Carl walked through his house, and I followed closely behind him. I was too shocked to even try to start a conversation. What did he mean I was the only one who showed up? The whole class was invited! Was I honestly going to have to hang out with Carl all by myself for the rest of the night?

Carl walked into the kitchen where his Mom and Dad were sitting next to each other at a table. His Mom was hunched over with her face resting in her hands, and his Dad was rubbing her back, consoling her.

"Mom, Dad, Vincent is here for my birthday," Carl introduced me.

Carl's Mom looked up from her hands and saw me standing next to her son. The very sad look on her face melted away in an instant, and was replaced by the widest smile.

"Vincent," she said my name so lovingly, "we are so happy you could make it!"

Carl's Dad got up, walked around the table, and came over and grabbed me firmly by the hand. He started shaking it vigorously up and down.

"Great to make your acquaintance, Vincent."

"Yeah, you bet," I said. He was absolutely crushing my hand.

"Hey, Carl," Carl's Dad said, "why don't we give Vincent a tour of the house? We can start in the garage and show him your gym."

"Yeah, Dad, sure," Carl said with a bit of hesitance in his voice. Carl and his Dad walked away and I had no choice but to follow.

"I'll start getting the pizza ready." Carl's Mom called after us as we walked away, out through a door into the garage.

The garage was dusty and dark, with only a small bulb hanging from the ceiling to light up the "gym." There was no car parked in the garage, but there was a tool cabinet, tables folded up, and a large freezer tucked away in the corner. Carl's gym seemed to consist of a few dumbbells and bench pressing rack.

"What do ya' think, Vincent? Not too shabby, huh?" Carl's Dad asked.

"I was expecting a Bowflex or something, like you see on tv."

"You don't need any of that junk. This is all you need to get shredded. Go on, show him Carl."

Carl looked at the floor, he was clearly embarrassed.

"Dad, I don't want to."

"Don't be so shy, son, we're all men here. Show him how much you can bench, I'll spot you." Carl's Dad walked over to the bench press and was already adding weights to the bar. He grabbed four of the largest weights and put two on each side. Carl sighed, but walked over to the bench and rolled down on it, his large frame engulfing the bench entirely. With his Dad over him, Carl lifted up the weight and began pumping it furiously up and down, over and over, while his dad counted out loud each repetition. I could see that the weights were twenty-five pounds each. Carl was lifting over a hundred pounds like it was nothing.

I didn't even weigh a hundred pounds.

With a final grunt, Carl racked the weight back in its resting place, and his Dad gave him a hand to help him off the bench.

"That's how we do it! Don't let his bulky frame fool you, my boy is strong."

Carl's face, which was already red from exerting himself, blushed even further.

"Can we show Vincent the rest of the house now?"

"Not yet," said Carl's Dad, "Vince, my man, why don't you try?"

"Me? Oh no. I don't think-"

"I won't take no for an answer. Get over here." Carl's Dad was patting the bench, encouraging me to come over, so I took off my back pack and listened to him. I laid on the bench praying the rest of the night would be less embarrassing than this.

As I reached up to grab onto the bar, Carl's Dad picked it up and placed it into my hands, and then let go. I pushed with all my might, but the bar fell until it met my chest and started crushing me.

"Push, push! Come on, you can handle this!" Carl's Dad shouted.

"I can't." I wheezed, fighting the weight with all my strength.

"Yes you can! Push! I won't help until you get at least one."

My face was starting to turn beet red and the pain in my chest was growing. My arms were starting to shake, I could feel the strength leaving them.

"Come on, Dad," Carl cried, "help him."

Finally, Carl's Dad grabbed onto the bar, hoisted it up, and slammed it back into the rack.

"Nothing to be ashamed of, champ, you almost had it. You got a ways to go before you're as strong as Carl there." Carl's Dad smiled and gave me a pat on the shoulder, like he didn't just try to crush me.

"I think I'll leave the weight lifting to Carl." I could barely cough out the words.

"Carl, why don't you take Vincent to your room and show him where he'll be sleeping tonight. I'll go see if your Mom needs any help in the kitchen."

Carl's Dad walked away, and Carl came over and apologized to me.

"Sorry about that, my Dad gets pretty serious when it comes to fitness."

Pretty serious? The man just tried to squash me like a bug!

"It's fine," I said, grabbing my backpack, "let's go check out your room."

