The Gatekeeper's Realm
> “Beyond this point, there’s no coming back. Frein was past the decision when I first met eyes with him. But Katherine...” ~The Gatekeeper
Last night was a roller coaster mishmash of desperation, a dance with death, a glorious calling, and heated passion between overflowing emotions. For a life as stagnant and uneventful—save for the normality of fighting inside an illegal arena—as Frein’s, this much was more than enough to stir him into anticipation.
He awoke to the whiff of fried eggs and toasted bread prepared by the lady he secretly swore to make the happiest woman of all—a tall order considering he had essentially signed himself to death and leaving her after a year.
Today marked the beginning of the journey towards that challenging promise. And what better way to start it than with a healthy breakfast?
He pulled himself out of bed and wore whatever clothing was lying around, careful enough to know those were his.
“You slept like a log,” Katherine said as she laid down a porcelain bowl, which she lent to him and never took back, filled with mixed greens of different shades. She wore one of Frein's oversized shirts. The fashion had been eye-opening for her back then; now it was the norm.
“Almost dying takes a lot from you, you know?” He gave her a soft kiss before sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning on the legs of the sofa, because the coffee table was too low to eat on with a proper chair. “I never really thanked you properly for that.”
“You weren’t dead, just nearly dead. And last night was enough.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know about that.” Frein began filling his plate while wearing a sly smile. “You seemed to want more before you fainted on me. It’s boring when I’m the only one doing all the work, you know?”
“Just…eat your damned breakfast, would you?”
Frein knew when to stop. This wasn’t quite there yet, but taking a pause for now potentially meant more for later. Besides, food awaits.
After enjoying the meal in silence for a few moments, the would-be Visitor’s eyes looked for the Seeker’s. They locked for a few seconds, and as easy as that, a question flew from him to her. Katherine slowly placed her cup down the small table.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she said, answering the silent question.
“Let me pack some things.”
After breakfast, Frein left a note outside the door, thanking his landlady and entrusting everything in the room to her. She wouldn’t worry, in fact, she’d be happy for him turning a new leaf. That brought a small smile to Frein as he went back inside to prepare.
There wasn’t much to pack if he was being completely honest, most of the things lying around in his room were Katherine’s anyway. He never went overseas nor stayed the night at someone else’s house. Living in another world demanded he brought everything he had, right?
Frein didn’t want to, he didn’t even want to check every closet to make sure, especially not the locked one sealing away all his cringy childhood memories.
Maybe I should burn them before we go? It was too much of a hassle.
After changing to a more appropriate attire they both made their own preparations. Frein packed three sets of clothes, some toiletries, and all of his books along with a few electronic gadgets after Katherine agreed to bring them.
His eyes drifted towards his bed. He reached out under it and pulled something that was far more expensive than everything else he possessed combined.
The sleek finish of the wood gave a familiar feel. At first, it looked nothing more than a well-polished piece of wood no longer than his arm, until he grabbed one end and pulled. He may have been carrying her last night, but Nakiri was as beautiful as he first held her. Every time he observed the blade, the tragic pang of his past stung at him. If he wasn’t so poor that time, this blade’s sister would still be with him.
“You never told me the name of the other katana,” Katherine commented, pocketing a smartphone that she used more for music than communication.
“Yeah.” Frein said, simply turning away from Katherine and knowing she wouldn’t pursue any further. He would rather forget about it, a regret forever locked away deep within his memories, never to see the light of day again.
“All set?” Katherine finished her own preparations as well. She performed a certain motion with her hand and opened what Frein defined as a portal in space. Then she grabbed all their things and threw them in the portal before closing it with another hand gesture.
Frein promised himself not to overreact with all the magic he was about to see, but his eyes burned with questions and he bit his lips to stop himself from smiling and asking at the same time.
“All in due time, Frein.” Katherine was smiling herself. “You sure, you’re ready to go?”
Frein gave his room one final glance. “You can’t convince me out of this, Kat.”
