《Arch》 A hairy situation What the fuck! That¡¯s all I¡¯m saying, is what the fuck! I woke up this fine morning to find a fucking stone archway in my bedroom. Well it¡¯s not exactly made of stone, it¡¯s more like some kind of futuristic or alien civilisation metal. The archway itself is extremely plain in design, just a solid shape really. It is a straight up archway shape, with a large triangular formation at its crown. Upon getting out of bed and stepping closer, to the arch, I freeze in my tracks. The triangular formation at the top, starts whizzing and opening up, with many moving parts, like something out of a transformers movie. Once it¡¯s finished, it has literally ¡®offered¡¯ up a topaz gemstone of sorts, by means of holding it out via some kind of arm and clasp. Frankly, I¡¯m still tired and not keen to argue with a piece of alien technology, so I reach out and take the gemstone. The triangle immediately closes up again. I hold out the gemstone in my palm and start examining it, but can¡¯t tell anything special about it. Ignoring the obvious fact that It¡¯s a fucking gemstone that came out of a transforming alien archway. Taking this thing was a big fucking mistake. Seriously. The next thing I knew, it had starting burning it¡¯s way into my fucking hand. And let me tell you, it hurt like a mother fucker! It only took a second of me screaming like my balls were between two smouldering hot bricks before it was over and the pain was instantly gone. The stone was now embedded mostly into the palm of my hand, leaving only a small surface area visible. Okay, so fun as that was, now what? All of a sudden I feel the gemstone pulling my hand upwards, until my palm is facing the arch. I can ¡®feel¡¯ the gemstone ¡®activate¡¯¡¯ and then without much warning the arch opens up what I can only assume to be a portal. A portal to where? No fucking clue, but it looks all pretty and shimmery. I can¡¯t help but notice that there appears to be some kind of text that has appeared on the triangle portion of the arch, in glowing ruins that keep changing? It looks like a counter of some kind and if we go by movies and books here, I would venture a guess that it is likely a countdown timer to how long the ¡®portal¡¯ will stay open. If it has such a timer and was probably activated by this ¡®offered¡¯ gemstone, then it is also a reasonable assumption that once it closes I will be able to ¡®activate¡¯ it again, possibly after some kind of cooldown, or not. Well this is all best guess at this point. So I decide to test this theory and patiently read some online books, using my phone, on my favourite website ¡®Royal Road¡¯. I do this from the comfort of my bed, so I can keep an eye on this portal. I also happen to have a broomstick and a butchers knife here with me, just in case something decides to jump out. Two hours pass, and nothing has happened. Could my initial theory be wrong about the timer? No, I don¡¯t think so. So if it¡¯s not a timer for you to get your ass in gear and through the portal in question. Well that only leaves one other possibility. It¡¯s a long timer and the most likely use of a long timer would be if that the portal stays open for a certain amount of time, as there is no other option of opening the portal from the other side. While this is unnerving for any would be adventurers, it at least does reinforce the idea, that you should be able to return. Of course I¡¯m not suicidal enough to just jump through the thing based on these assumptions alone, there will be lots more testing. I patiently wait in bed for the next four hours, reading my books and grabbing a meal in between, before the countdown timer finally disappears and the portal closes itself. That was six hours. Alrighty, first things first, activation test. I hold my gemstoned palm up to face the triangle like it forced me to earlier and voila, it activates! This helps to reinforce a lot of my deductions so far. Well now what? I have six hours in theory before this thing closes again, what should I test next. Of course! The only sensible thing to do. I go rummage around in the deepest darkest parts of my wardrobe, careful not to touch the nearby arch or its portal and retrieve myself a drone! It¡¯s a fairly shitty and small drone I had in storage, but one that can transmit its camera feed to and be controlled by my phone. It took me a while to find the right app for the drone again and get it hooked up, luckily the drone still had some battery charge left from the last time I played with it, I am too excited to wait for things like charging a battery right now. Carefully managing the drones flight controls, taking a moment to remember how to do this again, I finally get the hang of it once more. I guide the drone forward and into the portal, keeping an eye on the camera feed on my phone. As the drone disappears into the portal however, I immediately lose the camera feed. I quickly try backing up on the controls, but the drone does not r-appear through the portal. Hmmm. The most logical explanation is that either it was fucking vapourised or otherwise wrecked going through the portal, or that no wireless signal can cross the threshold, meaning no camera and no control. The first option does not bode well for me. Okay, time for another test then. I go downstairs to fetch a broom. I intend to see if the broom stick gets partially disintegrated or something if I temporarily stick it through the portal. If I¡¯m able to stick half of it through and pull it out again and it¡¯s still intact, then I shall move on to live animal testing. I really don¡¯t like my neighbors cat, it comes in through my windows and tries to eat the ever present leftover food that I leave scattered around my lounge and kitchen. That food is for me and the cockroaches! The nerve of it! I will definately be tying a string around that cat and chucking it through the portal to see what happens. If it goes badly for the cat, like if it dies a horrible death or something, I might just chuck my neighbor through as well. But first, let¡¯s get the broom test going. I slowly stick the broom handle through the portal, holding it by the brush end. All of a sudden the portal starts sucking the broom in with a jerk, it was so sudden and powerful that it jolted me forward, before I could let go of the broom. The portal instantly sucked the broom in completely and I now watch in horror as my face is getting ever closer to the damn portal while I fight to regain my balance. I finally finish fighting off the unwanted momentum, just as the tip of my hand touches the event horizon. Oh shit. The portal doesn¡¯t waste a millisecond before pulling my hand and then my arm into it. I should¡¯ve started with that fucking cat! My last thoughts are of a damnable feline and the hopes that the portal doesn¡¯t land me inside a rock, or on a planet without atmosphere. A bright light fills my vision, followed by the floor. A really hard floor. I slowly lift my aching nose off of said floor and sit upright on my knees. Holy shit! I have to take a moment to catch my breath. Spreading out before me, in every direction and as far as I can see, is a greyish blue stone floor and a white sky. How far I can see, is not ad-infinitum mind you. After about a kilometer all I can see is a white fog, the same color as the sky. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. The sky and fog are actually more of a dirty white to be honest and it is only now that I realise the air is breathable and I am not currently dying. The stone floor upon which I am resting appears to be polished almost like a granite kitchen counter and has a barely visible network of glowing green veins running through it, buried deep enough into the ¡®granite¡¯ that they can hardly be seen. Every now and then in the wide open ¡®landscape¡¯ of marble-like floor, stretching out in every direction, there are square pillars made from the same material jotting out here and there, each about a meter and a half wide. The pillars vary in height ranging from half a meter that I can see over the top of, to as tall as several meters up. Their placement, although always rotated to face the same direction, seems entirely random. The panoramic view really is a marvel to behold. However, now that I have not immediately died, I am much more concerned with whether or not I can get back home. I turn around to face the portal behind me. There is an arch standing before me, identical to the one in my bedroom. This arch however does not have a countdown on it, despite the portal still being active. Three possibilities I can think of here. Firstly this portal is a one way, in which case I¡¯m fucked! Secondly, time in this place moves infinitely fast compared to the real world, in which case the portal could stay connected forever and does not need a clock. Thirdly, the portal travels both ways but can only be opened from the real world and therefore doesn¡¯t bother showing a clock on this side, more as a result that it doesn¡¯t have an ¡®interface¡¯ over here. I get to my feet and walk towards the portal, seriously hoping it is not the first of the three theories. As soon as I reach out to touch the portal, my hand is repelled! Oh fuck- fuck- fuck- fuck! I try forcing my entire body towards the portal and am unceremoniously flung backwards. That¡¯s it I¡¯m dead. I¡¯m fucking dead! Well I¡¯m not entirely dead yet, but I am sitting there for a few minutes in a furious staring contest with the portal. While I try and glare the portal into submission, I start wondering about what the fuck I¡¯m going to do now. I look around a bit more carefully and spot both the drone and the broom lying on the ground a little bit further away. The drone has given up on flying and is now parked on the ground, motionless. Pity I don¡¯t have it¡¯s controller with me to fly it around a bit and ¡®safely¡¯ explore. I suspect it would actually work as long as the controller is on this side of the portal, with the drone. Beyond the portal however, I notice something strange. I quickly get up and walk past the arch, a few dozen meters further and I arrive at what can only be described as ¡®the edge of the world¡¯. Directly behind the arch where I entered, about twenty meters away, the floor suddenly stops. A sheer drop off that stops about three meters down, suggesting that I am standing atop a colossal sized floating platform. And the only thing I can see below that as well as into the distance, is more ¡®sky¡¯. I quickly back up away from the edge, trying to shake off the rather unsettling feeling of staring down from a very ¡®high?