Michael felt an uncontrollable force take him hostage, it was as if he fell out of the world, he looked back through a rectangle to see the image of his room quickly vanishing as his surroundings all became black. Michael tried to scream, but in this grand space, there was no sound no matter how hard Michael tried. He felt himself being pulled by a force, like gravity, except with no larger object to be pulled toward. After what felt like it could’ve been at least an hour of falling there was finally something visible for Michael to see. Purple and green lights, several hundred of them, distant, but growing. As the lights increased in size their complicated shapes became more defined. Much like the shape of amoebas under a microscope, their many curves continued to multiply as Michael was drawn closer in. He was dragged over to a building floating in the void. Now in every direction, he could see the amoeba-shaped lights twinkling in the distance.
As he reached the ground in front of the eerily familiar building he finally felt gravity holding him down to the sidewalk in front of the structure. The building had a brownish exterior, with dark square windows, and two glass doors at the entrance. Behind each window, Michael could see nothing from the other side, only his reflection looking back on himself in the glass. Michael looked over the sidewalk, it was void, and everything surrounding the building was void. Michael took a breath and approached the entrance, placing his hands on the glass doors. He turned his head around and looked back once again at the void with the purple and green lights blinking. He pushed the door open to reveal the interior of the building. The doors shut behind him clicking, and Michael heard the sound of his footsteps on the shiny white tile. The room was a small building entrance, with beige walls, and a red carpet just beyond the doors. The room opened into a larger room, and Michael walked along the path into the larger space. There were empty rows of seating and several cutouts along the wall with information booths. Above and to the side of the information booths were some type of writing, but much like the formulas Michael was made to memorize in math class they were nothing but gibberish to him. He approached the information booth, but nobody seemed to be there, just a blue screen with some writing on it and several buttons. Michael tapped the buttons at random, causing a bell to chime. An alien attendant from the other side of the wall walked up to the desk and stared at Michael. His teeth were large and pointed, and his skin was a dark grey, his tongue was long and tapered off near the end to a point. He opened his mouth and hissed at Michael causing Michael to jump back and fall on the ground behind him. He looked up at the desk and a long arm grabbed him from the other side of the counter pulling him back up and forcing him into his standing position. The attendant reached for a device and placed it into Michael’s ear, it screeched in a high pitch for a second before stopping.
“Can you understand me now?” asked the alien at the desk,
“Y… yeah I can,” said Michael.
“Okay, what do you need?” said the attendant.
“I don’t know, I’m lost, I don’t know how I got here,” said Michael.
“Really man, it’s hard enough working this shift, so could you tell me what you’re here for?” said the alien getting increasingly impatient.
“I’m serious I am really lost. I-”
“If this is a joke it’s really not funny. Do you need something or do you want to be sent back through the gate?” said the attendant.
“What gate?” asked Michael.
“The one you came through to get here silly, you know I don’t know what you’re getting out of this, you know what, give me your identity code I’ve had enough of this,” said the attendant.
“Identity code? I don’t have an identity code,” said Michael.
“You mean you haven’t memorized your 700-digit identification code? Oh brother, okay fine, I’ll just scan it manually. Now, hold still,” said the attendant.
The attendant looked up and down Michael’s body and a blue light shined from his eye scanning Michael. The attendant looked confused. “Huh, you really don’t have an identification chip or anything? Where are you trying to go?” he asked with a sharp shift to a friendlier attitude.
“I’m from Earth,” said Michael.
“Huh, okay, must be one of the smaller planets, let’s look this ‘Earth’ up to see where you gotta go,” said the attendant. He paused for a second, okay I can’t figure out how to spell it, would you mind typic it in?” asked the attendant as he handed a keyboard to Michael.
Michael looked down at the squiggly foreign letters on the keys.
“Uh, sorry… I don’t know how to read this,” said Michael.
“Oh, don’t know the Ikti script? I see, don’t worry about it. Here,” the attendant handed a rectangular touch-screen device and a curved pen with a very fine point. “You can spell out the planet you’re going to in your native script and it will give the translation. Don’t worry, the database has hundreds of thousands of scripts spanning millions of languages. Once you’re done writing hit the box in the upper left corner,” the attendant said with a smile that looked menacing but was probably intended to be friendly.
Michael struggled to grip the pen comfortably given its curve, and when he got a hold of it he wrote out E-A-R-T-H on the device. Michael hit the box in the upper left corner as instructed and the device beeped.
“Huh, that’s odd, it didn’t recognize what you wrote. It doesn’t recognize all those letters in the same script. Are you using one script or are those from different writing scripts?” asked the attendant looking puzzled.
“This is all the same script, it’s called the Latin script,” said Michael.
“Well, this is very odd, but under VERY rare circumstances the advanced database can get confused based on, well, no offense inadequate handwriting. Maybe try again and write the letters as carefully as you can,” suggested the attendant.
Michael carefully gripped the pen which was still awkward to hold and slowly wrote out each of the letters E-A-R-T-H before hitting the button in the top left corner again. The device beeped as it had just a moment ago, and the attendant looked confused again. “Huh, I’m really confused. I’ve never seen this happen before. This isn’t a joke right you’re actually lost?” asked the attendant.
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to explain, I really am lost. One moment I was sitting in my bedroom in front of my computer and the next I fell through an empty black space, and now I’m here,” said Michael.
“Well that’s odd, people don’t typically end up here on accident, normally when people arrive it’s quite deliberate,” said the attendant.
