Pandora's Gate

The first short story in volume 1: The Mentor, the Hero, and the Trickster, of the short story series, The Well of Images.

Samuel sat in his desk chair, back straight, breath even, myths and metaphors turning the clockwork of his subconscious. It was the third day of his first semester at Athens University, and his calendar was fully marked with his deadlines and due dates for the next four months. Not a corner of his apartment was dirty, not a book, nor sheet of paper, nor piece of furniture out of place. All of his course texts were piled neatly on his desk from largest to smallest, their edges straight and even. Beneath them in a drawer, a collection of booklets and pamphlets about the university’s clubs and activities was stashed, and would inevitably be forgotten.

With his eyes closed and his mind clear, memories from the day returned to him. In his class discussion, the girl with the dark ponytail had said, “Jung didn’t mean it literally.” They had been talking about the psychoanalyst Carl Jung---whose name they had pronounced “Yoong” as in “book”---and his theory of the Collective Unconscious. The idea was that all of the thoughts and behaviors common to humanity across time and culture were drawn from the same unconscious reservoir. Samuel had called out the idea as preposterous, since everyone’s unconscious mind was disconnected from everyone else’s, but apparently he was the only one who could see the logic.

He pushed the memory away. When meditating, one was not supposed to think, just experience the place and the moment he was in.

On his way to class that day, he had passed by Shelley Hall, a source of folklore for the students, begetting stories of strange sounds at night and phantoms in the windows. Always locked, it was said that no one had ever been seen entering or exiting. Sometimes the brave or curious would try their ID at the card reader, but all were denied.

Samuel chastised himself and pushed the thoughts away, concentrating on his breathing and the points at which his body touched the chair, the floor, and his clothes. The more attention he paid, the more amazed he was at how much his body felt at any given time. In this state of feeling without thinking, he was struck by an idea, or more accurately, an instinct. If he could put his thoughts aside, might he be able to do the same for his senses? He tried, focusing on what he felt, imagining it were happening to someone else’s body and he was viewing it from outside. It was a strange sensation indeed.

His eye opened. Bright blue and deep green filled his vision, splitting it in two. He blinked, trying to make sense of the colors, and found himself outside on a hill covered in dark green spongy moss. He sat up, taking a deep breath of fresh, outdoor air. Above him stretched the branches of a tree and a cloudless sky. He put his hand on his ribs, sliding it down to his waist, feeling the motion across his body. “This dream is more vivid than any I can remember,” he muttered to himself.

“If you are dreaming, it would be very troubling for me.” The voice caused Samuel to jump, and he twisted around to see an old man sitting on the remains of a crumbling white wall. His hair and long, thick beard matched the color of the bricks. “What’s your name, young man?”

“Samuel Locke. And who are you?”

“I have been called by many names,” the old man said, shrugging. “This and that. It’s up to you.”

“Up to me?” Strange that he got to name the people he met, but what could he expect from a dream? “Okay then, to me you are Dumbledore. Now I should probably wake up, because I have stuff to do.”

“But why do you think you are asleep?” the old man asked.

“Because I remember,” Samuel replied. “I closed my eyes, meditating for a homework assignment, and now I’m here.”

“And when you are dreaming, do you usually remember falling asleep?”

That gave Samuel pause. “No, but I do this time.” He looked around, and then made a wide gesture. “I don’t know any real place like this, and it’s too surreal.”

“And does that mean you’re dreaming?”

“Yes!” Why didn’t this old man understand? For that matter, why was Samuel arguing with a dream phantom in the first place? He tried to use the power of his mind to turn the old man into a frog. It didn’t work.

“Dream or not,” the old man said, slowly rising to a standing position and pointing down the hill, away from the ruins, “since you’re here, there is something I want to show you.”

Samuel looked and found a dusty path leading down the hill and into the distance. He shrugged. “Sure, Dumbledore, let’s go.” He fell into step next to the old man, who was surprisingly spry for his age. Samuel’s steps settled into a rhythm, and he marveled again at how real everything felt, the way his legs bent and swung, the way his clothing felt on his skin and subtly resisted his movement. Dust plumed up from the path where his foot landed and blew away in the breeze, which tickled his skin just like it had earlier that day, when he had stepped onto King Street.