¡¯ place. I guess now I have to explore a bit. I decide first that for the lack of a compass or a sun in this place, that the direction of the gate and ¡®edge of the world¡¯ will be South. Not that I suspect a compass would have any use in this place. So heading away from the gate, north, seems like a royally bad idea. Considering I can only see for about a kilometer in any given direction, If I travel too far out and try and back track, I might likely miss the direction of the portal all together and then hit the edge of the world, and have to wonder whether to travel east or west in order to find it. Don¡¯t feel comfortable with that idea, no, not at all. So I decide to head west, following along the edge of the world to guarantee that I can¡¯t get lost. Of course when I say follow the edge, I mean of course keep at least ten meters between me and that dead drop off at all fucking times. I begin walking, watching the portal disappear into the fog after about ten minutes of travel time. I can¡¯t help but feel incredibly isolated in this place after that, the never changing scenery in all directions doesn¡¯t exactly help. I keep walking for quite some time, before I pass a nearby pillar. I take the opportunity for the first time, to examine one of these pillars close up. On all sides it is the same and I am unable to find anything at all to differentiate it from the floor I am walking on and soon decide to leave it be. All the pillars in this place appear to be the same, so I decide to just keep walking. I can¡¯t tell in this place very easily, but maybe it¡¯s been like thirty minutes already? I haven¡¯t seen a single change in scenery so far, Just a never ending stretch of sky, floor and pillars. That is, until now. Directly in front of me is yet another pillar, seemingly made from the exact same material as the floor, only this time, the pillar has a reddish tint to it. This pillar is different! I can¡¯t but help feel completely overjoyed by this small little oasis of change in this fucking soul eating dessert of a landscape. I practically run up to the pillar to inspect it, but am somewhat anxious when it appears to be just another fucking pillar. It is somewhere around three meters high and uselessly normal on all four sides, or at least as normal as normal can be in this place. The disappointment is fucking soul crushing, how utterly pointless. I am about to leave the damnable pillar and carry on with my journey towards nothingness and pointlessness, also known by me as ¡®West¡¯, when a nagging thought occurs to me. It¡¯s a sneaking feeling crawling up my spine and clawing its way into my brain. I decide that I have nothing better to do and that the endless landscape is not going anywhere, like at all, and decide to indulge my spider senses. I remember that, from the pillars I have seen so far, the top is just as smooth as the rest and I did not recall seeing any sharp edges which could threaten to slice my fingers off. So without further adieu, I crouch down and launch myself upwards with all my might and manage to just hook the edges of six to eight of my fingers over the top edge of the pillar. Which kind of hurts from the strain of supporting my body weight on just that alone. I quickly wiggle my fingers into a better grip and begin the work of doing a partial chin-up and hooking my right forearm on top of the pillar, up to my elbow. With enough leverage to finally pull my head over the top of the pillar I am now face to face with some kind of white object that is sitting directly on top of the pillar. Fuck yes. One point for me. I quickly snatch the object and drop back down to the ground, looks like my hunch about the ¡®out of place¡¯ pillar paid off. I am about to examine my newly acquired ¡®loot¡¯, when I hear the pillar start making some kind noise. Glancing up, I notice small cracks, or divides showing up in the pillar. In the next moment, hundreds of parts of the pillar start shifting around, flipping and folding in, on, out and over themselves, as the pillar gets shorter and shorter while looking like yet again, something else out of a transformers movie. The pillar eventually disappears into the ground, which in turn folds outwards to cover its ¡®escape¡¯ and turn into normal ground once again. All traces of gaps or seams vanish and there is nothing left to indicate that there was ever a pillar here. That was creepy. I am currently tensed up and ready to run for my life if things all of a sudden turn into an Indiana Jones movie and the floor starts falling away. But after a minute of nothing further happening and no additional noises, I eventually calm down and go back to inspecting my prize. It¡¯s a white palm-sized object in the shape of a flat-ish oval. It has what I assume to be a button on top and a clip on the bottom, that looks like it could attach to your belt. The whole thing itself really looks like some kind of electric gate motor remote. There is also a small hole on the front of it, the size of a pinhead. It feels like it might be something similar to a laser pointer. Curiosity getting the better of me, I hold it out, pointing outwards to a pillar about a hundred meters in the distance and press the button, half expecting a laser bolt to shoot out of it, but nothing happens. Well that was entirely unsatisfying. I point it towards the ground near me this time and hold the button in, going once again with the laser pointer idea. No laser pointer shows up on the ground while I¡¯m holding the button in, but this time I do hear a whirring sound that is increasing in pitch, the longer I hold it in. Oh shit, maybe it¡¯s like some kind of charge up weapon. I quickly point it back to the ¡®target practice¡¯ pillar and after several seconds of charging, I release the button. Once again, nothing seems to happen. I am about to get really agitated with my ¡®broken¡¯ prize, when I notice that something is not quite right with the target practice pillar, it is out of shape. I walk towards the pillar, quickly covering the hundred odd meters and when I get close enough I notice that there is a large round patch of hair stuck to the pillar. Upon closer examination it appears to be more like a black ball of fur stuck to the pillar. Curious, I point the laser pointer to a different section of pillar and hold the button in for only a second this time. Upon releasing the button, a much smaller patch of black fur instantly sprouts out of the pillars side, so fast that It¡¯s there before I¡¯ve barely even finished releasing the button. That¡¯s just marvelous. My foray into an alternate world and the first prize I find is a fucking ¡®hair gun¡¯. Islander I continue to play with the hair gun for a while, covering various surfaces in different sized patches of hair. But now it is time for the real test. The longer I ¡®charge¡¯ the hair gun, the bigger the patch of hair it creates. The test now is that I have been charging the hair gun, button down, for the last minute and a half already. The high pitched noise it makes has stopped increasing in intensity at this point, signaling to me that it has reached max power. Well at least it didn¡¯t explode. I point the hair gun at a patch of ground about forty meters away and release the button. Next thing I know, I¡¯m happily sailing through the air and then rolling across the ground until I come to a stop. Fuck! I¡¯m lucky I¡¯m just banged up and bruised, and that I didn¡¯t break any bones! When I released the trigger a patch of hair / fur instantaneously sprouted up about fifty fucking meters in diameter, with enough force to knock me back and send me sailing through the air, despite the fur being really soft. Actually that¡¯s a good thing, if the fur had been hard, it probably would have killed me from the impact. Upon closer inspection the furball is about fifty meters high and is layered. At its base, there are thick strands of hair, some with a diameter as much as a meter. Of these super thick fibres that resemble frikkin tree trunks, other smaller fibers sprout outwards, each with smaller diameters. This carries on in many layers, in increasing depth and complexity, smaller and smaller hairs sprouting off of each other. The outermost circumference is