Strike wasn't expecting the pub to be so lackadaisical in nature. It was still barren and bland. Only Eugene sat in one of the sleek black booths by the window, all by his lonesome as he wistfully gazed out the tinted window, a shotglass twirling in his hands. He had on his usual whimsical stare, the stare that Strike understood as him longing for his eventful past, whatever it had been like. The way he glared out into the unknown like a lost puppy, Strike couldn't help but feel his pain. Or rather, feel like he was in the old man's ruddy shoes himself.
But before Strike could succumb to the brooding emotions Eugene's loneliness produced, he decided to shoot out a few texts to his colleagues. He pulled his phone from out of his pocket, his brow furrowing as his eyes skimmed across Tom's text message that had been sent rather recently.
From: Tom
Serving drinks. Saving us the cost of buying them with my talent.
Gerald scoffed at the screen and quickly replied.
To: Tom
From: Strike
Very funny. Get your ass over here or you're not getting paid today.
He then scrolled down through his contacts until he found Kat's name.
To: Kat
From: Strike
You sick or something? Still waiting for you and Tom at work.
On a less sarcastic and critical note, he then decided to text Aurora and thank her.
To: Rory
From: Strike
Wonder who left me the present at work today...
It only took ten seconds until his phone vibrated. If she was at the bookstore where she worked, it clearly wasn't busy.
From: Rory
Glad you liked it! :) I thought youd think it was stupid
His lips curled ever so slightly
To: Rory
From: Strike
It was stupid, but in a good way. Thank you. I can't believe you even remembered about that.
She replied, but it took her a minute instead of a couple of seconds.
From: Rory
How could I forget??? Its more than just redemption to me, Gerry. Anyways, I have to tell you something. Its about my power...I think its more than just a gateway.
Strike stared at the screen for a moment, bewildered. He looked around. Still nobody in the pub except Eugene.
To: Rory
From: Strike
What do you mean?
Now it took her two minutes to reply.
From: Rory
Well yknow how we met in like a dream? I think subspace is connected to stuff like that. Dreams, ideas, thoughts...even my emotions. Not only is it an add-on to reality, but its parallel to it. And I think people are connected to those add-ons too. You and me and everyone else. There are millions of us. I could tell you more, and Im going to tell you more soon. But...yeah. KK imma go now. Ttyl.
Aurora slammed the phone down on the counter near the register and stretched, a long puff of air expelling itself from her lips, which were starting to grow dry and chapped. The bookstore was dead, Nikita, Thomas Kirk, and gallons of alcohol were conversing in their private, slightly angsty discussion, and Aurora was all alone. And all of a sudden, all of the pessimistic, unworthy feelings she had tried to supress with meds daily - the roller-coaster affect of her mood swings - they painfully started to bubble up inside of her like boiling hot water inside a metal pan. She needed some air. And quickly. This bookstore was just too dark...
She grabbed a stool and the fantasy novel she had been reading before, and noiselessly slipped outside. She placed the stool by the front door, it's green paint chipping as per usual. The sunny weather had been refreshing before, but now it just felt dense and muggy. The cloudless sky above her was in it's pre-sunset phase; not dark, but a dull, turquoise shade of blue. A very boring hue. Sighing, she opened up her book and began to flick through the pages.
Thirty pages in, and she wasn't entertained at all. She felt nothing. She was nothing. Aurora wanted to throw the shitty piece of crap-literature on the ground, and eventually she did. What was she doing here? Why was she in Ashweld? She had millions of fantasies at her fingertips, and yet none of them felt whole and real enough than the one she had left behind. She stared long and hard at the golden ring around her finger, tears lining the back of her eyes. Had she been selfish, or right? She only wanted escape and freedom, but now that she had it, she was lost. Undefined. Incomplete. Spinning in circles. Even a town filled with superpowered people like her couldn't quell her need to forgive him. He'd shown her love, even if it was set up, and she had shown him fire...
Suddenly, she slapped herself. LITERALLY slapped herself. No - she needed to control her unstable emotions. This was just her mental disease speaking to her. She had been put in a cage. A stupid gilded cage. But every time she repeated those words in her head, the more they formed into a sugarcoated lie.
Having enough, she stood up, deciding that she'd visit subspace for a while to take her idiotic mind off of idiotic things. But as she looked left and right for the third time that day, she realized that no one was around. It was so desolate, so quiet, so dry, that the world felt like a ghost town. Aurora wouldn't be surprised if a tumbleweed passed through the streets. Maybe it was just an uneventful day...
Maybe it was time to try again.
She looked down at her feet, exhaled, and spread her arms out shoulder-width apart. The girl would get it right this time. She had to. Aurora pulled the air in front of her open again, this time relaxing instead of tensing up. Nothing. She pulled harder. Still nothing. Even harder. Again, nothing. And then when she stretched her fingers apart, moving her feet away from each other as she stomped onto the dirty cement, she felt something. A slight tug. A door.
She tried not to gasp or exert more energy in surprise through her toil. This was just like fishing - if she yanked the line too hard, she was sure to lose the the prize. And this wasn't just some casual fishing she was doing, this was the fishing freaking championships. However, she was losing her catch just by remaining lax, so she pulled harder. It came closer. Harder. Even closer. HARDER. She almost had it...
And then suddenly, without warning, without expectations, without delay, a force pelted her so hard, that she fumbled to the ground. It sounded like a miniature explosion, but it felt like a whirlwind, sucking her in. She removed the strands of stringy red hair away from her face, and looked up at her creation. There, standing two feet in front of her, was a field. Or rather, a field inside of a circular, vibrating portal outlined in a blue mystical light. Her breath stolen, Aurora stared in awe. She had done it. She had opened a door outside of subspace. She had proven that universes were connected to reality, like she had theorized.
She put her right hand through the swirling vortex, and as if on cue, a bird perched in one of the far-off treetops flew closer, situating itself on her pale white fingertips. This wasn't some ordinary bird. It was blue, but it wasn't a bluejay. No, it's color was that of the sky. It had the figure of a raven, but instead of being the symbol of night, it was the essence of day.
And when the bluebird flew from her fingers straight into the world of Ashweld, that's when Aurora felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. It was as if the life had instantly been drained from her, her knees going wobbly, her ears popping, then ringing. Her head about to explode. She collapsed right there, lifelessly unconscious while a slick, black shadow slinked through her portal, multiplying itself like a sped-up amoeba until it came in a dozen large shades of coal-like smoke, and sped through all parts of the town. It was an unnatural wind with no intentions of being tamed.
Aurora had not simply created a portal.
She had created a monster.