We left the garage, went up the stairs, and walked to the end of a hallway to get to Carl's room.

"It's a little messy. I didn't expect anybody to show up."

Carl's room felt surprisingly familiar. His bed even had the same covers as mine, they must have been on sale somewhere. He had a dresser, curtains on his window, pretty typical stuff, but it was the posters he had up that excited me.

"No way," I said, walking over to a big poster of Eric Cartman, "do you like South Park?"

"Who doesn't?" Carl did a terrible impression of Cartman, "I'm not fat, I'm big boned!"

"I want to see the movie, but my Mom won't let me. She says it's 'inappropriate.'"

"Check this out." Carl walked over to his dresser and opened the top shelf. After digging through his underwear, he pulled out the DVD of Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.

"Where the hell did you get that?"

"My older brother got it for me along with the fifth season. We can watch it later when my parents go to bed. They also think it's inappropriate."

While standing next to Carl his B.O. hit me in full force. Lifting all those weights got his sweat flowing, and he was starting to smell. I wasn't going to say anything, but Carl could tell from the look on my face that I could smell something nasty.

"I stink, huh?" Carl asked.

"No," I said, "I mean, yeah, but it's no big deal."

"My Mom won't let me wear deodorant. She says it causes cancer and that I'll thank her one day. Everybody at school makes fun of me for it."

"I've got an idea." I said, and walked over to my backpack. I pulled out my tube of deodorant and tossed it to Carl. "Here, it's a lame birthday present, but it's the least I could do since you already have the red bionicle."

"I can't take this, my Mom would kill me!"

"Shh! She doesn't have to know. Take it to school and leave it in your locker. At least that way you won't stink at school, right?"

Carl looked like he might shed a tear, but then manned up and shook it off.

"Thanks," was all he could say, and he stuffed the deodorant in his underwear drawer with his hidden DVDs.

"Boys!" Carl's Mom was calling us from downstairs. "Pizza is ready!"

Finally, something normal. Carl and I flew down the stairs, only when we made it to the kitchen you can imagine my surprise when I wasn't greeted with "pizza." I was hoping for Dominoes, or at the very least a grocery store take-and-bake. Heck, I'd have even been okay with frozen.

Carl's Mom had taken some tortillas, lightly spread tomato sauce on them, and then topped them with cheese, peppers, and onions before roasting them in the oven for a couple of minutes.

"Dad," Carl whined, "you said I could have pizza for my birthday. I wanted real pizza."

"We talked about this, Champ. You gotta lose weight before you join the football team next year. That means making sacrifices, even on your birthday."

Carl's Mom looked upset to see her son unhappy on his birthday, but she said nothing. I got the impression that Carl's Dad was the final opinion on every subject in this house. Almost made me happy that my Dad wasn't around anymore.

Almost.

Carl and I sat down and ate our pizzas, and you know what? They weren't half bad. Nothing compared to real pizza, of course, but not bad all the same. The peppers and onions were the best part, and I never have veggies on my pizza.

"I hope you've got room for dessert," Carl's Mom said, and Carl's Dad got a funny look on his face.

"Dessert?"

Carl's parents walked over to a drawer where Carl's Mom had hid some cupcakes, and they were very quietly arguing about whether or not Carl needed the extra calories. Carl's Mom was insistent that her boy deserved cake on his birthday, and Carl's Dad insisted she was undermining his authority. They compromised after a couple of awkward minutes, and came back with a cupcake that had the frosting scraped off by Carl's Dad. It even had a candle on the top of it, and the three of us sang "Happy Birthday," to Carl.

"Make a wish," Carl's Mom said, and Carl quickly blew out his candle then scarfed down the cupcake in a matter of seconds. "I know the food might not have been the greatest, but I think you're going to like your present." Carl's Mom pulled out a small rectangle wrapped up in a newspaper.

"Thanks, Mom and Dad." Carl ripped open the newspaper and looked up in shock. "No way, how'd you know?"

I couldn't see what he got until he jumped up from his chair and held it right in my face. Super Smash Bros Melee for the GameCube. The greatest birthday present a sixth grader could ask for.

"No way! I didn't know you had a GameCube!" I said.

"I'm only supposed to play it for an hour a day, and I already played this morning."

"But," Carl's Mom interjected, "just for your birthday, I think we can let you play as much as you like."

