Portal Game - Chapter 1 - Prologue

James Haggen carefully avoided the malicious looking muddy puddle blocking the road. Unfortunately and much to his distaste, reality had other plans for James.

“Crap!” The young adult muttered angrily as he looked down at his filthy trouser legs that were now blanketed with muddy water. The exclamation didn’t really give the situation justice. He still had a while to walk, and now he’d do it twice as uncomfortably. The light rain descending from the gray skies of London began beating down heavier as if to urge the angry office worker to get a move on, and James begrudgingly complied by picking up his pace. It was meant to only be a 10 minute walk from the workplace to his home, but the travel time had been augmented 30 minutes by the routine visit to the Hospital that James made every Friday.

He grumbled under his breath. It was looking to be the start of a miserable weekend, but any weekend was a relief from the dreaded workplace, especially if you had an asshat for a boss like James did. 

After a 5 minute brisk walk the young adult finally approached the familiar apartment complex that he called home and broke into a jog to close the remaining distance. The complex was a modest place to live. Nothing impressive. The building was almost but not quite kept in good condition and James' apartment always felt slightly cramped. James didn't dislike the place too much, and anyway, with the housing prices in London being as they were, the young adult could only be grateful he had a somewhat decent place to stay. 

The 22 year old pressed the button for his apartment intercom and waited. 5 seconds. 15 seconds… It became clear pretty quickly that nobody was going to let him in. 

"Yup, definitely going to be a crappy weekend"

James sighed as begun the tedious process of letting himself in and promptly made his way to his floor and unlocked the door of room 12. 

"Hey loser!" 

He had barely just taken off his shoes when the lethargic voice resounded throughout the abode. He internally groaned at the sound of it.

"For God's sake Elise! If you were home, why couldn’t you have let me in?" James complained. "You could have saved me from almost dropping the key down the drain."

"I was busy"

James hung up his now soaked jacket onto the coat hanger and strode down the hallway to confront his aggressor. He found his bitch of a sister draped across the sofa, not caring to even look at him to meet his glare. She casually picked up a slice of pizza from the coffee table and began nibbling on it, seemingly ignorant of the crumbs she was getting in her mousy blonde hair. All the while she continued to stare at the television that had stolen her attention. It was running an episode from some kind of cartoon. Probably anime, knowing Elise. Judging by the congregation of empty Cola cans and crisp packets strewn across the floor, she had been here a while. 

"Oh yeah? Doing what?" James challenged.

"Busy things" Elise deadpanned.

‘Typical’ James thought. Every day he hoped that Elise would suddenly become a productive member of society and every day he came home disappointed.

Judging that talking to Elise was not going to make his day any better, James rolled his eyes and deposited his rucksack next to the Sofa. He took the last slice of pizza and quickly devoured it before getting to clearing up the pigsty that Elise had left him. Even if his sister was okay living like a degenerate, James certainly wasn't. He wasn’t that type of person to see a mess and then ignore it.

He made sure to maintain his glare as he went about with his work, making sure that Elise was fully aware of his displeasure. Despite the pitiful appearance of his younger Sister, somehow she was quite popular and had quite a lot of friends at her University. 'Shockingly surprising' James thought. 

"How's Mum doing?" Elise perked up just as James finished collecting yet another stray drink that had graced the floor with its presence.

"Same as always," James sighed. "Still comatose." 

"No sign of changes?"

"None"

"She's been like that for 2 years now hasn't she?" Elise turned off the television, seemingly having lost interest. It was hard to miss the feelings of disappointment in her voice. 

"I hope she plans on waking up soon."

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"You do realise she'd kick your ass if she saw how you spend your time these days?" James smirked.

"And she'd kick your ass for still being single, what's your point?" Elise retorted.

James winced, almost struck down by the super effective comment. He'd had a girlfriend before, but it was nothing serious or lasting. Ever since he had started working, Mother had taken to nagging him about settling down and finding a wife. That is, until she couldn't. It had been tough living without his Mother, and her absence had taken its toll on both of them. While Elise hoped for the best, James had resigned himself to the truth that the doctors had revealed all those years ago. Most likely, he'd never speak with his beloved mother again. Dad and their older brother Lucus had accepted this and moved to the United States for better work opportunities. James instead stayed behind for Elise’s sake, in case the impossible ever happened. God forbid that the little brat could be grateful for his efforts for once in her life.

