Chapter 1: Portal Day
Mike Reeves wiped sweat from his forehead and checked his watch: 4:47 PM. Thirteen minutes until official quitting time, but the rest of the crew had already packed up and left. Friday traffic was a beast, and they'd made good progress on the new medical center's framework today.
"Just gotta secure these last few joists, and we're golden," he muttered to himself, adjusting his tool belt with a practiced motion.
The weight of his hammer, tape measure, and assorted tools hung comfortably against his hip, as familiar as an old friend. At forty-two, Mike had been in construction for over two decades. Starting as a laborer, he'd worked his way up to foreman through sweat, sore muscles, and an almost preternatural understanding of how things fit together. His crew respected him because he never asked them to do anything he wouldn't do himself—which is why he was here, alone, making sure everything was properly secured before the weekend.
The setting sun streamed through the skeletal structure of what would eventually become the east wing of St. Mary's Hospital. The site was eerily quiet now, with just the occasional distant honk of rush hour traffic and the whisper of an early autumn breeze through the exposed beams.
Mike reached for another lag bolt from the pouch on his belt. The medical center was going to be something special when finished—a six-story facility with state-of-the-art operating rooms and a trauma center that would serve the entire county. His company had won the bid partly because of Mike's reputation for thoroughness and attention to detail. The hospital board wanted someone they could trust, and Mike's name had carried weight.
He inserted the bolt into the pre-drilled hole, feeling the satisfying resistance as the threads caught. Three more to go, and he could call it a day. Sarah was making lasagna tonight—his favorite—and Jeremy had a soccer game tomorrow morning. A normal weekend. A good weekend.
As Mike reached for the next bolt, something changed. The air seemed to thicken suddenly, carrying a static charge that made the hair on his arms stand up. His ears popped as if he'd suddenly changed altitude, the pressure building uncomfortably in his sinuses.
"What the hell?" he muttered, turning slowly, scanning the construction site.
Twenty feet away, hovering about four feet off the plywood subflooring, a distortion rippled in the air. It reminded Mike of heat waves rising from sun-baked asphalt, except these waves twisted in on themselves like a whirlpool. The center of the distortion seemed darker, more substantial somehow, as if a hole was being torn in the fabric of reality itself.
The rational part of his brain—the part that understood load-bearing walls and tensile strength and how many nails per square foot were needed for hurricane code—tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Gas leak? Hallucination? Some kind of weird weather phenomenon?
"Hello?" Mike called out, wondering briefly if this was some bizarre prank staged by his crew. "Anyone there?"
No answer came, but the distortion grew larger, the center darkening to a deep indigo that seemed to pull at him, not just visually but physically. The hammer in his hand began to tremble, straining toward the anomaly like it was being pulled by an invisible magnet.
"Oh my god," Mike breathed, taking an instinctive step backward. His boot heel caught on a coil of electrical wire, throwing him off balance.
That stumble saved him from being hit by a sudden pulse of energy that shot from the vortex, scorching the plywood where he'd been standing a moment before. The discharge made the anomaly grow, expanding outward until it was the size of a garage door, swirling with colors that hurt Mike's eyes.
Mike scrambled to his feet, intending to run, but before he could turn away, the pull intensified. His tool belt yanked painfully against his waist, the metal components straining toward the vortex like iron filings to a magnet. The backpack he'd left by the support column—containing his lunch cooler, thermos, and the paperback he read during breaks—slid across the floor and disappeared into the swirling darkness.
"No, no, NO!" Mike planted his feet and grabbed onto a steel support beam, his knuckles white with effort. The vortex's pull increased, howling now like a wind tunnel. Dust and small debris spiraled past him, sucked into the hungry mouth of the anomaly.
Mike's mind raced, adrenaline sharpening his thoughts. This wasn't possible. Things like this didn't happen in the real world. Yet here it was, and it was getting stronger. He could feel the steel beam vibrating under his grip, his body being lifted off the ground as the vortex's pull increased.
His grip began to slip. The steel was too smooth, his palms too sweaty. He tried to hook his elbow around the beam, but the angle was wrong, and the force pulling at him kept growing.
"Sarah!" he shouted, though there was no one to hear. His thoughts flashed to his wife's smile, to Jeremy's laugh, to the home he'd built with his own hands. "Not like this!"
*This can't be happening. This isn't real. Sarah and Jeremy are waiting for me at home. This can't—*
His fingers lost their purchase on the steel beam, and Mike Reeves, twenty-three-year veteran of the construction industry, husband, father, builder of hospitals and homes and futures, was yanked off his feet and into the impossible.