layered with the usual very fine cat-like fur. It is pretty impressive actually and I would probably stand here even longer gawking at it, if my stomach had not reminded me of the urgency of my situation. I¡¯m still completely fucked and as such, I clip the hairgun onto my pants and carry on my not so merry way, following the edge of the world once again. About another thirty minutes pass, maybe more and I do not encounter any other suspicious pillars. I do however almost fall over myself when I realise that in my field of view now stands another Archway! I quickly run up it, but my hopes are dashed when I notice that nearby there is a drone and broom lying on the ground. You are fucking kidding me! west loops back around to east! This place is seriously fucked up! I walk back to the edge of the world and as I stare into the nothingness I am seriously half tempted to just jump off. Either something will happen or I¡¯ll die, the latter of which I¡¯m going to be doing regardless if I don¡¯t find a way out of this place. I turn around to face the North and wonder if I should just start walking in that direction. I do however put a pause to that thought, as something else occurs to me. The portal technically has two sides to it. I walk up to its south side, the side I have not yet touched and slowly bring my hand up to it, till it actually touches the portal. It¡¯s not pushing me away! Upon contact with it, it once again sucks in my hand, arm and rest of my body and forces my through it. Smack! Ouch! I am back in my bedroom once more and the portal graciously threw me out, face first, into my wardrobe cupboard. Well despite the pain I am genuinely happy to be back, and alive for that matter. So each archway that is ¡®connected¡¯ has a corresponding ¡®in¡¯ and ¡®out¡¯ direction, that is strange, but interesting. Least I now know that I can go to that place and come back. I walk over to my bed and examine my phone, It¡¯s only been an hour and a half, more or less what it felt like in there. So that answers another question, there is no weird time warp, six hour time limit out here, is a six hour time limit in there. But first things first, I¡¯m really hungry. I quickly walk down stairs to approach my kitchen, when I notice that once again there is a cat on my kitchen counter and it is eating my leftover pizza. Does my neighbour not actually feed this fucking cat at all? I reach for my hairgun, my blood boiling, and charge it for several seconds before releasing. The cat immediately turns into a puffy ball of fur. The ¡®cat?¡¯ jumps nearly a meter into the air in shock and when it lands it starts twisting, diving and hopping about frantically trying to escape its new found fur coat. The cat eventually gets its bearings a bit and makes a beeline for the open window, obviously hoping to escape its furry pursuer, but naturally to no avail. I also don¡¯t think the cat can see properly since it bangs into the closed portion of the window first, before managing to find the open part. This is only natural I guess since there is so much fur, that I can¡¯t even tell where the cats head or tail is, save for guessing based on the direction the cat is running in. None of this really matters though as I am currently rolling on the floor with laughter and I remain this way for at least another full minute. At which point my stomach really hurts and I am having a hard time breathing already. But damn, if that was not the funniest thing I have ever seen in my entire fucking life. I get up wondering if perhaps I¡¯ve screwed myself over here. If my neighbour doesn¡¯t recognise his cat after that, or accept that it¡¯s his, then he DEFINITELY will not be feeding it anymore and I¡¯ll probably be stuck with it even more often. On the plus side, my neighbour may think it¡¯s some kind of mutant monster and kill it on the spot, who knows. I proceed to eat the one and only pizza slice that is untouched, that cat was really fucking hungry it seems. It¡¯s almost 4PM now, so I decide to wait for the portal to close before running any more tests. In the meantime I decide to make supper, since I will be getting hungry again real soon after only one slice of pizza. I whip up some homemade spaghetti bolognaise, eat a little of it and leave the rest of it on the counter for later. I pass the rest of the time, by playing some Dark Souls 3. Once the portal finally closes, it¡¯s around 8PM. I load up a backpack this time, with some packets of crisps, some bottles of water a few small basic tools, some tape and a stack of colored sticky notes, you never know. I also grab my phone and this time, with much less trepidation, I activate the portal and step through.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Once out the other side, I manage to land on my feet this time without tumbling over. I am back in ¡®The Zone¡¯, that¡¯s what I¡¯m going to call it from now on. The first thing I need to try out is the drone. I hook up my phone and voila it works, I once again have control over the drone. So there¡¯s no problem using the wireless in this place at least, it just can¡¯t transmit through the portal. I do some tests, to test both distance and height of the drone in terms of range, but this shitty little model can only travel about ten meters before it loses connection and slowly hovers back to the ground. In this place that kind of range is utterly useless, so I give up on any possible usage of the drone for exploration. I put the drone in my backpack, just in case, and pocket my phone too. Lastly I pick up the broom and sling that over my shoulder like a rifle salute. I want my phone nearby so I can keep an eye on the time and you never can tell when the broom might come in handy, like knocking things off a high perch for example. The direction of choice this time, shall be North, in part because the other three directions are pointless at this point. I shall keep an eye on the time and allow for up to two hours of heading north at most, followed by at most two hours returning and a two hour buffer window to make sure I don¡¯t accidentally get trapped here. With that decided, I head north. I pass many pillars while travelling north, none of them special of course, or at least that I¡¯m aware of. I am reasonably confident in my ability to go north and not veer of course, thanks to the fact that all the pillars are aligned to the same fixed ninety degrees rotation axis. This makes it easy enough to go ¡®straight¡¯, just by keeping an eye on the pillars around you. After traveling for about forty five minutes, I come to yet again another edge. I can see nothing in the distance and nothing below, over the edge. Is this all there is to it? Maybe somewhere else along this edge, there is a path to continue on? I suspect that if I go straight west here, that I would eventually end up right back where I¡¯m standing right now, so I place a few pink sticky notes on the ground. I have yet to feel any kind of wind in this place, at most just a very very light breeze so far, nothing that could uproot a sticky note. Making it the perfect marker for this. I start following the ¡®North Edge¡¯, a name I have decided on, to differentiate it from the now officially renamed ¡®South Edge¡¯. If I keep following the edge westwards, and eventually come back to my pink sticky notes, then I know I have mapped the entirety of the edges of this world, all two of them LoL. Let¡¯s hope that is not the case, would seem like an awful waste of an alternate reality. After walking for about fifteen minutes, passing yet more boring pillars, I finally see something in the distance. Past the North Edge, about forty meters across the void, I see another platform. It looks identical to the one I¡¯ve been travelling around on, also about three meters thick and suspended in mid air. There must some kind of path or bridge across to it, further on. Travelling up a bit more, I can now see the full expanse of the ¡®¡¯adjacent¡¯ platform. It runs in parallel to my platform, separated by a forty meter gap, for a length of about a hundred meters and extending back into the fog for as far as I can see, into territory unknown. There is no bridge across to it, well at least not in the traditional sense. What there is, are about a hundred scattered blue translucent platforms, almost like glass. They come in varying sizes of squares and rectangles, of anything from a meter to three meters in length per side and are spaced apart quite randomly, with gaps ranging from as little as a ten centimeters to much much more than that. It probably wouldn¡¯t be that difficult to hop from one to another all the way to the other side, provided that they are not slippery and will not break or disappear if you step on them. The part that is strange though, is that at any given time, about half of the platforms are illuminated, or glowing if you will. Watching for a while I notice that each and every platform is toggling between an illuminated state and a ¡®off¡¯ state at some kind of fixed interval. I have a very bad feeling about this. I take my broom and poke one of the illuminated platforms right in front of me. Nothing strange there. So I give a decently hard swing of the broom and strike the suspended platform. There is a reassuring thud sound, it would seem the platform is sturdy and not about to fall out of the sky. I wait a few seconds for the platform to turn ¡®off¡¯ and then try