The Portal

by Charles Sterling

  “I am to steal the Egyptian God’s scepter?”

  “Yes, not you alone of course, but you three will go, fight if you have to, don’t if you don’t have to, but bring the scepter back.”

  “Okay…” I scratched the back of my head.

  “Now according to this movie, he is the emperor of the sands, residing in the great pyramid. He is completely alone, and all his followers are outside of the pyramid. He however, can summon his minions to protect himself in case of an intrusion. Now, his scepter can blow you to shreds, make you float, throw you around the room, turn things to gold, turn your eyes to ruby so you can’t see anymore,” he scratched his chin intelligently.

  “Basically avoid frontal confrontation,” I said.

  “You sounded much like Douglas just now, no, confrontation might be inevitable. He does not sleep, and he never leaves his scepter alone.”

  “Okay, sounds extremely difficult. And painful. What if he turns my eyes into ruby?”

  “Ah, worry not. In his story some mortal humans from America brought the emperor down.”

  “Oh?”

  “But then again, they brought the whole pyramid down, thus losing the scepter. You can’t afford to do that, but anyways! It shouldn’t be so bad. Violet and Nero are quite proficient at this, just follow their lead. You might end up being the bait that gets killed, but so long as we bring the scepter back that’s another twenty percent of the job done.”

  “So once we steal his scepter, what happens to the rest of his story? With the Americans?”

  “The plot can change, but the story is destined to stay the same. Those who are meant to die, will die, those who are meant to go somewhere, will go there regardless, even if there is nothing to go there for.”

  “So villains are always meant to lose?”

  “You could say that,” Regal smiled with lips pressed.

  I nodded, deciding to spend the rest of my time doing my homework with Regal. He showed me all the information and pictures they had available and answered any questions I might have had.

  “I’m ready,” said Nero from behind us. “Hi.”

  “Hello,” I replied.

  “Marvelous, call Violet and you are free to start,” said Regal.

  While Nero went over to her room up the stairs, Regal explained to me, “Now Raymond, if you just imagine some random pyramids chances are you will teleport to a completely different movie. That is why to prevent that, you will be coming specifically to this unique spot.”

  He handed over a printed picture of a little stone hut with a half broken wooden door and a sun symbol on it drawn with brick chalk.

  “That’s not a lot to go by,” I said.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “But this little building is exclusive to that movie. The rest… try to imagine the pyramids in the background, and keep Amun Ra in mind. Do not vividly imagine him otherwise that will be your death much sooner than needed. This little hut is about three miles away from the pyramid and belongs to a farmer or merchant of some sort.”

  “Desert farmer?”

  “He collects clay around the river area and turns them into bricks and sells them to people, but what does that matter?”

  “Well, I got it.”

  “Raymond,” said Violet.

  “Violet,” said Raymond. I’m kidding.

  “Ready to go?”

  “Dr. Regal here explained everything to me. You have a plan, right?”

  “We’ve failed twice without you,” said Nero.

  “Twice? Won’t he expect us then?” I folded the picture and put it in my pocket.

  “No, all movies go on a loop and repeat themselves after the story ends. You’ll be teleporting at a point before anything substantial happens,” said Regal.

  “How is that decided?” I asked.

  “It isn’t,” said Regal, “That’s just the time you will be going in, and I can monitor the timeline through here. Why do you think Wilmort didn’t let you go a few days ago?”

  “Ohh!” I nodded. Seemed quite logical so far. “Alright, let’s go ruin another movie,” I said.

  “There won’t be any movies if we don’t,” said Violet.

  “I know, I know.”

  Nero opened a portal. “I’ll see you guys in Egypt,” he stepped through. Violet went right after him. I rushed over as well, and heard a ‘good luck’ from Regal just before descending into the galaxy of images again.

  It was still trippy, no matter how many times I did it. The only thing to remember was stability and control, the rest was easy. If I let my body get carried away thoughtlessly, then that would be me appearing in another horror movie by accident.

