Passing Through the Portal (Fading Into the Shadows Book 0) Read online

  “They’re not from around here. And neither am I.”

  “Who are you?” I asked again. “What brought you here if you aren’t from around here?” I felt like I was babbling, but this guy wasn’t telling me much of anything. If he wanted my help, he needed to give me a little more to go on.

  “Do you believe in other worlds?” he asked.

  Okay, I’d thought I was tired, but this guy clearly needed sleep if he thought he was from another world. But how did I get him out of my house without him lashing out at me? He could be crazy, and if he was, who knew what he’d do if I called him out on it? Thank God Ella wasn’t here. She’d have plenty to say about his “other worlds” comment.

  “Would you believe me if I showed you?” he asked when I still hadn’t responded several seconds later.

  What was he, a drug dealer? Was he offering to get me high? If he was hallucinating from some drug he took, this would have made a whole lot more sense. I had to say something to get him to leave. “Look, how about you come back tomorrow when it’s daylight. I’m beat and just want to—”

  “I can’t come during the daytime,” he said, frustration evident in his voice.

  “Why not?” I asked. Was he running from the cops or something? Did he not want to be seen? That would certainly make sense with the way he’d been acting and keeping to the shadows. It would also explain why he couldn’t go to the police for help.

  “Things don’t work that way,” he said.

  It was like pulling teeth to get anything out of him, and this was getting weirder by the second. “All right, well then maybe tomorrow evening.” All I wanted was for him to leave.

  “This can’t wait. I need help now.”

  Clearly, but I didn’t see how I could help him.

  “Let me show you something.” Before I could protest, he turned and removed something from his pocket. I couldn’t see what it was in the dim lighting of my dark room. But I did see a new shadow appearing along my wall. This time, it was a shadowy staircase leading up to my ceiling in the corner where the two walls met.

  “What is that?” I asked. Maybe he was holding some sort of tiny projector—possibly connected to his phone. Did he have a video of whatever it was he wanted me to see?

  “A gateway to my world,” he said.

  “A gateway?” I repeated, sure I’d heard him incorrectly.

  “Or a portal, if you’d rather that term.” He didn’t sound crazy. He sounded calm and collected. Then he touched the stairs as if trying to prove they were real and not some holographic image.

  “Whoa,” was all I could manage to say.

  “My world is under attack by beings you could only dream about,” he said.

  If I didn’t see the stairway with my own eyes, I’d never believe this. But the part about beings I could only dream about still didn’t make sense. “What kind of beings? What exactly are you?”

  He laughed. “You’ll find out all you need to know when we get there. For now, I just need to know if you’re in.”

  In? “In what exactly?”

  “The army I’m putting together. Will you fight to protect the people from my world the way you fight to protect the people in yours?” His expression and tone were completely serious.

  “You haven’t even told me your name yet, but you want me to fight with you?” This can’t be real. Had I fallen asleep in the movie theater and this was all some elaborate dream cooked up by my candy-crazed mind? I knew I shouldn’t have let Ella talk me into eating the entire box of sour chews. I didn’t even like them.

  The man stepped toward me again, but I still couldn’t make out a single one of his features in the darkness. “Time isn’t on our side. I need to know if you’d turn your back on people in need just because you’re afraid of the unknown.” He scoffed. “I didn’t even mention the dragon yet.”

  Dragon? No way. Another world and it had dragons? “Wait a minute. What if I say no? Will you leave?” He’d already told me he was from another world. An alien of some sort. I doubted he’d just say, “Thanks anyway. Have a nice life.” and leave for good if I refused to go with him. That’s not how it worked in movies at all. And this surpassed any reality I’d ever known.

  “I can’t force you to come. But that’s why I chose you specifically. I knew you’d want to help. You’d want to do what was right. And when it’s over, you can come back here. Pretend it never even happened if you’d like.”

  He chose me? How long had he been watching me? I had so many questions because this all still seemed so unbelievable, but if I didn’t see where those steps led, I might not ever forgive myself. Things like this didn’t happen in real life, yet here I was. And if he really did need help and there really was a dragon and other “beings,” as he’d called them, threatening his world, could I really send him away without even trying to help? I’d be no better than those people in the parking lot, rushing to their cars instead of saving that boy.

  I looked back over my shoulder at the picture of Ella and me on my desk. I could just barely make out the outline of her face in the dim lighting from my clock. She was going to kill me for leaving her behind. She was usually the one who took me on adventures—not that any of those had ever been in another world, but still.

  “We need to go. Now,” the guy said as if he knew I’d made up my mind to go with him.

  I turned back to see he was already walking up the stairs. Now or never. I took a deep breath. “Sorry, Ella,” I whispered into the darkness as I followed the figure up the strange staircase.

  “Where exactly are you taking me?” I asked, taking another tentative step, expecting each footfall to send me falling to the floor.

  Without a word, the guy disappeared through my ceiling. One minute he was there, and then I was alone. I could only assume he’d gone through the ceiling. “I must be losing my mind.” I let out a deep breath and continued to climb to the space above my room where my ceiling should have been. For a moment, I was partially in my room and partially standing in a doorway with no actual door. I took the last step up and looked back at my empty room.

