You hear that sound of breaking glass? That’s my GPA tanking.

  I’m running an entire twenty-minute presentation that’s supposed to be done by four people. I stayed up all night typing notes for everyone, and for what?

  Cheryl, the one with the two silver hoops through one side of her nose, has come to every group meeting, but I have yet to hear her speak. She may be mute. She had her hair done, perhaps for the presentation, because it was all black yesterday. I had told everyone to make themselves presentable, and I see she took that to mean getting blonde tips. I handed her a talking points outline, which is not in her hand. This is very similar to when I write out the parts for Korey, the bassist in my band, and he inevitably leaves them home for the gig. Korey can wing it. Cheryl, not so much. She’s standing, looking at me and nodding at everything I’ve presented so far.

  Frank, unsurprisingly, reeks of weed this morning. Once he was assigned to my group, I knew he wasn’t going to be what one could consider an asset. I gave him the easiest discussion points, complete with pictures, glued onto foam board on the stand next to him. For his segment, he pointed at the pictures and uttered the fabulous soliloquy “Like, look.” He then put his hands on his hips, nodded and smiled at the class. I should have been clearer on what the phrase ‘discussion point’ meant. That one’s on me.

  My final supposed partner is Gary. I have no idea how Gary made it through the UC Berkeley admissions process. He showed up to our first group meeting with a stack of books, including several accounting books and one on the geography of Canada. I haven’t seen him since, including today. I emailed his notes for his segment and, because I’m an idiot, didn’t print them out for myself.

  This presentation is 30 percent of our Mythology I History grade. 30 percent of MY grade. But I finished my five minutes on the impact of Greek myth on modern vocabulary, and I did the whole intro on ancient myth in modern society.

  I quickly announce the bullet points on the board I made for Frank, indicating the callouts on the pictures of Greek architecture. Frank nods and gasps, as if he has never heard of any of these points before.

  “So, you know,” I wrap for Frank’s section, nudging Cheryl into action on her, or my, notes as I pull my emailed notes to Gary up on my phone. “It seems a disservice to use the term Greco-Roman, conflating the two terms into one term, as we can see the strength and individuality of Greek mythology means it deserves to have its own, unique term.”

  I give a pointed stare at Cheryl, begging her with my eyes to say something, anything.

  She smiles back at me blankly, new hairstyle swishing to emphasize the ‘no’ she’s sending me.

  Frank notices my face and nods encouragingly. “You’re doing great, Dom, presenting all our work, you just keep it going, man.”

  GPA. Smashed.

  I glance up at the class. It’s rows of dishevelled desks, heads down, phones out. People are texting, staring out the windows. You can almost hear the drool hitting the desks. Hassan, in the front row is shaking his head at me and shrugging, eyes hidden under dark unkempt hair. Why couldn’t I have Hassan on my team? That dude knows everything and answers every question you throw at him. He created a freaking gorgeous 3D rendering of the Parthenon for his project. In the back, Professor Rocamp, in his wrinkled gray shirt, is also on his phone. I’ve lost the professor.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I hold up my pages of notes to cover my face so no one can read my lips and lean to Cheryl. “Cheryl. You should really say your part now. Please?”

  She gives me a blank, clueless stare that tells me she has no intent of presenting.

  Hassan is covering his mouth, but I can hear the stifled laugh at my predicament. This is a train-wreck and he can’t turn away. I’d be laughing, too, if it wasn’t me flailing at the front of the class. Professor Rocamp peeks up from his phone. I’m doomed. How can I ever convince him that I can one day teach the way he does? I can’t keep the class focused for fifteen minutes. Someone has to pick up the ball.

  “Frank, anything you can add?”

  “So, you ever wonder if gorgons have boobs?” he grins, complete with hand gestures. “I mean. Like. They’re kind of reptilian. And reptiles don’t…you know…”

  I’m surprised there’s no echo in my gaping mouth.

  The room is silent. Then a growing snort and giggle passes from desk to desk. I feel the redness in my cheeks.

  The door opens. I turn, glad for anything to distract everyone from this presentation.

  I freeze—the door isn’t opening, but the door is wrong. I was maybe four feet from it and haven’t moved. It’s maybe ten feet away, no, fifteen. More. It’s moving away or maybe getting smaller. My depth perception feels off.

  I feel my feet shift. I’m wearing brand new Air Run IIIs, but it feels like the soles are slipping off. The floor is changing. The tiles are being pulled like taffy, stretched out, and more tiles are appearing as they stretch.

  Survival show tip: If the ground is moving, find solid ground.

  I step back. No one else seems to see what’s happening. As if I’m at the event horizon, and everything seems normal beyond us. Hassan is suddenly holding the edges of his desk harder than a rollercoaster, staring at the receding corner of the room.

  “Dom,” Professor Rocamp calls, putting his phone down. “You alright? I have to say, I expected a bit more. Dom?”

  Cheryl screams.

  She’s falling. She’s on the same floor I am, but she’s tumbling away down a hill. I press my back to the whiteboard on the wall behind me. The floor isn’t tiled anymore, it’s grass. Hassan’s desk pours away like mercury, and then he’s suddenly sitting on a rock that’s rising up the side of a bluff away from me. The whiteboard is granite now.

  I hear Frank screaming. He’s in a pine tree that’s stretched itself up from the ground, but my sight is blocked by the moss-covered hill that nearly runs me over, passing by the way a parade float would, with a roar of cracking stone. My arm is scratched by branches rushing up from under me. I glance down.

  I’m falling. Or is it that dark ground is rushing up to meet—

  *   *   *

  I’m wet. I open my eyes. My headache is horrible. I’m lying in a puddle on cement. No. It’s darker, rougher. This is stone.

  I roll over. Everything aches. I don’t think anything is broken, which is surprising, considering how far away the ground seemed when I fell. I run my hands over myself. Quick inventory tells me I’m not bleeding.

  “Hassan?” I call, pushing up to my elbows. “Cheryl? Frank? Professor Rocamp?”

  There’s an echo. I hear dripping sounds in the still air.

  I gaze upwards. Way over me, three or four stories up, a ceiling with a few small stalactites. Or stalagmites. The spiky ones that hang down. My classes are in historical cultures, not geology. The only light comes from parts of the ceiling that are splotched with pale gray, glowing somethings. Moss, maybe. It’s dim. I can’t see any walls, except murky, wet stone. My eyes have to adjust. I stand. Slowly. The floor is slippery.

  “Hello?” I shout. “Spencer? Cassie? Anyone?”

  There’s a high-def perfect tone of a small bell being rung. Inside my head. I hear it as clearly as if I’m wearing headphones, right behind my eyes. It accompanies the appearance of a gently glowing box in the upper left of my vision.

  I jump from the blare of trumpets. My vision is almost entirely blocked by fancy glowing engraved letters floating in the air in front of me:

  Welcome to the Caverns of Thalassa.

  You’ve gained the Summon Satyr (Emerging, Level 1) skill.

  Congratulations!