Angsty ennui.
I snorted as I pulled into my apartment complex’s parking lot. It was a ridiculous term, made even more ridiculous by its author. Some pretty boy beach bum. He’d been lying there on his towel, youthfully fit with perfectly coiffed hair. Next to him had been his attentive, equally fit teen dream of a girlfriend whose vapid gaze had been either a product of boredom or insanity. As if that manicured … I cut my own thoughts off. I couldn’t come up with a word that carried with it the weight of my disdain without trespassing into offensive slurs, and that was a route I wasn’t about to let myself go down just because I was grumpy.
Teenagers…
I shook my head and navigated around the complex to where my tower sat amid many others. It had been raining for quite some time on the trip home from the beach, and the parking lot was full of puddles, so I had to navigate carefully. It meant I should have taken my mind off the teenager and his hilariously woeful expression.
And yet … even if it was ludicrous for him. I looked around the drab complex I lived in. Can’t help but feel it works for me.
A sigh escaped my lips as I saw that the best nearby parking was a spot that was only next to a puddle rather than in it. I felt like there was a metaphor here, but I had always hated that part of classes when I had been in school, so no way was I going to think about it now that I didn’t have to endure it anymore.
Maybe it was the storm making my mood dour, although more likely it was having to drive in the storm that had done it. I liked storms, especially when I could watch them from inside. But driving in the rain sucked, especially on a long road trip where the lines on the road vanished and you had to pass through several cities worth of idiot drivers to get home. Now I would have to make it in from the parking lot, and it was still raining. Well … maybe I won’t do much unpacking tonight. Just the suitcase though… I did need clothes.
My knee creaked as I swung it out of the car. I wasn’t that old but an old college sports injury meant that my knee acted like I was my parents’ age. On the bright side, it itched whenever a storm was coming now, so I had my own little forecasting capacity. Which didn’t make driving in a storm any more fun, either. It had also put an end to playing sports in college. Not that I would have gone pro or anything, but that was a source of fun gone.
Can’t exactly blame the knee for ’it all going wrong’ though. I thought with a sour grunt as I hefted the suitcase out of the trunk. Now just to roll it through the puddle to the door into my part of the complex. Stupid designers, putting the door at the lowest part of the lot … guess my pants are going to get a little wet.
Truthfully, I can’t even really say that it’s all gone wrong. I had a fine job that paid for a fine apartment and a fine car. I had a fine community of friends, and even if most of them were online, there wasn’t much I would change there. It’s just all so … boring. It was fine, but I felt like there should be more to it than that. I read too many books. I thought with a rueful shake of my head.
I took a few seconds after opening the front door to wipe the water from my eyes and face before heading over to the elevator. I lived on the eleventh floor of Tower 7 of the Gilded Canston Apartment Complex. Sounds glorious but it really just meant they’d chosen yellow instead of gray to be the basic color for the lobbies and managers’ offices. Still, the rent was low enough and public transit easy enough to get to that I could commute into work without having to drive through city traffic and was able to put away a good portion of my paycheck towards savings.
Saving for what though? My mind went into a familiar rut. It isn’t like I’m going to be getting a house for the next … decade or so. Maybe more unless millionaires stop distorting the market. Fat chance of that happening though, the wealthy seemed ever more determined to pull the ladder up after them. Best I could hope for would be to rent a house instead of an apartment, but that was just wasteful unless I ever found someone to start a family with. Until then, Apartment 11B, Tower 7, Gilded Canston would do just … fine.
It does feel a little … stuck … though. Like shouldn’t I be doing better than this? The beach was an extended family reunion. There were 6 of us in the late twenties/early thirties crowd and I was now the last one to have not yet brought a significant other to the reunion. Sure, at 29 I was at the younger end of the crowd, but did that really matter? Heck, Sebs and Donna were already married by my age! Not that I wanted that yet, although a girlfriend would be nice. Or a pet, but whatever its other virtues, Gilded Canston didn’t allow those.
