by T.M. Nielsen
Chapter 13
There was nothing in this dimension but sand. Everywhere she looked was sand and wind blowing sand. A dust storm was heading her way, but she saw no way to get away from it. As she lifted her shirt away from her chest to tap out the sand, she saw the portal key and smiled.
“It’s about time,” she mumbled, and picked up the small locket.
She was glad to see no sand in this dimension. Once the door shut behind her, she glanced down at what used to be a stream. It was now dry and the dirt beneath it was cracked. As she looked around at the dead trees, she remembered being there before. She’d been to so many dimensions though. She wasn’t sure when she’d been here.
Wondering if she could find life, she began to follow the dry streambed as the suns rose above her. Heat from the day was getting worse, and she was completely out of water since the night before. She hoped by following the streambed, she could find some type of water but so far nothing had appeared.
A small clearing emerged and she looked down at the dry, cracked outline of a ‘D’ drawn into the dirt. It was starting to come back to her, and her heart raced. She was in the dimension that led her to Paragoy over 2 ½ years ago. She’d been away for two years and had been actively searching for it for almost nine months.
Her feet moved faster as she ran along the dry stream, across the field of dead weeds. She hoped she could find the portal again. Portal keys came and went, and it could take years waiting to find one you had previously seen.
Trying to retrace her steps from memory, she ran through the tall weeds and across the dry streambed, toward the dead trees that were home to the portal to Paragoy. When she reached the trees, she looked around carefully, praying to Daemionis to help her find the key.
She found the spot of the portal, because there were the bones of a Shadowmere beside it. She knew that Waymen would require a death because of her escape, and this man had been it. With nothing else to do but wait for a key to appear, she began going through the Shadowmere’s things.
He’d been picked clean. The Shadowmere weren’t loyal enough to leave the dead alone, so they had already taken everything of value off of him.
When the moons began to rise over the trees, she leaned back against the armor of the Shadowmere to wait out the night. She was afraid to sleep, afraid she might miss the key if it appeared.