Lee helped Rein get to his feet. Rein was covering his stomach; just looking at the bumpy red spot made him sick. He walked up to the house and sat back in the basement. Rein had decided he needed to ask first; he felt his questions were more pressing.

"First of all, why did it seem like you had some sort of grasp on this while I ran around like a headless chicken?" Rein had genuinely been curious that the level-headed look didn't come from just staying cool; he had seen this somewhere. Rein could still clearly see Lee standing with his hands stretched in front of him, pure concentration on his face, freezing that monster. He was only able to freeze it for a few seconds, but that could be an enormous difference considering Rein couldn't do anything.

Lee had taken his time to speak, trying to formulate an answer. Rein could tell he didn't want to lie to him but also wasn't yet comfortable telling his whole truth yet. After a few more seconds, he began talking. "Well, you see that world with the dark tower? I've actually been there before. Actually, doing all of that research confirmed it to me; some of those books we found on this topic talk about how kids are the most vulnerable to slip into that dimension, and I did."

Rein was a bit shocked, but before he could say anything, Lee continued, "After I slipped into there, I could feel the pull. I remember that being one of my core memories as a child. Seeing that dark tower, that's why I always tried to persuade you not to look too deep."

"Wait, so you actually saw it! Why didn't we see it?"

"I guess the tree line had blocked us, but we were definitely there. That familiar feeling doesn't just affect your body; it affects your soul too. Not only that, but feeling as if you were in some deep water while you walked and just moved, it all felt just as suffocating, more so when we got closer to the tower." As Lee spoke of it, the air around them felt more suffocating.

Rein had become even more skeptical: "I felt a bit of that murky feeling, but it felt closer to some heavy air, not deep water."

They looked at each other with some confusion but decided to brush past it for the time being. Lee proceeded with his story: "Yeah, so after I got there, I remember struggling for my life. I had been deep in a savannah, much less grassy, but the cracks in the earth had been huge, which had terrified me. But, for some reason, my child brain decided following the pull wasn't the play, so I resisted and went away from the tower, which, by the way, was pulling us in. After a few hours of my struggle, my parents woke me up, but I can clearly remember a voice. " Lee could see Rein lean in closer. "Did you hear a voice recently?"

"Yes! It was a deep, very baritone voice."

Lee shook his head. "No, the voice that spoke to me was very feminine; I could not remember what she had said. The entire time, she laughed like she could tell this day was coming. But after I saw that creature, my first thought was to accept whatever deal she had offered me back then, and so I felt it. A surge of power, but less like a flood gate opening and more like it just cracked like there was a reservoir still backed up. Although even before that, it felt like she had weaseled her power into me, slowly but surely, until I was going to become one of her champions, whether I liked it or not."

Rein had nodded; he could tell Lee wasn't giving him everything, but that was fair; the least he owed his friend was some privacy.

"Well, now it's your turn; I made it freeze, and you made it disappear entirely."

"Yeah, well, you see, mine was less planned and more; he stabbed me, and now I can hear his voice in my head. After I got stabbed, I heard that deep voice say something about these ones on the house or whatever. But, I think I kind of absorbed it, because not only is its voice in my head, but its skin fixed the whole thing it made. Speaking of which, it does not like you." He had decided to leave out seeing thousands of years of suffering, all condensed into a bite-sized chunk of emotion. "So, in the end, we were left with telekinesis and the power to get stabbed."

Lee gave a slight chuckle, hoping Rein's red skin was going to become a bit more useful.

After a while of talking, Rein got a phone call, and he answered it by hearing a man with a slightly middle eastern accent.

"Hello, sir, Rein, I presume. I mean, you must be your mom; she gave me your number. No, sir, before you say anything that wasn't a joke, I called every house phone from the video posted today of your street getting destroyed by an invisible creature. Then I asked for a boy about your age at each, had two awkward conversations with men I presume are now very confused, and you, my friend, are the last house on that list. Hello Rein, my name is Kareem, and could you please spare me a minute of your time to talk to me?" The man was very clearly frustrated and annoyed that those other guys might've screwed with him, but he could still remember they weren't the kindest people. Rein agreed to talk to the man, but put the phone on speaker.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Perfect, well, I won't say much on the phone as this is much more of an in-person talk, but if you need help convincing your parents, tell them to fly on me, and New York University needs your help."

