I pulled up to the townhouse complex a few minutes later. There were four buildings, with about half of the twenty individual apartments sitting empty.

“Is this a new place?”

“Yeah. We’re just now opening up to renters.” Frank said out of the window of his car in the corner in front of a townhouse, separated from the others.

It had a garage, which I suppose was good. At least I won’t have to answer any strange questions about pulling in large quantities of weapons I grabbed out of Efra. I parked outside of the house and walked to the front door. Frank exits his car with a folder full of papers. He unlocked the door and walked in first. By the time I was out of the car and had both Clio worming in my grasp, Frank had already walked in and set the papers on the counter.

“Bedroom is upstairs.” He motioned to the staircase right by the door, “Kitchen’s here.” He motioned to the floor where he was standing. There was a kitchen sink and an oven, and not much else in terms of appliances. “Backyard is here.” He motioned to a door next to him, “And the garage is there, right behind the front door. I closed the door and set Clio down. “Now, you need to sign some papers for me, and I’ll give you the keys and the remote for the garage, alright?”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Say, I’m looking for a property manager here; I know you did some maintenance work in the past, do you think you’d be interested?”

“I don’t know if I’ll have enough time.”

“Time? Did you find a job?”

“Kind of. It’s about this,” I tap the injury on my cheek.

“It’s not something illegal, is it?”

I shake my head.

“Well, let’s get your books and mattress out. It’s going to rain any second now, then we’ll do the rest of the stuff.”

“Can you open the garage? I want to bring my car in as well.”

He pressed a button on the small remote and the garage opened up.

I set Clio down, and she tried to follow me out. I let her back in the car as I drive into the garage, and let her out when I leave. By that time Frank had already begun lifting my books out of his truck bed.

“Just set them in the kitchen. I’ll get a couple of bookshelves over the coming weeks.”

“Man, you’re really starting out at zero, aren’t you?”

“I suppose I am. It’s better than being there.”

“Uh-huh. Next your bed?”

“Yeah.”

“In the kitchen again?”

“Yeah, that’ll be easier for now.”

Frank opened up the back of his truck, and I pulled the mattress out. He catches the other side and we set up the bed in the corner right under the window looking out to the back door. I glanced out the window and nearly froze at what I saw. A door; embedded into the wooden fence.

“What level is that?” I mentally ask the Shard.

Level 3

Thank goodness it wasn’t too high. I’ll close it once Frank leaves.

Clio hops up on the bed once it's set down, and Frank straightens out his back.

“So, about...that.” He taps his cheek.

“Again, I don’t think you’ll believe me.”

“Try me.”

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“You know those things that you claimed you saw in the fog this morning?”

“The doors? Yeah.”

“They’re actually entryways to another world that’s fixing on invading ours,” I answer.

“Uh-huh.”

“And about 100 Million people have been, ‘chosen,’ to fight them.”

“And you’re one of them?”

I nod.

“And you expect me to believe that? Look, the offer still stands for the property management gig, okay? I’ll even knock an additional 200 off your rent obligations, and wait for your first check to collect your deposit.”

“I can prove it.” I say, “Hold up.”

I headed into the garage and pulled open the back door. Shadow jumped out and sprinted into the house as I picked up the spear and headed back inside.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s one of these doors just out back.” I answered, “Watch carefully.”

“Lawrence...you’re going through something right now that I can’t understand. I know isolation is a vicious thing.”

“Just follow me, I’ll show you that I’m not going crazy.”

I walked to the back and pulled open the door. There, sitting pressed against the fence, was a wooden door; rounded at the top, and golden filigree across its face.

“Lawrence, just slow down and listen to me, I’m not upset.” He grabbed hold of my shoulder, just as I pulled open the door.

“What the fuck...what the fuck was that.” Frank gasped as we landed on a patch of soil.

We find ourselves standing in the middle of a field that had, probably, once been a farm.

“Shit, I didn’t know you’d be brought with me,” I said as I glanced back to the man who was staring at something behind him.

“Where are we?”

I followed his gaze. We were outside of the walls of the massive city. Those walls were visible through the wall of fog that began right behind of the shack we stepped out of. In front of us, was a single structure: a farmhouse, about twenty feet away.

“What’s the goal, Patron?”

Kill the enemy 0/1

Destroy the Altar 0/1

“Who are you talking to?”

“The spirit that chose me to join the war.”

From the farmhouse came a single ratman wielding a black metal blade, and a shield made of planks of wood banded together with the same black metal that had made his blade. Its fur was a peppered gray, and its eyes were pale as if stricken by cataracts.

“What the fuck is that…”

“The enemy,” I say as I point the spear forward.

I grab hold of the wand in my pocket and tap it to my thigh.

“You that bind the all, protect me from those that would bring me harm.”

The glimmer of Repel forming around me draws Franks's eyes back to me.