---
Falling.
Tumbling.
A sensation like being stretched and compressed simultaneously.
Mike tried to scream, but no sound came. Or perhaps it did, but was lost in the cacophony of noise that surrounded him—sounds that might have been screams or might have been music or might have been the universe itself tearing at the seams.
Colors assaulted his senses—colors that had no place in nature, that shouldn't exist, that his brain struggled to process. Time seemed meaningless. Was he falling for seconds or hours? There was no way to tell.
His body twisted in ways that should have broken bones, yet somehow didn't. The only constant was his tool belt, still strapped around his waist, the hammer and other tools pressed against his hip like an anchor to reality in this sea of impossibility.
Through it all, one thought repeated like a mantra: *Sarah, Jeremy, home. Sarah, Jeremy, home.* It kept him sane as reality itself seemed to dissolve around him.
Then, without warning, the chaos stopped.
And impact.
---
Mike hit the ground hard, the force driving the air from his lungs. He rolled awkwardly due to the uneven weight of his tool belt, coming to rest face-down in soft earth. Dirt and grass filled his mouth as he gasped for breath, his diaphragm spasming painfully. His ears rang with a high-pitched whine, and his vision swam with dancing black spots.
For a long moment, he simply lay there, trying to process what had happened. Pain radiated from his shoulder and hip where he'd taken the brunt of the fall, but nothing felt broken—a miracle, considering the violence of his arrival.
Gradually, his senses returned. The first thing he noticed was the air—clean, fragrant with unfamiliar flowers and rich soil. Nothing like the dust and concrete smell of the construction site. The second thing was the quality of light—softer, golden, filtering through leaves above him in a way that suggested late afternoon in a forest.
With a groan, Mike pushed himself up to a sitting position, spitting dirt from his mouth and wiping his face with the back of his hand. The movement sent fresh pain through his bruised shoulder, but he ignored it, focusing instead on taking inventory of his surroundings.
He was sitting in a small clearing in what appeared to be a dense forest. Tall trees with unfamiliar bark patterns and leaf shapes surrounded him, their branches swaying gently in a breeze that carried strange scents—sweet, earthy, with an undertone of something spicy that tickled his nose.
"...absolutely certain the coordinates were correct!"
The voice—cultured, musical, and distinctly annoyed—came from somewhere nearby. Mike froze, still sitting on the ground, his muscles tensing as he realized he wasn't alone.
"Your certainty means little when we've been waiting for three days, Elf." This voice was deeper, rougher, with an accent Mike couldn't place. "The Summoner promised reinforcements by yesterday's dawn."
"The celestial alignment affects the portal's precision. You know this, Dwarf."
Mike turned his head slowly toward the voices, trying not to draw attention to himself. About thirty feet away, partially obscured by undergrowth, stood three figures engaged in tense conversation.
One was tall and slender, with pointed ears visible through long silver-blond hair: clearly the owner of the musical voice. Beside this figure, barely reaching the first one's shoulder, stood a stocky, broad-shouldered individual with an intricately braided beard that reached nearly to his belt: undoubtedly the source of the gruff voice.
The third figure stood slightly apart from the other two, wrapped in a dark hooded cloak that concealed most of their features. Something about their stillness, the way they held themselves perfectly motionless while the other two gestured animatedly, made Mike's skin crawl.
"Did either of you see where it landed?" the tall one asked, scanning the clearing with eyes that seemed too bright, almost luminescent. "The energy signature was stronger than anticipated."
"If you hadn't insisted on recalibrating the attunement crystal, we might have been better prepared," the short one grumbled, adjusting an axe that hung from his belt. "I still say we should have—"
Mike shifted position, trying to get a better look at the strange trio, and his knee came down on a dry twig. The snap, though small, seemed to echo in the sudden silence that followed.
All three figures turned toward the sound. The tall one's hand moved to a slender blade at their hip, while the short one gripped the handle of his axe. The hooded figure made no visible movement, yet somehow seemed more alert, more dangerous.
It was like something from one of his son's fantasy games—the ones Jeremy was always trying to get him to play during his weekend visits. The thought of Jeremy and Sarah sent a spike of panic through him. If this was real—and the throbbing pain in his shoulder where he'd landed suggested it was—then his wife and son would be waiting at home for him, growing increasingly worried as the hours passed with no call, no explanation for his absence.
