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.
They took us through mirror-lined hallways that showed us things we didn’t want to see—our darkest nightmares. I saw a bomb. Lucas saw a dying planet. We didn’t talk about it.
At last, they led us to a throne room. The throne sat high above the floor, and upon it stood a figure: a tall, muscular king, cloaked in black armour, with a crown that appeared to be fragments of glass and blazing red eyes in the gloom.
He got to his feet slowly. “Welcome, visitors,” he said, his voice slow and cold. “I am King Maelgor… overlord of the Shattered Realm.”
We straightened.
“I have a feeling the Rift has been disturbed again,” he grumbled, still moving in our direction. “You traveled through a portal… didn’t you?”
Lucas tried to spin a lie. “No! We just—uh—got lost.”
But I was so stunned that I couldn’t think. I blurted out, “It was an accident, okay? The machine. it activated itself. It opened a portal and pulled us in. We did not know this would happen.”
Lucas glared at me like he couldn’t believe you’d do something like that.
King Maelgor’s expression stopped. A evil smile spread across his face. “A machine that creates portals… from your realm?”
He turned to the shimmering swirl still lingering behind us—the portal had not sealed. His eyes glinted.
If that portal is to your world,” he leaned in and whispered, raising his hand as though he could feel already the palm of his hand on the face of Earth, “then I will make sure it stays open… long enough for my army to invade it.”
To be continued…