“Seven, seven, eight, five,” I said out loud while tapping those buttons. One fine morning, prepared and well dressed with mere hours left on the red timer I had cemented myself to go back in. The solid TV screen faded into nothing, and the void of a portal opened. The feeling it gave each time was surreal in its own way. It felt like a shift in gravity – like the air changed around me, and the sound was different, and the colors became deeper.
And then those little golden shimmering lights that flickered their way out of the void inside the screen – it was well worth waiting a minute to see them.
Another minute later, in the distance there was some washed up image in the distance through the screen, as always. Sometimes there were two of them, sometimes there were more. Most of the time they were too far to see anything and thus merely resembled stars.
I took a deep breath, and gently pushed my hand through the screen, just until the wrist. After I pulled my hand out, it was completely missing. It disintegrated into photons of light, the rest of my arm and shoulder following it in.
“Please be a good place,” I whispered to myself. Seconds later, my entire consciousness faded. The vortex of images and sounds circled around me again. It sounded like flipping through channels and seeing various bits of imagery and sound each second, except much softer and more blended.
Then it became lighter, and my blurry vision was clearing up. I felt my two feet standing on a firm surface. It was a bit too bright – I couldn’t tell where I was. I held my head and blinked rapidly, letting myself wake up slowly.
I heard a voice in front of me, as if someone was talking to me. I could see his dark silhouette in front of me, but the muffled sounds were not clear yet.
Almost abruptly, the clarity began kicking in.
“I said get in freaking line!” the man swung a heavy fist through my face. I fell to the ground immediately, then I felt his kicks pushing me in a certain direction. “NOW!”
Two more men joined to push and kick me towards something. Without saying a single word, I got up and walked towards the line of people, holding my cheek. Where was I? Oh… No…
I was in a bank during an armed robbery, an entire line of hostages were on their knees in front of me. I joined them with my hands behind my head.
“If we shoot anybody first, it’s going to be the prick that doesn’t listen to orders!” one of the guys said.
My heart was racing a little. Adrenaline was kicking in, and my body tensed. Relax, I said to myself. This was just some movie. I’ve never seen a bank robbery go wrong in a movie. Oh wait… except for that one movie where all the hostages were killed. Oh, and that other one… and that other one… Okay maybe I was wrong, maybe it might go terribly wrong.
I observed the bank, a beautiful, large, beige marble bank. I heard noises coming from the vault with bags full of money flying out as the rest of the robbers collected them. The bad guys actually looked tenser than the hostages. There were police sirens outside with muffled words through a loudspeaker. The entrance wasn’t in my field of view, I couldn’t assess the situation well enough. But did I have to? Don’t I just sit and wait for something to happen? Best case scenario, they lose and the hostages are freed, and worst case scenario they shoot us to our deaths, which, in my case, wasn’t exactly the worst possible thing that could happen.
They began scurrying, the pace of their movements increased. Gunshots were fired towards the exit as a warning for the police. The hostages flinched. Gunshots in a wide open indoor space were deafeningly loud. And one thing they made you think of was – those terrifying bullets could go through you next.
Somehow, the execution in Graymore wasn’t as bad as this. The reason being, it was controlled, there was no uncertainty, only certainty. You knew you were going to get your head chopped off, so you went with it. Here, there was far more suspense. It was the fear of the unknown that was playing tricks on your mind. Especially the fact that they said I would get shot first, that thought wouldn’t leave me alone.
There was an earthquake. Literally, the lights flickered, the building shook, the air became still, and everyone was looking up at the ceiling.
Now the robbers were really worried. They had their guns pointed at the ceiling, waiting for something. I looked at the hostages – their expressions changed from worried to anticipating.
The ceiling cracked with a loud thud that shook the building again. Like a freaking bazooka shell, a man flew through the ceiling and landed in a cool pose on the ground. Everyone fell over, including the hostages.
Gun fire roared and screams filled the room. The hostages along with myself were running into the corner, further away from the chaos in the center of the bank. I barely made out his appearance – he was pure skin. It was a man that looked like a muscular terrifying mannequin – that is, he had nothing but skin on his body with no features at all. No hair, no nails, no ears, no mouth, no nose, just a body with a pair of dark and terrifying eyes.
The bullets sparked and hit some invisible crystal walls around the man. Effortlessly, he blinked into any location he wanted, broke the guns in half, punched the bad guys to send them flying into walls, back flipped and kicked their heads off, shot them down with more glassy crystals and essentially saved the day.
The noise of the guns stopped completely. The screaming stopped as well. It was dead quiet. One bad guy remained. He surrendered – he placed his rifle on the ground, shaking in fear while standing still.
The skin mannequin man came over to him slowly. I would not, I repeat, not want to be in the bad guy’s shoes right now.
“Please,” said the robber. “Please, I was just following orders, I…”
The mannequin man’s hand was pressed up against the robber’s head, standing a whole foot taller than him. Everyone watched to see what was going to happen.