  I remembered the little hut again – lots of sand around it, giant pyramids in the background, and a distinct brick colored sun on the door.

  I was in – just like that. The portal came up to me in front of my face, and I dove into it.

  Minutes passed, it was still dark. I was wondering what was taking so long. I heard faded mumbles next to me.

  “Still?” said Violet.

  “Patience is key to our success,” said Nero.

  “In all spheres, it seems,” she said. When my vision got restored, I was in the middle of a desert right next to the hut that I imagined.

  “Oh,” I said. “It worked.”

  “You need a moment?” Nero asked me.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I sat down on the sand, leaned back against the hut. My head was spinning a little.

  Violet came up to me while I was dozing off. I felt a tug around my pocket area.

  “You bring your wallet with you?” she said. “You know there is no soda machine in ancient Egypt.”

  “Maybe we should put one in base then I could justify bringing my wallet. Give it back,” I stretched out my hand towards her. She walked away casually, rummaging through it.

  “Raymond Smith, Author, Prime Publishing House, email, phone number…” she said out loud. “Don’t you have pictures of your crush here?”

  “Violet! Give it back!” I wanted to go after her, but my head still felt heavy.

  “Fine,” she threw the wallet back to me.”

  I groaned and leaned back a little. “So what’s the plan?”

  “We drill a hole straight through the pyramid,” said Nero. “Fly over everyone, and enter from the top. We don’t want to end up in his throne room, we want to get there quietly, assess the situation from there. You good with simulating?” he asked me.

  “Simulating?” I looked up at him.

  “Well he can make a cup of coffee,” said Violet.

  “Oh, that? I can do some stuff, yeah. Most of my actual practice was with Doug.”

  “Alright,” Nero nodded. “Well if it doesn’t work out this time we just try again. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah,” I stood up.

  “Let’s go,” they both turned towards the pyramids. Surrounding the pyramids were armies of workers and guards. It almost looked surreal… the amount of workers and guards that flooded the area almost looked like a mini desert within a desert. The pyramids looked neater than they were in the modern age, and there was more construction related stuff going on.

  Nero and Violet flew up into the air. Before going up too high, they waited for me. I took a moment to imagine my jetpack. From Light particles it formed comfortably on my back, and the fire ignited.

  “What are you doing?” said Nero, looking up at me from four meters in the air.

  “I’m getting my jetpack, obviously!” I said exaggeratedly.

  “That jetpack isn’t going to cut it,” he said, slowly moving back down. Violet sat down on the sand and waited for us with a sigh. “Look, remove it.”

  I made it disappear into golden pixels, as he ordered.

  “You can fly,” he looked me dead in the eye. “I know it, I saw you fly before. You didn’t use any jetpacks, you just went up into the sky and you flew.”

  “When did you see me fly?” I narrowed my eyebrows.

&n
bsp; “I didn’t see you fly! I’m just telling you that I did. Look you gotta believe it to make it work, right? Just go with me.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. He grabbed my shoulders, gave me a little motivational shake, and kept looking me dead in the eye.

  “When that little girl screamed at you, you took the skies and you flew off, alright?”

  “Oh come on!” I shook my head.

  “When you and Doug were fighting aliens, there were no jetpacks attached to you guys, you were flying without ‘em. When you were on the mutant animal island and it got dark and you got eaten, you didn’t get eaten, because you were way high up in the sky, flying. Remember that?”

  “Yes,” I nodded, avoiding his overly convincing stare.

  “Yes, you remember. You remember being in that kingdom when the guards arrested you. You flew up and they thought you were a god!”

  “Yes, that was funny,” I kept nodding.

  “Even back at base, when we were sitting on the couches, you didn’t get up and go to Regal, no, no you didn’t, you flew over to him didn’t you? Yeah you did, it was like gravity didn’t even exist. You know you did, Raymond! I saw it, I saw it with these two eyes.”

