Beyond Oblivion

by Daryl Banner

  It is at a solid, dark, steel section of the Wall that they reach the fire, which is one single torch that protrudes from the Wall. Its flame is strangely white, giving it an unnatural, unsettling aura.

  But that isn’t the strangest discovery yet.

  “What is that?” mutters Rone as he stares at the Wall.

  Dran approaches first, then places a hand upon the big, circular indention. He runs his hands along the surface, studying it. “A door? Is this a door?” Dran could laugh, turning back to Rone. “A fucking door? Are we serious? There’s a fucking door in the Wall?”

  Rone comes up to his side. “There’s but one simple way to find out.” Then the boy brings his face through the metal.

  Dran watches anxiously, breath held as he waits.

  When Rone pulls his head back out, he pulls it out slowly. Then his eyes, wide and blank, meet Dran’s. “A door,” he confirms.

  “A door without a handle on the outside,” notes Dran.

  “Perhaps it’s a door not meant to be opened.”

  The boys step back from it. They’ve come all this way, and yet somehow, the pair of them are paralyzed by the same fears. Neither even need to voice them, staring down that door as if it might come alive and scare them all the way back to the cabins of Gaea.

  “Should we?” asks Rone.

  For once, Dran has no humor or anger or biting remark to spit back. He doesn’t even feel the hatred anymore, buried beneath fear and worry and excitement as it is. Perhaps it hadn’t even dawned on him until just now the significance of their return to Atlas. We are Death come to wreak vengeance upon the very Sanctum who put us out here in the Unknowable Lands, the Beyond The Wall, the Vast Oblivion. We will be the first ghosts of Atlas to truly come back from the dead.

  Dran Avermoor turns to his unwanted companion for whom he is, in this fleeting moment, profoundly grateful. Their eyes lock, and without words, both boys know and recognize each other’s hunger.

  And with a simple leap through this door, Dran knows as well as Rone the onerous burden they will automatically assume: the cold responsibility of retribution for countless others back in Gaea.

  It’s a responsibility I have been, for long now, ever so ready to take.

  And so with tightly clasped hands, the boys take a preparatory step back, brace, then leap together headlong through the door.

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  The Twice King (an Outlier prequel novella)

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  OTHER WORK by Daryl Banner:

  The Brazen Boys (M/M Romance)

  Dorm Game ∙

  On The Edge ∙

  Owned By The Freshman ∙

  Dog Tags / Commando ∙

  All Yours Tonight ∙

  Straight Up ∙

  Houseboy Rules ∙

  Slippery When Wet ∙

  New Adult Romance (M/M)

  Bromosexual ∙

  Getting Lucky ∙

  Football Sundae ∙

  Born Again Sinner ∙

  A College Obsession Romance

  Read My Lips ∙

  Beneath The Skin ∙

  With These Hands ∙

  Through Their Eyes ∙

  The Beautiful Dead Saga

  The Beautiful Dead ∙

  Dead Of Winter ∙

  Almost Alive ∙

  The Whispers ∙

  The Winters ∙

  The Wakings ∙

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  G I F T S O F T H E G O D D E S S

  Thank you for reading!

  The epic story continues in the fifth and sixth installments:

  Outlier: Weapons Of Atlas

  &

  Outlier: Gifts Of The Goddess