The elevator dinged its arrival on my floor and my thoughts turned happier as I contemplated finally getting out of travel clothes. It was ironic that to feel clean I’d have to shower after coming in from the rain, but I was still looking forward to it. I flipped on the news as I got into the shower. I hadn’t been paying much attention during the vacation, but my job required staying on top of the news, so time for a crash course. I did intelligence analysis work, which required collating a bunch of sources to find common threads and offer predictions of what would happen over the course of the next week. Kick those prognostications up the chain and hopefully, some politician makes a smart decision based on them. Not holding my breath for that one … But hey, no World War III yet.
The first story was useless to me. It was about some domestic political squabble over some personal scandal by a government minister. Honestly, it should be irrelevant to everybody, but that was the state of modern politics, all mud and no growth. I’d done a stint as a legislative analyst for a Congressman just out of college - you couldn’t get me to do it now, it paid worse than just about anything I’d ever seen since – but left when it became clear that nobody around me had any interest in actually writing effective laws. They just wanted to stop the other side from passing any of their laws.
The second story was probably more like what I would be going back into work for: tensions between the United States and China were rising again. Some damn fool thing in the South China Sea. Or possibly further north this time. Japan had been less easily cowed than in the past. Either way, it was going to make work for me: I worked the India desk for my agency and everybody was going to be concerned about what the Indians thought of the latest tensions.
I listened to the story with half an ear, but I knew that I would be diving deeply into it when I got out of the shower. But the transition to the third story caught my ear.
> “This is Dorothy Winters reporting from Seattle, Washington. Ever since the first portal appeared outside a Kyoto restaurant a month ago, reports of glowing green portals have spread throughout the world. They open without warning and close after the first person touches them. The first person, Tabata Sho, was committed to a psychiatric ward for evaluation after describing a fantastical world and claimed to possess superpowers of some kind. Aside from him, however, anybody touching a portal has disappeared along with them. None had been seen again.
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> “Until today, here in Seattle. Three weeks ago, a portal swallowed August Chase, a janitor for the local public schools. Today, at about 2pm local time, he reappeared at the exact point where the portal had taken him, in the living room of the house he shares with his wife. Police sources are telling us that there was something they are only calling a strange altercation which resulted in Mr. Chase’s detainment. This is a developing story, but we will stay with it.”
The report changed into a back and forth between the field reporter and the base anchor as they discussed the history of August Chase’s disappearance and what his wife had been up to since. They seemed to have remarkably little information and I just clicked off the TV when I got out of the shower. Useless prattle, reporters filling air time because they had nothing else to talk about.
After I got dressed, I turned the kettle on and got out my tablet. I’d need to start perusing news sites so that I could be caught up on the latest Asian drama before I got to work. My arm chair faced out the window and I spent a few minutes gazing out at the storm. It really was quite a lot prettier when I didn’t have to be driving in it.
Just as the kettle clicked though, there was a knock at the door. I fought a sudden surge of irritation. I’ve just gotten home dammit! Can’t a man have one moment of peace! I snarled as I stalked over to the door.
I took a calming breath and wiped the snarl off of my face as I opened the door. I’ll be damned if I give this woman a smile though.
Candice Jun wasn’t a bad woman, living over in 11A. But she was Frustrating with a capital F. A little old lady whose husband used to do all the handyman work around the house she was now apparently completely helpless unless I came over and did it for her. “Good evening, Ms. Jun.”
“Hello young man! So glad to have you back. I hope your trip went well.”
“It was very relaxing, thank you. I just got home and was hoping to sit and drink some tea before going to bed.” It was very difficult to keep my voice neutral. I knew where this was going to go.
“Oh, that sounds lovely. Yes, I remember nice quiet evenings with me and my dear old Harold, God rest his soul, just sitting around drinking tea. You have to be careful though, some of those teas have enough caffeine to keep you up all night. You never quite feel like yourself after a poor night’s sleep, always just that little bit more irritable than you probably should be. Oh, but you probably don’t know anything about that yet. That’s an old woman’s problem, nothing a strapping young man like yourself should be having to contend with just yet.
“Oh, I do miss my dear Harold, God rest his soul. Just isn’t the same, sitting in an old apartment and drinking tea without a partner to liven the hours as they go by. That’s why I moved here, the old house was just too drafty without him around. This apartment is just about right for little old me. Although it could do for more room when my children visit, especially the ones who have children of their own now. Oh, you should see the little ones. Although you probably have, they do tend to run the hallways when they get bored.”
