A large surge of energy repelled Savannah back a few feet as soon as she made physical contact with Kayleigh. She hit hard, landing squarely on her backside, and slid another foot.
The rope moved up Kayleigh’s arm, working its way to her shoulder. And once it reached her shoulder, it moved along her back, glided downward toward her hip, and wrapped itself around her.
“I don’t know what is happening,” Kayleigh began to panic.
Savannah struggled to get up. It wasn’t the fall, or even the impact, but the energy that hit her seemed to have taken hers in the process. She couldn’t move. Immobilized. All she could do was witness Kayleigh being pulled back.
And Kayleigh didn’t seem to have been fighting it. Rather, she was moving with it. Letting it happen.
* beep, beep.....beep, beep.....beep, beep *
What is she doing, she thought. She wants to be the one. She’s not fighting it. She couldn’t blame her. To the best of their knowledge, the door was the only way out. Why fight it? Why struggle? Sure, the snaking rope was an unexpected addition to the situation. Like a piñata erupting confetti before the candy fell out. It might get in one’s eye, but there was no harm. If they were drowning in the ocean and the door was the rescue boat, the rope was the lifesaver.
Savannah wasn’t in the position to do anything. She was amidst a stupor from the exhaustion of energy. And Kayleigh was moving further and further away.
Eventually, Kayleigh turned around and began to walk toward the door. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” Savannah declared.
“She’s coming around,” the muffled voice said. “Getting stronger.”
* beep, beep.....beep, beep.....beep, beep *
Words coming from the telephone muffled into a cacophony of noise and static before fading completely, replaced by the dial tone. The receiver continued to swing. A never ending pendulum. As Kayleigh neared the threshold of the door, a flood of light washing over her, the receiver rose up from its mid swing and levitated over the cradle.
Savannah was torn between which magic act to observe: Kayleigh disappearing through the door, or the levitation of the telephone.
The telephone dropped onto the cradle and fell silent.
The light around Kayleigh subsided as quickly as it came, extinguishing out of existence as she passed through the threshold. The door began to close, shrinking what remained of the silver and gold light, concealing its new occupant between the ornately carved mahogany.
Within moments, the door disappeared, back into the unknown, returning to wherever it came from and took Kayleigh with it.
Energy finally returned to her. Her fingers twitched and her legs flexed. She stared where the door once stood. Although she could move, she remained still. Her thoughts reeling, fighting the despair and the tears welling up within her. She didn’t know what she was going to do now. Her breathing quickened. Her heart began to pound hard enough for her ears to ache from the sound. The throbbing and pounded were unbearable, causing her to cover her ears…for whatever good that was going to do. She screamed in frustration. A deep guttural scream that echoed throughout the void.
Savannah found herself alone.
Except…she wasn’t alone.
“Hello?”
A new voice came from somewhere in the absent space of nowhere in particular. Savannah uncovered her ears. She thought she heard something. Something unexpected.
“Hello?” the voice said again.
She looked around, slowly standing up to get a better view. A better view of what, she asked herself. There was nothing. Nothing for miles, if distance and dimensions existed here. In this in-between, reality was a foreign concept.
“Hello? I don’t know where I am.”
“That will not change,” Savannah cynically replied.
“And I don’t know how I got here.”
The voice sounded close. Almost next to her. Almost…behind her.
Savannah turned around. Three feet away stood a 65-year-old woman in a purple dress covered in orange and red flower print. Small poinsettias an inch or two wide. Black flats and white socks donned her feet. Her skin, a complexion of light brown, looked warn with age and hardened from life experiences. Whatever those experiences were, Savannah couldn’t tell. But now she had company. Once again, she found someone who had no idea what kind of predicament they found themselves in.
“What is your name? It is important that you know your name before you start forgetting things.”
“Rosa,” she replied. Her accent was subtle and light. Her general tone floated softly as it was carried through the air. To Savannah, she may have been Argentinian or Ecuadorian for all she knew. “Why would I forget things?”
“That will take time to explain,” she sighed.
Savannah did her best to explain, to tell Rosa everything she knew. What she knew wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing and as long as she didn’t forget anything in the process, she felt she was doing Rosa a great service by letting her know what to expect, and most importantly, what not to expect, such as there was no way out except the door. Always the door. No use finding any other way. No use exploring, despite what Kayleigh had done. It kept them busy but yielded no fruit.
Expectations were dangerous. She knew that from the beginning. Expectations were not helpful or productive in a place like this. Hope, yes. Expectations, no. The door was the only thing that mattered. The door was the ticket out. And the sooner Rosa learned and accepted that, the better because when it came right down to it, there was enough nonsense without going through another “Kayleigh”.
Hours passed.
Rosa resigned into sitting in silence near the stand, reciting over and over again her biographical information and history. Practicing and rehearsing for fear of forgetting who she was. Losing her identity and all she was.
Savannah paced.
For the first time in hours since Kayleigh left, the door appeared, surrounded by radiant blue light.
Rosa stood up, walking over to Savannah. She remembered what Savannah told her. The one rule she was aware of. The one rule that coincided with the arrival of the door: only one person can go through the door.
The door continued to glow as Rosa stood side by side with Savannah.
All they did was wait.
Waited for the door to open.
It never did.
About the Author
Christopher Goodrum is a well-rounded writer of novels, plays, and poetry, and a composer of music. He has studied both journalism in high school and freelance writing in college. Over the years, Christopher has written, performed, and directed his own body of works.
Although a consummate entertainer, Christopher prefers the art of the written word, with a knack for storytelling in the genres of science fiction and fantasy.
A Native Californian, he currently resides in Washington with his family.
Follow Christopher Goodrum
via The Web: www.kieltok.wix.com/christophergoodrum
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Two Souls, One Door: Beyond (Into the Void Book 2) Page 3