  “Okay,” I said while finally looking up at him. “I can fly,” I nodded.

  Nero gently flew up. “Let’s go!” he said. “Our target is that way,” he pointed at the pyramids.

  I sort of… willed my body to go up, and my feet were no longer on the sand. Closing my eyes helped – imagining being weightless made me float up. The moment I realized that and opened my eyes, I lost balance and fell back on the sand. Violet hid her mocking laugh that she tried to hide.

  “I heard that!” I said to Violet.

  “No you didn’t,” she got up. “Okay, you have the hang of it. Let’s go.”

  We were up in the air, I had extremely little practice and just had to pretend that I was already good at it. Oddly enough, it was working. We soared so high up that we were little dots in the sky to those below us. That was the point – to land in a way that no one would stir problems for us.

  When we were right above the pyramids, we landed right next to the golden caps. The pyramids these days obviously don’t have them anymore, but I’ve heard of these – they were quite beautiful.

  Right below the cap, Nero was shooting massive amounts of heat straight from his palm. Violet and I stepped back. The rock melted straight away, and a large, steamy hole was made.

  “I think we’ll need a lot more than that to get in, pyramids are not hollow,” I said.

  “I know, we’ve done this much already,” said Nero. He began forming some metallic shape that fit comfortably into the hole he created initially. Violet was helping him create the back side of it, and when they were done, they had a completed drill with a driver’s seat and two more seats at the back.

  “Get in,” said Nero, getting into the front seat himself. Violet was in the middle, and I was at the back.

  “So that’s how it is, huh?”

  The drill started. It was relatively loud, but from this high up and buried in so much rock, I doubt we would be heard anywhere. It was definitely claustrophobia inducing, drilling straight into a pyramid with zero light around you. There was a bit of light under my seat, and a bit of light on the sides. I could see the same amount of light being emitted from Violet’s and Nero’s sections. We were encased in glass above us – must have been quite some glass to be able to withstand grinding against rock so much.

  In several minutes of mindless drilling at a specific angle, the entire machine loudly dropped from the ceiling and onto the floor. It was a bumpy fall, and I nearly hit my head. We fell into some room with a bunch of walls and pillars with engravings on them. The torches on the walls illuminated the area.

  “We’re here,” once the rock stopped raining on top of us from the ceiling, Nero opened the glass roof of the machine and we got out. The machine disappeared into golden dust.

  “Where’s here?” I looked around, fascinated a little bit. Our voices echoed slightly, and it was so quiet that we could speak in low pitches and hear each other perfectly.

  “See those stone caskets?” Violet pointed at them in the corner of the long room.

  “Yes?”

  “That’s where the mummies come out to eat your brains.”

  “First of all, zombies eat brains, not mummies. Second of all, that trick won’t scare me, I’m not nine.”

  Nero and Violet walked towards the open gateway, into the long and dark corridors.

  I ran after them. “They aren’t alive,” I whispered to Nero, “right?” He had a torch that illuminated our pathway. The halls were long, and filled with writings on them.

  “First time I was here with Doug,” said Nero quietly. It was so quiet that even Nero’s torch made sounds of flickering fire.

  “How’d that go?”

  “We almost died walking through this exact corridor. Half the job was finding the throne room, the other half was getting the scepter.”

  “Where’d you go wrong?” I asked.

  “There was a trap at the end of this hallway just before the door. Step on it, and the walls come down over you. He was just in front of me. He got his leg crushed completely. We had to get out and Regal fixed him up. The second time Violet joined us along with one other. We reached Amun Ra but couldn’t beat him. We lost Norman.”

  “Who was Norman?”

  “He reminds me of you actually,” Nero briefly glanced at me. “Kind man, worried about a lot of things, but very selfless and stepped up when we needed him the most.”

  “I see,” I looked down. “Do you guys… get attached? I mean, once they’re gone, they’re gone, right?”