The man’s shaking stopped, and like a spiral, his body got sliced into pieces by something we could not even see. Everyone squirmed and covered their eyes as bits and pieces of the robber fell to the floor.
“Oh dear,” I sighed out.
The hero’s eyes shifted towards us, curled up in the corner. He slowly and intensely walked closer. Everyone averted their gaze and became completely motionless. I was a bit separated from them, sitting against the wall.
He came up… to me! He stood right in front, staring down at me. His eyes had black around them, making his already serious look that much more menacing.
I looked up at him, and we had this moment… Nah, I was just imagining it. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. The police finally came over along with the SWAT team. They were too late, it was nothing but blood and chaos everywhere. And what-do-ya-know, even they were too afraid to come close to this tall and menacing mannequin man.
I stood up slowly, and held eye-contact with him again. The thought of this not being real empowered me. It gave me courage – also, I simply knew that, no matter how scary, if someone kills bad guys, he would not kill good guys. From a storyteller’s perspective, I felt safe. And I was right – the man just took off through the ceiling, letting the police force escort us innocent people out safely.
So I was in a superhero movie? Was that it? At least I was in the real world though. There were tall buildings, cars, coffee shops and more. It was just like at home. No giant forest, no appearing at the shore, no appearing on a rhino spider scorpion shark bat. I’m still upset at that one.
After getting rid of the formalities with the police, I was on my way out. I gave them my real identification and it worked.
Okay, so Wilmort said one of his colleagues would find me. Now, he managed to find me in a Kingdom because I stood out, that much was easy. He did not find me in the first two worlds because those were just really hard to find someone in general. Now this? This might be even harder. I blended in like crazy.
My buddy instinct told me that it would make sense standing next to the bank. Because this was a major event in the movie, which means maybe they would f
ind me here.
It was mid-day, so all I did was stand around and wait.
The police blocked off the bank completely while they took care of the brutal mess. I stood on the opposite street, waiting. I fiddled around, walked in circles, sat in an outdoor café and simply waited. The bank was covered by long plastic fences to cover the view while they cleaned up the mess. How realistic – I thought. In movies after the robbery was over, it just jumps to the next scene. Here, the day continued, and the mess had to be cleaned up.
Coffee here tasted as you would expect, like coffee. But of course I knew, this was Light I was drinking. Did it make the coffee taste worse? Not really.
It was getting a bit darker. A few hours passed. I glanced up, my eyes scanned the vicinity, then got fixed on my coffee again.
Then I glanced up again abruptly. That could not have been a mistake. Walking through the streets in a summer hat and a designer dress, was a woman whose golden hair and red lips stood out among the busy streets.
I got up from my chair immediately.
“Hey!” I called out to her. Then I ran after her. It was unmistakably the girl from the bar that served the drinks to Wilmort and I.
Just when I was about to get close enough to grab her shoulder, an arm blocked me from advancing and pushed me back. A young woman with wavy brown hair stood before me.
“Raymond,” she said with an almost European accent. “Raymond Smith from Washington?”
“That’s me,” I said. I looked up and over the woman’s shoulder, looking for the golden haired girl. She was gone again. “Who was that girl?” I asked her.
She looked back, saw no one, and said, “I’m the only girl in front of you right now. Weren’t you having coffee? Shall we go back?”
I firmly shook my head left and right at the golden haired girl disappearing again. “Yeah, let’s go back.”
“My name is Violet,” she stirred her coffee.
“You’re Wilmort’s colleague then,” I leaned back. Her hair looked like it was straight out of a shampoo commercial. Her clothing was a little bit robust, not very girly. Jeans and a thin tight jacket over a blouse. She had hazel eyes and high cheek bones. If a motorcycle parked next to me with a woman in a cat suit and helmet, as she took off the helmet, that would be the kind of face I would imagine.
“Colleague? Is that what he called me?” she made a neglecting expression.
“What is he to you then?”
“It is complicated,” she did not back down her eye contact. She was confident, and determined.
“So am I going to ask the questions first, or you?” I kept the conversation productive.
“I thought you already asked him everything you wanted to know. I am your new instructor. You will have plenty of time to ask me questions later,” her syllables were very pronounced, almost like an Eastern European accent, but very modernized.
“Instructor in what?”
“In Light control, obviously. We need a real human to fix our machine, and you will die trying unless you know how.”
“What’s the procedure then, instructor?” I exaggerated.
“You picked a bad place, we need privacy. You don’t want to start changing things with other people around. Although here, it might not be so bad. It is a fantasy movie about heroes after all. If you perform a little magic trick no one will be impressed.”
“Compared to a skinned mannequin flying through a bank and slaughtering everyone with invisible crystal, yes.”
“Yes,” she confirmed. She grabbed her teaspoon, leaned her elbows on the table, brushed her hair behind her ear, and blew on the tip of the spoon. The spoon disintegrated into little photons of light, like some sort of star-dust. Half of the spoon was missing, and the glowing dust was simply floating in front of me, flickering just like the photons of light that come into my living room through the screen.