“What brings you here, Samuel?” the old man asked.

“I fell asleep,” Samuel replied.

The old man chuckled, keeping his mouth closed so it was more of a humming sound. “But why did you fall asleep? What were you doing?”

What had he been doing? What an odd question. One would generally assume he had fallen asleep lying in his bed at night, although of course it was different this time. He supposed it was not surprising that his own unconscious mind would know this, and cause his imagination to ask him about it. He told the man about his homework assignment, to meditate for five minutes and write a summary of what he experienced.

“I see. So are you going to write about this dream?”

Samuel rubbed a finger over the stubble on his lower lip. “I hadn’t thought of that, but I guess I could.” He looked at the old man and smiled. “Thanks, piece of my unconscious mind.”

The man bowed as well as he could while walking. “My pleasure.”

They came to the edge of a forest, the trees leaving a narrow strip of sky above like the top of a canyon. Ahead, it looked like the path ended against a large gray stone. Samuel supposed this was an illusion. As they approached, he expected to see the underbrush part and the path bend, but when they arrived, it turned out it really did end. The stone was wide enough to block the entire path, and twice as tall as he.

“What now?” Samuel asked, looking to each side for a way around the rock.

“Watch and see,” the old man said. He strode to the end of the path and reached into a hollow cut into the rock, withdrawing a stone. He placed the stone into a notch nearby, and Samuel noticed the symbol printed on it in black ink: two long triangles whose points curved toward each other. It reminded him of fangs. Where the road met the rock, a mist coalesced into a black door that loomed over the two of them. Samuel stared transfixed at the serpentine Gothic patterns carved into it, and ran his hand over the curling ridges and grooves.

“Go on,” the old man said. “Open it.”

Two snake heads held rings in their mouths, fangs closed around them like cages. Samuel reached for them and pulled, and the doors swung slowly and heavily open. On the other side stood a black surface, rippling like water. As if in a trance, Samuel reached forward and brushed it with his fingertips. The substance clung to them like oil, and when he tried to wipe it off on the moss by the side of the road, a residue remained. He looked again at the liquid wall. “Should I go through it?”

“Through it? My goodness no! Gaze into it.”

Samuel stared at the ripples dancing in all directions across the surface. Then a circle in front of his face smoothed out like a mirror. The familiarity he expected from the features of his reflection was shattered by the additional eye in the middle of his forehead. With a gasp he reflexively reached up to touch it---and found himself slumped onto his apartment desk. He groaned and straightened up, rubbing his side where it had pressed against the wooden corner, and then straightened the stack of books which his hand had nudged out of place.

One week later, Samuel rose from his desk, another of Professor Eli Berkeley’s classes drawing to a close. He was beginning to get a feel for their rhythm. When he had walked into the classroom the first time, he had been surprised to see the desks arranged in a circle, rather than in rows facing a lecture podium. Professor Berkeley, a slim, aging bald man whose goatee and ellipsoidal glasses made him the perfect image of a scholar, sat among the students. When the clock struck, the student assigned to lead for the day would present a few prepared questions about the text, and then a discussion would follow. Whenever things began to quiet down or get out of hand, Berkeley would throw in a question or comment to nudge things back in a productive direction. When the hour came to a close, they would all pack up and leave.

As Samuel set his sights on the door, he heard Berkeley speak his name. “Samuel Locke, do you have a minute? And Hope Emerson, you too.”

The other students trickled out until only Samuel, the professor, and a dark haired girl who had verbally sparred with him several times during class remained. Samuel raced through his mental checklist of student obligations, trying to figure out what Berkeley might need to see him about, but couldn't come up with a single item.

“Your submissions for your meditation experience were both interesting,” Berkeley said.

“Yeah,” the girl said, lifting her eyebrows sheepishly, “I fell asleep. Sorry about that.”