I cut her off, if I didn’t, I’d be here all night. “Ma’am. I’m sure that’s all lovely, but I did just get home. It’s lovely to see you, but if you don’t need anything, I’d just as soon get back to …”
“Oh yes, of course dearie, of course. I don’t need much, I promise. Only, two of the lightbulbs in my kitchen did burn out a day or two back. You know maintenance here is so slow for things they say we should be able to do ourselves. But I’m just too old to be going around and climbing those ladders. One slip and there goes my hip!”
I sighed. “Alright, Ms. Jun. Would you like me to come over and change your lightbulbs?”
“That would be absolutely wonderful! I already have the replacements ready to go, I just don’t trust myself on that step ladder.”
She probably hasn’t even called maintenance yet. Just waiting for the ‘neighbor boy’ to come home so she can pester me. I stifled another sigh. Really wish there was someone in 11C still that could help share the load. But it seemed like there was a conspiracy to keep 11C vacant, which meant there was no one else on the floor to distract the woman.
Belying any kind of claim of frailty on her part, Ms. Jun bounced back to her door and opened it quickly, leading me inside. She was a fitness instructor, for goodness sake, and she would still pretend to be this frail old thing whenever anything physical needed to be done around her apartment. Three weeks ago it had been a clogged sink, before that some chair or table or other needed to be moved. Some of it seemed contrived to force him to come over. It had been a blessed relief to get away from her.
Her apartment was set up very similarly to mine. The door opened into a living room with a kitchen off to the left and a hallway with closets and a bedroom to the right. I kept mine fairly minimalist in terms of furniture but Ms. Jun’s was absolutely full of tables which were covered in little statuettes and other baubles. That much was very familiar, but there was something I knew I’d never seen there before.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Standing in the middle of the room, where there used to be a coffee table, was a pane of glowing green … something. Wisps of green smoke emanated from it at random angles.
“Ah … Ms. Jun … What…”
“Oh, that thing. I don’t know. It’s been there for just over a week now. Pretty I guess, but I miss my table that used to be there.”
“Two weeks?!” My voice was a little strangled.
“Yes indeed. Showed up just after my daughter left. Did you ever meet my daughter, Kimi? She’s about your age, lives pretty close by. Doesn’t visit often enough for me, but then, if I could, I’d have her here everyday! Yes, she came over for dinner one night about a week ago talking about her latest boy drama. I swear, she has the worst taste in men. I keep telling her, I keep saying ‘you should find someone more like that Kyle fellow next door. He’s helpful’. All her so-called boyfriends are about as useful as a fart in a hurricane. Why there was this one –“
“The door, Candice!” I snapped, the woman took every opportunity to prattle on about her daughters. “Focus! What’s with the door?”
“Door? That isn’t a door. Doors have sides, that’s just some slab of green … something, I don’t know. Anyway, Kimi was over for dinner. It was supposed to be her and her latest, Bradley or Brentin or Bryan or something … she’s had a lot whose names started with Br. But he decided he’d rather go to the game with some friends than come see his dearest girlfriend’s ailing mother! Ha! I let her know what for about that, you better believe me!”
“Would you stop talking about your daughter and tell me about the green door?!” …Oops, that was probably a bit louder than it should have been.
Ms. Jun stopped and looked at me, her eyes judgmental about the shouting. “Fine. It showed up just after Kimi left. Heck, I walked her out and when I came back it was here! I called her about it, but she said she’d check it out when she was back over here later this week. I tried Googling about it, but they all talk about how nobody who touches it comes back. So I’m not touching it! No siree! My life might not be the best since Harold died, but it’s still my life! I’m not abandoning it for some damn curiosity. I tried tossing a few things in to see if that would make it go away, but nothing did. Lost some of my dolls and a teapot to it, they just pop when they touch it.
“Now, come long, those kitchen light-bulbs won’t change themselves.”