“Try to see if you can go back.”

He reaches for the door, and the ratman charges forward.

“It opens!” Frank steps through and vanishes back to Earth, while I face the ratman.

I stab forward, and the Ratman deflects the blow and slashes forward with his black blade. It skitters against my Repel and cracks the invisible shield as it slides off to the side. I grabbed hold of the old rat’s wrist to keep it from swinging again, it punched forward with its shield hand into my face. I dropped the spear grabbed hold of the rim of the shield and pulled the creature into a headbutt. It recoiled slightly, and I pulled it in again; keeping both of its arms occupied. How was I going to kill it...first things first, I need to make sure it couldn’t kill me.

I let go of its shield, and it immediately rams me in the face and tries to push me away. If I had teeth that could crack, they would have at the force of the blow. I grab hold of the back of the one-sided blade, as it tries to cut through my jeans with weak, ineffective swings. I pivot to the right, and slam my hip into the shield, while at the same time letting go of the creature’s wrist, and holding onto the metal of the black metal blade. The fact that its arm was now free, and through the force of the hit, pushes the creature back a step; and with the momentum generated through that, I wrench the blade out of its hand.

It bashes me again, and I stumble back, turning the blade over in my hand as I reorient myself forward. I see its cataract-stricken eyes glance at the spear on the ground before it lunges out to reach for it. Using forgotten instincts, and forgotten reflexes, I swung down into the creature’s elbow. It cracked like a rotten log, and the creature recoiled, and I followed through with a swift kick into its side while it was still crouched over. It collapses onto the ground, and I stomp on its broken arm and swing down into its throat. The unsharpened blade cracked something, but still, the creature lived.

I stab the blade into the creature’s neck. Blood pooled on the ground underneath it, and it hacked and coughed as it slowly died. I glanced around and set my eyes on the farmhouse. The altar was probably inside, right? I stopped as I began stepping toward it when a thought came to my mind.

“Can I leave?” I ask my Patron.

You can. The door will always be open for you to return in case things go south, but do you need to? The only enemy is already dead.

I grin.

“So, I have a question: what’s stopping these things,” I shoved the ratman with my foot, “From just going through the door if we can just go in and out?”

In your next dive, I’ll show you.

After pulling the copper ring from the creature’s tail, I stepped back to Earth, and Frank was pacing between the kitchen and the garden, as his eyes met mine, he stopped.

“Are you okay?” I asked the man.

“Me? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry, I left you alone in there, fighting a monster, I was terrified.”

I suppose that’s the normal reaction.

“It’s okay. I’ve already killed a couple of them, and that one was weak.”

It’s hard to describe. At that moment the way he looked at me changed. Before it was as if he had been looking at a child, and now he looked at me the way he looked at my father.

“If you say so...so you get paid somehow for closing those?”

I nodded.

“How much did you get paid for that one?”

“Ah, nothing, because I decided to keep it.”

“Keep it?”

“Think of it like an extended backyard. And the farmhouse as a guest house.”

“Well,” he chuckled, “I won’t charge you extra rent for that, just make sure nothing comes through, alright? Now, let’s get these papers signed.”

He pulled a pen out of his pocket, and scratched out the charge of the rent from 900 a month to 800 a month, and added an extra caveat of being exempted from inspections, and curfews.

“So are there these doors everywhere?” He asked as I signed the paper.

“Yes. Everywhere. According to my patron, there are over a trillion around the world.”

“A trillion...how long do we have?”

“Two years, maybe three years.”

He took the pen from my hand scratched out the 800, and put 0. He handed me the key.

“Close as many as you can, alright? Don’t worry about rent, and if you need anything, let me know, alright?”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. In fact, I wish I could do more. If I were younger, I would volunteer to fight with you, but…”

I understood. Frank recently had a young child.

“Thank you, Frank.”

Briefly, I regret not talking to my parents about what was going on. Perhaps they would have been just as accommodating. Regardless, I would still need my own space.

“Good luck,” Frank said, while he hesitated at the door. “Do you think...he sighed, do you think humanity has a chance?”

“I don’t know.” I answered honestly, “From what I’ve come across, if they were to invade they would be torn apart just from sheer firepower.”

He smiled.

“I’ll buy some more guns.” He said with a grin.

“And ammo,” I add on.

He laughs and walks out the door, and I’m left alone. It takes an hour or so to get the rest of the things out of my car: I set up the weapons and the like inside of the garage, tucked them in the corner, and brought the cloth and other things inside. I set my computer up on the counter near the sink and set my books on the floor. This was a good first day of the war, I told myself as I made my bed and sat down. I got my place, killed four things, and closed two doors. Well, two and a half, and I was already level four. I put the points into magic, while I scroll through my phone, waiting for sleep to come, and waiting for night to fall, so I could delve back into Efra again.