Berkeley smiled and held up a hand. “No, no, that was fine. I am just struck by how similar your dreams are. You both found yourselves outdoors in an extremely vivid place with moss for grass and a white stone ruin. The last thing you both saw was a reflection of yourself and a third eye in your forehead.”

Samuel glanced at Hope and met her eyes. Had she somehow read what he had written and copied it? He hadn’t seen her outside of class. Surely it would have been easier to write her own report.

“I was wondering if you two would like to try a little experiment,” Berkeley said.

Meeting the professor’s eyes, Samuel asked, “What is it?”

“I would like you to both try meditating again. Right here, just for a few minutes. See if you can dream the same dream again.”

Hope leaned to the side and rested one of her hands on a desk. “That seems . . .”

“Odd,” Samuel said.

Berkeley waved his hands. “I know, I know. But I have a hunch this is a certain type of special dream, and I would like to see if I am correct. It can’t hurt to try, right? It won’t take long.”

“What type of dream are you talking about?” Samuel asked.

Berkeley smiled apologetically. “If I told you, it might affect the outcome.”

From the corner of his eye, Samuel saw Hope glance at him, then turn back to the professor. “All right, for science,” she said, lowering herself onto one of the chairs. Samuel allowed himself to follow suit.

“Try to remember exactly what you did last time,” Berkeley said.

With his eyes closed, Samuel concentrated on the sensations his body felt. Every few seconds, a thought would enter his mind, but he would flick it aside and forget it a moment later. It was not working. He should open his eyes and tell Berkeley, and then leave. But before he could move, he remembered something from before, the perception of his body as if from the outside. Pushing away the thought, he opened his mind up to the full vividness of sensation, and then pulled himself away from it as if climbing out of his own head with invisible hands.

Bright colors appeared in his vision, just like before. Samuel lay on the same mossy ground, under the same tree. Looking around, he spotted the ruined wall again. This time, however, instead of the old man, a young woman stood, her back turned. “Hope?” He said.

The girl jumped, turning to reveal his classmate’s familiar face. “Samuel?”

Questions raced through Samuel’s head. Why was she a part of the dream? She seemed as real as everything else, but regular dreams sometimes felt real too.

Hope took a few steps toward him, and then reached out and pushed his shoulder. “Could you . . . actually be here?”

“It’s my dream,” Samuel replied, shrugging.

She took a step back, and let out a slow breath. “No way.”

After a moment, Samuel looked around. “Where’s Dumbledore?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“The old man without a name.” Samuel walked around Hope toward the ruins, glancing around the tree and over the hill. “Last time he took me down the path to some kind of big door.”

“Nothing like that happened to me,” Hope said.

Samuel stepped around a broken wall, absently looking about what might have once been a town square. “Not that a dream figment could have actually seen anyone.”

“Samuel,” Hope said. Samuel walked toward the hollow doorway of a building. “Samuel.” she said more sharply. This time he turned, and found her leaning toward him, eyes wide. “I’m the real me. We’re both in the same dream.”

A gust of wind stirred her hair, and then it hung still again.

“The same dream,” he said slowly. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” Hope said. She walked forward, her eyes on something behind him. “I want to see something. Come on.”

Samuel followed her into a building, or the two and a half walls that were left of it. At the back was a body-sized oval mirror with curling gold adorning its rim. Both of their images had a third eye. Turning from the mirror to the woman beside him, Samuel found nothing on her forehead but unbroken skin.

“That’s weird,” Hope said. “I guess we can only see them in a reflection.” She lifted her hand toward her face, but stopped it an inch away. She slowly lowered it and looked toward Samuel. “I think I want to try something.”

She took his hand. Samuel let her, curious to see what she was doing. With eyes on the reflection, Hope guided his hand to where the mirror suggested her third eye was.

In a silent blink, she disappeared, clothes and all, in a wisp of smoke that might have just been an afterimage. Samuel stared at the space she had been moments before, and then back to his mysterious eye in the mirror. Was this eye the key to waking up? He reached up toward his forehead.

“Ahem.”

Startled, Samuel turned to find the old man leaning a hand on the broken wall. Samuel narrowed his eyes. “Have you been watching us?”