  I had no idea how long I’d be gone or even where I was going. But something told me this wouldn’t be happening if I wasn’t meant to go. I hoped Ella would understand why I had to leave her behind. She’d have a million questions. I almost laughed, thinking about how she would have reacted if this guy had approached both of us outside the movie theater. She probably would have assumed he was a nutcase or some sick psycho trying to prey on teenage kids. Even though I didn’t know anything about this guy, I could sense his desperation. He wouldn’t have come here if he didn’t really need help. He wouldn’t have shown me what he could do. It would have been too risky. His abilities didn’t exist in my world—well, that I knew of before now.

  “You coming?” he called from inside a dark hallway just beyond the doorway I was standing in.

  I turned in his direction to see a bright silvery light. Man, I hope he’s not bringing me on a spaceship or something. Ella would kill me if I got myself abducted by an alien looking to perform experiments on humans.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said again.

  The guy seemed obsessed with time, which meant things must have been really bad where he was bringing me, and that made me realize I was going there empty-handed.

  “Wait. Shouldn’t I bring some things with me?” Not that I had a clue what those things should be. I looked back at the contents of my room. Nothing seemed like it would be of any help in a foreign world I knew basically nothing about.

  “No. Everything you’ll need is waiting for you,” he said.

  With no reason left to stall, I walked into the hallway. Above us was a silvery...portal.

  A portal to another world. I’d thought the staircase would bring me wherever we were going, but I was wrong. There was a round, shimmering portal above my head.

  I knew better than to think this had always existed in my attic. This guy had created it, just
like he’d created the staircase that brought me here.

  “Follow me,” he said, pulling a hat onto his head and further shadowing his features. He reached up into the portal and pulled himself through it.

  My heart raced. I’d always loved sci-fi movies, and here I was about to step inside one. I reached up and lifted myself through the portal.

  3

  I had to shield my eyes against the bright sunlight that greeted me on the other side of the portal. What had happened to the night? There was no way I’d talked to this guy and debated coming here with him until morning.

  “The light takes a little getting used to,” the guy said. “It never gets dark here.”

  I was about to comment when the portal made a sound like a giant bubble bursting. “Whoa!” I jumped up and turned to see the portal was gone, like it had never been there to begin with. The ground was solid dirt.

  “We need to move. It isn’t safe to stay here,” the guy said. Now that he wasn’t cloaked in shadows, I finally got a good look at him. Though the bright sunlight wasn’t exactly making that easy. He was dressed in army fatigues, which I guessed made sense since he said he had an army. Still, I wouldn’t have thought army fatigues in another world would look exactly like the ones in mine.

  Since he’d mentioned a dragon earlier, I figured that must have been what he was referring to when he said it wasn’t safe here. If there was a dragon nearby, I definitely didn’t want to stick around.

  “Here,” the guy walked over to a giant boulder. We were surrounded by them, which struck me as odd. He picked up two knives. Not steak knives. These things were big. The length of butcher knives, but the blades were thinner and more angular. “Take this. You’ll need it to fight in close range.” He raised his eyebrows. “Though, trust me when I say you don’t want to let these things get close enough to you to need to use a knife. If you do, it will most likely mean you’re on your last breath.”

  Very reassuring. I took the knife because being unarmed was the last thing I wanted right now.

  The guy attached his knife to a holder on his belt. Then he turned back to the boulder and grabbed a bow and arrow from the other side of it. “Are you any good with one of these?”

  I looked it over, recognizing the design. We used similar ones in gym class. Why did so many things in this place seem to match the things we had on Earth. Where exactly was I? “My aim is decent,” I said when I realized he was waiting for me to answer his question.

  “Good. You should be a quick study then.”

  I expected him to hand me the bow, but instead, he kept it and motioned for me to follow him. He brought me through the boulders to an area filled with trees. I looked up, expecting a dragon would most likely fly, but what I saw was almost more intimidating than a real-life dragon. The stars in the sky weren’t stars at all. They were people. Humongous people that moved about. None of them seemed to go very far, but they were definitely alive. “What are they?” I asked.

  The guy stopped walking and tilted his head up. “Oh, that. Are you familiar with the constellations?”

  “Not this familiar,” I said. Sure, I’d read about them in school, but to see Sagittarius, the archer, in his actual form instead of a star group was something I never could have imagined.

  The guy shrugged. “You’ll get used to it. There’s no time to stop and explain now. We need to keep moving before we’re spotted.”

  I was pretty sure the constellations had already spotted us. Sagittarius was rearing up on his hind legs, his bow and arrow at the ready. I hoped he wouldn’t shoot at us. The guy with me didn’t seem to be worried about the constellations, so I didn’t think we were in any real danger from them. Still, if Taurus somehow charged right out of the sky at me, I was going to use one of the giant boulders we’d just walked through as a shield—and possibly a bathroom since those horns on his head were huge...and deadly.

  “Follow me,” the guy said, moving into the cover of the trees.

  I was a little relieved I couldn’t see the sky anymore. Until I learned more about it, I preferred if the constellations didn’t have a clear view of me. Or me of them.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. “Is it far?”