“Okay,” I observed. “I think I understood that much from Wilmort’s explanation.” She then placed the half disintegrated spoon into the pool of floating Light, swirled it a little, and I watched the little particles latch themselves onto the metal, recreating itself until the light faded and the teaspoon was whole again.
I raised my eyebrows. This was almost exciting actually. Starting small was always exciting – getting into blocks and dead ends was not exciting however. I was sure to fail lots of times.
“Wilmort said I could heal my cheek if I just imagined it, is that how it works here?”
“Wilmort did not teach you anything. He taught me everything, and now I will teach you everything. Well, almost everything.”
“Almost?” I scratched the back of my head.
“The others are better at some things than I am. I will gladly teach you the basics, and then you will move forward from there.”
“So when will I meet the others?” I leaned forward.
“As soon as you can use the cross-world portal,” she was cold and monotone in her answers.
“And when will that be?”
“As soon as you learn the basics of Light.”
“You can’t open the portal and just take me there?”
“There is no point, you will just end up in a completely random place again.”
“Oh…” I had some coffee.
“You try,” she passed the spoon over to me. I held it in my hand.
“So what do I do?”
“What you are holding in front of you is Light, only in the form of a spoon. If you treat it like a spoon, it will be a spoon. If you treat it like an ethereal light, it will become an ethereal light. It has to come from the heart. What is in our hearts?”
“Love?”
“No, belief. And what is in our minds?”
“Thoughts?”
“Yes, imagination. What happens when you combine belief and imagination together?”
“Uh…”
“I thought you were a writer,” she looked annoyed.
“I am, but so what?”
“When you write worlds, they only sound believable because you believe in them first. When you apply your imagination on it, you create them.”
“Okay so,” I leaned forward, “I must believe that this is Light, which I already do, because you just showed it to me. And then I must imagine it… falling apart.”
“Try,” she folded her arms and leaned back, observing me.
I held the spoon in front of my face. I imagined to the best of my abilities golden light coming out. The bits of metal coming off and turning into pixels and photons. The spoon disappearing right in my hand. The imagination is never crystal clear, it mixes into what your eyes see.
A minute passed. “Nothing.” I plopped the spoon the table and sighed deeply.
“You did not believe,” she said calmly.
“I did though!”
“You did not believe you could do it.”
“Damn.”
She placed her palm on the table, and when she uncovered it, money appeared, enough to pay for the coffee that we just had.
“Come,” she stood up and began walking through the streets. This was slightly déjà vu, with the only difference being, the world wasn’t frozen still like last time.
“Where are we going?” I asked, walking right by her side.
“A more peaceful place,” she said.
We entered a large building where the entrance guards greeted us politely. We were in a huge lobby where Violet talked to the woman at the desk for a brief minute, and then headed for the elevator. I followed her – we were basically in a large prestigious hotel. We walked out of the elevator after it reached its destination, straight into the luxurious and cozy living room. Deep dark colors with soft beige furniture decorated the interior, and the tall windows let the evening sky blend into the décor.
“Why here exactly?” I stood awkwardly.
“Did you prefer the slums? Or to spend the night in a park?”
“Well, no,” then she interrupted me.
“Then I answ
ered your question. Sit.”
She went to find something in the cupboards. I sat on the couch and waited. This time, she brought a fork. Lovely.
Sitting on the other side of the couch, she handed me the fork.
“Again,” she said firmly. “We continue until you get it right.”
“Okay,” I nodded meekly. “Believe and imagine.”
“A human’s two strongest tools to create anything. Cars, houses, computers – they were imagined, and then they were believed to be possible, and then they came into existence. You can do the same here.”
“How long did it take you to get this right?”
“I will not say,” she averted her gaze for the first time ever. “Do it.”
“Doing,” I firmly held the fork up to my face again.
“Relax,” she corrected me. “Stop seeing it as a fork, you don’t need to focus on it. Stop feeling it as a metal, it is lighter than a feather.”
I did as she said. She kept giving me tips every few minutes, but somehow wasn’t motivating me morally. With each thing she told me, I felt like I was getting closer to achieving something, but it still felt drawn out and repetitive.
About half an hour later, I made the fork shine.
“It shines,” I said excitedly. “It shines!!” The lit up expression on my face was like I won a million dollars.
“Keep going,” she said in a monotone tone of voice.
The fork was fluctuating, but not disintegrating. It showed signs of photons coming out from the edges, but they never truly detached.
“Whatever it is you are doing right now, whatever you are thinking, just double it.”
I did exactly as she said, and the fork disintegrated. The whole thing was turned into golden photons of light that pooled in front of me in the air.
“Yes!” I raised my arms up in victory. “Now you can tell me, how long did it take you to get this the first time?”
“It is not important,” she shut me down immediately. “Now collect it back together.”
The Portal Page 7