A metallic *ping* sound drew his attention away from the trio. Floating in front of him, just at eye level, was a semi-transparent blue rectangle containing symbols he didn't recognize. The text—if it was text—seemed to shimmer and rearrange itself as he focused on it, never quite resolving into anything legible.
Mike stared at the floating message in confusion. Was he hallucinating? Had the fall somehow damaged his brain? He reached out to touch it, but his hand passed through the rectangle as if it were made of light or mist.
The hooded figure's head snapped toward Mike, the sudden movement drawing the attention of the other two.
"What is that?" the bearded one—the dwarf?—asked, squinting in Mike's direction.
"Not what," the tall one responded, taking a step forward. "Who."
Mike pushed himself to his feet, wincing at the various complaints from his body. His tool belt seemed intact, though his tape measure was missing, likely lost during the tumble through the portal. Strangely, the backpack he'd seen sucked into the vortex was now on his shoulders again, its weight familiar and oddly comforting.
"Look, I don't know what's going on here," Mike began, raising his hands in what he hoped was a universal gesture of non-aggression. "But there's been some kind of mistake. I need to get back to—"
The hooded figure moved with startling speed, raising both hands toward the sky. The air around them darkened, and Mike felt a pressure building, like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks. The smell of ozone filled the clearing, sharp and acrid.
"Summoner, what are you doing?" the tall one—the elf?—demanded, spinning toward the hooded figure. "This is not the protocol! We are to assess the arrival first, then—"
The hooded figure's response was not in any language Mike recognized. The words slithered through the air, leaving an oily feeling in his mind, each syllable somehow wrong on a fundamental level. The pressure intensified until Mike's ears popped painfully.
The ground between them split open with a sound like tearing fabric.
From the fissure emerged something that defied easy description—a mass of writhing limbs, too many and too oddly jointed to be natural. Chitinous plates covered portions of its bulk, while other parts glistened wetly in the fading light. Multiple eyes blinked independently across what might have been its head, and a mouth lined with needlelike teeth opened in a silent scream.
The dwarf reacted first, pulling an axe from his belt with practiced ease. "Betrayal!" he roared, charging toward the hooded figure. "I knew we couldn't trust you, you Zengrid puppet!"
He never made it. One of the creature's limbs lashed out with impossible speed, impaling him through the chest. The dwarf's expression registered shock, then pain, then nothing as the light left his eyes. The creature lifted him effortlessly, blood dripping from around the limb embedded in his torso, then cast the body aside like discarded trash.
The elf was already moving, graceful even in panic, hands weaving complex patterns in the air. Light gathered around their fingertips, coalescing into what appeared to be arrows of pure energy. Three of these manifested simultaneously, hovering beside the elf before launching toward the creature with unerring precision.
"Run!" the elf shouted, glancing toward Mike. "It's a Void Ripper! Run while—"
The creature surged forward, multiple limbs striking simultaneously. The elf managed to dodge the first few, their movements a blur of inhuman speed and grace. The energy arrows sank into the monster's hide with little apparent effect beyond a momentary flinch.
But there were too many appendages moving too quickly, attacking from too many angles. One caught the elf across the midsection, another around the throat. The creature lifted the struggling elf high into the air, its many eyes blinking in what might have been satisfaction.
The elf's gaze met Mike's for one terrible moment—those unnaturally bright eyes filled with pain and a strange resignation—before the monster's limbs pulled in opposite directions with a wet, tearing sound that would haunt Mike's nightmares for years to come.
Blood rained down, spattering the clearing and the creature alike. The elf's body, now in two pieces, was discarded as casually as the dwarf's had been. The hooded figure—the Summoner—backed away from its creation, making gestures that might have been controlling or might have been warding, it was impossible to tell.
The creature's attention turned to the Summoner, its many limbs twitching with what seemed like anticipation. The hooded figure froze, then began backing away more rapidly, making new gestures that had an element of desperation to them.
For a moment, it appeared the creature would turn on its summoner. Then, as if sensing a more interesting prey, all its eyes swiveled toward Mike. The Summoner used this distraction to retreat further, eventually disappearing into the shadows of the forest with unnatural speed.
Mike stood transfixed by horror, his body refusing to obey the desperate commands from his brain to run, hide, do something, anything. The creature—the Void Ripper—moved toward him with a grace that belied its monstrous appearance, limbs flowing rather than stepping, eyes never blinking in unison.
"Oh shit," Mike whispered, instinct finally breaking through his paralysis.
He ran.