“And, where am I if I may ask?” asked Michael.
“This is Point X. We are outside one of the many space gates in the galaxy,” said the attendant,
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“So what’s a space gate? What is this building for?” asked Michael,
“Well, lucky you asked me, I’ve got something for you,” said the attendant.
The attendant reached for a remote control and turned all the lights off, then projected a slideshow onto the wall.
“You see, space gates are basically like a door that connects one part of the galaxy to another far away point. Mainly the space gates are used by traders, so they often pass by as they already know where they’re going, so this building is here mainly for civilian inquiries. One space gate can connect to several others, but not at the same time, so mainly people come by to ask when the gate is open for their desired destination,” said the attendant clicking through the slides.
“Oh okay, so you can connect me back to Earth right?” asked Michael.
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. I’m gonna ask you to stay here for a moment so that we can figure things out. Is that okay?” asked the attendant.
“Sure, I appreciate your help. Thank you,” said Michael.
The attendant walked away from the other side of the counter, but then turned around “Oh, and since you might be here for a while I may as well introduce myself. My name is Fenn. What’s your name?” said Fenn.
“My name is Michael, it’s nice to meet you Fenn,” said Michael.
“Well, nice to meet you Michael,” Fenn said as he reached his long arm out to touch Michael’s hand. Michael shook Fenn’s long arm in order to be polite even though his arm slightly freaked him out.
“Okay, well I’ll be back with you in a moment so that we can figure this out. In the meantime feel free to take a seat,” said Fenn. Fenn turned around and walked away from the information booth to some room on the other side of the wall. Michael walked over to a chair near the information booth and took a seat. As soon as Michael sat down a holographic screen appeared in front of Michael’s face. The screen displayed several icons which Michael couldn’t discern from another, so he decided to explore them by hitting the different icons. The first thing Michael selected was a website with a lot of text, and although he couldn’t read any of the words he knew it was a news website. He scrolled around randomly and clicked on the videos and images several of which contained pictures of the leaders from Nova Galactica. Michael continued looking through the different pages and messed around with his screen, but as time passed he grew increasingly impatient and worried knowing that each minute he was in the room was time he was not with his friends. It’s okay, Fenn should be back any moment now Michael thought. Eventually, he got up from his seat to go and call Fenn back using the blue screen, but just as he stood up Fenn appeared at the information desk. “Hey Michael, so I couldn’t find your desired destination, and since you’re lost I can’t really figure out a place to send you. I’m really not sure what to say,” said Fenn.
“What? How do you not know how to get me out of here? I was in my room and I was sucked into my computer screen and now I’m here in this game. How do I leave?” said Michael.
“Oh, you’re one of those people who thinks this is all a video game? Ikti Prime are really masters of science, but their idea that this is all some kind of game really isn’t convincing,” said Fenn.
“Wait what do you mean?” asked Michael.
“Okay, so the scholars of Ikti Prime have started believing in this theory that this universe isn’t the only one and that it’s actually a lot more complicated and we live within a video game. I’m not up to date on all the details it’s just some article I was reading about as a theory the Ikti have been talking about for a few intergalactic years now,” said Fenn.
“Do you know where I would need to go in order to meet the Ikti?” asked Michael.
“Well, I guess if you’re interested in this theory you could go to Ikti City, but as I said it’s just some weird hypothesis they’ve all been obsessed about,” said Fenn.
“Wait, so the space gates, could I use them to get to Ikti City?” asked Michael.
“Well, Point X doesn’t connect directly so you would have to connect over,” said Fenn.
“So what are my options? What gets me closer?” asked Michael.
“Well, there are several choices. The best one would take you to Sevani,” suggested Fenn.
“Okay great can I go there then?” asked Michael.
“Yes, that will be 7,800 credits,” said Fenn.
“Wait, credits? I don’t have any credits,” said Michael.
“Oh that’s right, you just got here. I’m very sorry to hear that, but you know what, I like you, Michael, so here’s what I can do. I can offer this very exclusive 100% discount on a ticket. However, at the next space gates, they might not be so friendly, so it might be best if you get a job while you’re there,” said Fenn.
“Is there work in Sevani?” asked Michael.
“Yes, there’s lots of jobs to do there. One of my friends back on my homeworld was from Sevani, he always talked about it,” said Fenn.
“Well thank you, I would like to go there then. Thank you Fenn,” said Michael.
“Oh, and one more thing before you leave, take this,” said Fenn handing Michael a device. “You can use this to communicate with others. It’s called a Galactobracelet,” he added.
The device had a wristband like a watch that could be worn on Michael’s wrist with a holographic screen that could be opened and closed.
“Thank you so much, Fenn. I really appreciate it,” said Michael smiling.
“Well, it was great meeting you, but you’ve got to leave soon, a public transportation ship will be arriving soon and you will have to take it to get to your destination,” said Fenn.
“Thanks, where do I go?” asked Michael.
“Out the door, you came in,” said Fenn.
Michael turned to the direction he had entered the building in and walked through the door. The door opened and Michael took a step out, and noticed the ground outside had changed. What was once an unremarkable concrete sidewalk was a smooth metal. Michael stepped out and looked back at the building which was also now the solid smooth metal. He could no longer look over the sidewalk and into the void as a yellow screen blocked passage. Everything was unrecognizable, the only thing that remained a constant was the lack of others. Before Michael could collect his thoughts a light twinkled in the distance catching his attention.