The Seeker sighed. “It was worth a shot. Give me some space.”
Her hair ornament glowed as she slowly raised both hands in a lifting gesture. An outline of light surrounded her, slowly expanding to a circular formation and transforming into runic patterns that didn’t make any sense to Frein. The abundance of power washed over him, like sinking into the depths of the ocean, heavy and suffocating.
He wasn’t unfamiliar to intimidation or crushing pressures superficially brought upon him by his past opponents, but this was something else entirely. Something concrete and vague at the same time.
This power prompted his instincts to step back, run if possible. It felt so natural to raise his hand and guard himself against it. Instead, he caught himself with sheer willpower and stayed exactly where he stood. He had to get used to this as quickly as possible.
“Take a step inside the circle. Then we’ll go.” Frein barely heard Katherine’s voice over the numbing hums reverberating from light.
Regardless, without so much as thinking twice, he took a step.
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“Welcome, my dear guests.”
Frein imagined himself passing through a tunnel, or be thrown in the vacuum of space while surrounded by multiple stars as he was plunged forth to the other world.
A fleeting instant made him think of the possibility of failure, plummeting out of the intended route and dying right then and there in the middle of nothingness.
None of those happened.
When he came to, everything was out of sync, like a desert dune and a snow mountain combined in the same space. The conflicting colors should have irritated his eyes to no end, but he was completely unaffected by it.
“Where are we?” Frein asked, probing for a response.
“We’re between worlds, Frein. This is the Gatekeeper’s Realm. My teacher’s realm.” Katherine replied instead. She stood right next to him, searching for something. She exhaled, breaking her tension in exchange for relief but her expression remained vigilant.
“I’m not sure if this is too fancy or too bland.”
“Whatever the case, he has to see you first, or something bad might happen.”
“Precisely.” It was the voice again, now louder and clearer, not something projected in his head. “Come, head for the peak. We shall begin with your procedure.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Two things came to Frein’s mind. First, the voice sounded like a woman rather than a man. Second, he couldn’t tell north from south. He saw only one particular mountain—or dune—to his right.
“Is that where we should go?”
“Probably.” Katherine’s response wasn’t reassuring.
“You said you’re his student.”
“He has a tendency to make this place unpredictable.”
Sure enough, everything else aside from the mountain-dune and the path leading towards it started changing shape. They were careful not to overstep. Frein stopped trying to figure out whether the things around him were real or not. He kept his head on the objective instead, hoping to find answers.
As they reached the top, the landscape gradually changed into an evenly grounded mesa. There stood a hooded silhouette with flickering shadows standing beside what seemed to be a well-designed stone campfire in stop motion. The figure turned and unveiled its cover, though it didn’t help much. Its face was distorted.
“Welcome, honored guests. I am Schrodie, the Gatekeeper.” It gestured to the side. “Please, take a seat.”
Frein’s eyes followed the figure’s hand and found a set of table and chairs manifesting and acting as though they had always been there in the first place, not that those particular inanimate objects could act. Following Katherine, they took their seats.
“I believe you are the Brymeian named as Katherine Militia,” said the figure. Frein couldn’t tell if its eyes were looking at her, but the way its face was directed gave him that impression.
“Yes,” Katherine responded.
The figure took the seat facing both of them and leaned back. It gave out a soft sigh. “That’s a relief. It’s been about four Earth years, I believe—two and a half Brymeian. You look significantly different from last I remember you.”
“I don’t think I’ve changed much.” Katherine sounded a bit tensed. Even after its introduction, Frein wasn’t sure if it was really Schrodie. The interactions between it and Katherine were distant despite their supposed student-teacher relationship.
He didn’t bother asking.
“Well, you’re no longer a virgin.”
“Hey, that’s out of line!”
Katherine turned red while Frein almost spat out a snort, then laughed until she gave him a death glare. He was so taken aback it took a him a few seconds to realize the entity, Schrodie, had changed. From a distorted shadow, it now looked more colored, a hue of blue or pink…maybe.