The old man chuckled. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt a moment of youthful adventure and the seeds of romance.”

Samuel grimaced. “You’re just like my grandfather. Who are you anyway, another dreamer?”

“Dreamer?” The old man looked at Samuel inquisitively. “Oh!” He chuckled. “No, I am a traveler, but no dreamer.”

“So then you don’t really exist,” Samuel said.

“Ouch, my feelings,” the old man said, placing his hand over his heart. “But I suppose convincing you will take time. Here, let me show you something.” Reaching into his cloak, he withdrew a leather-bound book. He opened it and flipped a few pages, the knuckles of his fingers reminding Samuel of knots on the branches of an old oak.

Samuel stepped forward to take a look, but the old man stooped down and laid the book on the ground. A flash caught Samuel by surprise, and he recoiled as rays of light emanated from the open page, swirling like ribbons in the air. The shapes formed into a cloudy oval, an image of a dimly lit plaza of beige stone filling it out. “The diction on this page is a portal to another realm,” the old man said. “Go ahead, step through.”

Samuel found he had taken a step toward the opening before his thoughts could catch up. With effort, he stopped himself. “Hold on a minute. Before I go stumbling into God-knows-what, I want some explanations. Who are you? What do you want with me? And how is it possible that Hope was here?”

“One step at a time, young man. Your mind is not ready.”

Samuel found his hands had curled into fists. “Screw that,” he said, his voice rising to a yell, “just tell me.”

The old man hummed in consideration. “As you wish. This,” he spread his arms wide, “is not a dream.”

Samuel stared at the old man, and then rolled his eyes. “Please. I’m asleep. There are things like that,” he pointed to the portal hovering over the book, “which don’t make any sense and couldn’t exist. There is nothing this could be except a dream.”

The old man gazed at him knowingly. “As I said, your mind is not ready. But the first step,” he gestured at the window hovering above the book “is through that portal.”

Samuel peered again at the torch-lit stone on the other side. The ground was paved in bricks, which ended at a wall standing behind a row of pillars, all of the same dim beige color. Misgiving gnawed at him, but if this was where the answers were, he supposed he might as well check it out. He reached forward, and a mild sensation tickled his skin as his fingers penetrated the boundary, as if he were sticking his hand into a soap bubble. He stepped over the lip of the portal with one leg, and then the other, the sensation scanning across his body. Then, he was through.

The place Samuel found himself in was a nearly monochromatic ecru lit only by flickering torchlight. The tiled paving led up to the sides of column-lined buildings whose only features were the sconces holding the torches, and which extended upward into empty darkness. There were no doors, no windows either, and only the narrow alleyways leading away from the small plaza kept the walls from forming a solid box around him. The sense of confinement and the crispness of the air played on Samuel’s intuitions, rendering it impossible to tell whether he was indoors or out. Next to Samuel sat a fountainless basin of smooth, still water.

The light shifted, and Samuel turned to find the old man beside him, folding the book closed and tucking it away. There was no sign of the portal that had brought them here.

“What now?” Samuel said.

“A warm welcome,” the old man replied. “This is one of the realms in my domain.”

“Doesn’t look like much.”

“It’s peaceful and private,” the old man said, “and there’s nowhere to run.”

Samuel nodded, and then the pit of his stomach dropped out as he realized what he had just heard. His head jerked like a frightened squirrel to lock eyes with the old man. “Wait, what?” He stared in horror as the old man’s face sagged, and then began oozing away in thick drops like melting cheese. His hair and clothes sloughed off in chunks leaving a hunched humanoid figure in its place. As the last of the ooze dripped away, the figure straightened up, rolling its head and cracking its neck. Black hair spilled down its back, which was now covered by a dark, thin shirt with gold highlights. It turned its yellow eyes to meet Samuel’s.

“What the . . . ?” Samuel said, taking a step back.

“This is the real me,” the man-looking creature said with a hint of phlegm. “Do you like it?” He spread his mouth wide revealing a set of feline teeth.

With an involuntary cry, Samuel turned and ran. The next moment, he found himself across the plaza and racing down the alley on the other side. He twisted around one corner, then another. There were no doorways to duck into, just the same empty walls. Ahead, the road ended in another open space. He darted out, looking for the best way to take his flight.

