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Pitch:
UNDERTALE x NARNIA. A recovering addict falls through a crumbling magical barrier to the monster realm and is enlisted to fight the malevolent sorcerer responsible for the breach.
Blurb:
Recovering addict Ann McGovern finds herself stuck in her hometown and lacking some serious purpose after getting clean. So, when she takes one wrong step that lands her in the monster realm and its wolf king deems her savior of worlds, she laughs. He's obviously got the wrong mortal. But King Daenine is adamant and claims the magic barrier between her realm and his is deteriorating, courtesy of an unknown perp with malicious intent. He's certain she's destined to save them all and a monster in a meatsuit made to make him look mortal will help her do it.
Someone with more to lose might have scoffed, returned to the human realm and chalked the whole ordeal up to a mindslip of nightmarish proportions. But Ann's already lost it all: her brother to suicide, her mother to her grief, and her own self-respect to addiction. She's something to prove. First, Ann must decipher friend from foe, grapple with the wits of gods and quash her own self-doubt.
Failure could mean not the destruction of one world, but two.
First 1K words:
Ann McGovern was going through serious withdrawal the first time she saw an alicorn. She was arguing with herself over whether it was a unicorn or a pegasus when she started to cry. Her eighth-grade mythology class had failed her.
"You're so beautiful," she blubbered through chapped lips.
She wiped her eyes, fingers crusted with blood from anxiously scratching at the tiles in Aunt Ivy's bathroom where she'd spent nine hours with one wrist handcuffed to a clawfoot on the bathtub—Aunt Ivy's last-ditch Hail Mary to get Ann clean.
"It's for your own good," Aunt Ivy had said, a tremor in her voice as she clamped the metal ring closed.
No sooner had Ann spat in her face than her head was slamming back against the porcelain rim of the tub, propelled by Aunt Ivy's palm.
Eyes wide and brimming with tears as if she were the one who'd been struck, Aunt Ivy stuttered, "I'm not proud of that," and hurried out of the room. She had a deadbolt installed outside the door for the very occasion and latched it behind her. Ah, the privilege of two bathrooms, Ann thought drolly, listening to Aunt Ivy's footsteps retreat down the stairs.
In her haste, she had botched fastening the handcuff. Its grip was too loose. Ann could get out. She was sure of it. The thought niggled at her as she absently tugged at the cold metal. The morphine in her veins had long dulled and the itch for that next hit had started to pickle her thoughts.