poking it with the broom again, only this time the broom passes right through the platform, like it isn¡¯t even there. Holy shit. It¡¯s a stock standard arcade-disappearing-timed-platforms level! No. Just fucking, NO! That is not happening, forget it. I have played too many platformers to know that a ¡®level¡¯ of this difficulty would require numerous deaths before you get the timings and the feel for it down. I¡¯m not Mario, I don¡¯t get multiple lives here. Well, I think anyway. I get up and have instantly decided to forget about this madness and see if there is anything else along the North Edge of interest. But before I leave, my inner scientist gets the better of me and I decide to conduct one more experiment. I stick the broom through an ¡®off¡¯ platform and wait. As soon as the platform solidifies, the broom is instantly cut in two, like the platform occupied the space where a portion of the broomstick was supposed to be and simply blinked it out of existence. Regardless, I watch helplessly as the broom brush falls into the distance, no longer attached to the broom, and out of sight. Damn. Now I am seriously over this. I get up and carry on walking west. After about another forty five minutes however, I reach a patch of ground that has some pink sticky notes on it. Shit. So there really is no other way forward. Still I do not see myself dying trying to become a real life ¡®Islander¡¯, that¡¯s just not happening. Regardless, It¡¯s been about two hours now, I need to head back. I leave and head directly south from the pink sticky notes and manage to travel straight enough, that after an hour I see the Archway a couple hundred meters to my left and front. I travel back home using the reverse side of the portal and arrive back in my bedroom at 11:15PM. Honestly I¡¯m exhausted, I decide to get some more of my delicious leftover spaghetti before heading to bed. I dump my backpack in the corner of my bedroom, as well as my broom ¡®stick¡¯ and head downstairs to the kitchen. When I arrive, I am greeted by a giant ball of fur that is covered in a considerable amount of spaghetti sauce. Seriously? Not only has this fucking furball not learnt its lesson, but it seems to have adjusted to living the life of a giant sized furball just fine. Not only that but I no longer have spaghetti to eat, at least not any that is not positively swimming in grey alien hairs! I walk over to the kitchen counter and pick up the ¡®cat?¡¯ and carry him up stairs. He is still busy munching quite lazily on the food in his mouth. At least I think he is, based on the sounds he is making, it¡¯s not like I could actually see his head or anything. Upon reaching my bedroom I, with a genuine heartfelt grin on my face, chuck the fucking hairball into the portal. Good luck finding something to eat over there fleabag. At this point I¡¯m truly exasperated and exhausted, so I just switch off the lights and jump into bed. Before I close my eyes and let my tired body drift off to sleep, I realise that the open shimmering portal that still has two and a half hours left on it, makes for a rather pretty and soft-light lava lamp. Fools gold After having some breakfast I prepare my things for yet another dive into the zone. I can still afford to take at least another day off, after that I need to really get back to finding some work. My savings are gonna catch up to me at this rate. I do freelance web development ever since I left my previous company, they were a bunch of slave drivers. I¡¯ve been trying the whole freelance gig for a while now, and while I can get by on it, it certainly is tough. I even have been considering going to look for another job in the same industry recently. Jobs in the web development space are pretty easy to snag after all. I hold out my hand to activate the portal and after one final spot check, step through. Now that I¡¯m back in the zone, I plan to spend the next four hours tops, exploring all the area between the North and South Edge, to see if I can find anything else ¡®of interest¡¯. I make sure that once again I have everything I need, before setting off. At this point I note the distinct lack of one overgrown hairball cat and can¡¯t but help wonder where it scampered off too. I proceed to head north for about eight hundred meters and then after placing some sticky notes on the ground, a whole bunch of them, I proceed directly west. I plan to circle around from west to east, right around the platform and repeat this process every seven hundred meters or so while traveling north. This way after a couple of hours I should have ¡®mapped¡¯ the entire platform. Who knows maybe I also run into that damn cat. After nearly two hours of executing my plan, I finally come across another red pillar. This one however is about seven meters high. I momentarily consider my options. If I were to fetch a folding ladder, it would probably only get up between three and a half, to four meters, not enough to reach the top. Another option would be to find one of those double extending eight meter ladders, that would work, but there¡¯s probably no way for me to wiggle it through my flat, bedroom and the portal, it¡¯s just too big. I could maybe fetch stuff to stack up and build a staircase towards the top, but I suspect that will take a lot of trips and a really long time to accomplish. Then a lightbulb goes off in my head! I unclip my hairgun and charge a shot for several seconds, releasing it at the pillar. A decent sized patch of hair spouts off it¡¯s side. I repeat this process, one patch after another, all the way to the top of the pillar. Now I have a rope ladder of sorts. I clip the hair gun back on my belt and start climbing. It takes all my strength to climb it, which is too say not that much, having lived the life of a couch potato for the most part. About five meters up I realise that I am really high up and if I fall from here I¡¯m probably going to break bones. Not good. Before I go any higher I decide to add some insurance. I wrap some fur around my right hand, while still gripping it, for added support and then let go with my left hand. I use my now free had to charge my hair gun for fifteen seconds and fire it at the ground below me. A much large patch of hair pops up. There we go, now if I slip, that should break my fall. I clip the hairgun back into my belt and grab on to wall of hair once more with my left hand. At this point I try to untangle my right hand. Just as I finish untangling it, my right foot slips and the added weight amidst my mostly left hand only grip causes me to lose all traction and plummet to the ground. I fall into my safety net on the ground, but fortunately the floor hair does it¡¯s job splendidly, much better than I expected it too. The multi layered hair that shows up in a large patch like this apparently works very well to make it both soft and springy. I get up and challenge the pillar to a rematch. This time, I make it all the way to the top and discover my prize. It¡¯s a palm or hand sized tree, or at least something that resembles a tree without any leaves. It has many branches branching of many other branches, progressively smaller and smaller, just like a tree would. I pick up the object and take note of its weight, it¡¯s heavy, like some kind of metal. Added to this it¡¯s gold color and I really begin to suspect that it might actually be made out of gold. I decide to take the shortcut back down, it¡¯s kind of fun after all. Once I land, I hear whirring noises. Shit I forgot about the pillar. I quickly scramble away from it as it starts spinning, twisting and folding in on itself, causing hair to get shredded and both shoot outwards as well as be thrown all over the place as it gets ripped to pieces during the pillars descent into the ground. Once that comotion is over, I examine the statuette, I can¡¯t detect anything unusual about it. It doesn¡¯t seem to do anything, it just seems to be a regular ¡®gold?¡¯ statuette. So without much else to do, I simply put it away in my backpack and carry on looking for more red pillars. Another hour and a half later and I have reached once again, the North Edge. That¡¯s it. There was only that one extra red pillar. So I decide to call it a day and head back home before my time runs out, not like there is anything more for me to do here, that doesn¡¯t involve suicide.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. After arriving back home, with about an hour and a half to spare on ¡®the clock¡¯, I head down stairs to eat the rest of my yummy egg, bacon and onion scrambled omelette mix thingy that I made for breakfast. I was pleasantly surprised to find out then, that I had made too much of it and would be having it once again for lunch. Well that was the plan anyway. Instead, there is a giant hairball on my kitchen counter busy eating it. Seriously? What kind of a cat, no matter how hungry he his, would try and go anywhere near an open portal like that. I seriously suspect this cat can smell food across dimensions. I give up. I sigh in exasperation and search my fridge for something else to eat.
