Danielle's eyes opened slowly with great effort. It felt as if they were glued shut, but slowly they came apart. Her head was pounding and her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls. Her glasses were lying askew across her face. She slipped them back on and looked around. She was laying on a dirty carpet surrounded by several sleeping chickens. She tried to think back to the previous night, but everything after the strip club was a blur of alcoholic debauchery. She had no memory whatsoever of coming to wherever she was.

She sat up slowly and looked around. She was in some sort of small poorly furnished room. There was a dead plant in the corner and a coffee table covered in overflowing ashtrays. A small little box on a stand was projecting 3-D images. She supposed it was the local version of a television. She turned to look over her shoulder and saw a big hairy warthog sitting on a beat-up old couch in his underwear and a white tank-top. He was noisily eating a bowl of cereal as he flipped channels on the television.

"Hello?" Danielle asked uncertainly.

"Oh, hey," the warthog said. "I thought you guys might be sleeping a while longer. You all were pretty hammered when you turned up last night. You want some cereal? I got more in the kitchen."

"No thanks," Danielle said. "I could really go for a cup of coffee, though."

"Yeah, I don't have any of that. Stuff gives me the jitters something fierce."

"How about some water then? And maybe a couple aspirin?"

"Aspirin?" the warthog asked. "What's that?"

"Maybe you don't have aspirin here. Uh, something to take for a headache. You know, from too much drinking."

"Oh yeah, of course. I've got some jewel weed root. That should knock out your headache. Also a little pep juice will get you back on your feet in no time. Hang on a sec." He got up from the couch and went into the kitchen. He returned a minute later with a glass of water, some dried up roots, and a small cup of some sort of smokey red liquid.

"Thanks," Danielle said. She swallowed the roots with the water and then drank down the red liquid. It burned a little on the way down, but she almost instantly felt a sense of wakefulness and vitality shoot through her. Her headache was completely gone and she felt ready to get out there and conquer the day. "Wow, this is the best hangover cure I've ever encountered. You could make a fortune off this stuff back home."

"Yeah, that's how old man Billingsworth made his first million," the warthog said.

"Right," Danielle said. "So, uh, this is kind of weird, but who are you? And where am I exactly?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm Hot Gary. I'm a friend of Esther's. Sometimes I let her crash at my place when she's had too much to drink. Like last night. She does the same thing for me. We're tight like that."

"That's very kind of you. Especially to take in her friends who are total strangers."

"Eh, I'm not worried about it. It's not like I've got anything worth stealing. I suppose you could hock the telescreen for a few strands of floss, but that old model's so heavy it's probably not worth the hernia you'd incur hauling it out of here. Plus you guys didn't really look like the murdering type, so I figured I was all good. You sure you don't want some cereal? It's got those little stale marshmallows in it. The pink ones are my favorite. People say they all taste the same, but they totally don't. Personally I think the orange ones taste like ass. That's why I pick those all out."

"Now that you mention it, I guess I am kind of hungry. I'll be sure to steer clear of the orange marshmallows though."

"Those things can burn in the hell from whence they came," Hot Gary spat. "Anyway, I'll get you some cereal. Feel free to sit on the couch and change the channel if you want. There's not much on at the moment, I'm afraid, but go ahead and make yourself at home."

Danielle plopped herself down on the couch, grabbed the remote, and began flipping channels. There was some sort of game show on where contestants seemed to be trying to hit each other in the face with as many cream pies as possible. This was vaguely entertaining at first, but after a few minutes grew a bit monotonous so she flipped the channel again.

"...Centipede Inn where the riot is still going on in full force. In other news the infamous Rodriguez gang made a daring escape from authorities at a local motel this morning. We're going to send you to Janet at the Airless Coffin. Janet?"

A cow with a beehive hairdo appeared on the screen holding a microphone. "Police say they thought they had apprehended Johnny Rodriguez, leader of the Rodriguez gang only to have him slip through their fingers."

Danielle was about to flip the channel again when she noticed a familiar looking frog walking in the background behind the reporter. "Hey, that's that Max guy. I know him." Then another familiar looking human emerged from a door and bumped right into Max. "Hey, wait, that's Zeke! He is here! I knew I wasn't crazy!" She watched as the two of them talked in the background and then wandered offscreen together. "I should probably go try to find those guys."

Hot Gary came back in the room with a bowl of cereal and placed it in front of her. "See something interesting?"

"Just a couple of guys I know. Do you know where the Airless Coffin motel is?"

"Sure. I've stayed there a couple of times back before I got this place. It's not too far from here. You want directions?"

"That would be great," Danielle said as she ate a spoonful of cereal. Almost immediately she started gagging and spat out an orange marshmallow.

"Oh, sorry. I must have missed one. I told you those things sucked. I really don't know why they put them in there. Don't worry the rest of it should taste fine. Anyway, if you just head downstairs to the street and make a left, you go three blocks, make a right, then your first left, then another left, then a U-turn by the statue of the giant bagel fighting a dragon until you see a fountain. Not the fountain spraying green water, but the one spraying yellow acid. Yeah, you want to make a right there. Then the street makes a giant loop-the-loop, you're going to want to run through that because if you don't get enough momentum you're just going to fall down and you might hurt yourself. Plus, it's just kind of embarrassing. I can tell you that from experience because it's happened to me a a few times. After that you'll see this big spiral staircase. You want to go up that, across the bridge, down the ramp, make four consecutive right turns, spin around, put your left foot in, put your left foot out, say the secret password 'featherbottom.' This will light up the outlines of a trapdoor in the street. You want to go down that, through the tunnel for about six or seven curves, then look carefully for a secret passage on the wall to your right. You'll have to push two buttons simultaneously to get that to open, then you'll come out in an alleyway. Make two lefts, a right, and another left by the Sprocket Store and then it's down another alleyway right behind you. You got all that? It's seriously like five minutes away."

"Honestly, I think I might have missed a couple steps," Danielle said as she ate some more cereal being careful to examine each spoonful first. As advertised, the non-orange marshmallow parts of it were indeed delicious.

"You want me to repeat anything? It's really not as complicated as it sounds. Oh, wait, I forgot. After the yellow acid fountain but before the loop-the-loop you've got to make two rights and then go through the bright red turnstile, around the pond, and through a gap in the fence. Then the rest is just like I said before. I'd take you there myself, but my bum knee's been acting up. Just getting up to go to the kitchen twice has got me knackered."

"That's okay," Danielle said. "I'm sure I can find it. Thanks for all your help and for letting us crash here."

"Yeah, no problem. Esther's really saved my bacon on more than one occasion. Any friend of hers is a friend of mine. If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to stop by."

"Thanks, Hot Gary," Danielle said as she finished her bowl of cereal. "You want me to drop this in the kitchen? I know your knee is bothering you."

"Nah, you can just leave it there. I've been needing to start up a fresh ashtray." He lit up a cigarette and then resumed eating his cereal while flipping channels.

Esther and the other chickens were still sound asleep so Danielle stepped carefully over them and headed out the door.