Dimensional War

The year was 1943. Two men made their way through a densely vegetated jungle with machine guns strapped to their shoulders. The hill they were approaching gave them chills and with good reason. It was heavily guarded. Their mission was simple. All they had to do was report how well the Japs had barricaded themselves on the other side of the island. If they didn’t, American troops would have no idea what to expect when they got there.

“Simple, right?” said Sergeant Abraham Brooks as he cocked his weapon and stared at the ten fortified bunkers placed on the summit.

“You gotta be shittin’ me,” muttered Lieutenant John Dodson, who was seeing the same thing through his pair of binoculars.

Brooks took a good look at his wristwatch. “We have fifteen minutes, sir.”

Dodson nodded, letting the binoculars hang below his neck from a black strap. He took out a small metal box with wires connected to a headset. After making sure he had spotted all the mines placed on the field by the Japanese soldiers, he crawled behind a large rock near the hill and leaned against it for support, always making sure he was not in full view of the bunkers. Sergeant Brooks followed quietly from behind and sat next to him, holding his primary weapon to his side. The air was heavy. The tension and humidity made them sweat uncontrollably. But they were used to this. They had killed more men together than any of the soldiers in their battalion. They were almost legends, almost. There was only one thing on their minds now: completing the mission – alive.

“Sir,” whispered Dodson into the headset. He eyed the bunkers from where he was. “We’re here…”

“Whadda ya got?” replied a deep voice with a strong Southern accent through the headphones. It was one of the battalion leaders.

“Ten bunkers. A couple of mines and a—”

He stopped. Sergeant Brooks waited, but when he heard nothing, he turned to look at his lieutenant. Dodson was staring at the hill, his eyes fixed on a particular spot beyond the summit. Brooks frowned, “Sir?” Getting no response, he tried again. “Hey, John, are you alright?”

Suddenly, there was a great flash on the top of the hill, where Lieutenant Dodson had been staring at. Sergeant Brooks turned to look this time. At first, he couldn’t tell what it was, but after covering his eyes and staring at it, he was able to recognize a shape. It was a glowing sphere, like a small sun, with an intensely bright golden glow. It was producing arches of red and orange sparks that rotated around it like electrons in an atom. The great brightness of this entity was too much for human eyes to see even though it seemed to be far away. Brooks turned to look at Dodson. “Sir!” he exclaimed but Dodson was still petrified. “Sir! We have to get out of here! Lieutenant!”

With a strange sound like that of a trumpet, the ground began to shake as if being rocked by an Earthquake. Sergeant Brooks got up from his hiding place and began to run back into the lush jungle he had emerged from. Passing through the thick vines and branches, Brooks kept looking back as if being chased. He finally stopped by the shoreline which had become the base of operations for disembarking troops. The ground had stopped shaking in this part of the island. Brooks slowed down and walked towards the sandbags and trenches down the hill towards the beach as he tried to regain his breath. Several soldiers standing guard saw him coming down and immediately aimed their weapons at him. When they recognized him, they lowered their guns and promptly saluted him.

“I just saw something crazy,” Brooks said as he approached them. “I need to speak to—”

The ground began to shake again and Brooks frowned, knowing that it was too late. On the shoreline, past the soldiers, the waters were moving differently, as if something was separating them. Unexpectedly, arcs of electricity began to form above the waters. Brooks turned to the soldiers and ordered them to grab their weapons and alert the rest of the base, but before they even got a chance to do anything, a mechanical sphere materialized below the arcs and began to spin. It had the appearance of a a metal basketball. They stared at it for a few seconds before it exploded with intense brilliance, like a small sun, with bright yellow rays surrounding it in a pattern that nearly blinded them.

“Son of a b—” exclaimed Brooks as he and the soldiers covered their faces from the light. Again, a trumpet sound was heard and before they got a chance to see what was going on, the sphere let out a wave of energy sending water and dirt towards them. A figure descended from the jungle behind them. It was Lieutenant Dodson. He was firing at the sphere of light with his Thompson. The bullets seemed to melt before reaching the sphere, but Dodson didn’t seem to notice. As he began to run out of ammo, Dodson threw the grenades he had hooked to his belt towards the entity, but they exploded in mid air before impact. The soldiers next to Brooks began to join in the attack and soon the entire base was firing their weapons at the object. The sphere, though, appeared to be unaffected and silently hovered over the water.

Brooks didn’t notice it until the firing ceased, but the sphere was actually becoming thinner. It looked more like a disc now than a sphere. Its density had somehow diminished over a brief period of time. And still, as the Americans resumed their bombardment, it seemed undamaged, proceeding with its transformation without hindrance. This generated fear in Brooks. Could the Japs have this level of technology? Or was it the Germans?

Suddenly, the disc-shaped entity was no more than a thin yellow circle in the air. It looked as though it was a portal to some other dimension. Its borders continued to glow intensely bright as if they were burning through the air, through reality, like a flame tearing through a photograph. In only a matter of minutes, this circle had become a window into another universe, another world. Through the center, Dodson, Brooks, and the soldiers of the military base could see terrain of some sort. It was like seeing a reflection of the island, except it had minor distinctions. For one, they weren’t there, and the jungle was larger and filled with strange metallic pods on the ground that seemed to glow blue. Was this time travel? Or a looking-glass into an alternate reality, where humans had evolved differently? Or perhaps homo-sapiens had never come into existence in this world and some other kind of organism had been given the chance to climb the evolutionary ladder. Whatever it was, none of them were prepared for it.

A strange creature approached the circle from the other side. Then more came behind it. They were a weak representation of humans. They had strange-shaped arms and legs. Their skin was not smooth, but scaly, and their pigmentation was not any color people had grown accustom to. It was light pink, nearly white, as if humans and members of an albino species had been mixed together genetically and evolved over millions of years. As Brooks continued to observe, the beings lined up together to pass through the circle and held tall needle-like objects in their hands—weapons.

“We can’t stay here”, said Dodson who was already on his way to one of the naval ships near the shore. Sergeant Brooks and the soldiers nearby did not argue. Even the highest ranking officer in the base began to head towards the ship. The humanoids were now through the circle. They had stepped through almost naked with only a few pieces of cloth covering their bodies and light metallic armor around their waist and shoulders. They were observing their surroundings like children discovering the world for the first time. It seemed strange to them. As the wind blew, they looked up and stared at the sky, as if admiring the blueness of it. Then, as the last soldiers abandoned the island, arcs of electricity began to form in other parts of the shore. To the north, past the jungle, several specks of light hinted at new portals being formed on Japanese territory. This was an invasion.

“What do we do now?” said Brooks, staring at Dodson. The sailors aboard the ship were asking a thousand questions, but no one seemed to respond. Dodson stared at the island as the ship began to sail away. Then he turned towards Brooks and crossed his arms.

“We contact whoever the hell we need to contact and warn them. World war two is over. Earth is being invaded by a new kind enemy and we need to prepare and join forces.”

“You think they’ll believe you?”

“They have to. Or we’re all dead.”