Behind him, something shrieked—a sound like metal tearing, amplified a hundredfold. The ground shook with heavy impacts. The monster was following.
Mike crashed through the underbrush, branches whipping his face, roots threatening to trip him with every step. He had no plan beyond *away*—away from the clearing, away from the creature, away from the impossible reality he'd been thrust into.
More translucent boxes appeared in his vision as he ran, the symbols shifting and rearranging. He batted at them reflexively, but his hand passed through them like they were holograms, insubstantial yet persistent. The symbols seemed to pulse with greater urgency as his speed increased, floating in perfect alignment with his vision no matter how he turned his head.
The forest blurred around him, unfamiliar trees and plants merging into a green tunnel as Mike ran faster than he ever had in his life. Terror gave him speed, pushing his forty-two-year-old body beyond what should have been possible after years of construction work and too many beers on weekend afternoons.
Behind him, the crashing sounds grew louder, trees splintering as the creature forced its massive bulk through the forest in pursuit. That terrible shrieking came again, closer now, making Mike's ears ring and his vision blur momentarily.
His foot caught on an exposed root, sending him sprawling. Pain shot through his knee as it slammed into a rock, but the sound of splintering trees behind him provided all the motivation he needed to scramble back to his feet.
*Don't look back, don't look back, don't look back,* his mind chanted, even as he glanced over his shoulder.
What he saw nearly stopped his heart. The Void Ripper was closer than he'd thought, no more than fifty yards behind him. Its form seemed to shift as it moved, appendages appearing and disappearing, its overall shape fluid and inconstant. The only constants were those eyes, always watching, always tracking, and the gleaming mouthparts that opened and closed in hungry anticipation.
Mike forced himself to run faster, ignoring the stabbing pain in his knee. Ahead, the forest thinned, light breaking through the canopy. He burst from the treeline into another clearing, this one sloping downward to a rocky stream about fifty yards ahead.
No time to rest. No time to think. The crashing behind him was getting closer.
Mike half-ran, half-slid down the slope, loose stones shifting treacherously beneath his work boots. His momentum carried him faster than was safe, but stopping would mean death. He hit the stream at full speed, gasping at the shocking cold of the water, his boots finding uneven purchase on slick stones beneath the surface.
The stream was wider than it had appeared from above, the current stronger. Water reached mid-thigh at the deepest point, threatening to sweep his feet from under him. Mike fought for balance, arms windmilling, the tool belt and backpack making him top-heavy and unstable.
Somehow, he made it across, scrambling up the opposite bank with muddy hands grasping at roots and stones for purchase. Only when he'd put another hundred yards between himself and the stream did he dare to glance back.
The Void Ripper had paused at the treeline on the other side of the stream. It loomed there, a dark silhouette against the forest, its many eyes visible even at this distance, pinpricks of light that seemed to bore into Mike's soul. It made no attempt to cross the water.
For a moment, predator and prey regarded each other across the distance. Then, with deliberate slowness, the creature turned away, melting back into the forest from which it had emerged.
Mike collapsed against a boulder, gulping air into his starved lungs. His hands trembled as he reached for his phone, tucked securely in its shock-resistant case on his belt. The screen lit up at his touch—no signal, of course, but at least it worked. 7:22 PM, the display read. Less than three hours since he'd been working on the hospital site in a world that now seemed impossibly distant.
"What the actual fuck," he wheezed, his voice cracking with strain and disbelief.
Another blue rectangle materialized before him, symbols shifting and rearranging in patterns that suggested meaning but remained frustratingly incomprehensible. It was like looking at a language that was almost familiar, the shapes teasing at recognition before slipping away into nonsense.
"I can't read that," he told it, feeling ridiculous for addressing a floating hologram. "I don't understand what you want."
The rectangle *pinged* again, then faded, only to be replaced by another. This one contained different symbols, arranged in what might have been a list or a set of instructions. A small icon in one corner resembled a miniature map, complete with a pulsing dot that could have represented Mike's position.
"Great," Mike muttered, letting his head fall back against the boulder. "Trapped in some kind of... game? Hallucination? Alternate reality? And I can't even read the damn instructions."
His body ached from the fall through the portal, from the desperate run through the forest, from the emotional shock of witnessing the violent deaths of the elf and dwarf. His clothes were soaked from the stream crossing, and the evening air was growing cooler. Night would fall soon, and Mike had no idea what other dangers might emerge in the darkness.