  “Right’s right,” said Nero. He wanted to say something else, I saw it. He looked at Violet and decided not to say it, but I couldn’t bring myself to push him.

  “We’re almost here,” said Violet.

  “Yep, there’s the door,” said Nero, lifting his feet off the ground and flying the rest of the way. Violet and I did the same, and we were safely through to the other room. The next room just looked like a crossroads to all the other hallways. There were four including the one we just came from.

  “Had to split up here, you can imagine,” said Nero. “Turns out the left turn was right. See that opening in the center?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Full of demon insects. Misbehave in front of the emperor, and he throws you in there.”

  “You’re bringing back some really bad memories.”

  We took a left turn deep into another dark corridor.

  “Any traps in here?”

  “No,” said Nero. “This leads straight into the throne room. There’s a few doors in the corridor but we ignore those.”

  “So Amun Ra looks just like in the picture that Regal showed me? The golden body bird headed tall man?”

  “Exactly that. Hollywood loves to put glitter on things doesn’t it?” said Nero.

  “It does,” I said with a nod of my head. “So why are you so quiet, Violet?”

  “A meaningful silence is better than meaningless words,” she replied.

  “Right.”

  We walked quietly for a little while longer before the halls suddenly stretched out and became wider. The torches were lit up in this wider area, and you could see the giant double door up ahead. We stopped far before reaching it.

  “That’s it,” said Nero. “That’s where the emperor is.”

  “Make it scarier,” I said. “Scarier than it already is. That’s where the Egyptian God Amun Ra is waiting to kill us.”

  “We’ll hope he’s not expecting us,” said Nero.

  “Something is strange,” said Violet. “The door was not slightly open last time we went through it.”

  “Oh shi…” said Nero. The ground trembled once. A second later, it trembled again. Then again, and again. Those were footsteps. We looked back into the dark hallways – that was Amun Ra, walking straight for
us.

  “RUN,” Nero sped straight for the door. With a bazooka shot the heavy stone door was blown to pieces. We entered the throne room. It was humongous and spacious in here. Fire crawled up the walls that lit up the whole area.

  “Are we in trouble? Should we go back?” I asked in a rush.

  Amun Ra said something. It was loud, deep, and impactful. It sounded close to what the Black Dragon sounded like. His footsteps kept shaking the ground.

  “Nero?!” I asked again.

  “We fight,” said Nero.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said we fight, do you want me to say it in French?”

  “Excuser moi?!” I asked in French.

  Amun Ra said something again, and then made his grand appearance through the doors.

  “Here we go,” said Nero. With a jest of his hands he spawned a long stone wall in between us. “Raymond! You’re going to get the scepter from him. Violet and I will fight! Throw it to us the moment you get it.”

  “Frick,” was all I could say. They flew up into the air. I could immediately tell why – Amun Ra blew up the wall that Nero created. I spawned a metal shield that protected me from the debris, then flew up as well. I watched them – they were amazing. Violet threw tons and tons of water at the emperor then froze it in a single second, stopping his movements. Nero was firing a laser gun at the emperor at that point, putting a few holes inside the god.

  “NOW!” he yelled to me. I bolted towards him. The scepter was tightly gripped in his arm. I spawned a sword and took a heavy swing at the arm in hopes of cutting it off. The sword broke. Amun got free of the ice – I bolted back to safety, but a gravitational force began pulling me back towards the emperor.

  “Help!!” I yelled out, unable to resist being pulled.

  Nero spawned another wall in between us, and that seems to have broken the pull. I flew away immediately. Amun Ra spoke again – the throne room shook.

  “Nice chair!” Violet called out to him. She was sitting atop his throne like a Queen. He got angered – he shot a golden fire towards her. She dodged it easily, the golden fire not affecting the chair. Now she was flying around like an insect while the emperor tried shooting her down. Nero flew over to me and whispered loudly.