Lee's eyes beamed; he knew that would get his mom. Rein then quickly asked his mom; the first thing she did was ask, "Is Lee coming with you?" After he told her he was coming, she quickly agreed. She seemed to think Lee was more or less likely to stay safe.

They had quickly packed their things, including all of the images of 'proof' and knowledge they had gathered. They both assumed this man had something to do with the other world.

After they got onto the plane, Rein was clearly giddy. This was an adventure; all of this was an adventure. Minus, of course, got stabbed and lived through torture, but besides that, it was the adventure he always dreamed of. Lee, on the other hand, had looked visibly sick.

"I don't do well with flights or any form of fast-traveling vehicles." Lee spoke while covering his mouth; it looked like he constantly needed to puke.

After they touched down, they ooed and awed at the sights briefly before quickly heading for the address emailed to them with the tickets.

"Hello? Looked for a Mr. Akeem?"

"Haha, Akeem is my first name, and don't worry about any formalities; you're here doing me a favor."

"What favour?" Rein asked.

"Well, I'm sending you right back to that place. I have a feeling you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Rein gave him a serious look. "We also brought research from that place we've been collecting." He pulled out a laptop and proceeded to show him. The man looked earnestly at the research for a few minutes, then looked back at them.

"You kids have done an impressive feat, collecting this research on your own. I won't doubt the amount of laws you've broken finding this. But, I hate to inform you, at least the scientific community that is researching this and has long known many of these things. And what I'm about to show you is our latest invention, a way to seamlessly take you there."

As they walked over to a few pods, they noticed tubes being fed into those pods.

Kareem opened his hands and said, "These are the new seethetower in just five seconds, 9000. Names are still in progress, but they do what I said they would do. It first pumps your brain with some fear chemicals, followed by some nice sleep chemicals, and boom, it's especially easy once you've been there. Now you linked to it."

They both got slightly anxious as they got in the pods, but they were too far away to go back at this point. Gas began to fill the pod, causing, as the doctor mildly put it, extreme fear. Rein didn't know how to respond to fear that didn't have a target, but this was quickly mitigated as he was forced to sleep.

He opened his eyes to an enormous amount of snow; all of his surroundings were just white hills of snow and the occasional ice glacier sticking out. It was all snow, except, of course, the striking black tower in the distance. The tower almost seemed to stare back at him; the slight tug was even more present, but that murky feeling seemed to have left him; he couldn't tell if they had just gotten farther from the tower or not.

Lee had finally appeared; it seemed he had attempted to resist much longer. After he arrived, he had briefly done the same sighting as Rein but quickly bent down and examined the ground.

Rein watched Lee, and he finally noticed it—foot prints and very clearly ones made by modern shoes. Not only that, but it seemed as if it was dragging something; after a bit more digging, they noticed a small trail of blood.

"Well, look at what we have."

They were dragged out of the world just as quickly as they had gotten into it.

"Ah, perfect! It seems the exiting function works too!" Akeem had seemed ecstatic about this; Rein had a hunch this hadn't been tested all that well, and they were the test dummies'.

Lee had begun to raise his voice: "We found footprints in there; who the hell did you send in with us?"

"Nobody," Akeem responded, "but when you enter that dimension, it does geographically tie you to whoever is nearby, and in a city of over 8 million at night, someone must have joined you."

"Or we joined them," Rein grumbled. He was curious but still upset at being used to testing new technology. Just as they were about to continue talking, a crash was heard.

"And that is the second part of my experiment. The results of the recently amped-up tower with traveling to that dimension."

They all looked outside, and the doctor put his hands on them. "Seems you guys still aren't used to this." Suddenly Rein's vision changed, but Lee seemed to have done it on his own.

What he saw was an enormous creature; it had white fur and was also slightly ape-like, along with large eyes as deep as the void. As creatures came, this one seemed visibly more normal, minus, of course, its lack of legs and bulgy black eyes.

"Why on God's green earth is that thing climbing the Empire State Building? This is just comedic at this point," Akeem laughed. "Well, fellas, have fun. Just do what you did last time, you know, deal with it."

Rein had slightly shivered. Why was Akeem so non-cholent about this?