For a moment, despair threatened to overwhelm him. He thought of Sarah waiting at home, probably already calling his cell phone, growing increasingly worried as it went straight to voicemail. He thought of Jeremy, who might not even know his father was missing yet, engrossed in his video games or soccer practice. Would they think he'd abandoned them? Had an accident? Been the victim of some crime?
"No," Mike said aloud, forcing himself to stand despite the protests from his tired muscles. "No time for that. First things first."
He'd been in emergencies before—a roof collapse three years ago that had trapped him and two others for six hours, a construction site flooding that had required rapid evacuation, a scaffold failure that had left one man dangling thirty feet up. In each case, panic had been the enemy. Systematic thinking had been the solution.
*Assess. Plan. Execute.* The mantra from his site manager's emergency training echoed in his mind.
Assess: He was in an unfamiliar world, possibly the setting of some kind of game or simulation. He had his tools, his backpack, the clothes on his back. He was injured but mobile. A hostile creature had pursued him but seemed unwilling to cross the stream. Night was approaching.
Plan: He needed shelter, water, and rest, in that order. Tomorrow would be time enough to worry about food and exploration. For tonight, survival was the priority.
Execute: Find a defensible position, construct basic shelter, get through the night.
With purpose driving back the fear, Mike surveyed his surroundings more carefully. He had crossed the stream into hillier terrain, with rocky outcroppings interspersed among the trees. One such formation about thirty yards to his right offered potential—a cluster of large boulders with a protected space between them.
Approaching the rocks, Mike found they did indeed form a natural alcove, with one large boulder creating a partial roof over a space about six feet deep and four feet high. Not comfortable, but defensible from most sides, with only a narrow entrance to protect.
Using fallen branches from nearby, Mike quickly constructed a simple barrier across the opening—not a door, exactly, but enough to slow down anything that might try to enter. Inside the alcove, he spread his rain jacket on the ground to create minimal insulation from the cold stone.
His improvised shelter secure, Mike once again checked his phone. 65% battery. He should conserve it, but the need to document what was happening—if only to reassure himself he wasn't losing his mind—outweighed the practical concerns.
He opened the voice recorder app and brought the phone close to his mouth.
"This is Mike Reeves. It's Friday, September 17th. About three hours ago, I was... was pulled through some kind of portal while working at the St. Mary's construction site."
His voice sounded steadier than he expected as he described what had happened—the vortex, the three figures, the monster, his escape.
"I appear to be in a forest, location unknown. There are... game-like elements. Floating text boxes I can't read. I've seen an elf and a dwarf, both now dead. This matches nothing in reality as I understand it."
He paused, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the forest as night fell fully. Something howled in the distance—not quite wolf, not quite anything he recognized. The sound raised goosebumps on his arms.
"Current objectives: Survive the night. Find water and food. Establish shelter. Avoid hostile entities. Try to understand this... system."
Mike stopped the recording and tucked the phone away, preserving battery. The night had grown considerably cooler, and he wrapped his arms around himself, missing his rain jacket that now served as groundcover.
Something rustled in the underbrush nearby. Mike froze, straining his eyes to see in the growing darkness. Was it just the wind? An animal? Or something more sinister? He gripped his hammer tightly, ready to defend himself if necessary.
The minutes stretched into hours as Mike maintained his vigil, never quite relaxing enough to sleep but occasionally drifting into a state of half-awareness before being jerked back to full alertness by some sound or sensation. The unfamiliar stars wheeled overhead, visible through gaps in the canopy, their patterns offering no comfort or orientation.
A notification appeared sometime in the darkest hours, glowing with a soft blue light that provided the only illumination in the rock alcove. The symbols seemed different this time—fewer in number, arranged in a simpler pattern. Mike stared at them blearily, wishing for the thousandth time that he could understand what they were trying to tell him.
"Whatever you are," he whispered to the floating text, "I could really use some help right about now."
The text pulsed once, then faded, leaving Mike alone with the darkness and his thoughts.
Eventually, exhaustion won out over vigilance, and Mike fell into a fitful sleep, hammer still clutched in his hand, back pressed against the solid reassurance of stone. In his dreams, he was still falling through the portal, still watching the elf's eyes meet his in that final moment, still running through an endless forest with something terrible just behind him.
And somewhere, impossibly distant yet achingly close, Sarah and Jeremy waited for his return, their faces fading with each passing hour like photographs left too long in the sun.
Alone in an impossible world, with the memory of torn bodies fresh in his mind, Mike Reeves slept—the first night of many in a journey that would change him in ways he couldn't yet imagine.