I Applied for a Delivery Job and Got Turned Into a Flying Reindeer?!

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Oh God, oh God, oh God, Justin thought as he flipped and spun through the vortex of swirling colors, gravity nothing but a distant memory. It's just like that anime I watched that one time! I'm going to get stuck in a video game, and if I die, I'll die in real life!

But why?

The question wasn't why it had happened to him. By now, it was obvious that the universe hated Justin Flinchley, and was constantly thinking up new and creative ways to kick him. No, the question was, why would he get pulled into a video game through a job search website? Surely there had to be a more thematically appropriate way to—

Suddenly, the colors vanished, and Justin was slapped in the face by a bitter, cold wind. The first thing he noticed was that it was dark, and not just because the colors were gone. While it hadn't even been ten o'clock in the morning back in Pleasant Ridge, here...wherever here was...it was clearly the middle of the night.

The next thing he noticed was that he was falling.

Justin screamed, his voice sounding strangely muffled as the roaring wind filled his ears. His arms windmilled, his legs kicked, searching for something, anything, to grab hold of and stop his plunge toward certain doom, but all he found was empty air.

Through his panic, he realized that he could see the ground far beneath him. An ocean of evergreen trees, tall and green, dominated the landscape for as far as he could see. In the distance, what must have been dozens upon dozens of miles away, he could faintly make out the jagged outlines of mountains. Where in the name of everything holy was he?

Closer than the mountains, but still far enough away that it was barely a mark on the horizon, he could see lights. He almost thought it was a city, but who would build a city in the middle of absolute nowhere like this? For a few seconds, he was too confused to be afraid.

Then he remembered that he was currently falling to his death, and let out another bloodcurdling scream.

"Perfect night for flying, huh?"

Justin's mouth snapped shut, and he realized with a shock that he wasn't alone up here in the sky. Someone else was falling directly alongside him. It was too dark for Justin to make out much about them, but he could tell that they were thin and tall, and apparently wearing some kind of headgear with two long, narrow prongs coming out of it.

"Of course," they said, sounding far too relaxed for the situation, "you seem to be more interested in falling right now."

"What's going on?" Justin yelled. "How did I get here? Where am I?"

The stranger pointed at the lights in the distance. "I'll explain everything once we get you home. Come on, fly with me."

"Home? What are you...Wait a minute! Fly? What do you mean fly?"

They reached out toward him. "Take my hand."

Justin stared at the shadowy figure in disbelief. If he hadn't just been sucked into his computer, through a swirling tunnel of psychedelic lights, only to end up falling from orbit a million miles from home, he would have called this stranger insane. But considering that he had, in fact, just gone through all of that, the only logical conclusion Justin could come to was that he was the insane one. But since no better options were presenting themselves, he reached out and grabbed the stranger's hand.

As soon as they touched, Justin felt their trajectory change. Instead of falling toward the ground, they were falling forward, almost like they were...

Flying.

"I've gone insane!" Justin shouted, watching the tree covered landscape roll past beneath them. "I lost my job, I'm about to lose my apartment, and to top it all off, I've lost my mind too!"