The man with cat teeth sat grinning on the fountain’s rim. Samuel froze. Back here? There was no way. He tried to recall whether the turns had doubled back, but they didn’t add up.

“You can’t run,” the creature said. “There is nowhere to go.”

Samuel glanced to another opening between the walls, moving only his eyes. Then, refocusing on the creature with unblinking intensity, he inched his way toward the opening.

The creature cackled. “That one?” His tongue darted between his lower canine teeth. “By all means, try it.”

Samuel crept, feeling the wall with his hand until it dropped away, and then turned and ran. This road was straight. As he approached the other side, Samuel felt a coldness crystallize in his chest, spreading through his body. A fountain came into view, and on its rim, a figure sitting, one foot up next to him. His arm rested on the knee, and he leaned on his other hand.

“I told you, nowhere to go.” He gestured at a few of the passages, not taking his elbow off his knee. “Literally.”

“No,” Samuel breathed. He looked behind him. As he had thought, the alley was completely straight. He could even see the plaza on the other side---this same plaza. The paths, they all led here. Both ways. It made no sense. The dream had turned into a nightmare. A vivid, real nightmare.

A hand closed around his arm, and Samuel yelped. He twisted and tried to wriggle free, but the creature was too strong and Samuel found himself pressed up against a wall, barely able to move.

The creature’s eyes swept his face up and down, as if preparing for a meal. “Well now, if you’re done behaving like a rat in a maze, why don’t we begin.”

Without thinking, Samuel squeezed his eyes shut. Then, feeling a fool for it, he opened them and fixed the demon with a piercing stare.

Eyes. He had forgotten. The third eye that can only be seen in a reflection. The first time he had been in this dream, he had woken up after touching it. And Hope had vanished when she had made him touch hers, probably returning to the waking world as well. If his hunch was correct, all he had to do was touch his forehead and all of this would be gone. He felt the creature’s grip. His upper arms were pinned, but his left forearm could move. Quick as lightning, he jerked his hand up and his head down to meet it, slapping his fingers against his brow.

Nothing happened. Samuel remained where he was, trapped against a stone wall in a dark, forsaken place by a half-human horror from Hell.

“Surprise,” the creature said. “You can’t get away that easily. Now here is what is going to happen. I am going to release you. We’ll have a little chat, and then I’ll let you go back to your precious ‘life.’” The last word was said in a mocking tone. He looked from one of Samuel’s eyes to the other. Then, the pressure let up, and Samuel could move again. The creature took a step back toward the fountain. Samuel followed, wary eyes locked on his captor. “I never properly introduced myself. Of all the names I have been called through my time, the Deceiver is by far the most common.”

“I can see why,” Samuel said. “Are you going to give me answers, or can I trust anything you say?”

The Deceiver chuckled. “Now that I have your undivided attention, the time is right. Gaze into the pool.”

Samuel looked into the water, and was startled to see that his third eye in the reflection was closed. He reached up, fingers hovering near his face. “What does this mean?”

“It means you can’t wake up from here,” the Deceiver said. “You’ll have to go to another realm first.”

“Another realm?”

The Deceiver tsked. “I’m not a lecturer. It’s not that complicated. You’ll figure it out. On to more important things. Do you remember the Gate of the Serpent?”

Samuel supposed he meant the black gate he had been taken to earlier. He nodded.

“Take a look at your right hand.”

Suspicious, Samuel glanced down at his palm. The tips of his first two fingers still had residue from when he had touched the standing liquid. He rubbed them on the sandpaper-like texture of the fountain’s stone rim, but the stain would not go away.

“You aren’t getting rid of that so easily,” the Deceiver said. “You see, you’ve been tainted by Corruption. It is going to spread all over your body, weakening you, draining your soul, until---” he clapped, his grin deepening. “Well, maybe it’s better you don’t know.”

Icy fingers curled around Samuel’ heart. He shook his head. “No. This is just a dream. A terrifying, real as hell dream, but still just a dream.”

