Okay…. So maybe there was more to this situation than it being a dream, or some convoluted fetish porn filming site. (Dante felt a little sick of himself for that- who would even conceive of such a thing?) It certainly hurt too much to be a dream. The hand kissing thing was DEFINITELY not normal. This was definitely out of the realm of any kind of normal. Physics and modern medicine had just taken a back alley beating at the hands of a kiss.

“So,” Lysa spoke up while Dante continued to stare at his renewed hand, “the real question is, how did you die?” The obvious answer would have been “murder”. He hadn’t been doing anything terribly dangerous, just throwing the biggest birthday bash ever with him and about 100 of his closest friends. Maybe someone had had a grudge against him and poisoned him, or killed him in his sleep.

“I can see that look in your eyes, Dante,” Lysa interrupted Dante’s train of thought. “You’re over thinking this. You’re making up a story to fill in the blanks. What REALLY happened?” Bitch had a point. If he was dead, it probably wasn’t murder. Probably some kind of accident. A lot of people were drinking last night, maybe somebody got drunk and accidentally crushed his head in by knocking over a stereo or something. Then again, Dante couldn’t remember how drunk everyone else had gotten, since he had gotten so hammered himself. Wait a minute….

“Wait for iiiiit…” Lysa said, staring intently into Dante’s face. Dante had gotten REALLY drunk last night. So drunk that some people had carried him over to the couch. There had been some stupid argument about whether or not to take his shoes off and let him sleep, or keep them on and draw on his face. Some kind of dumb party rule or whatever.

Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute. When Dante had woken up today, he hadn’t remembered wearing any shoes. What if the party guests had left him alone? He had fallen asleep on his back. What if everyone left him alone, and he had gotten alcohol poisoning? What if he had threw up and choked on his own vomit and nobody noticed till it was too late? SHIT!

“Aaaand we’re there.” , Lysa commented sarcastically. “Congratulations. I thought you were going to try and beat Midori’s record for denial. Thanks for the pleasant surprise and proving me wrong.”

Dante shifted his weight to all fours. It felt oddly comfortable on the padded playpen floor. No wait. Something about that was wrong. The fact that it felt right was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t dead, just going crazy. Maybe this was all his hallucination? Like the padded playpen was really a padded cell, and his deranged mind was substituting in babyish images.

He felt a pair of hands shove him onto his side. Dante landed with a bit of a grunt, but was unhurt. He looked up and saw Lysa’s disapproving glare, her arms crossed with her standing on her knees. She had a very stern look on her face, despite being dressed like a one-year-old at the oldest.

“Stop it,” Lysa warned, “you’re already over the hardest part, now. Don’t regress.”