Excited to see what I can get for the tree statuette, I, using my masterful google maps skills, track down the nearest jeweller shop and go get it appraised. The end result of which, after dodging some uncomfortable questions about where I got it from, is that the statuette is indeed made of solid pure gold and worth at least six thousand dollars! Of course I immediately sell it to the jeweller for half that and net myself a hefty three thousand dollars. This is nuts, I don¡¯t have to work for the next month! And all it took was running around a fucked up twilight zone like place for a day or two. Then again when I think about it that way it does feel like I earned it after all. Of course at this point my curiosity about what is beyond the timed platforms is at its peak, even if I really do have no intention of trying to cross it. So I do the only thing I can, head down to the nearest ¡®tech¡¯ store and buy the most expensive drone they have. Even though it costs me some of my hard earned cash, I consider it a worthwhile investment if in nothing else than making sure my curiosity doesn¡¯t cause me to lose sleep over this. The drone in question has an approximate one mile range, which should get me at least some idea of what''s beyond the chasm, well hopefully. With my new found toy, I return home and once again activate the portal and enter the zone. The drone also has its own app for connecting to and monitoring its front mounted camera. The dedicated controller it comes with also has a nice slide out ¡®hook¡¯ for you to mount your phone in, so that you can watch the feed via your phone while using the controller to pilot the drone. With everything setup and connected, I take the drone for a little test drive, to get the hang of it, while I am still situated near the portal. The first thing I test, is ¡®up¡¯. I fly the drone straight up, close to its estimated one mile range limit, to see if I can see anything up there, you never know. The drone does not however find anything, before the controller starts beeping a warning sound at me, indicating the drone is close to going out of range, or I should say its signal is getting too weak. So I bring the drone back down. The next test is ¡®south¡¯, to see if there is anything out there, past the edge of the world. This too results in nothing. Finally, the last test I conduct is ¡®down¡¯. I fly the drone over the edge and straight down to see if there is anything down there, but once again, can not find anything. On the way back up however, I get a good view of the underside of the platform I am standing on. It looks very similar to the top side, but with one notable exception. Every hundred meters or so, there is a glowing green sphere stuck to the bottom. I fly the drone closer to inspect one and it appears to be about a third of an actual sphere, basically a dome shape, just stuck to the underside of the platform and glowing with a faint green light. I can¡¯t help but wonder if maybe these spheres power the platform or simply keep it afloat, or maybe both. Regardless, now that I¡¯m done with the initial batch of tests I wanted to perform, I pack up my drone and head out for the North edge. A half hour later, I reach the North edge and then head west a bit to find the timed platforms section. I power up my drone and fly it across the chasm and into the unknown territory across the void. Despite the platform that lines the other side of the chasm being a hundred meters long, there is basically only one ¡®exit¡¯ from it, a passageway about thirty meters in diameter spanning outwards, heading north. Along this passageway that I am now flying my drone across, there are numerous pillars scattered, with a much higher density than before, but none of them appear special in any way. Before I even realise it, my controller starts beeping at me, signalling that the drone is at the limit of its range. I sigh, about to turn the drone back when on the screen, at the edge of the drones vision, I see something. Not willing to let this chance slip by, I fly the drone closer to try and get a better look, while ignoring the controllers warning. As the object comes closer into view, I decide that it is not a strange pillar, but rather some other kind of structure, even though it is tall in shape like a pillar would be. Just then the cameras feed cuts out. Shit. I try backing up on the controls to bring the drone back into range, but it¡¯s no use, it¡¯s out of range for that too. I just stand there glaring at the timed platforms for a while, wondering what that structure could have been, my brain running wild with all manner of crazy ideas. Truth is though, in this place it could be anything and would likely completely exceed my imagination. The intrigue is killing me, clawing away at my brain and stripping away my insanity and reason. I scream out loud in frustration and then take out my phone, back up a couple of paces and with new found determination, begin filming the timed platforms. Skyroads A lot has happened this week. After deciding that I really do want to cross the chasm, I had a lot of things to figure out. The first was a plan of action. I knew, that even if I trained for it and managed to cross the timed platforms, once was not going to be enough. I would likely have to cross it many times as my ¡®adventure¡¯ continues. To be honest even crossing it once would be dangerous enough. I would be risking my life in the most unbelievably literal sense of the phrase. So there are a few things that need to be taken care of. First I need to make sure that I only have to cross it once. To that end I have already ordered some ¡®equipment¡¯ to make that possible, about a week ago. Said equipment, is not going to magically get me over the platforms, they do span forty meters to the other side after all, but it will ensure that I only have to cross it once. Secondly, reducing the risks if I fail, that is too say, try and give me an extra life or two for the attempt. Some more equipment that I ordered at the same time and from the same online store should help with that. Thirdly, I need to try and prevent failure all together and make it across on my first try. This is without a doubt, the single most important part of this operation. It is for this reason that I spent a couple of hours just filming the timed platforms. I then spent several more hours watching and analyzing those recordings. What I discovered, is that they all have the exact same base increment of time, multiplied by a power of two. Some platforms toggle on and off every one and a half seconds. Other platforms toggle every three seconds while others every six. There are even some platforms that toggle on and off every twelve seconds. It is also worth noting that the size of the platform seems to be directly inversely proportional to the speed of its toggle. Large platforms typically toggled at one and a half seconds and the smallest one by one meter platforms toggled slowly at the full twelve seconds. I knew that I would need to somehow practice this platform hopping business before I go out there. So I did the only thing I could while I waited for my equipment to be delivered. I cracked open my copy of ¡®Unity¡¯ and started building a really shitty small scale 3D game, that would allow me to simulate the real environment. The platforms were all just blankly colored untextured blocks of various sizes and when they toggled ¡®off¡¯ in the game, I just added an eighty percent opacity to them. I made it first person perspective for a more natural feel and to avoid having to dig up a character model. I then spent an entire day setting up all the different platforms to the correct, placement, sizes and timings according to my camera recordings. At that point all I needed to do was set up my ¡®characters¡¯ collision box and control systems and I was set. I spent every remaining day, ordering takeout and barely doing anything aside from practice my shitty little game. Over and over again, learning the timings of the platforms, the different routes I could take to get to the other side, even which routes were safest and had the most leeway. Once I had narrowed it down to one single ¡®safest¡¯ route, I practiced that same route over and over again. I even quadrupled the timings of all the platforms at one point just to do panicked speed run tests. I felt I was ready. Or at least as ready as I was ever going to be. So when the equipment arrived, I wasted no time loading up and getting ready for the main event. Before I jumped through the portal, I laid out a soup bowl on the floor and put some now old fish in it for the unwanted house guest. It was quite heavy lugging the equipment all the way over to the north edge, I even had to make a second trip for the the four way folding ladder I purchased. I was already pretty tired by the time I was done. I quickly unloaded my gear and set to work. I set my folding ladder up in an ¡®A¡¯ shape at the base of a seven meter high pillar that is located some five meters away from the north edge. I picked up my brand new portable drill and started drilling into the pillar, near the top, or at least as high as I am able to safely reach with the help of the ladder. It was the most powerful portable drill I could find, but that being said, they are not really suited for drilling into concrete, or stone, or whatever the hell the pillar is made out of. At the very least it¡¯s making progress, that is to say, at least the pillar isn¡¯t made of some indestructible material. That was one of my biggest concern for this operation. Once the hole is drilled, I grab a large washer that is oblong in shade and has an additional hole in it for hooking stuff into it, I really don¡¯t quite know what