“You’re single as well, retard. Did you forget that?” James responded, refusing to lose the argument thanks to his non-existent love life.

“I’m single by choice. Can you say the same?” 

“HA” James faked a laugh. “By choice? You just know you couldn’t keep a boyfriend for more than a month!” 

“Bet? How about £50?” Elise raised an eyebrow, smirking ever so slightly.

“Deal” James confirmed. 

“Great! Always love a bit of free money.” His sister gloated as she settled back down to watch her anime. ‘She’ll probably be there for the rest of the day,’ James mused.

James didn't give Elise the satisfaction of an answer and ignored her, which she must have misinterpreted as a sign of defeat going by the smug look on her face. He quickly continued with cleaning and took out the trash as Elise's attention wandered elsewhere. At some point, he noted that she had finished her episode and was tapping away her phone instead, sipping on a fizzy drink that he'd probably have to clean up later. 

It didn't take long for James to finish cleaning. Satisfied with his work, he decided to take a long anticipated trip to the bathroom and relax for the first time in the day. 

...

'Finally!'

James leaned back against the toilet lid and let out a long sigh. Life wasn’t fair to him at all! While Elise did what she wanted, James worked, and he couldn't even take a break when he got home. Nope, he had to clean up all the mess his unreliable sister made.

He leaned back against the toilet lid and focused on letting his worries drift away. The fact that taking a break was something that James had to concentrate on was rather telling. Even gaming was stressful these days. He always felt like he should be doing something else, even when there was nothing else to do. James casually examined the bathroom as he reminisced on his unfortunate life. His eyes glazed across the simple cabinet above the sink, to the small window beside it and then to the blurry looking bathtub in the corner of the room. 

'Wait, blurry?'

James rubbed his eyes and looked again. Yet, the bathtub was still blurry. How bizarre! His vision had never been blurry before. Were his eyes playing tricks on him. 

“Perhaps it’s time to see the opticians again…” James thought, dismissing the blur as anything important.

He looked out the window. It was still raining. Of course it was raining! Why wouldn’t it be raining on the only days of the week he was free? James grumbled and turned his attention back to the bathtub. Somehow, it was now twice as blurry as before.

“Huh?”

James yelped as the blur suddenly glowed bright violet with enough intensity to temporarily blind him. He groaned and covered his eyes until he regained his vision, yet that came as no relief to him as what was once a blur had become a gaping hole in reality. The young adult watched in horror as space seemed to crack open and pull itself apart just a metre away from him. 

"Shit shit shit shit…" James began swearing as the disturbance in space began to influence his surroundings. Violet streams of light spiraled violently inside the vortex as it expanded until it reached 2 meters in height. The forces of gravity seemed to twist and become distorted, converging onto the ravenous wormhole as it began devouring stray objects nearby.  Was this his mind playing tricks on him, or was this really happening? Had he fallen asleep on the toilet and was now dreaming of his misfortune made manifest? He didn’t need to pinch his wrist to do a reality check as the vortex did it for him. The suction force of the wormhole suddenly increased as James felt himself being gently pulled away from his safe space on the toilet.

'What the fuck is going on?' James screamed in his mind, not understanding what he was seeing.

He shrieked in horror as a tube of toothpaste was yanked from its proper place on the sink and sucked into the endless vortex, never to be seen again. 

"ELISE!!!!!!" James yelled at the top of his voice only to be answered by the sound of empty shampoo bottles toppling to the floor. After calling for her a few more times, James quickly realised that Elise wasn't coming. She was much too busy doing "busy things" to come and save him from a periculous space anomaly. He couldn’t even save himself as the damn thing was in between himself and the door! 

'Is this how it all ends?' James bitterly asked himself.

The gaping violet maw only grew as James fastened himself to the toilet and wailed incessantly in fear. 

Then suddenly, the vortex stopped growing and everything went calm. Bathroom utensils stopped getting yanked into who-knows-where and James found that he wasn't in danger anymore. At least he didn't seem to be. The hole in space became tranquil and the violet streams of ethereal energy swirling inside were spiralling peaceful like ripples in a lake rather than the rampaging hurricane they were before.

For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen. James finally let out a sigh of relief, and a screen popped up in front of him.

[Congratulations! You have found an unclaimed portal!]

[Would you like to claim this portal?]

[Y/N]

James laughed deliriously before he fainted from shock.