  “Don’t go,” came a deep voice, and gravel shifted across the dirt behind me. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

  Before I could even attempt to see who had spoken, the guy in front of me whirled around. “Duck,” he yelled, readying his bow and arrow in my direction. He let loose the arrow just as I threw myself to the ground. Dirt kicked up as my chest slammed into the grass. “The arrow won’t hurt him,” the guy said. “It will only make him angry.”

  Great! Then why had he shot whatever it was?

  “Move!” he yelled.

  I scrambled to my feet and turned my head to see a giant dragon stalking its way toward us. A gigantic green dragon with bright red eyes. The arrow in its leg looked so small in comparison to his mammoth body. With his razor sharp teeth, he bit down on the arrow and yanked it from his leg. He snapped it in half and spit it out before saying, “The next thing I bite down on will be your soft flesh.” His nostrils flared and then his long red tongue snaked out of his mouth before licking his teeth. “I’ll bet you taste as delicious as you smell.”

  I was almost too stunned to move, but I wasn’t about to be eaten by the dragon mere moments after I’d gotten here. I forced my brain to send a message to my legs, and I ran after the guy who’d brought me here, using the trees to keep out of the dragon’s direct path. It wouldn’t be easy for him to follow us in here. He was too big to fit through the trees. I slowed down at the thought and chanced a glance back in his direction.

  The dragon’s mouth curved up at the sides. Was he smiling? Could dragons smile? I hadn’t even known they existed, let alone talked and smiled. And why would he be smiling if he couldn’t get to us?

  He inhaled deeply, and the air around me became like a wind tunnel. I grabbed onto the tree trunk beside me, hugging it to avoid being sucked up into the dragon’s mouth.

  Then the air got still. Too still.

  “Run!” the guy with me yelled. He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the way as the dragon let loose a huge breath of fire. Actual fire. The tree I had been clinging to was singed. Not a leaf left. The branches were bare and burned.

  I ran again, following the guy through the trees. Several others splintered, and branches crashed to the ground behind us. The dragon was trying to burn us alive. Or maybe he was trying to make a path so he could chase after us. Either way, I wasn’t sticking around to find out.

  We reached the other side of the trees, and I saw a mound of rocks. There was an opening at the front of it, plenty big enough for us to slip through and hide from the dragon.

  “Over there,” I yelled, jerking my head toward the rocks.

  The guy grabbed my arm and pulled me in the opposite direction. “Trust me. You do not want to go in there.”

  I didn’t bother asking why because if it was worse than where we were now, dealing with this oversized dragon, then no, I didn’t want to go in there. I squeezed the dagger he’d given me in my hand, but it was completely useless. It couldn’t compete with the dragon’s fire breath.

  We ran into a field, which didn’t seem like a smart idea to me since we were out in the open, but again I didn’t question the guy since he lived here and had obviously dealt with the dragon before. This place looked like it had once been a farm or something. There was a house in the middle of it, clearly long-since abandoned. I had no doubt the dragon could and would burn the place to the ground if he found us inside it, but the guy ran toward it anyway, and all I could do was follow. Maybe there was another portal in there that could bring us somewhere safe. I knew nothing about this world.

  My God. I was in another world. It was surreal. But this guy had been right. This place was in trouble with a dragon like that running rampant. As we neared the house, I looked in every direction, noticing there were no people arou
nd. Not a single soul. Where was everyone? Were they all in hiding from this creature?

  The door creaked as he pulled it open and rushed inside. I followed, closing the door behind me. I paused to catch my breath after running, though I suspected my increased heart rate had more to do with almost being burned alive by that dragon.

  “So, now you see,” the guy said. He didn’t sound scared, more like determined. Determined to rid this place of the dragon and whatever else was terrorizing it.

  I bent over at the waist, my hands on my knees. I stared at the dagger he’d given me. “How did you expect me to fight that thing with this?” I asked.

  “I didn’t. I’d foolishly hoped we wouldn’t run into Draco until after we’d trained you.”

  “Draco?” I knew that name. Except I knew it as the name of a star group. Or at least I had until a few minutes ago. “So, the constellations really can leave the sky?”

  The guy moved away from the doorway. The windows were all boarded up, but he attempted to peek out of one. “It’s not quite that simple. Melanie will explain later.”

  “Who’s Melanie?” I asked.

  “She’s in charge here.” He paused before adding, “Now at least.”

  Did that mean the person who was in charge before her was dead? Possibly killed by that beast I’d just encountered?

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. “We haven’t seen a single soul.”

  “I told you it was bad. Our people are unable to fight. That’s why I need you. Stellaris needs you.”

  For some reason, I didn’t ask what was stopping his people from fighting. He was desperate, so if he said they couldn’t fight, I believed him. Worse, I imagined how badly they were all hurt. “Tell me what you need me to do,” I said.

  He turned around to face me and nodded. “I knew I’d chosen wisely with you. You’re going to have the most important job of all. You’re going to lead my army. We’ll train, and we’ll defeat these rogue constellations. Then Stellaris will return to the world it once was.”