The Portal

by Charles Sterling

  It spoke.

  I kneeled and covered my ears and began yelling. The way it talked was so loud and so explosive that I couldn’t bare stand next to it. The sound of its growling incomprehensible words reverberated through the forests and reached the next freaking kingdom beyond five thousand mountains for all I cared.

  “Stop!” I was on the ground, putting my hand out in front of me. “Stop, stop, stop stop stop stop, don’t say a single word!”

  It stared at me as if threatened by my words. The spikes and scales around its face lifted aggressively. It let out a soft and low grumble in its chest and throat, but to me it was the same as being surrounded by the world’s largest subwoofer speakers and getting hit with an obnoxious bass.

  “Freaking… STOP!” I threw fire at it. I imagined it condense at the palm of my hand and shoot out towards its face. It glided over its black skin like a harmless cloud and disappeared. The dragon didn’t even flinch. “God, I’d rather you eat me now! You’re terribly loud! If your she-dragon dumped you its cause you got the world’s soarest throat!”

  The dragon smiled, I could clearly discern that. Its long and muscular dragon-like arm snaked from out of nowhere and neared my body, flicking me lightly so I’d fall to the ground again.

  I kicked its claw away as I fell in annoyance. The world’s most terrifying creature became the world’s most irritable one really quickly.

  “So now what?” I looked up at it. “And don’t you dare answer that! Don’t you dare open your mouth! No one wants to hear that!”

  “I see you’ve found my friend,” said Violet. I looked up at the dragon – she emerged from behind and was standing atop his head, leaning on one knee as she looked down at me.

  “Violet?! You found me!” my face lit up excitedly.

  She walked down the head until the tip of its nose, and calmly fell off. Her speed decelerated before she hit the ground as if she could fly.

  “How could I not with this loud beast?”

  It grumbled again when it heard Violet say that. I covered my ears but it wasn’t helping – the sound went straight through my body.

  “Loudest beast in the world. I thought he was going to eat me.”

  “Yes, he was,” she said. “You were in its territory.”

  “Can we leave its territory then?”

  “Let’s go,” she soared up into the sky. I nodded and imagined my jetpack, which took just over three seconds. “What is that?” she said with a disgusted face.

  “It’s my jetpack, got a problem?”

  “Get that garbage off and fly normally, Doug told me you could fly now.”

  “Doug is alive?!” I looked up at her with hope in my eyes.

  “Yes, of course. Now fly.”

  “How?”

  She struck her face with her palm. “He didn’t teach you anything, did he?”

  “He taught me more than you, I’ll be fair,” I said.

  “Well that will change today, because I’m going to teach you to open portals. Wilmort says we’re running out of time, we need you on the team.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “So how do I fly?”

  She flew over to me like a fairy, impatiently grabbed my shirt and took off. I resisted from the sudden gain in altitude, but just let it happen, it wasn’t the first time after all. Thankfully, the dragon did not follow us, although I kept the possibility at the back of my mind.

  We flew fast, and we flew for a while. Around us was beautiful forest terrain with low mountains scattered throughout the lands. The view from this high up reminded me of ascending on an airplane and seeing mountain ranges beneath just before going too high up into the clouds. This obviously felt more intense – there were no walls around me, and no comfortable seat. Only a strong and pushy woman holding me by my shirt. If she had hoped this would make me fly – or even worse, if she was planning to drop me and force me to try to fly, then she’d have another thing coming.

  When we landed, we were atop a mountain with a cave entrance in the middle and a small plateau just in front of it. It was good enough for fifteen friends to camp at, not so much to practice shooting like I did with Doug.

  “So what happened?” I created two tree stumps for us to sit on. She didn’t comment and sat on one, adjusting her tight dark red leather jacket.

  “With the machine?” she asked.

  “With Douglas.”

  “Douglas couldn’t save you. In his words, your jetpack was still on while you were stunned and making your way down. He grabbed onto you, but before he could take it off you both crash landed. When you did, you got surrounded by monsters and attacked immediately. He opened the portal and escaped. You were eaten.”

  “Oh, lovely,” I nodded, shuddering at the thought.

  “We’re seeing everyone soon,” she said.

  “When?”

  “As soon as you learn to open your portal. Have you learnt not to get lost yet?”

  “Uh, no.”

  She sighed with a groan. “He told me he taught you that too.”

  “He didn’t teach me, he just told me how to do it.”

  “There is no other way to teach you but tell you how to do it.”

  “Oh.”

  “I thought you picked this place because you like dragons or something. I’ve been here before. The Kingdom over there,” she pointed, “made a deal with that dragon. The dragon protects them from any invasions, and they give it any treasure they can find.”

  “But according to the pact, if any single man comes close to the dragon’s lair where all the treasure lies, it lets out a roar to let everyone know it is going to attack the kingdom and eat everyone,” I finished the explanation for her.

  “You know the story!” she looked at me.

  “I watched the movie, it’s a classic. Very famous, but quite old. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize the dragon. Zedos or something?”

  “Zedius, dragon of carnage.”