I followed her numbly, my mind tossing and turning over this impossibility. These green doors had been showing up seemingly at random, sucking people away. And now one shows up, just next door! Maybe this was some kind of sign or something. Ms. Jun had been quiet since leading me in here and was watching me with narrowed eyes as I got the step ladder into position. Apparently, my outburst had annoyed her, but I wasn’t too worried about it. Heck, if anything, maybe it would give me more of a break from her pestering if she was upset with me. The rest of the operation passed in silence aside from a curt thank you as she hustled me out the door.
Well, glad that’s over. With that glare she was putting out, I may have bought myself a couple of weeks before the next request. Ah well, perks of a temper, I suppose. Might even put her off whatever she’d been attempting to do with ‘Kimi’ there. I’d never seen the young woman, but it definitely sounded like Ms. Jun was trying to set me up with her youngest or some such, and I was not eager to be tied any closer to my needy neighbor.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t get the encounter out of my head. I checked the kettle – annoyingly, it had gone cool enough that I had to restart it – and I settled back into my chair and gazed out at the storm. I decided that I needed to know more. I got my tablet out and started to look up information about the green portals.
The first thing I discovered is that there were more of them than I’d thought. They’d been going on since that first one in Japan but since then, there had been almost 50 of them. When you considered that there were probably a fair number that had happened but never been reported, like the one in Ms. Jun’s apartment, it was almost certainly over 50. They’d appeared on every continent except Antarctica. They appeared to be random, opening at random times of day in random locations – sometimes on the corners of city streets, sometimes inside homes. One had apparently even appeared in an airplane corridor. The one in Ms. Jun’s apartment would represent only the second in the United States and the highest concentration by country was India, although they only had three reported. The only common factor was that they opened around people and those people immediately stepped into them and disappeared. Reports indicated that some of them had said that they felt ‘called’ to enter the portals while others had said nothing but been unable to take their eyes off them.
Eventually, my searching led me back to August Chase. It had only been two hours since his apparent return from wherever the portal had gone. My job meant that I was decently good at tracking down ‘unconfirmed’ stories on social media, so I applied those skills here to see what the locals in Seattle were talking about. Turned out, it was quite a lot. There was even a video of the strange altercation which someone had recorded and uploaded; smart phones were both a gift and a curse to intelligence work but they were a gift this time for sure. I wasn’t sure what to make of the video though.
Did he – no that’s not possible – but there, he does it again! ‘It’ was apparently reaching down into the sidewalk and picking up improbably large chunks of the pavement and throwing them at what appeared to be police. Then he stomped his foot and the asphalt of the road picked up and rose around him like a wall. It looked like he was manipulating the earth itself, bending it to his will like a character in some magical TV show.
A series of strobing flashes obscured the phone’s camera but then the phone went flying and the recorder scrambled after it, cursing. The video ended there, so presumably they decided to upload what they had rather than stick around for whatever came next. I read through various news reports about the video and the story in general. While none claimed to know what was going on in the video, reports did clearly indicate that the area around the Chase home had been wrecked in a confrontation with police.
I saw an indication that the Seattle police chief was going to give a press statement on the matter in 20 minutes and turned my TV to a channel that I knew would cover it. I turned down their chattering anchors’ volume for now – the analysis was simplistic crap but they did well at covering live events. In the meantime, I searched for stories about the Japanese man who had encountered the first of the green portals, Tabata Sho. It turned out that he had had a similar reaction to August, except obviously much more immediate. There was even a video of him too, approaching the green door. It flickered out of existence as soon as he touched it, and it looked like he flickered too for a moment before he stumbled forward. Except then he started whirling and looking around him like a crazy man. He reached out to the girl he’d been traveling with and starting shouting in Japanese. I did not speak Japanese.
Tracking down original stories about him turned out to be annoying. Most English language sources hadn’t started reporting on the story until more of the portals had started to show up, and by then it was only saying that the Japanese government had sequestered Mr. Tabata for psychiatric care. Most Japanese news-sources only had the briefest of descriptions that all ended the same way. Ultimately, I was only able to find one that sounded like the video I’d watched. The auto-translation software on my internet browser was crap, but it sounded like Mr. Tabata had been shouting about how good it was to see home again and how it had been amazing. It linked to a second video that showed him running around and jumping about crazily. He then raised his hand and colored flares shot up into the sky from his palm. They blossomed in the air like fireworks, except they were completely silent. It wasn’t tearing up the pavement, but that was still something that people were not supposed to do.
