Professor Edwind Archemedeus Haynes looked out over his leather steering wheel and cooly eyed the indescribable colors sputtering and shrinking to a close in front of his car. He was too late by about twelve seconds exactly. Twelve seconds earlier and he could have finished Jasku off before that little monster showed up. Twelve seconds to recover from their little altercation and track down where they had been hiding. Twelve seconds further down the road, and twelve seconds to block their passage through the gateway—that’s all it would have taken.
He took the next seven seconds for a deep breath and then, as he let it out through pursed lips four-and-a-half seconds passed before his rage was completely rerouted. That was the way things were done, every single ticking moment mattered, and those moments would be made the most of – they would be efficient or they would be nothing.
The next minute found him already turned around and traveling back toward town. Sixteen-and-a-half minutes later he had passed through Center Street. A stoplight turned yellow and he increased his speed towards it, causing an old woman at the crosswalk to almost fall over as he flew through the intersection. Three minutes and fifty-eight seconds later he parked and exited the vehicle.
Filling up took exactly six minutes flat.
It also began to rain. That was good.
The less light the better.
He turned north and followed the distinct, energetic pull from somewhere behind his eyes. He still didn’t know how it worked, not exactly. There were countless theories. Haynes favored an interpretation that had to do with strong events initiating a temporal stretching forward and backward in time. It would make sense that a particular level of chronic power would affect the effervescent timeline in a way unintelligible by time-bound minds. The details would probably forever be a mystery, and though he may not entirely understand the specifics, he did know exactly where he was going.
In three hours, seventeen minutes, and forty-three seconds he pulled into the weed-filled parking lot of what looked like a sort of old carnival or theme park. A large, mangled chain-link fence surrounded the sagging structures. It was obvious that this carnival had been long-moldering in disrepair. Perhaps it was a failed venture, maybe it was simply abandoned. Either way, no one was around—probably for miles. Haynes quickly walked through a gap in the fence and past all the faded paint, rotting wood, and rusted metal.
He passed the crumbling tracks of unused roller-coasters and ripped tents of old booths and stands. It took him fifty-eight-and-a-half seconds to reach his destination.
An old hall of mirrors stood in front of him, every frame now hollow and the glass lying shattered in the dirt. The professor entered quickly and spent another twelve seconds winding his way through broken, twisted plastic and gaping holes in the crumbly floor.
And there it was.
The gateway.
The same sickening color sputtered and glowed, surrounding a passageway to another place in another universe, and this time there were no trees or mountains or even stars beyond the color. This time what lay beyond the impossible rip in space was only a damp, oppressive black.
“Right then,” Haynes said aloud. He whipped out his cane and suddenly knocked it on the gleaming border four times. The impacts sent ripples through the face of the gateway that seemed to echo out into the material world. Somewhere behind him, the one last intact funhouse mirror shattered.
The blackness beyond began to shift. It twisted and moved and clumped until something emerged. The dark shape extended outwards and seemed to oscillate several times inside out as it coalesced into a half-conceivable form. Haynes watched it move in ways that would be impossible under most physical earthly laws. As it met the border and emerged, it began to shift into a familiar shape—or rather, shapes.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Blackness became fur, then scales, then a tight scarred skin. The shape was dog-like, then it had a beak, then too many fingers. There were fangs and eyes and sticky tongues and wet flesh all mixing in ways that turned the stomach and offended the professor’s eyes, but he didn’t look away. It would have taken a full second and a half to look back again.
After a few moments, the shapes calmed and settled and took upon themselves what should have been the roughly familiar shape of a human. Only it wasn’t familiar—not quite. The legs and hands and head—its parts were all there, but something about it was wrong. The proportions weren’t right, or the movement, or perhaps the air it carried with it.
Clothed in the darkness from beyond, it stepped toward Haynes. One more step and it was towering over him. Slowly it looked down and all the professor saw was a glistening mouth with too many human teeth. The mouth opened and closed quickly and sharply, leaving a snap echoing in the air.
Haynes looked down at his watch. From inside the reflection, he saw a slight contraction of the shifter’s twisted leg muscles. It was drawing up in preparation.
Right on time.
A half second before it struck he stepped backward. A single brilliant shaft of pure sunlight broke through the clouds and illuminated the advancing monster. The creature erupted into a chaotic multiplicity of body parts, each one burning and deteriorating in the sudden sunlit rays. It shrunk away from the light and fell back into its vaguely human form, but bits of it continued to disintegrate. It looked up at Haynes with an acidic expression.
“You’re angry, that’s understandable,” Haynes said in a language no one ever spoke. He lifted his watch so that the shifter could see. “Either way you’re bound to me. For as long as you’re out of there anyway.” He lifted his cane and pointed to the gateway. The shifter turned back and peered into the undulating blackness.
“Go back through,” Haynes said, taking a few steps toward it. “By all means, but we both know what happens if they get a hold of you now.” The creature looked back at him, ripples of feathers and claws broke out over the surface of its skin for a moment before settling. It slowly shrank down until it was about a foot shorter than the man in front of it. In a voice that sounded like the clashing of a hundred different sounds, it spoke.
“Shifter shifts as commanded.”
“Delighted to hear it,” Professor Haynes said, sounding as if he was speaking to a classroom of students rather than an entity older than time itself, and deadly enough to consume not just him, but everything he had ever been or would ever do. “I sadly am not in possession of your particular set of skills. Crossworld tracking is impossible if you don’t have the nose for it.” He bumped his cane on the shifter’s snout. It hissed quieter this time and the spikes that momentarily broke out of its skin were smaller ones.
“I’ll be expecting efficiency though,” Haynes continued. “A wasted second is a wasted second, and we won't have any of that.” The shifter slowly nodded. It was the first time it had ever made that movement, but it had already smelled enough of the professor’s physiology to know that, like the words, it would be understood.
“Good!” the professor said. “It’s a big job you know, lots of words to learn, shapes to mimic — the sort of thing you’re good at.”
The shifter neared Haynes once again and spoke quietly in its slithery voice. “Scent?”
“Ah, that’s right.” The professor reached inside a bag at his side and pulled out a mangled shirt. It had once been grey, but it was almost entirely blood-soaked and covered in the dust of rubble. “His blood,” he said, throwing it to the shifter.
The creature grasped the shirt and a dozen hands tore it to pieces. Thirty snouts inhaled the scent and a hundred small mouths consumed every last fiber. Afterward, an uncountable number of eyes widened.
“You like that?” Haynes asked. “I thought you would. He’s got a certain… energy to him.”
The shifter began to almost vibrate. Bits and pieces of it started to slide, its form began to rearrange. It stretched and grew longer and taller. Obscene representations of body parts started to grow from unsettling places.
Without looking Professor Haynes suddenly thrust his hand among the wings and fangs and jagged teeth and clutched one of the creature’s jaws. He forcefully dragged it down to the level of his eyes.
“And remember. That energy is mine.” The professor let go and the shifter hissed and backed away a step. Each tooth the professor had touched rotated and was replaced. Haynes didn’t see, he was already looking at his watch.
“Five minutes and twelve seconds late,” he said. “You should probably get going.”