  “What’s your movie called?” I asked her. “If I knew your full name I could search it up and find out about your backstory or something.”

  “How about you find out how to teleport first?”

  “Fine, be that way.” After a pause, I said, “I make better coffee than you now.”

  “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “To open the portal is very simple,” she stood up, changing the conversation. “You create Light by imagining it, now I want you to take the Light that is already there, and simply spread it apart. Rip a hole through it.”

  “You know I missed your accent,” I interrupted her. “Rip a hole through it,” I tried copying her accent.

  “I will smack you,” she said. “Feel out the light with your fingers,” her palms began glowing a light gold. “This is not me creating Light, it is me touching the Light of this world. Now gently…” she spread her palms out, and began drawing a large circle with both her palms. Surely enough, the Light spread out like stirring a frothy drink that opened up its dark contents underneath. She created a portal, and then closed it.

  “Doug would have explained it better,” I got up from the stump.

  “Doug learnt it from me.”

  “Not from Wilmort?”

  “Wilmort taught him the basics and motivated him. I was always good at feeling and not imagining, so I am good at opening portals. I went to his world in nineteen forty four and taught him to travel with us.”

  I nodded with nothing else to say. I tried it. My hands were out in front of me, touching the air. They began glowing gold…

  “No,” she slapped my hands, making the gold disappear. “Stop imagining random Light, feel the Light that surrounds you first.”

  “I don’t feel anything though,” I looked around. “It feels like wind to me.”

  “Try closing your eyes.”

  Oh yeah, that helped when I travelled through the TV. I was no longer overwhelmed with the visuals and just felt my bo
dy, and felt that it was coming together and that it was real. It was like I had to be disassembled from the real world and reassembled in the digital one.

  Needless to say, it eventually became dark. The moon was out, Violet started a campfire and sat on a beanbag while having a cup of tea. I kept trying to feel whatever it was that I was supposed to feel, but to no avail. My arms were getting tired from being held in front of me for so long. At some point, with a sigh, I let go and walked towards the cliff. I stood on the edge of the cliff and looked down. Beneath us was a sea of forests, lit up only by the moonlight and stars.

  “Violet,” I said.

  “Yes?” she replied nonchalantly.

  I waited a moment before saying anything.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  She sighed quietly. “Come here.”

  I walked over. She let me have a second beanbag, and we stared at the burning campfire for a while with tea in both of our hands. The fire crackled pleasantly and our faces glowed orange. The Milky Way coated the night sky. I was just thinking to myself – this could be it. I didn’t need anything else. I leaned my head back against the bump of the beanbag and got entranced in the stars.

  I had a bunch of things going on, bunch of places I needed to be, people I needed to talk to, but they were all so far away. I have never been further from home before – I looked at that sea of stars thinking my living room was somewhere up there, far beyond, light years away. Here I was, in dragon land, atop a mountain by a campfire where I could create anything I wanted for myself. Why would I ever want anything more? If this was the reward that Wilmort talked about, then it would be enough. I’d gladly take it.

  “Sorry,” she said reluctantly, breaking the pleasant music of the fire crackles.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “I don’t think I’m a good teacher, I don’t know why. I was just told how to do it, and then I ended up figuring it out myself. And I expected you to do the same. But clearly Douglas showed what a big difference it can make.”

  I didn’t comment, I stayed quiet. I had a sip of her tea, and almost immediately placed it down on the floor. It took me a bunch of seconds – I molded a pretty mug together, then held it tightly in my hand and it began filling from the bottom till the top. The tea had a dark red color with a pink hue to it.

  “Try this,” I gave it to her.

  “What is this?” she looked at it.

  “It’s Rose Tea. I had it in a café yesterday, I really liked it.”

  After giving a brief smell, she took a long sip.

  “I love it,” she smiled. That was probably the first genuine smile I’ve ever seen her make.

  I went back to staring at the sky. It was meditative, and entrancing, and I didn’t know when else I’d be able to relax that way.

  “Our friend is here,” she said.

  I lifted my head up. “Who?” I looked behind us, and towards the cave, but saw no one. The last place I looked was at the cliff, and there was our friend. Gigantic black scales, menacing face, and utterly silent movements. He was so dark that if there was no moonlight I would have missed him completely. He neared closer and looked at us both. The thing’s body looked like it could stretch around the entire mountain.

  “Please don’t let him speak,” I said.

  “He won’t,” she sipped on her tea. “He just knew someone was here and made sure it was just us.”

  It was enough to blink and it looked like it vanished.

  “Why does it need wings if it just floats like there’s no gravity?”

  “You should know the answer to that question,” she said with a cold tone to her voice.

  “Umm,” I thought about it for a second, trying to remember the movie. But then it dawned upon me. “Oh, yeah. Because the creators just decided it so.”

  “You cannot explain why garlic kills vampires, or elvish steel fends away goblins. You cannot explain how the full moon transforms werewolves or how bathing in the blood of a dragon makes your skin impenetrable. There is no science, these are the laws created by creators, and abided by the viewers. What are your stories about? Do you have any laws?”

