To describe the experience of crossing the threshold, and what I crossed into, was an overwhelming prospect. I’ll start with sensation. As I stepped into the mauve fog, the air grew thin, as though I’d taken a deep breath and had been holding it in for some time. The Dirtroom had been damp, humid, claustrophobic. The other side of the gateway was crisp and frigid, carrying the smell of a recently passed storm. There was a soft hum in my ears, the sort that far-off industrial machinery produces, though it was more gentle than that. It carried something of an eerie quality, its source being a mystery–and yet, it also contained the comfort of white noise replacing the absolute silence found at the bottom of the Hole. My skin prickled, my eyes quickly growing dry from a steady breeze emanating from down the way. It was a task to keep them open at that point; the light of the gateway grew steadily brighter as I passed through, staining blotted stamps onto my retinas.

Once my eyes adjusted and the corridor revealed itself in full, I was left with only awe. Gone was the dirt, the natural grime and root of the soil. To no avail, I twisted my closed fists into my eyes, stubbornly trying to force some sense of reality into my skull. Alas, the view before me remained. It appeared that we were in a cavernous concrete tunnel. The ceiling stretched up nearly fifty feet, a long sloping curve that would have faded into obscurity were it not for the glowing lamps dotting the arches leading to its crest. The lamplight had a strange quality to it, not quite candlelight but certainly not a typical electrical light either; not just carrying the flickering motion of a natural flame, but possessing an ebb and flow, a responsiveness, they felt strangely alive. Gazing upon them, I was filled with the awkward anxiety that they were staring right back. Observing me as much as I was them. Like making eye contact with a stranger.

At the apogee of the tunnel’s large walls hung a thick beam, disappearing into a smooth curve far off into the distance. It was tempting to describe it as though made of steel, but its surface was a constant refraction, a smudged rainbow slurry, like oil sitting atop a puddle. I could not see where the tunnel led, but there was a soft warmth hugging the edges of the walls as the path extended past visibility. Shadows danced upon the glow, playing soft visual melodies. There was an undeniable urge to round that corner, to locate the source of those shadows, to feel the warmth of that light. It would have been frightening if I’d probed deeper into the feeling. But fortunately, Mono brought me out of my stupor.

They were sitting on a jet-black iron-wrought bench, drumming their serrated fingertips on the armrest–not with impatience, but with the casual placidity of someone with many thoughts swimming in their head, and a rhythm pulsing in their heart. They made the bunched-eyed, mouth-agape expression that I’d come to understand as their grin and stood up to meet me.

“Was beginning to wonder if you was gonna come through or not,” they said.

“Here I am,” I replied, unsure what else to say.

“Well come along then. Doro gonna be done with supper soon, most like, and if we’re not there to eat it warm, she’ll make us eat her scoldin’ instead. And believe you me, her tone makes a fiery sauce to be poured on her words.”

Before they started to walk down the path toward the glowing warmth, they tossed over their shoulder a beat-up stringed instrument of some sort that had been propped up against the bench. It must have had nearly twenty strings, all differing in thickness and material. There was no visible distinction of a fretboard, and the strings all reached up toward a thin headstock that was a tangle of the various gauges. As they whipped it around their torso, a whistling resonance emanated from the soundhole that reminded me more of windchimes than of a guitar. In concert with the shadows and the glow, it rang upon my ears like a siren song.

“Come on, Artie, we gotta hoof it! Or haven’t you been listening to me?”

I speed-walked to match Mono’s admittedly small strides. We walked along the tunnel pathway for a while, and then a while longer. The curving path didn’t seem to grow any closer. However, I couldn’t help but notice the lamplights flickering off behind us, once we’d made a certain distance from them. It created a demonstrable measurement of our progress, despite the terminus of the straightaway seeming to grow no closer. Mono clicked their beak tips together, tutting with disapproval. They clenched a small, dark gray fist and pounded the side of the wall.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“You ain’t funny, ‘Keene. Let us on through, now, ‘fore I tell your daddy how you’re acting on the job.”

Mono looked at me, almost embarrassed then, as though to apologize for an embarrassing family member, as though there was some faux-pas by which I’d be offended. I smiled politely in response, but the tight-lipped half-grin was swiftly replaced by an unintentional exclamation, as all around us, the walls shifted. I can only describe it as I would the compression of an old finger-trap. The curve, once a far off distant concept, slinked itself into the straightaway, overtaking it entirely, and placed itself before us in a matter of seconds. I felt suddenly, then, that I was going to be sick. The hum in my ears grew from quiet ambiance to grating cacophony. The soft glow was replaced by a harsh shine. The air felt all-too thin, and breath became difficult. Mono placed a hand on the small of my back as I arched over to put my head between my knees.

“S’okay, kid. No one handles their first Forming with grace. Shouldn’t have been that rough, mind,” they said, a rising chastising tone in his voice. “Young ones, you know? Give ‘em too little responsibility, they never learn; give ‘em too much, they take advantage. What can ya do?”

They ran their hand up the length of my back, and rested it upon my neck. I should have been nervous, maybe. Uncomfortable. But there was something to Mono’s touch–a familial coziness–that calmed me. The nausea subsided, and with it the overstimulation of sensations. Things returned to… well, not to normal, but you understand.

“Thank you,” I sighed. “What the hell was that?”

“You know how it goes. Hard to find good public transportation these days. But look, no need to trek the rest of the way. We can take the Tram into town. Give you a proper view of things, mm?”

“Sounds lovely,” I said, too worn out to ask any further questions.

And just then, the Tram came into full view, floating in thin air, hanging from but never actually touching the central oil-slick beam. It was carrying more bird-people like Mono, but also many and more folk too multifarious to describe succinctly here. Men of pure flame in form-fitting tuxedos. Women with tree-bark for skin and branches for hair in airy sundresses. Translucent forms wearing nothing at all, semi-opaque humanoid windows into their surroundings. And at the helm of the shuttle, a hulking buffalo-like man with a stupendous grin plastered on his large, furry face. The Tram zoomed into the Station at a velocity that seemed terminal, but the horned colossus at the wheel pulled a hefty metal lever, bringing the entire car to a halting, soundless stop. The only sensation was the release of air-pressure that nearly wiped me off my feet.

Mono ushered me onto the car, found us a seat near the back. As we walked down the aisle, they occasionally stopped to give a greeting to one creature or another. Oddly, no one seemed to give me a second glance, or even inquire at my presence. Once we’d found our seats and gotten settled, the buffalo-man arose from his chair at the front of the Tram, and began to make his way towards us. I began to be filled with a (perhaps irrational) fear that I’d be asked for a ticket which I’d obviously be unable to produce. Instead, the buffalo plodded right past our row, and plopped down onto a chair facing the opposite direction. He reached up and yanked down on a lever that hung from the ceiling, and without any warning, the Tram roared to life. We were soon moving at a speed that in actuality was likely not as intense as it felt in that moment. But believe me, we were moving.

I wish I could say things got easier from there, that my orientation to this–well, wherever this was–was a clean one. But you and I both have lived a life, haven’t we? It could never be so simple.

Mono clapped their hand on my back as the Tram shot out of the tunnel and into the open air. The sight below was beyond belief.

“Welcome to Yesterday, Arthur,” Mono said over the roar of the wind in our ears. “There ain’t a place in the World-whole that compares.”

And honest to God, he was right.