This hunt had taken me long enough to get to the police’s press statement and I turned my attention to the TV.
The first surprise was that it wasn’t the police chief who came out, but a woman who the TV quickly identified as the deputy police chief. She looked a little shocked.
> “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. First, I would like to apologize for the absence of Chief Hemmel. He has become unavailable, although we hope to have him up in front of you soon. As you know, shortly after 2pm something happened at the home of August and Michelle Chase. The precipitating events are not yet clear, but officers were dispatched in response to a 911 call from residents about shouting and crashes inside the Chase residence. Upon arrival, August Chase confronted officers. He did not explain why he launched his attacks. He was shouting repeatedly about being sent back and having to get back. It is not clear at this time what he was referring to. He was subdued using tasers and brought to the station.
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> “When at the station, Mr. Chase was awoken but immediately launched into a nonsensical ramble about needing to return. He never adequately identified where he needed to return to before attempting to force his way out of police custody, requiring further sedation. He has been transferred to a secure psychiatric facility.
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> “You may recall that August Chase was the subject of a Missing Persons Report three weeks ago after disappearing after touching one of the green portals that have sporadically appeared around the world. We would like to thank all those who have called into our tip lines, but for obvious reasons, that line is now closed. We are aware of the videos that have circulated about his initial arrest. We would ask that people please stop calling the police to talk about Mr. Chase.
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> “During his confrontations with officers, Mr. Chase displayed abilities that are unfamiliar to us. These included the manipulation of the sidewalk and street around his house as well as strange bursts and rays of light that left behind scorch patterns. We have not recovered any devices that can intelligibly make sense of these events. We encourage the public to immediately call for assistance should they discover unknown technology in the vicinity of the Chase residence. We remind them that the Chase residence remains private property and that officers have been stationed there to ensure Mrs. Chase’s privacy during this time.
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> “That is all-“
Her statement was overtaken by shouted questions from the reporters that had gathered to hear her. She waved them all quiet and said that a more detailed conference would be held in a few hours and that questions would be taken at that time. After that, she left the podium amid shouted questions from reporters who had never been particularly good at listening.
Being back … strange abilities … I wasn’t certain what to make of this. I was finally getting to drink my tea and my knee felt better as the storm petered out. I leaned back in my chair and let my mind wander over to the two individuals. Both Tabata Sho and August Chase had encountered these green portals. I now believed that when it looked like the Japanese man had flickered, that’s exactly what had happened and he’d just returned much faster than August Chase had. But they both had talked about going somewhere and then coming back. They had both now also shown up on video with the ability to do something unnatural, light shows were one thing, but moving the earth was something quite different. But they’d both appeared right where they had disappeared from. I wonder what will happen with that guy who disappeared from an airplane.
Which brought it back to what to do about the portal down the hall. The easiest thing would be to leave it alone. It wasn’t my apartment and it didn’t look like Ms. Jun was in a hurry to interact with it at all. Which was strange. All of the stories about people disappearing all had in common that there seemed to be some kind of magnetic attraction to the portal for someone around it. Either Ms. Jun didn’t feel it, or she was resisting it.
The data available indicated strongly that these portals were taking the people somewhere and that they were gaining powerful abilities while there. So far, one was happy to have returned while the second appeared violently opposed to being back. So what would happen if the portal just … stayed open? Would it go away on its own? Could something come through if it wasn’t closed? Were these portals being watched from the other side?
The TV had gone on idly in the background while I thought. A startling blare yanked my attention back to it. The anchors all appeared artfully stunned – they could give A-list actors a run for their money – as they explained that they had breaking news. Apparently, a third person who had been taken from a portal had just returned and had immediately come to a news station. It was one of the ones from India and I groaned. Now I knew what work was going to be about tomorrow.
The camera cut to an Indian studio. Despite what a Western audience may have expected, it looked very similar to the Western studio. Glass and CGI looked the same on all continents. The people sitting at those desks were Indian, including one who looked like a teenage girl and quickly revealed that to be the case. Lalita Lala was the name that came up on my searches, and unlike August Chase, she’d been gone for only three days.