A joking smile flashed on Schrodie’s face. “Had to break the ice after all these years. In all seriousness, the quality of your meiyal system has improved dramatically. You are on your way back, I assume?”
“With your permission.” Katherine’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
“And this gentleman?”
“With your approval, I present the Visitor.” Katherine passed him a look while blushing, death glare still on.
He started with a short bow, trying not to smile too much. “My name is Frein Nivan. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Being formal and polite seemed the best course of action. He extended a hand.
The figure returned a bow and stared at the hand. Its face flickered for an instant and then a hand appeared, accepting the gesture. It felt pretty solid and human-like despite the unusual physical form.
“Pardon my rudeness, Frein Nivan. The pleasure of meeting you is all mine. You took her virginity, yes?”
“I said, stop it!” Katherine interrupted. A flicker beside her temple sparked to life, but she thought better and snuffed it out with an irritated gesture.
“Yes,” Frein said proudly. His shoulder suffered a strong punch almost immediately. “The Gatekeeper is asking, Kat. I should answer honestly.”
“No, you should not!”
Schrodie turned back to Katherine, face returning to distortion. “I have no qualms allowing passage to this Visitor, but Frein must undergo a ceremony to prevent Brymeia from tearing him apart.”
Tear him apart. Frein blinked a few times at the phrase.
The Gatekeeper stood. “When you are ready, please proceed to the next room.” Like a signal, a space was created behind it with a wall and a door, again as if they were there all this time. It opened the door and proceeded inside. “Only Frein may enter. I shall be waiting.”
As soon as the door closed, Katherine exhaled a deep sigh as if a heavy burden was lifted from her.
“He’s such a piece of work.”
“He?” Frein asked, finally raising his question. “Sounds feminine to me.”
“Not surprising. This space is distorted with a lot of inconsistencies all around. You can tell just by simply looking.” Katherine stood and stretched a bit. “He could make do with a more stable environment, but he doesn’t really care. I think he finds it amusing.”
“I’m not really one to judge. What ceremony is he talking about?”
“My guess would be implanting you with a meiyal system. You need one if you want to Draw Meiyal Arts without passing out after two minutes like what happened yesterday.”
“Those are a couple of terms I’m sure I’ll be learning about, right?” he asked, and she confirmed with a stretching affirmative hum. Frein noted the way Katherine stretched, as if throughout her entire time on Earth she never had a chance to unwind or breathe in air as pristine as this place could provide for her.
“So, should I just go inside?”
“Yes. Otherwise, we can’t proceed.” Katherine breathed out slowly and showed a soft smile of confidence. “Don’t worry, he—or she—won’t bite. But leave the sex talk out!”
The distortion around the space made it difficult for Frein to get his bearings. It even affected his depth perception. It took him three tries to hold the doorknob, despite easily holding the chair earlier.
“Please close the door, quietly if you may.” Schrodie waited at the center of what Frein struggled to consider as a room. Furniture kept disappearing and reappearing all over the place and it proved difficult for him to even take a single step.
“No need to worry,” she—as Frein considered—assured. “They won’t materialize on spaces taken by others. Take a seat.” She gestured again like before, and a chair was there ever since.
“It’s like we’re in some kind of quantum space,” Frein said, taking the chair without much difficulty. “Only bigger.”
Frein’s knowledge on quantum mechanics was minute at best, piqued after brushing through it on some sci-fi books.
He knew a few formulae, some basic fundamentals here and there, but nothing too profound or complicated. He didn’t need the knowledge, but his curiosity won him over for a while. At the very least, he remembered a bit of the popular Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and was familiar with the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment.
Quantum physics itself was supposedly observed on scales far too small for the eyes to see. Observing these supposedly similar behaviors without any sort of equipment brought him a smile despite all the confusion.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Frein, but I am unfamiliar with the term. If you want clarification, you are inside my personal dimension. Everything is as I would determine it to be.” Just like that, their surroundings became a calm sea with bright clouds covering the sun.