"Do you wanna play?" Carl asked me.

Did I ever. After all the weird and awkward stuff that had happened during this sleepover, I was thrilled to finally be doing something normal. We'd play Smash until it was late, and then when Carl's parents went to sleep we'd watch South Park. Maybe when it was all over I could even say I actually had a nice time.

Carl showed me to the basement where his GameCube was hooked up to a very large and very old television. The thing must have weighed two hundred pounds. It was made of heavy plastic and thick glass, I mean the thing was practically an antique.

"Have you ever played before?" I asked Carl.

"No."

"Not even on the N64?"

"Nope, is it any fun?"

"Buddy, you are in for a treat."

I set the game up like I always did: no items, three lives, no time limit. I thought it would be the best way to get Carl to learn the basics, and because it was his birthday I decided to let him win the first few games.

Maybe that was a mistake, because Carl started to get a little cocky.

"Haha, loser, I thought you said you were good at this game."

I actually never said that.

"Come on, at least put up a fight."

It's hard to lose and also make it look like a close match.

"And people at school think I suck, they should be picking on you."

Okay, that was the last straw. I wanted to be nice to the kid because his parents seem really weird and his birthday was pretty awkward, but there's only so much I can take. I switched from Pikachu to Fox and prepared to make Carl eat those words.

Carl only wanted to play as Captain Falcon, and would just spam "Falcon Punch" over and over again hoping to get an easy victory. It was easy to dance around him, slowly weakening him until all it took was one running kick to send him flying.

"I must have needed to warm up, let's do another," I said.

Never underestimate the competitiveness of a sixth grader with something to prove. The look of joy had left Carl's eyes and was replaced with a slow burning anger. I think he thought he finally found something normal that he could be good at, and I very quickly took it away from him. It wasn't the nicest thing to do on Carl's birthday, but he left me no choice. I was already peeved that my Mom forced me to come here, I didn't want to be humiliated anymore than I already was.

I was going to let Carl win the next match, but his frustration reached a boiling point, and he said, "The next person to win is the best player at this sleepover."

How could I let a challenge like that go unmatched?

I wiped the floor with him.

Carl got so angry he threw the controller and it skipped right past where I was sitting.

"Whoa, calm down, big boy, it's just a game." I got up and started doing a victory dance in front of the tv, which only made Carl madder. "I can't lose!"

"You're cheating somehow!"

I couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Don't laugh at me!" Carl shouted.

I looked Carl right in the eyes and said something I would regret for the rest of my very short life.

"My Mom plays Smash better than you."

Furious, Carl rushed towards me and shoved me as hard as he could. All that weight lifting had really paid off, because my feet left the ground and I went flying backwards right into the television. The back of my head Super Smashed through the thick glass with the rest of my body following closely behind.

I don't know if it was all the electricity flowing through the inside of the tv, or if it was the sharp concussive blast to the back of my skull, but I was dead in half a second.

Then something strange happened, something I can't quite explain.

I opened my eyes and I was in a pitch black room, with nothing to light the way but a collection of floating, colored flames extending around me in every direction. The floor underneath my feet was cold, and I could barely see except for the light of the flames.

What the hell is going on? I thought to myself.

I had heard of people seeing a white light when they died, but I had never heard something like this.

Wait a second. Died?

The shock of the strange place wore off the second I remembered that Carl shoved me.

"That fat bastard," I said to myself, "I'm the only one to show up to his birthday and he murders me!"

Did he though? I still felt like I was alive, only I was in a strange place surrounded by weird glowing flames. They were floating at chest height, and there were many different colors. Some were the color of normal flames, but others were purple, green, or blue. I walked up to a blue one that was near me. When I tried to reach out to see if the flame was hot it sucked right to my hand and started burning me!

"Oh, jesus!" I yelled.

The fire started spreading, first up my arm, and then across my whole body. I closed my eyes and screamed, but when I opened them the Dark Place was gone. I was in some random bathroom.

Where the hell am I?

I looked up into the mirror and practically shit.

I wasn't looking back at myself in the mirror. Someone else was. Someone I recognized.

"Billy Ball?!"

Suddenly there was a pounding on the bathroom door.

"Hurry up, Billy, or we're going to be late."

"Sorry," I said, not recognizing my own voice, "wait-late for what?"

"I told you already. We're going to be late for Vincent's funeral."