“Here. This is where we met.” Thankfully, Senara had thought to have her mark it, or Meri would never had been able to tell this section of the swamp apart from any other, even with all the exploring she did almost daily.
Senara glanced around and started into the trees without a word.
Meri sighed and followed. “I’m not sure what we’re after back here.” Senara didn’t answer. “Did you live back here?”
“No. I have to find someone to take the bracelet off.”
“You said that, but I don’t think this is the place to find your blacksmith or whatever,” Sandra called from way behind. She’d stopped to try to get mud off her fancy boots and Sen hadn’t waited. Meri was kind of tired of hearing Sandra freak out about seeing a gator every five minutes anyway. Northerners.
Senara ignored her and kept going. Meri followed after her and Sandra jogged to catch up.
After walking a short distance, Sen stopped. “Here. The portal is waiting. Farewell.”
“Wait!” Meri grabbed her arm. She dropped it when the girl glared. “You never said anything about a portal. Portal to where? I don’t see anything that looks like a portal.”
Sen gestured at a denser clump of brush.
Sandra sighed and rolled her eyes, marching over to where Sen had pointed and walking through. Nothing happened. Should she be relieved or disappointed? Relieved, obviously. But disappointed seemed appropriate too.
“It won’t work for you,” Senara said. “Not from this side anyway. I assume it would allow you to return.”
“Of course it won’t, because it isn’t real,” Sandra answered. She jumped back and forth through the admittedly strange looking knot of trees and moss. “See?”
Meri could feel the disdain drifting off Senara, but the girl didn’t even roll her eyes. What kind of teen was this? Or early twenties, or whatever.
“Do we really have to watch this?” Senara asked her.
Another world? Almost impossible to believe. But it was the most logical answer now that she was getting to know Senara a little bit. As much as Senara was allowing her to anyway. There was no other way to explain what had happened when she had tried to cut her own arm off. She was insane, she was playing them for some reason, or she was right. She didn’t seem insane, or like the type to run a joke like this.
“Don’t follow me. You won’t like where I am from. You won’t survive.” With that grim announcement, Sen took a step and disappeared.
No way. Absolutely no way. Maybe they were on some Punked show or something. Her gaze swung to Sandra. Her wild expression no doubt mirrored her own. No way.
“Now what?” Sandra squeaked out.
Seriously, now what? If this place was as bad as Sen seemed to think, it didn’t really sound like somewhere she wanted to go. But she didn’t really want Sen going there alone either. And there would probably never be as big a discovery as this, like, ever. Even aliens. People were looking for aliens. They weren’t looking for portals. Even if she just stepped through, grabbed something that wasn’t from here and went back, something that could prove she’d left Earth, she could be a millionaire, have school paid for, whatever she wanted. Book deals, maybe a movie. All the funding she could ever dream of for the Everglades projects she wanted to start. Hey, she might even be able to do something for the ocean.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Decision made. “I’m going through.”
“What?” Sandra squawked.
“You tried it and it didn’t work for you. We don’t have to time to weigh the pros and cons.”
“But-” Sandra started to say, but Meri ignored her and ran at the portal. What if it closed since she’d waited to decide what to do? She hit it at a full out run. Instantly her forward momentum slowed, the air grabbing her and trying to drag her back. She swam forward, movements sluggish, time slow. Then she broke free, slamming into a stone wall of some kind in the pitch black of night or cave.
The dark was deep enough to make her shiver all the way down to her bones. She blinked several times, trying to help her eyes adjust from the bright Florida sunshine and climbed to her feet, wincing. Was she underground, or was it a different time of day here? She grabbed her upper arms and slid her hands up and down, trying not to hyperventilate. Maybe this hadn’t been a great idea.
Something flashed and she was hit from behind, nearly knocked over again.
“Oomph!” someone yelled.
“Sandra?”
“Yes, where are we?”
“Uh, I guess I don’t really know. Sen?” No answer. Where was she? After that flash her eyes were trying to adjust again, nearly back to where they had been when she’d first come through. “Sen, where are we?” Shoot. Where was she?
“Senara?” Sandra yelled.
“Shhh!” Sen hissed from somewhere above them. “We don’t know who, or what is here. You want to get us all killed? I told you not to come.”
Meri clamped a hand over her own mouth. What had she gotten herself into? It was okay, she didn’t have to stay long. Help Sen, grab something, go back. But seriously, did she really want to go back? What chance did she have of the portal opening for her if she went home and then changed her mind? Probably none. Speaking of, the portal went both ways, right? It had to; somehow Sen had gotten to Florida.
Oh crap, what if it didn’t?
Keep it together, Meri. Keep it together.
The deep dark finally began to have different shades of greys and blacks. Her eyes were adjusting. There, on the other side of the tiny room. A set of stairs. That explained why Senara’s voice had sounded like it was coming from above them.
“Should we follow her?” Sandra asked.
Meri shrugged and then realized Sandra probably couldn’t see her. “We don’t really have much of an option, do we?”
She pulled her backpack around where she could get inside and pulled her camera out.
“Shhh!” Sen growled from above, much louder than the last time. She must be getting mad. At least she was still there and hadn’t left them.
Meri patted the wall, moving along until her hand hit air. The stairway, hopefully. She started up. A squeak escaped when a hand grabbed onto her shirt from behind. Sandra, trying not to get separated. At least she hoped so. There weren’t any zombies here, right? She hadn’t thought to ask.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Sandra muttered behind her. She couldn’t agree more. A slight, nearly non-existent possibility still hovered in the back of her mind that this was all a prank of some kind. But that would be pretty hard to pull off. She’d know in a minute, as soon as she made it up these stupid stairs.
The stairs were uneven, crumbling slightly underfoot. Light filtered down from a doorway at the top. She slipped for the fourth time and Sandra grunted behind her as she kicked her in the shin. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Finally, almost there. She braced herself on the wall and climbed the final three steps, pushing through into a chamber of some kind. Okay, way too extreme for a prank, even from the guys in the art department at school. She shivered. And no amount of A/C could make it this cold.
This had to be the real thing. The room around her was old, super old. Carvings covered the walls. Debris littered the floor. Part of the ceiling was gone, which was where the light was coming from. It had to be at least a century old. She moved forward to one of the carvings, chipped into the rock over a beautiful mural, defiling it. A man with a strange light around him stood over a mound of corpses. She snapped a picture.
“Sick,” Sandra said, leaning in beside her.
“Yeah,” she agreed. She stepped back and something cracked underfoot. She froze, looking down. A skeleton.
She clamped a hand over her mouth again and jumped back, stumbling into the mural.
“Why are you afraid?” Sen half whispered from behind a column, nearly sending Meri jumping even higher. “He’s long dead.”
“Yes, I can see that,” she whispered back. “But how?” She took a quick picture.
Sen watched her take the picture curiously, then shrugged. Meri got the feeling she wasn’t being completely honest.
“I can’t stay here. It’s a dangerous place. You two can do as you wish.” And just like that Senara was gone.