Frein seized the sides of his chair in an attempt to stabilize himself, realizing a few seconds later that they were floating over the sea…or a mirror. The stillness of the surface, undisturbed even by the shifting of his weight, gave off such a deceiving impression were it not for the ripples coming from Schrodie’s feet. Frein decided to never jump to conclusions when magic was involved.
“Does it make sense now?” the Gatekeeper asked.
Frein looked around. Katherine was nowhere to be found despite the walls disappearing. He gave her a dumbfounded nod and asked, “Where’s Katherine?”
“She’s on the other side where we left her.” Schrodie pointed behind Frein. The missing door had always been there and fragments of the wall adjacent to it sparked in and out.
“This is trippy.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
Frein could tell solely from the intonation of her voice that she was smiling.
“So,” she began, “onto the matter then?”
“What do I do?”
“Nothing too complicated. I’ll begin a certain ritual that will provide you the ability to adapt to the meiyal on Brymeia. However, due to the process, your body will be, essentially, continuously burdened with stress. Which is why I instructed Katherine to tell you—”
“That I will die after one year.” Frein finished the sentence for her. He already had a few questions, but held them for now.
“Precisely. Although, that is not entirely the case.” It took one phrase from Schrodie to completely turn that decision.
“How do you mean?”
“On average, a foreign living entity—one with an implanted meiyal system—would last on Brymeia for one year. Six hundred days to be exact. Then the subject gradually collapses due to the stress on the body; they last a few more days to a few months at most. Hopefully by then, they have fulfilled their purpose.”
“That means I’m not the first one?” There was another question looming over Frein, but questions were meant to be asked one at a time so they could be answered properly.
“No, most certainly not.” She snapped her fingers and four statues appeared. They were nothing like human, except for their bipedal features.
One looked very similar to how Frein knew an elf, strictly eyeballing the ears and the length of the hair. He didn’t know if they called their species as such.
Two of the other statues seemed like twins, or related at the very least, but their facial features were masked with a stone version of cloth.
The last one had horns and the amount of his hair could be considered like a mane.
“Not the first I’m afraid, but the first from your planet.”
“Am I the fifth?”
“Fifteenth.”
“Do you happen to have the record of the longest one to stay alive?”
“Five years, the third Visitor. Sadly, we were not able to make a statue of it.”
“It?”
“A completely gender-less entity. It had a meiyal system of its own, which played a significant part on its lifespan.”
“I see.”
There was silence for a while until Schrodie vanished the statues. “So, before we continue with the next concerns, this is your absolute, final chance. Despite the variety in duration, you’re only really assured for one year before your inevitability takes place.”
Frein smiled. “I’m sure you’re just double-checking, but you don’t have to keep reminding me about that detail.”
Schrodie’s posture relaxed. Even though Frein couldn’t see her face, he could tell she was looking at him fondly.
“I only want to make sure you understand the choice you’re making, Mr. Frein.” The Gatekeeper started to float away from Frein, making a significant distance from where he sat, though her voice remained as clear as if she was just beside him.
“Most Visitors of the past regretted their choice the moment they succumbed to their inevitability. Suffice to say, I’ve been at the end of a number of otherworldly curses. I’m sure you know this is a decision only a handful are willing to take.”
“At the very least, you have my word: I won’t curse you when I’m about to die.” Frein took a moment to process the rest of his response, trusting that his voice would carry the same way the Gatekeeper’s had despite the distance.
“All things considered; I should be dead right now. If not for Kat, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. She saved my life. I know that sounds a little cheeky, but really, it’s just one big excuse to sate my curiosity. I don’t mind exchanging my life for an experience like this.”
“You’re setting too high of an expectation.”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
Schrodie was already too far for Frein to observe any obvious body language, but she gave just the right amount of pause to give him a positive impression.
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