> “Three days? Really?” My understanding of Hindi was sufficient for following their conversation, although I was only a half-beat ahead of the American station’s translator. The young Ms. Lala seemed surprised by the length of time. “It was a lot longer than that over there, I suppose.”
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> “How did you get in? You are the third to return, but the others were quickly found by police. I’m told you just showed up here.”
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> “Oh, that’s simple. One of the powers I developed over there was like teleportation. It made getting here easy. I haven’t even told my parents I’m back yet, although they’ll probably see this. So … hi Mom, looking forward to seeing you this evening!”
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> “That’s twice now you’ve mentioned an ‘over there’. Can you tell us what happened to you when you touched the green portal?”
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> “Of course, that’s why I came. When the portal first appeared, of course, people around me took off running. I mean, the news was full of how terrible these things were. But it wasn’t awful. It sang to me, I could feel it in my heart that it was calling to me – it was beautiful. So I had no fear, just walked up and touched the portal. It took me to someplace magical …” She trailed for a moment, as if remembering wherever it had taken her. “They call us heroes. We’re being summoned to come help them. We’re given a task and when we complete that task, we come home.”
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> “What about the powers?”
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> “There are powers there. Many people have them, including us. I used my powers to solve the problem they set me. Then I came home. It wasn’t super complicated, but it was absolutely an awesome experience.”
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> “And the powers come home with you?”
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> She shrugged. “Apparently. I mean, it’s not like anybody explains any of this to you. I get the sense they don’t know a lot about us or our world. They found a tool, it works, they keep using it.”
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> “What was the problem you had to solve?”
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> “I mean, mine wasn’t terribly exciting. Maybe it’s why I was able to return to quickly when so many others take longer, I don’t know. The people in this valley were just facing a terrible amount of flooding every year, so they did the little summoning thing to bring someone to fix it. They trained me in the magic they’d need me to do, I did it, I came home.”
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I’d seen enough and clicked off the TV. The story was absurd, but at the same time it had been delivered with such calm conviction that it seemed like it had to be the truth. Or maybe at least mostly the truth. It didn’t really sound like Lalita Lala was the best face for the phenomenon, but it was what we had. Heroes being summoned to complete tasks to help the people and they came back with powers. It sounded pretty awesome.
And there’s a portal down the hall… I finished my tea as I thought. This is something, something different, something new. Something important. My mind firmed on a course of action.
Of course, there was no need to rush. I got up, cleaned the tea cup. Fortunately, I’d just come back from vacation so there wasn’t a whole lot else I had to clean or store or anything. I got out and sent a few texts to my family and to my boss. Then I walked calmly down the hall and knocked on Ms. Jun’s door.
I knocked politely and then waited. It took less than a minute for her to open her door. She looked surprised. “Yes, Kyle? What can I do for you?”
“Is the portal still there?”
“What? Of course it is, it isn’t going anywhere? Why?”
“First, I wanted to apologize for my rudeness earlier. Seeing the portal was a shock. May I come in?”
She opened the door wider and stepped back. “Of course. I’m so happy you came back to apologize. Too many people let things like missteps stew into something bigger than they need to be. It takes a big heart to be willing to apologize and I definitely understand how this could be jarring. I mean, you should have seen me when I walked in the first time to see that ghastly thing where my table used to be! Of all…”
I have to admit, I tuned the woman out as I stepped through the door. I listened to enough to understand she was accepting my apology but honestly didn’t care about the rest of whatever she had to say. She was probably going to try talking up her daughter again and I couldn’t give two shakes of a rat’s tail about that. Instead, I just crossed her living room, walking right up to the glowing green. The wisps of energy wafted gently off of it, stirred by some intangible breeze. The portal itself was a flat and featureless green glow. Honestly, it looked a bit like the thing was all one pixel on a screen for how much color diversity there was.
“Do you hear it singing to you?” I asked over my shoulder at Ms. Jun, completely ignoring wherever she was in her monologue.
“What? Singing? No. Wherever would you get the idea that it would do that?”
“Interesting.” I said absently and reached out and touched the face of the portal.