this thing is called. I feed a raul bolt through it and push it into the hole in the pillar. A perfect fit. I pull a spanner out of my backpack and get to work on expanding the raul bolt until it is as tight as I can get it. Nice job! Now I have a very secure hook in the pillar some six meters above ¡®ground level¡¯. I load the drill and spanner back into my backpack, as I will need to do this one more time. I put on a safety mountain climbing harness. Well more like a harness you would use with a rope in any high place, they are all quite similar. I clip the end of a fifty meter rope onto the ¡®hooked pilar¡¯ and roll the rest hanging around my shoulder in loose rolls. I then clip the other end onto my safety harness. I quickly realise my mistake and take the fat roll of rope off my shoulder and reverse it before slinging it over my shoulder once more. The rope itself is thin and lightweight, however, between the less than fifty meters of it and my weighty backpack, it¡¯s a lot of weight to be jumping around with. The idea here is that as I jump from platform to platform, taking the ¡®safe¡¯ route, that is to say, the route with as many six second platforms as possible. The twelve second platforms are too small and will be very dangerous with my sluggish movements and anything faster will be too dangerous in it¡¯s own way. This is because as I jump from platform to platform, I will need to feed rope off of my shoulder to have enough slack to jump to the next platform. If I do this too quickly the weight of the unwinded rope so far at that point, may swing around and throw me off balance. If I do it too slowly, well hence the choice of six second platforms as my preference. Also I can¡¯t afford to let too much slack go into the rope as I move, if the rope touches one of the ¡®off¡¯ platforms, as it comes back on, it will cut it off. As long as I can make it across just once, I can attach the rope to a pillar on the other side, using a similar technique as to what I did on this side and thereafter, simply shimmy across the void and skip the platforms all together. Clipping the other end of the rope into my safety harness just acts as insurance. If I fall, it will hopefully save me. I will hopefully not be snapped in half after falling for forty meters, before the rope goes terse to catch me. The connection to the pillar will hopefully hold and not let me plummet to my death. And lastly with my climbing harness, with its little rope throttling contraption thingy and my climbing gloves, I will hopefully have the strength to climb my own rope back up.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. This was a really bad idea, wasn¡¯t it? Well, no backing out now. I test one of the solid platforms with my toes and then jump onto one or two platforms and back again to build up confidence. Then I wait for the start of the correct sequence and I leap out onto my first platform. I land safely in the middle of a two by two meter platform with a six second timer, as it appears. Jesus! It¡¯s scary as fuck! It feels like I¡¯m standing on air, with this stupid semi-transparent platform below me. I have to try really hard not to look down into the endless abyss below me. How many seconds has it been, am I wasting too much time steadying my legs. It feels like if I don¡¯t, that I might just fall right off the platform. After a deep inhale, I sling one or two loops off my shoulder, until the rope hangs just above the platform and then leap to the next one. So far it¡¯s going well, I¡¯m several platforms in, despite the near crippling fear of it all. Up next should be the last three second platform on my route, the rest are all six and twelve second platforms. I wait for the platform to appear and then jump over to it. By the time my feet touch down the platform has already been up for one second. I realize now for the first time, just how slow a human is compared to a character in a game. I quickly unfeed two rolls of my cable and steady it before preparing for the next jump. This is nuts, that cost me another second! A take another step forward and jump towards the next platform. The previous platform disappeared almost as soon as my feet leave it, it could not have been more than a half second gap! This knowledge sends a fresh chill of fear running down my back. Regardless of the terror slowly overwhelming me, I still manage to keep moving forward one platform at a time. However, over the course of the next several platforms, I start to notice a serious problem. I honestly thought it would get easier, the further I go. I mean I would be offloading the rope on my shoulder the whole time. Reality had to go kick me in the nuts. Truth be told, the rope I am supporting behind me is much heavier than when it was on my shoulder. This is because I have to keep it terse in order to keep it off the platforms, and the further away from the starting point I am, the harder this is to do. It has reached the point where I have to be careful not to let the weight pull me backwards. A make a jump to the next platform. I have to do it at full power, despite the gap only being a meter, in order to make it across thanks to all the ¡®resistance¡¯, and even then I only barely make it, my left foot lands on the edge. I continue to struggle from one platform to the next, feeling like I¡¯m about to be pulled backwards off each new platform I step onto as I go. I am almost there, just two more platforms! It is then that my blood runs cold. I realise that the next platform is one and a half meters away. That gap would have been nothing to jump earlier, hell I¡¯ve jumped one or two two meter gaps on my way here earlier. But now it¡¯s impossible. It¡¯s reached the point where I can¡¯t jump at all, not even a hop, or I¡¯ll get pulled over backwards. I can at most ¡®step¡¯ over a one meter gap, but even that would be pushing it. The one and a half meter gap in front of me is simply not possible anymore. I¡¯m starting to panic, I have to get off this platform. Even if I abandoned my cable, detaching it, too easily hop the rest of the way and ¡®save myself¡¯. But if I did that, how would I get back. I only practised a one way trip. There is not supposed to be a return trip. There¡¯s only one choice, an alternate route. I let my vision drift wide to scan my surroundings and try to forget about the platform under me that should be disappearing soon. There! A small platform that just turned on. I quickly step over to it. I can only risking moving to platforms that I have seen appear now, as anything else and it would be impossible to know how long the platform will stay ¡®on¡¯. If I don¡¯t do it like this I could step onto one and have it disappear immediately. I scan for my next platform quickly. But I don¡¯t see anything close by turning on. Most of the nearby platforms are already on. Shit! This is about a six second platform I¡¯m standing on, it¡¯s been on for about four seconds. There¡¯s no choice, I quickly step over to the smallest nearby platform, and hope it stays on long enough for me to cross over it. I am unravelling rope with reckless abandon now, not even caring if it touches the platforms. I need to get across. I immediately step over to the next small platform, now just making a mad ¡®dash¡¯ for the finish line. As my right foot touches down on it, I feel the platform below my left foot vanish. Luckily I was already leaning over far enough onto my right foot and by extension the platform in front of me, that I only lost a little bit of balance. I reach over two more steps and cross the divide to solid ground. Safety! I fucking made it! But I can¡¯t rest yet, the weight of nearly fifty meters of rope pulling on me is tremendous. I drag it over to the nearest pilar, wrap it around a few times to lose the excess, before hooking the hook on the end of the rope, onto itself, to keep it from retreating. Now I breath a sigh of relief. Thank god I¡¯m alive. I still don¡¯t feel very comfortable with this ¡®loose¡¯ setup and waste no time getting to work, finishing the job. Using my drill and raul bolt and hook thing, I mount and attach a pulley of sorts that I feed the rope through and use it to tighten the rope as far as it can go, until it is running almost straight across the divide, without hanging downwards. Albeit at a downward angle, since I did not have a ladder on this side. Before picking up my tools and backpack off the ground, I take a moment to consider whether I have enough physical and emotional strength left to start exploring or if I should return at this point and just rest up a bit. I decide that after this much trouble I shall explore! Fuck it. I wanna know what that machine thing does. I get up and take a step forward to reach for my backpack. There¡¯s just one problem though. I have stepped on something. The something I have stepped on is mildly squishy. The something I have stepped on has four spider like legs and a single oversized red glowing eye! The something I have stepped on squeals in complaint and this is enough for me to practically leap backwards. It was more of a fumble over my feet as I stagger backwards to try and keep myself from falling over though. Never mind that, it¡¯s a monster! THERE¡¯S A FUCKING MONSTER! I realise too late that I have stumbled backwards too far. My left foot is slipping over the edge of the chasm and I am busy leaning over backwards as a result. There is no