The Parallel Gateway

Light breaks between the cracks of the boarded-up window, as teeth dig into the wooden barrier.

Chuck… chuck… chuck… crack…

The board gets pried back by a crowbar and is ripped off the framing, making the rest of the entry all too easy.

A boy in his early teens climbs into the abandoned house, turns around to allow two other of his friends into, Wallace and Cara, through the window.

Cara eyes the premises, spine tingles at the sight of thick bodies of cobwebs mapped about the den. The beam of her flashflight surfaces over a dead rat in the corner. She screams, causing the others to jump in distress.

“Keep cool.” Wallace instructs. “There’s nothing here that will harm you.”

She looks up to the broken ceiling and the shadows creeping against the edges of the room as individual entities, and sulks, “I’m not so certain.”

Owen, the leader of the group, presses forward, “Wallace is right… Nobody’s lived her for decades. This house used to belong to Old Lady Kingsley.”

Cara, in confusion, inquires, “Who?”

Owen regards her, “You’ve never heard of Gladys Kingsley? There were campfire tales made of her. Heck, anyone who was anyone knew of Old Lady Kingsley.”

Cara folds her arms, bitterly spouting, “Then consider me nobody.”

“You’re somebody.” Owen tries to cheer her up. She blushes, subjected by the sappiness of the moment. “Gladys Kingsley is a name that holds much weight. When alive, she was a successful curator of the museum. Aside from that, she was a professor of the antiquities of evolutionary technological sciences-- say that three times, I dare you!--and also wrote a dozen or so books that covered physics, the supernatural, history, and oddly historical architecture. Some say she had an IQ that would make Einstein jealous.”

Owen continues, “Kingsley loved science and history, apparently a bit too much. In her late forties, Kingsley made herself so caught up in her work that she eventually quit her job as curator, ended her career as professor, and locked herself away in this very house, to get lost in her own work. Nobody has seen her since.”

“A few weeks pass... People get worried and call the cops... They sent in local investigators, search teams, the works. Zilch! Rumor has it she disappeared, as if this very house consumed her.” Cara tenses. “The more cynical folks argue she lost her mind under the pressure, possibly gaining a new alias, and wouldn’t be surprised find her taking orders at a Taco Bell eight states over. Those who had any knowledge of Kingsley, however, knew better.”

“Creepy…” Cara shudders.

Wallace asks, “So why are we here?”

Owen smiles, slyly. “Why else, but to unearth the mystery?”

Wallace inquires, “Some old bag loses her mind and you’ve elected us as graverobbers to gather her decomposed body in this mausoleum?”

Owen replies, “We aren’t graverobbers. We’re just serving the best interests of the public.”

Wallace rebukes, “Yeah, the quarter-a-century aged interests of people who now wouldn’t care less.” He approaches a table and reaches for a vase.

In stark terror, Owen yells, “Stop! Don’t touch anything in this house!”

Turned aback, Wallace asks, “And why not?”

Owen licks his lips, swallowing a knot in his throat. “You don’t understand. Kingsley was obsessed with placement. She believed that the universe is connected in one great web where everything connects to form one whole. She built this house believing that it’s set on the central axis of the universe. Anything out of place will cause a ripple effect of substantial consequences.”

“‘Ripple effect of substantial consequences’?” Wallace mocks, “Get a grip! Nothing is going to happen... I’ll show you.” He lifts up the vase.

“No!” Owen runs forward, but it’s too late. The house quakes. “Look what you did!”

Panicked, Wallace sets the vase back on the table, “There! I fixed it!”

Trinkets and furniture wobble in fury. Owen takes notice of a huge mirror on the other side of the room cracking like a frozen sheet of ice. “Guys…” He points at the mirror. Wallace and Cara watch their horrified reflection fracture. The shards of glass suck into a black void that consumes all matter.

Owen hears the cries of Cara traveling toward the vortex. Wallace is next, followed by Owen, who loses grip and flies across the room, into the abyss.

A great descent brings Owen to a cosmic plane unlike anything he has ever seen before.

Wallace and Cara lay unconscious beside Owen on a ground of blue matter.

In grave confusion, Owen picks himself up and looks around. It takes a moment for him to realize that he’s not breathing. In fact, he doesn’t need oxygen; if such a thing exists here.

Surrounding them is a circular wall of magnetic energy, cycling in waves of shades of blue and green.

“Where am I?” His conscience voices out through an unopened mouth. “Have I died?”

“No… you haven’t.” The wise voice of a woman echoes. “Nothing is ever dead.”

“Who is that!?” Owen frantically spins around. Slowly starry matter manifests, forming a gigantic image of what appears to be a cosmic goddess outlined by magnetic energy. “You are at the plane beyond existence.”

Somehow Owen is not frightened by the image. “What happened?”

“Your friend… He triggered a natural event which sucked the earth through a void into this realm of creativity. I built the house to prevent this, but who can really suspend reality?”

“Is there any way back?”

The woman responds in obscurity. “Nothing can truly be reset.”

Wanting to cry, but no tears forming, Owen asks in desperation, “What’ll become of us?”

Two purple bodies of light spill out of Wallace and Cara, as they become nothing more than magnetic energy that seeps into the ground.

“You all become part of the greater web…” With that, Owen, as well, forms into a matter of complete energy that creates other existences similar to the one from which he came.