Sunday, 15th June 2025
Dear Diary,
We should have run away when the machine started glowing.
It began with a gentle hum, then grew—until the whole tunnel shook. The lights on the old control board flashed madly, gears screaming, smoke pouring from its sides. Lucas and I were just ready to shove something when the ground beneath the machine groaned and split. A strange light burst out from the bottom, and a whirlpool of energy materialized in the air. A portal.
I cried out. Lucas grabbed my arm. Then—
WHOOSH.
There was silence.
We were falling through nothing and everything at once—falling through mist and stars and echoes and colours I don’t even know how to name. And then: thump. We hit the ground. Hard.
And not the ground in the tunnel. Grass.
We sat up, coughing. The sky above us was a burning orange with streaks of violet clouds. Strange blue-leafed trees surrounded us, their bark glowing faintly like lava veins. The air was warm, yet carried a weird electric buzz. Where were we?
Lucas stood, brushing off his knees. “Shaurya,” he whispered, “I don’t think we’re on Earth anymore.”
We trudged for hours, looking for a spot to rest. No indication of people—only weird floating rocks, green rivers that frothed and churned, and giant insects drifting overhead. Just when I figured we were going to have to just sleep on the ground by a tree, we spotted it.
A castle.
Black stone. Towering spires. Its walls quivered minutely as if breathing. We gazed up at it from atop the hill. There was something in it that screamed peril, yet we had nowhere else to go.
We moved towards it, hoping to slip in just to discover a safe space to sleep. But the moment we passed through the gate, figures in shadows emerged—tall, quiet, and featureless. They did not attack. They did not talk. They just… led us.
To be continued…