chance of righting myself anymore, I am going to go over! Screw that! I didn¡¯t come this far just to fucking up and die! I twist my body around so that I can see behind me as I carry on slipping backwards and as soon as one of the nearby platforms comes into view, I kick off from the solid ground, into the platforms direction. I manage to land on what I think is a six second platform. I quickly scramble to my feet, not knowing how much of those six seconds are left and stumble forward towards a nearby twelve second platform that is literally just ten centimeters apart from my current one. If I can step onto there, I may just have enough time to check on the monsters position or figure out how to get to my safety line without falling to my death first. I do not however get to step over to the twelve second platform, before the six second platform runs out of time and turns off. My feet meet empty ground as I move forward and gravity starts doing its work. I manage to hook my arms over the twelve second platform as I fall forwards and down. The weight of the rest of my body however, causes my arms to slide down and I end up holding onto the platform by only my two hands, before the motion stops. Dangling there, I immediately try to pull myself up. I manage to once again hook my arm over the platform and pull my chin up above it, after a fair amount of struggling. I don¡¯t know how long the platform will be there still. It is at this point that I realise in horror that the six meter platform was only ten centimeters away and I¡¯m pretty sure my neck is thicker than ten centimeters. How long has it been? Maybe about five seconds? Oh fuck! I instinctively drop my head and my arm back down as fast as I can, once again holding on to the twelve second platform with only my hands. I make it just in time as the six second platform once again appears, shaving off some of my hair in the process. That was too fucking close. Now I just need to wait for it to disappear and try again. No, wait! This is only a twelve second platform, no matter when it turned on, it will definately be the one to turn off first! I quickly flip my hands around, one after the other, to grab onto the six second platform instead. As soon as my second hand touches it, the twelve turns off. Two seconds passed I think, maybe three? I pull myself up with every fibre of my being, every ounce of strength I can muster. Three or four seconds is all I have until I die, there will be no second chances. I hook my arm, then pull up my head, then hook my leg, and pull up my body, all in one swift and rapid motion. I launch upwards and onto my feet and prepare to jump to the first platform in sight. But I am falling. The platform is already gone, it has run out of time. I can only watch helplessly in horror, as the platforms get further and further away, above me. A hair raising experience The air resistance is ripping at my body, my hair, my clothes. My mind is reeling I can¡¯t even see straight. I can barely even hear the air racing past me, it is completely drowned out by the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears. The sound is so loud it feels like my head is going to explode at any second. My chest hurts and I can¡¯t even breath anymore. I think I¡¯m going to die of heart attack or something any moment now, like falling to my death isn¡¯t even going to matter. The platforms above me have already disappeared in the distance. This can¡¯t be happening. I don¡¯t want to die. I manage to turn myself around somehow to face whatever is going to kill me. I can¡¯t say it¡¯s a good idea to be facing what may well be the fast approaching ground that will splatter me to pieces. For now however there is nothing to see, just the continual void as the air continues to rip past my face. In the end, can¡¯t say it was a good or a bad idea, the endless void below not being any different from the endless void above me and by no means any less unsettling. A few more moments pass and while I am still ready to brown my pants at a moment''s notice, I feel like I am at least not going to drop dead from a heart attack at any moment. The void all around me seems to be having some kind of calming effect on me. It¡¯s like I¡¯m floating freely through the air, albeit really fucking quickly. In fact I would not know which direction is up or down at this point were it not for the direction of my hair blowing and direction of the air resistance. Is it strange that I¡¯m continuing to calm down despite currently falling to my death? It¡¯s probably not the ¡®calming effect of the void¡¯, I have no illusions about being a really screwed up person after all. I can¡¯t but help wonder at this point how long I¡¯m going to keep falling. A sudden thought flashes across my mind that I might end up starving to death before reaching the ¡®bottom¡¯. I quickly brush the thought from my mind however, as that is even more unpleasant than the thought of ¡®splattering¡¯. Actually, now that I think about it, it may very well be entirely possible, especially if there is no ¡®bottom¡¯. Seeing how this place is so far, I certainly can¡¯t rule out the possibility. It definitely is strange after all. Considering, that now I feel more depressed than I do scared. I can¡¯t but help inwardly sigh as I continue my uneventful ¡®descent¡¯ while debating by what horrible method my life is going to end. I do not have to wait all that long for my answer though. In the distance I can see another ¡®platform¡¯. It quickly ascends past me, or I past it, as it is about a hundred meters away from my current falling trajectory. The platform passes by my field of view in an instant, the speed at which it flew by me, despite being in the distance sends shivers down my spine. That would have been one very serious ¡®splat¡¯. The knowledge that the human body has a certain maximum free fall speed in the presence of air and that I have likely long since reached ¡®terminal velocity¡¯ helps ease my mind a little. Emphasis on ¡®little¡¯. Counter to that however is now the certain knowledge of how I will meet my end. If there is even a single platform in the distance on this ¡®below¡¯ side of the world, then there is little reason to believe that there are not plenty more platforms in this place and eventually I¡¯m going to crash into one of them. Sure enough not even a moment passes since that morbid thought and I can see a platform directly below me, approaching at an alarming speed. I brace myself for certain death. It would probably be smart to shut my eyes, but I just can¡¯t seem to bring myself to do it. It is fortunate however that I did not, or I may have been tensely waiting for death with my eyes closed like an idiot, for quite some time. Since I ¡®conveniently¡¯ fell through a gap or a long slit in the platform and ended up passing right by it. The platform itself was fortuitously ¡®cracked¡¯ in half or something like that, with many smaller pieces of platform scattered about (smaller being quite relative) and I somehow managed to fall right between the pieces of platform and through the giant ¡®slit¡¯. Then again fortuitous does not seem to adequately describe this situation. Aren¡¯t we just delaying the inevitable here? I am all of a sudden overcome with a desire to just ¡®end it¡¯ already. The stress of waiting to die is becoming really annoying. As fate is however an ironic grade A bitch, I do not see any more platforms for quite some time. When I do once again see another platform, it is one that is once again in the distance. I swear I can feel that platform mocking me. Moments later a platform comes into view directly below me once more. Finally. Who would of thought I¡¯d ever be relieved to die! My thoughts however, momentarily turn to frustration when I realise that there is once again a gap running along the platform directly below me, once again filled with pieces of broken platform. I was about scream out in annoyance when I notice that this time, I am heading straight for one of those ¡®pieces¡¯. The piece that will finally bring an end to me is little more than three by three meters in size, but that doesn¡¯t matter much, it will surely kill me all the same. I grit my teeth, as my heart races, mentally preparing myself for the impact with the fast approaching object. As I¡¯m about to collide with it however, it suddenly disappears and I pass right through it. Huh? My brain takes a moment to start working again, seemingly needing some time to boot up again after its shut down from the prospect of facing certain death. When the gears do start turning again however, I turn my head up angrily and scream all manner of curses at the fucking disappearing platform! I swear, I am fucking cursed! I glare the disappearing platform into submission as he and his mother fucking disappearing friends vanish into the distance. It is at this point however that something clicks. I maniacal laughter erupts from my chest. You have got to be fucking kidding me! If there is a god, then he certainly has a sense of humor and is a total fucking sadist to boot! Just like the East and the West, the top and the bottom are also circular. I¡¯ve been falling past the very same platform that I originally fell off in the first place! The new found knowledge is filled with both humour and despair. To be so close to ¡®home¡¯, to ¡®safety¡¯ and literally have to watch it pass you by over and over again, could there be a joke more cruel? I wonder how many more times I am going to pass by, before finally colliding with something. I am left now only with despair of waiting to die in such an ironic way, that is by crashing into the very ground I was standing on originally! I would of course curse out at the sadistic god from my earlier thoughts, if I believed in God in the first place, which unfortunately I do not. Cursing not even having an almighty being to curse at, I instead wait in quiet contemplation for the platform to arrive again. Safety is so close, yet so far. Life itself is right there, readily available if it were not for the fact that I am traveling so fast, if I could just stop falling, slow down. SLOW DOWN!Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. An absurd idea is crawling across my brain. An idea that has little chance of success and is far more likely to cause a more painful and slower death, but for the chance of life. For the chance to spit in the face of the deity that I do not believe exists! I wait until the platform in the distance once more becomes visible, a sign that my target will soon arrive. I immediately straighten out my body and stop flailing around pointlessly. I angle and position my body just how I imagine a skydiver would do it in order to propel himself in a forwards-like direction. The goal this time is to not to fall through the ¡®cracks¡¯ but rather, crash right into the solid platform that leads home. At the same time, while trying to ¡®move¡¯ myself, I unclip the hair gun and begin charging it. After several seconds the far platform has passed me by and the ¡®home platform¡¯ is coming into view. By this point the pitch of the noise the hair gun is making has seemed to peak out, indicating what I assume to be a full charge. It matters little however, as I am out of time. My ¡®move¡¯ worked and I am now barreling straight towards the ground. With a deep breath I wait as long as I dare, lest I miss my one and only literal shot at this. At the last possible moment, as the ground threatens to swallow me whole, I fire. And then the world turns black.
I open my eyes to a world of darkness. Either I failed to open my eyes or I¡¯m dead. The notion of my surmised death is quickly dissuaded by the tremendous amount of pain wracking my body. Either I am very much alive, or this is hell. Every inch of my body seems to be ¡®bound¡¯. Movement of any kind is filled with pain and resistance. Remembering what happened and the assumed outcome, I look up. But all I can I see is more darkness. I try clawing my way up as though I were swimming in a heavy liquid, but to no effect. I do however notice the occasional glimmer of light in the distance, but it is so feint as to be a reflection of a reflection of a mirage. Since ¡®up¡¯ is clearly not happening, I instead refocus my efforts on some more lateral movement. Every movement is meet with many obstacles and great resistance. The endeavour to move forward is immensely tiring and straining on my body that is continuously assaulted by a permeating pain wracking it. There is literally nothing that doesn¡¯t currently hurt like hell. The general all round claustrophobia of this stuffy space that is making it very difficult to breath is inducing mild panic in me and driving my forward, pushing me through the pain, the dark and the obstacles in my way. It takes me a full ten minutes to finally fight my way to the edge and escape into the light. I clamber forward and collapse to the ground on my back, every ounce of energy has left my aching body, leaving my a lifeless corpse on the ground, basking in the light of freedom and life. Staring straight up and to either side of me, all I can see is hair. The mass of hair that I created with the hair gun to break my fall. I am filled with sheer wonder at the absurd size of it. It must be at least fifty meters tall! From the outside you can see little more than fluff, a stark contrast to those easily one meter wide ¡®hairs¡¯ (if you can even call it that anymore) on which I had to use all of my strength to shift aside while I was deep in there and making my way out. After resting on the comfortable ground, just regaining my strength, letting the pain subside and rejoicing at being alive in general, I finally scrounged up the strength and will power to stand up again. Limping around the newfound hairy landmark and over to the edge before the timed platforms, I stared across the chasm. On the other side I can¡¯t make out any kind of movement. Whatever that thing was that nearly caused my death, it doesn¡¯t seem to be there anymore. One thing is certain however, if there can be one monster in this place, there can be many. I am going to have to seriously reconsider my ¡®gear¡¯ for this place. I will now need to include weapons and ¡®armour¡¯ I guess. Of course any sane person would have run for the hills, but I was in too deep, this place offers too much potential for some crumby eye monster or even a hundred of them for that matter, to be standing in my way. ¡°Let the dungeoneering begin!¡±, I cackled to myself like a mad man, as I limped my way back towards the Arch.
Ben was currently looking at me with great concern. He was no doubt considering whether or not he needed to put me in a room with nice soft white padded walls. ¡°A portal?¡±, he repeated not without a hint of annoyance in his voice. Probably under the assumption that I am trying to play some kind of incredibly lame prank on him. I had Invited my best (and probably only) friend over under the guise of holding a ¡®lan¡¯ with just the two of us. Ben had already began setting up his PC when I interrupted him to broach the subject of my true agenda. After my encounter with my first ever monster, I was all gung ho and ready to arm myself to the teeth and go killing monsters RPG style. It did not however take long for me to realise that this was not the best idea. What If I get surrounded by too many monsters or I ran into something stronger than an ¡®eyeling¡¯. Heck I don¡¯t even know if an eyeling is actually weak to begin with. Point is, I decided to do what any self respecting person would do and roped my best friend into the danger in the hopes of improving my own chances of survival. Or at least that was the intention. I had yet to get anywhere near that point, having to first deal with a very wary and skeptical friend that even now was looking at me like I grew a second head. Even the gem embedded in my hand was assumed to be fake and part of the ¡®joke¡¯. At that moment however, fate saw fit to through me a lifeline, in the form an oversized ball of hair, stealthily strutting across the room before stopping right in front of me, no doubt waiting for its next meal. I glanced over to Ben, giving him a sly look as I introduced him too¡­ Oh wait this fucking freeloader doesn¡¯t even have a name yet. ¡°I would like you to meet a creature from beyond the portal.¡± I said to him in as grandiose a fashion as I could manage. Ben¡¯s eyes went wide as he regarded the mobile ball of hair with suspicion. It was a lie of course, it was just a cat after all. But somehow the idea of a creature from beyond the ¡®portal¡¯ seemed far more believable than a hair gun, that I no longer have, as I dropped it somewhere in the hair monument. I took a moment to reach over and scratch the former cats head, for added effect. I however immediately pulled my hand back after realising that I had accidentally poked it in the ass instead. The ¡®cat¡¯ turned around to give me a typical ¡®catty¡¯ dirty look. Although that might just be my imagination running wild, since it¡¯s not like I could see it¡¯s head or anything. ¡°You¡¯re obviously still not convinced.¡± I spoke up, breaking Ben out of his fascination with the ball of hair making it¡¯s way over to the kitchen. ¡°Come on I¡¯ll show you, it¡¯s in my room.¡± Without waiting for Ben''s answer, I got up and led him over to my bedroom. It was actually a lot of fun watching him scrutinize the arch like he was trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe. ¡°Watch.¡± I called out to him as I activated the Arch. Ben¡¯s mouth hung open after witnessing the portal appear in front of him. ¡°There¡¯s a fucking stargate in your room!¡± I couldn¡¯t help but smile at that outburst. After a while the shock clearly wore off and upon regaining his faculties, Ben proceeded to organize his thoughts. ¡°So what¡¯s on the other side?¡± ¡°A twilight zone like place that makes alice in wonderland boring by comparison.¡± ¡°Is it safe?¡± ¡°Yes and no. There are some places that appear to be a bit dangerous, like timed platforms and other game like shit. But there is also valuable loot to be found.¡± ¡°Loot?¡± ¡°Like say a golden statuette worth a ton of money that I pawned just the other day.¡± I could see the gears in his head turning and a smile slowly creeping across his face. ¡°Also, I may have encountered a ¡®monster¡¯ on the other side. Nothing major, it was a palm sized spider thing. I¡¯m sure I could fend it off myself quite easily, assuming it is even hostile in the first place, but honestly, I¡¯d rather have someone watching my back, if you know what I mean.¡± Ben stood there a while just taking it all in, before smiling at me and asking one final question, ¡°I assume that I get half of whatever we find?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± I returned his smile.