by Blair Drake
It was as if she’d stepped through a layer of the physical world she’d left. But it was a layer she couldn’t access. She turned to glance back at the portal she’d walked out of. It blinked, as if stuck...and it was. She’d pulled out mid transit; thus, it hadn’t completed its process.
Could she get back inside the portal? Would she still go to where the portal planned to send her, or was something corrupted? She couldn’t help thinking how computers always got stuck, and she had to reboot them. It was too old to function with every new upgrade, her computer in particular spat and hissed with every new app and patch added to the old.
As if insulted, the portal in front of her blinked brighter and maybe…maybe changed color?
She couldn’t be sure. But the outer ring to the portal had a mauve tint to it. She swallowed hard. It was pretty, and that made it scary as shit. When had change started to terrify her?
When her world flipped, that’s when. Nothing good came from an unexpected change.
Mauve might be good, or it might be hellishly bad.
A squeak beside her had her spinning around. “Winter? Where are you?”
She dropped to her knees and squinted at the ground. “I can’t see you. Where are you?”
A second squeak sounded behind her. She spun around, still on her knees. But couldn’t see him. “It’s the lighting here. You blend in too well. I can’t see you.”
A tiny pressure could be felt on her foot. She put her hand on the ground, palm up. After a long moment, Winter appeared at the edge of her fingertips. She grinned. “See? It’s just me. I’m sorry you were scared. I guess you were in my pocket the last time I used portal travel. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
He stared up at her, his eyes huge, but he placed his front paw on her fingers.
She tried to relax. He had to trust her. She couldn’t have him running off all the time, but he was an animal and needed food, water, and to go to the bathroom. What a concept. She sat back on her haunches, giving him time to crawl up on his own. She hadn’t seen Winter drink, or eat, or go the bathroom. What else was he doing when he left her shoulder?
Then she realized she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since this nightmare began—how long ago now?
Shouldn’t she be hungry?
Thirsty?
Although, she couldn’t be happier about not having to take a piss in the woods. She’d take a nice clean bathroom any day.
Still pondering how long she’d been gone from the school, she shifted her hand, wiggling her fingers at Winter. “Come on. You know how this works. We need to get going.” He hesitated.
She glanced at the blinking circle beside her, checking the status of the broken portal. The mauve was now bright purple.
“Shit.” She bolted to her feet and took a half step toward it. “What is happening?”
The color change was pretty, but…the shade was already darkening to a deep purple. It gave off an ominous air.
And another thought occurred to her. “Is it even safe to go back inside?”
Why hadn’t it disappeared when she stepped out? It should have shut down, and she could have made a new one when she was ready.
The outer ring started to vibrate.
She gasped in horror as an odd whine set off in her ear. She clapped her hands over her ears and took several steps backward.
“Don’t move,” the voice in her head demanded. “It’s become unstable, but it’s connected to you. The farther away you go, the more unstable it becomes.”
“Unstable? Really?” she whispered. “It looks like it’s going to blow.”
“And that can’t be allowed,” the voice said urgently. “You’ll never get home again.”
“But what can I do? It’s already taking on a life of its own, and it sure as hell doesn’t look safe to step back into.”
“Yes, but you have to. It’s your only way out of here.”
She shook her head. What the hell? No way was she going back into that portal. Her feet instinctively backed up as she contemplated the ugly choices in front of her. She couldn’t stop shaking her head.
“You must,” the voice urged. “Get back in there.”
“No, it’s going to blow. It could take me anywhere.”
“What makes you think you’ll end up unscathed even it blows and you aren’t in it?”
“I’ll back up. I can run fast if I have to,” she said, spinning around, looking for something to hide behind. Then she remembered she was…nowhere.
If she was stuck here, then she couldn’t go anywhere—forward or backward. She’d never get home. She’d be stuck in the middle of these dimensional layers.
She took a deep breath and turned to stare at the portal. Even now it wobbled. Fear grabbed her chest and stole her breath.
This was big, huge, and she wasn’t sure she could do this.
“You don’t understand,” she whined. “I don’t do shit like this. I’m scared. I’m not a brave person.”
“It doesn’t matter what you were. It matters only what you are.”
And the voice disappeared.
Shit. Movement at her foot caught her eye. Winter scampered up her leg. She reached for him, grateful to see he’d finally made his decision. Only to realize, if she didn’t get them into that portal, he’d end up stuck here too. Forever.
She couldn’t do that to him.
He seemed to know how dangerous this next step was as he made it to her waist and, with a big squeak, disappeared into her pocket.
He really did get it.
She was being slow.
Shuddering, terrified, she took a hesitant step forward to the portal.
As if reacting to her presence, it blinked brighter, glowed stronger…wobbled more.
“Are you sure there’s no other choice?” she whispered. “There’s got to be another option.”
Nothing but silence. The voice had spoken. It had nothing new to add.
Then it wasn’t staring at a huge bomb-looking thing—set to go off—and being told to dive into the middle of it. She closed her eyes, feeling her whole body rejecting the idea.
She wasn’t the noble sacrifice herself to the cause type of person. She was more a sit in the back row and hide type of person.