“You can keep telling yourself that, but eventually you’ll be forced to face the truth. And when you do I’ll be waiting.” The Deceiver put his palms together, tapping his fingers. “After all, I have the cure.”

Samuel inhaled sharply. “Cure?”

The Deceiver laughed, slapping his hand onto one of the stones of the fountain rim. To Samuel’s surprise, the rock lit up in a pale green glow, casting and eerie light on the surroundings. The water rippled, and an image came into view. “Oho,” the Deceiver chuckled. “Isn’t this interesting?”

Samuel recognized the place in the image. It was the road the Deceiver had taken him down in the guise of the old man. As he looked, a figure came into view, striding along the path. It was Hope.

“Looks like your maiden got worried and came back to find you.”

Hope? Why would she be going down that road? Then realization hit him like a blow to the gut. Hope had awoken, expecting Samuel to follow moments later. When he did not, she must have come back to look for him. Samuel could not remember if he had told her about the black door and the standing pool of oil beyond, but if she was unable to find him in the ruins, the gate would be the next place to look.

The Deceiver looked at him, yellow eyes glinting. “You left the Gate of the Serpent open, remember? She’s going to find the pool of Corruption, shimmering and whispering into her mind, tempting her closer. You had better get going if you want to save her. This fountain is both window and gateway. Just hop into it.”

Samuel stared at the image. Though it might feel like his only choice was to leap into the fountain, he still had a little time. What could he do here, in the Deceiver’s realm? What opportunity would be lost if he left now? He took a breath. “What do you want for the cure?”

The Decever chuckled. “A man of business, I see. And gutsy. What I want is . . .” His yellow eyes narrowed, as if contemplating a truly terrible price. “To hold on to the cure for a more opportune time.”

“Is that so? Let’s see if your mind is so stiff as that. What if . . .” Samuel trailed off. What would the Deceiver want? Not money. You couldn’t take items into a dream. Information? But he could have just asked while disguised as the old man instead of revealing his true form first. Control. That was it. The Deceiver wanted to hold Samuel’s soul hostage, withholding the cure so that Samuel would have no choice but to obey his every command. Samuel scowled. This was not going to be an easy negotiation.

“Hurry, hurry,” the Deceiver said, gesturing toward the pool. “She is almost there.”

“But once I have the cure, it won’t matter,” Samuel said. “She can touch it, and I’ll just cure her.”

“Oh, but as I said, I won’t give it up right now. I don’t even have it on me. And even if I did, and you managed against all hope to wrangle it from me, there is only enough for one treatment. So if even a single strand of that damsel’s hair drifts into the Corruption, one of you is in for a truly terrible fate.”

Samuel took a step toward the Deceiver and grabbed his collar in a vice grip. He held his other hand held out palm up, fingers curled in anger. “Give it to me.”

“Time is up,” the Deceiver said calmly.

Samuel looked at the pool, panting through clenched teeth. Hope was mere steps away from the gate. If Samuel did not stop her, it would be anyone’s guess as to whether she would touch the venom beyond. He glanced toward his upturned hand, the black stain still visible on his fingertips. If anything the Deceiver had said was true, they were in big trouble. But on the other hand, he might be bluffing, trying to trick Samuel into forfeiting this chance to obtain the cure.

There was no time left. He had to act now. With a cry of frustration, he tore his hand away from the Deceiver’s collar and leaped into the pool. Instead of water, it felt like the skin of a bubble passing over him, as the other portal had. He meant to hit the ground running, but his foot landed wrong and he collapsed into the dust. Looking up, he saw Hope standing between the open doors of the gate. Samuel tried to call out, only to find the wind had been knocked out of him. He tried to get up and run forward at the same time, stumbled, and then rose again, gasping for air that would not come. The world tilted as he strained for balance, his vision muddied by dark spots zipping through brown clouds. Ahead of him, Hope stood before the wall of shimmering, rippling oil. Samuel reached out toward her.

Like a diver finally breaking the surface, sweet air filled Samuel’s lungs. His hand found her shoulder, and he yanked her back with all his strength. Hope yelped, and the two of them tumbled to the ground. Samuel panted, groaning with each breath.