  “I wrote a book about angels once. The most hateful person dies to become the angel of love, and the most loving person becomes the angel of hate. The most positive person becomes the angel of darkness, the person that lied the most becomes the angel of truth, and so on. Angels are servants and guardians, and if they don’t do their cursed job they get sent away.”

  “To hell?”

  “Exactly.”

  “How does the story end?”

  “The angels went to humans for help, for they were once humans themselves. The humans did not help, for there was nothing in it for them. Except… the one named Gladrius. He tried to help. He went to the devil himself, and the only agreement they came to was that the devil would release the chains of only one angel, and it would be in exchange for his lifetime of burning in hell. Gladrius agreed, for his life was nothing compared to freeing an angel. Which angel? The devil asked. Gladrius chose the Angel of Good, so that prosperity and light may be shed upon those who need it most at the angel’s own selfless will. So the devil freed the Angel of Good, and Gladrius stepped through the gates of hell, never to return. Gladrius forgot the ultimate law of becoming an angel – the Angel of Good, was the worst person to exist in the world. When it was free, it killed millions, and burned cities and villages and forests, and took revenge upon the humans that refused to help.”

  “Why did you make it a bad ending?” her face looked disgusted and worried.

  “I don’t know, I didn’t decide on the ending, it sort of just turned out that way.”

  “If your book became famous someday, and enough people watched and imagined your story, that world would be created among us here, and the story would repeat itself. Millions would die at Gladrius’ foolishness, and they would all be blaming him. But the real person to blame, would be you.”

  I scratched the back of my head, “well thank god that book only had ninety three downloads then, because it is my least famous book that did not work out at all. I took it down after a few negative reviews. I wrote it a long time ago.”

  “So many worlds are unhappy, so many catastrophes and recreations of real events like wars and natural disasters. The Mayans apparently predicted the end of the world, and guess what? I was in that world where the disaster happened. Cities burned for no reason, and humanity just went extinct and drowned. There is more strife than necessary, with victories, sure, but it never seems worth it,” she was staring at the fire while describing it all to me.

  “Why were you in that world?”

  “I saw the greatest disaster I’ve ever seen in my life through the face of a portal and decided to see what it was. There was obviously nothing I could do about it.”

  “Does Wilmort have anything to say about these kinds of places?”

  “He never said anything, maybe you should ask him yourself, when you see him. Time to get up and try again. This time, I’m not letting you go. I’ll stand with you and keep pushing you till you get it, is that fine?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. The mood was killed after that conversation, I had no idea of the repercussions of writing stories up until now. I was distracted, and she could see that.

  “Raymond,” she said my name.

  “Yes?”

  “Forget about what I just said, not everyone agrees with me.”

  “What if I agree with you?”

  “Then you shouldn’t. Either way, if we don’t fix this machine then all the worlds will definitely perish. Including this one.”

  “What will happen if-”

  “Shush,” she interrupted me. “You’ll ask all the questions when we get there. Now open your hands in front of you again.”

  This time, she was with me. We took it step by step, and broke it down into sections. She gave me random rocks and twigs and told me to disintegrate them again. Now she told me to do the same with air, and it
was slowly working. There was a big difference between creating and manipulating what was already created – creating took imagination, manipulating the created merely took understanding and control. I didn’t need to imagine anything, I merely needed to feel it and bend it to my will.

  After I was getting the basics down, I was moving my hands in a spiraling motion, and basically ‘stirring the coffee’ until it slowly spread open. She was doing the same thing right beside me, moving at my pace so I didn’t feel alone and knew what it would look and sound like the further we went.

  “Now spread your palms out and let it go!” she opened her portal and it stayed in place. I slowly opened mine, and with a few wobbles, it stayed in place too. They looked identical once they were done. I was grinning with eyes wide and body shaking from victory.

  “I did it!” I looked at her excitedly.

  “Good job,” she said with lips pressed, like it was no big deal. But to me it was – it meant a lot to progress after failure.

  “We’re going in,” she said.

  “Wait, what do I do once I’m in?”

  “Stabilize yourself, and imagine Wilmort. Pull him closer, and the portal towards him should appear soon enough. If it doesn’t work out, imagine Wilmort and I both, it will make your thoughts stronger,” she said as she was creating something in her hand.

  “Got it,” I nodded. “Sounds easy enough.”

  “This is what the place looks like,” she gave me a created photograph of lab. There was a giant floating black thing in the center, some couches in the distant corner and lots and lots of free space to walk around. “It is extremely easy, just make sure you’re stable first,” she started walking through her portal. “And no jetpacks,” she completely walked in. Her portal collapsed in a few seconds, but mine was still spinning. I took a deep breath, and just like getting sucked into the TV, I dove in head-first.

  Chapter 12

  I was in the vortex again – it was the exact same feeling as when I enter the TV. Everything was spinning, sounds and images were flying past me, and all it took to stop all that was my undying focus and attention. Stability! That’s the name of the game in this place.