Being brave was not her thing.
And no matter how many times she told herself that, it didn’t change anything now. She was still here, staring at the portal as it disintegrated more every moment she didn’t take action. She couldn’t decide what to do and had no time to think about it.
Melissa realized something else. Not taking action was making a decision too. Standing here doing nothing meant she’d decided not to jump inside the damaged portal, and within minutes she’d have that option taken away from her.
The voice, different again, whispered, “Please. Please hurry. Don’t get caught in there forever.”
Again, there was a hint of something…someone familiar.
She took a deep breath and ran into the cloudy, purple, blinking entrance to the portal.
Chapter 6
It snapped shut behind her.
She was caught in a solid blackness that was suffocating and cloying. Her breath struggled to get free of her chest. Pain crawled over her skin and slid inside her joints as every cell contracted from the pressure inflicted from the outside.
She fell to her knees.
Gasping for air, she clutched at her throat, feeling the life being choked out of her. In the background, she could hear Winter squeak over and over again. She dropped a hand into her pocket to reassure him, only to have her fingers close over the talisman. She brought it up to her face and stared, still gasping for oxygen, trying to ignore the agony inflicted upon her body, her skin, her joints. The lights on the outside rim of her talisman blazed with a matching purple to the portal ring before she’d jumped inside.
Amid this torture, she still had a clear thought, Surely that couldn’t be a coincidence.
She n
oticed her pain lessened when she distracted herself, so she let her thoughts carry on without censure. The talisman was good luck, magical luck. Maybe it could rebalance the portal energy, help stabilize it? With hope in her heart, she added the ultimate fix—to heal it?
Between labored breaths, she spoke. “Talisman…I don’t…know…what you can…do or not…do, but…I’m…in…trouble…here…please help…fix…the portal.” The suffocating pressure forced her to stop. She tried to breathe deeper, but it made the pain in her body worse. Still, she rested as best she could, breathed however deep she could, both just a moment longer before attempting to talk again. “I created it, but…also injured…it…I had no idea…stepping out mid travel…would damage the…portal. I was…trying to…save Winter…he had run…down my legs…and I was so afraid…he’d get lost.” She took a deep and painful breath, kissed the talisman, and added, “I couldn’t…do that…to him.”
The talisman heated up in her hand. It got hotter and hotter. “Yes,” she whispered. “Do what…is needed…just do it fast…and do it right.”
She was distracted from her pain and the lack of oxygen when the talisman grew so hot that could hardly hold it. She held it against her chest with her jacket sleeve wrapped around her hand to protect her skin. Still, the pressure intensified. She dropped to her side on the ground and huddled in a ball, holding the talisman close, humming now to herself as a very basic survival instinct took over.
Winds buffeted around her, plus a screeching sound she’d never heard before and hoped to never hear again—like a rending of metal against metal. The pitch made her ears ache, her body cringe, and her soul shudder. She feared it was doing the same to poor Winter.
“Brakes,” whispered the voice in her head. “It’s pulling the brakes to a stop so it doesn’t continue on the same path. Give it another moment.”
“Easy for…you to say,” she whispered, now rocking her body as she lay on the ground. “I can’t…do…anything…against the onslaught. I’m…being…torn apart…by these forces.”
Indeed, that’s how she felt, ripped to shreds from the inside out.
She gasped, trying to move away from the pain, from the sounds, from the suffocation, but each movement was like shifting against glass shards holding her in place. She couldn’t move, but she also couldn’t stand this noise or pressure.
A groan escaped as her chest constricted.
She writhed in pain. “Talisman…please…get me…and Winter…out…of here. Take…us…somewhere safe…I...can’t...breathe.”
The response was blindingly fast.
A sudden blast came both inside her head and outside her body. She could feel it through her stomach and invading her thoughts…it was too much.
Twisting in pain, she screamed, “Save…Winter!”
A second blast sounded, and she was tossed out of the darkness only to hit something hard. She bounced and rolled several times. Her head slammed against a rock…and she knew nothing more.
Chapter 7
Droplets fell on her face. She lay quietly, wondering at the odd sensation. As the drops increased, she opened her eyes to find the sky. She was outside, and it was…morning? Or just a new location?
At that thought she sat up, gasping at the aches all over her body.
She stilled and stared around her. Green fields contrasted against a blue sky that was flat with the horizon a straight line ahead of her. What the heck. Where could she be?
What it wasn’t was her school.
Before, in so much pain, she’d asked the talisman to take her somewhere safe. Instinctively, she tapped her pockets searching for her talisman. She didn’t know what she’d do if she lost it. But in the first pocket she found Winter. He nuzzled her fingers. When she pulled him out to rub him against her cheek, he nuzzled her face.
“Well, I’m glad you survived,” she said in a happy voice. “I can’t imagine what I’d do if I lost you.”
He raced onto her shoulder and sat up on his back legs. She grinned. Something was right in her world. With that thought in mind, she searched again for her talisman and found it in the same pocket where Winter had hidden. Her fingers gripped the pin with a deathlike hold.