“Samuel,” Hope said shakily. “What---”

“Did you touch it?” Samuel gasped. “Did you touch the venom?”

“N-no.”

Samuel sighed and relaxed against the dirt. He was probably covered in dust, but he did not care. “Oh thank God.”

“What happened? Where were you?”

Samuel thought about his encounter with the Deceiver. He turned it over from several angles, but the fragments of memory slipped through his mind like water through weary hands. “It’s a long story.” Slowly, he raised himself from the ground to his feet.

The black oily substance of Corruption shimmered, its ripples reflecting a hundred distorted images of the sky above. As Samuel approached, he saw his own reflection, and found to his relief that his third eye was open once again. He pushed the doors closed, and pulled the stone with the fangs printed on it out of its socket. The door vanished, leaving an afterimage that dissipated like smoke, like Hope had done way back at the ruins. He glanced briefly at the stone in his hand, and then drew his arm back and tossed it as hard as he could into the woods.

To his surprise, the stone twisted around in midair and tumbled into the hollow in the rock wall where the other stones lay. Samuel let out a sigh of exasperation. Apparently, he could not get rid of this key. He supposed he should have been surprised, but with everything else that had happened lately, the flying stone was just another weird part of the dream.

Samuel reached into the shelf and moved the stone to the back. At least he could make it hard for other people to find it if they stumbled upon this place---if anyone else could stumble upon this place. As he withdrew his hand, he wondered about the stones. Did they all create their own doors when placed into the slot, like the fang stone had? Might some of them be portals to other places---realms---like the pages in the Deceiver’s book?

“The book!” Samuel said to himself sharply. He struck his fist into the stone in front of him, skinning his knuckles. So that was why the Deceiver had wanted to get rid of him so quickly. He should have snatched the book. Surely then he could have found where the Deceiver had hidden the cure for Corruption. Now that opportunity was gone.

“Are you all right?” Hope asked.

“Yeah,” Samuel said in a low sigh. “Let’s get out of here.”

They both pressed their fingers to their foreheads, and Samuel’s eyes opened as if awakening from a dream. He lay in a bed. Eli Berkeley stood near his feet, and Hope was sitting up on another mattress nearby.

“Glad to see you back safe and sound,” the professor said, a smile loosening a mask of worry.

“Where are we?” Samuel asked. The equipment lying around made the room look like a makeshift hospital ward.

“Knowledge Tree Delving Support Center,” Berkeley replied, “also known as Shelley Hall. Knowledge Tree is a research organization, and has had theoretical knowledge of the Unconscious Realms for some time now. I have been assigning meditation as the first homework assignment in my classes, looking for students with the ability to delve.”

Samuel rubbed his forehead. His mind was in a jumble, and the fingertips of his right hand throbbed. Delving, Unconscious Realms, Shelley Hall, it was a lot to take in.

Eli smiled. “If you feel up to it, there are some people I would like you to meet.”

Hope got to her feet, eyes bright. “All right, let’s go.” She turned to Samuel. “Isn’t this exciting?”

Samuel sighed and shook his head. She seemed taken in by this stuff, but he did not see the purpose of pursuing it, and time was precious. “No, I’m not interested.” He looked at Berkeley. “Point me toward the door, I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Come on,” Hope said, her face becoming a mask of disbelief, “you can’t be serious. Think about what this means.”

“Of course, it’s up to you,” Berkeley said, “but you two are the only delvers Knowledge Tree knows about. You would be a tremendous help to us if you joined.”

Samuel shook his head again. “Sorry.”

Berkeley looked like he wanted to say something, and then sighed. “Down the hall and around the corner. If you change your mind, you know who to come to.”

He felt their eyes on him as he walked past, and a sense of relief when they were out of sight. It was funny, after what he had just been though, how the empty white hallway felt almost like a dream. At the end, the door opened into sunlight, and Samuel stepped back into reality.

Author's Note

This is not so much a chapter as the pilot episode for the series. There wasn't an option for "short story series," so I chose the book format.