars gleefully.  Feeling like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. He looks down to see that he is securely tied down to a Harley motorcycle.  With his legs and arms strapped down by thick chain links, he struggles fruitlessly to break free.  A crane nearby swings its hook over to the bike.  The grinder roars even louder like he is calling for his waiter to hurry up with his next course.  As the bike leaves the ground swinging left and right on the hook, Dimitri’s heart pounds on the door to his chest as if it was an ATF agent getting ready to enter the apartment of a sting operation.  The crane moves the bike over to his costumer and drops it into the open maw of the grinder.  The sound is unbearable as the bike is being swallowed.  Dimitri screams in agony as he feels his bones crushing.  The intense pain causes him to blackout.
	Hesitantly opening his eyes, he notices that his body is intact and he is not dead despise the pain he just endured.   The wind blowing in his face is overwhelming.  Trying to gather his wits about him to figure out where he is now.  He sees beautifully colored lights everywhere below him.  Dimitri’s body is heading towards them in a free fall. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees a pyramid and instantly recognizes that he is over Las Vegas.  Grabbing around to his back he notices that conveniently he has no parachute.  There is a heavy feeling around his feet, looking down he sees that he is strapped into a snowboard.  Feeling hopeless, he tries to take in the gorgeous scene that is rapidly growing larger as he descends closer to his doom.  “What do these InBetweeners want with me? How can I stop them? Who was that old lady back at the cabin? Why is this happening to me? Why has my deadbeat father given me this curse?” Thousands of questions races through his mind as the pavement grows closer.  Dimitri’s eye shut tight in anticipation of his next semi-death.  Yelling at the top of his lungs, he screams “STOP!”  Instead of hitting the hard concrete, A king sized mattress is placed under his body.  He lifts his head to see the old lady once more.  She tells him, “I am your father and only you can stop them.” “How?” questions Dimitri.  “The answer is within your heart.” This statement echoes as the image of the old lady flickers before his eyes. He sees the image of his thought to be dead father in between each flicker.  Dimitri gets up and while sitting on the edge of the mattress has an epiphany.  His faith in humanity resonates through his body turning his hair white, long and silky.  A new aura surrounds him as he realizes his true potential.  A full length black trench coat materializes around him as he walks down the Las Vegas strip with a trail behind him.  His white glowing aura shocks several bystanders.  With a newfound determination, he heads off into the distance to fulfill his destiny.