So relieved to have it still, she didn’t want to offset that good news with any bad news. Like, opening her hand long enough to check the status of the lights around the outside of the talisman. Had she burned through any more with that latest nightmare? Of course she must have, but inside she was terrified she’d used them all up.
Carefully she lifted a few fingers and peered at the talisman. The outside ring of lights was three-quarters gone, faded to a deep black. She shivered, sensing the ominous warning behind the color change.
She slowly stood, taking care not to dislodge Winter. Looking around, she felt the bright, crisp air hit her. Was she back into the normal world? Was she in the 3-D world where she lived, or was she still stuck in the 2-D? Surely that close call shook something more than just her nerves loose.
Moving carefully, she took several steps forward only to stop and look around. She didn’t know which direction to walk. Each looked the same with no break in the geography until she studied the plants growing to her knees. It looked like a grain. Maybe she was in the middle of a huge wheat field. In which case, there was a good chance she was still in Canada—potentially in the prairies that were flat and full of wheat farms. Yet she imagined other places in the world also grew grain for crops, so she could be damn near anywhere.
The other good news was she saw no sign of the black cloud. Had she lost it, or had it not caught up to her new location? Was it still coming? With such bright sunshine here, she found it hard to be depressed about her new location. The last one was terrifying.
She grinned and took several happy steps.
Did the portal require less energy to pick her up and toss her only a little ways away, or did it not matter? Or once powered, was the distance irrelevant? She wished she had a clearer idea of how the portals worked. Could she choose to go to a place with good weather only? Or when it was morning?
Or did it only matter as to the location she chose in her mind. Did she need to speak it or only think the location?
How could she test the rules and boundaries without burning up the talisman? She needed to get home but didn’t know how to accomplish that, especially when everything she had tried so far just used up her resources but didn’t take her where she wanted to be.
Sighing, she determined that no direction looked any better than another in this wheat field. Should she search for something here—a house or a place to sleep? Why bother? She needed to go home. Anything that detracted from that goal burned up her talisman in terms of time and effort. Better to try again to get to the school.
Before she didn’t have that option any longer.
Not wanting to think about that final issue too long and double-question her decision, she grabbed the talisman, held it close to her heart, and whispered, “I want to go home.”
Instantly there was a bright flash of light, and the portal—brighter, flashier, and bigger than ever—stood at her side. She stepped back in surprise. “Wow. What happened here?”
She walked around the new version, studying it in stunned surprise. “After those two blasts, I thought you might be broken or only half working in some way, not some super portal.”
Yet that’s exactly what it looked like.
Hesitant but willing, she stepped through, Winter still at her shoulder. Melissa closed her eyes again and repeated, “Please take me home.”
Even with her eyes closed, she could still see through her eyelids how the portal lights brightened, then blinked out. She opened her eyes and slowly turned in a circle. She hadn’t stepped from the portal yet, but, in this instance, it was gone as if it had never been.
Not only had it become the new and improved version, it had become faster and quieter.
And that’s when she realized she was standing on a floor. She was no longer in the
field. The sun was gone and replaced by a ceiling. Given the bed lined up against the far wall, she guessed she was in a bedroom, but not one she recognized. “Now where am I?”
She spun around, but nothing was familiar. Not the single decorative shelf of dolls on the wall, not the drawings, nor the posters of some cartoon movie, and it certainly wasn’t her bed. It had a bright, garish coverlet and stuffed animals. She’d given up stuffed animals a long time ago. Although…
She walked over and studied them. “Is there any chance I could take you little guys and not have it go against the rules of whatever nightmare I’m in?” She reached for the tiny, curled up stuffed kitten. She stared at it for a long moment, tears in her eyes. She missed Gideon. That big, badass baby at the school was the heart of that building. She missed him so much. She loved to cuddle him, especially when she was feeling so alone.
There she was back to that being alone thing again. “That makes me sound like I’m some kind of depressed teen. I’m not. So what if I was alone? It was okay. I did fine with it.”
“That is your lesson.”
She sighed heavily, cuddling the little stuffed cat against her chin. “Maybe it’s my lesson, but that doesn’t mean I want to stay that way.”
“That is your lesson too.”
The voice had become such an intoned part of her she wondered if it ever said anything else. Still, she cuddled the cat and realized it was probably somebody’s beloved toy. She slowly put it back on the bed. She opened the bedroom door and walked out into the hallway.
She didn’t know what she would say if she met somebody. So far, she’d yet to see anybody. She’d probably throw her arms around them and hug them with joy. Down in the kitchen she wandered through the rest of the floor, looking for something to identity who lived here. She didn’t recognize any of the belongings. Why the hell did she land here?
Mystified, she turned to the kitchen. There was a hint of recognition. But, if it was one of the old houses she’d lived in, it had to be from fifteen years ago. She was seventeen going on eighteen now, and she hadn’t been in a house, like a real house, for any decent amount of time in forever. She’d stayed at the school during most holidays. After all there wasn’t much to go home to. But, when she’d directed the talisman to take her to her bedroom, had she meant any bedroom? Or had she meant her bedroom at the school that was home to her? If that was the case, she should be at the school.
