I noticed a rapid shuddering sound, with increasingly louder clicking noises, was coming from somewhere that I couldn't immediately identify. There was also a deep pulsating boom that was literally shaking the tiny yellow stand.

After a few minutes I asked, "Um...excuse me, but will the food be ready or what?" Her expression never changed, but I began to realize the sound was coming from her, and I saw her begin to vibrate like a washer with an unbalanced load. Suddenly, the noises stopped, and she stopped moving, and a very pale colored cheeseburger appeared on the counter in front of me, sitting on top of very old, yellowed and discolored looking napkins, which had been folded incorrectly.

I cautiously lifted the top bun and noticed the strip of ketchup, just as I had requested. "So...this looks like a cheeseburger, not a hotdog," I remarked, replacing the bun and looking at what I was increasingly not wanting to think of as a "her", or for that matter, even a person. She was more of a "thing" really.

"Oh that's not a cheeseburger," it stated matter-of-factly, producing a very pale looking hotdog in its left hand. "This is a cheeseburger, but we don't sell these," she said, as the hotdog melted into her hand, leaving more seared flesh and cloud of steam behind. A cheeseburger is a cheeseburger, I said to myself, as I picked it up to take a bite.

Suddenly, a crack of gunfire rang out, as a spray of shrapnel peppered the side of the stand. The hotdog server turned towards the noise and grimaced, causing most of her face to begin cracking, small bits falling off and dusting the ground. I dropped the cheeseburger/hotdog and turned towards the noise in time to see a very thin man of average height reloading his shotgun as he rode towards us on the back of a camel. As he approached, he let another shot fire towards the server, blowing chunks of wood from the stand into her face, and causing her to let out a fierce screech that sent chills down my spine.

She picked up a phone that had materialized into thin air and dialed a number, before muttering a garbled, metallic sentence into the phone, listening for a moment, and slamming it down, sending it back into nothingness. As the man came near, he reached down and pulled me onto the back of the camel.

The hotdog server opened its mouth, and a began emitting a noise that was very mechanical and almost computerized, but resembled a chorus of young girls reciting a nursery rhyme in a sing-song manner. The sound was a bit dark and disturbing, but began to fade as we grew farther away, although the thing's stare continued for nearly a mile before it was lost in the distance.

"What just happened, and who are you?" I asked my apparent rescuer, attempting to keep myself balanced on the back hump of the camel. "That was an agent of the CORE, and if you had eaten that hotdog, it would have captured your soul, and enslaved you forever as one of its products. As for my identity, I am known as Lord Halbert Bastion Bloomington Dimshire III, but you may call me Thin Man, as most do."

"Okay, Thin Man, but where am I?"

"You are in a dimension unknown to your world, where nothing is right, and everyone lives in utter misery," he said, urging the camel forward towards the giant castle.

"But everything looks so magnificent here, and I've seen no one else aside from you and the hotdog server."

"Ho, ho, oh yes," he chuckled, with such a booming laugh that his stringy white hair fell out of the Russian cossack hat he was wearing. "Everything you see is made of dust, excluding Bert here," he began, patting the camel who had slowed down to a bit of a jog. "The dust was engineered to create a mirage effect which made everything seem wonderful, but once you get close enough, it looks decrepit and in poor condition, which it truly is."

This made sense to me, and I recalled how the "girl" and the hotdog stand had looked pleasant and inviting when I had seen both of them for the first time, but upon further inspection, they were hideous and run down.

"No doubt she was once a regular human, as we all were when we arrived here at one time or another," he said, referring to the server. "However, this place changes you, though her changes are probably a result of being kidnapped by the CORE and rearranged to their purposes."

"And what did you mean by 'they'd enslave me as a product'?" I questioned, looking at the castle which was gradually becoming nothing more than a rundown shack as we neared it.

"The CORE would turn you into a mime, which is its main export, and you be doomed forever to entertain the normal dimension until you ran out of battery, at which point you'd be disposed of in the CORE's thermal accelerators, which power it."

"So the CORE exports...people?"

"Yes, through one of many interdimensional portals. In fact, you probably accidentally stepped through an open one, which is how you found yourself here."

"Um, I remember holding my breath and passing out, and waking up in a fake forest on an endless path, but no gateway."

The Thin Man stopped the camel immediately and turned around, showing that his face was concave, something I hadn't noticed as I'd never gotten a clear look at him until now. His mouth, which took up the entire bottom half of his face, was a semicircle shape, and the lower jaw receded into his neck when he opened his mouth, like a giant puppet or something.

"And how did you get out of this 'path'?" he questioned, eyes wide and nearly bulging. "

"The trees opened up, like a door, and I wandered out," I said, not liking the look on his face.

"That means...you entered from the Forest Limbo...and escaped! Do you know what that means?" he asked, clearly very upset. I shook my head, feeling that this wasn't going to be any good.

"It means that they're hunting you down, probably even as we speak, and that the agent from earlier gave them your position. We must get you out of here immediately!" With that, he gave Bert a stiff kick to the side and the camel moved at full gallop.

Once we arrived at the shack, the Thin Man jumped down, pulling me along, and we entered. He closed some curtains and lit a lamp, then began rummaging through a pile of debris.

"What will they do if they catch us?" I asked, watching him toss a tin can full of snails to the floor.

"Well, they'll kill me, and they'll toss you into the hole."

"What's 'the hole'?"

"A pit of nothingness, which will not only erase you, but your entire existence and every memory, record, and trace of existence from everything and all of history." Finally, he located a small box with a bit of wire hanging from it, and hurried outside, as I followed behind, wondering what it was. He stood, aimed the box at a random point, and the wire lifted up, then pointed slightly to the left. He repositioned himself so that it pointed straight out, then he pushed a red button, causing a small triangle of blue to appear in mid-air.

"That, is a gateway, and it will take you back to your world. Now quickly, jump through it!" he urged, giving me a shove. Suddenly, a very high pitched whine started up, and a creature looking like a black onion with the rear half of a turkey sticking out of its head came diving at the Thin Man and sprayed him with what looked like a tube of toothpaste. Instantly, the Thin Man's eyes popped out of his head, and his skull begin to fold in on itself. I took this as my cue to leave and jumped through the triangle. Everything went black.

-----////////////////////-----

I suddenly woke up, finding myself in an uncomfortable bed with a scratchy blanket and a flat pillow. Sunlight shone through a small window at the top of the wall nearest to my head, and after rubbing my eyes, I realized I was in a cell of some sort.