Only you would find a magical portal into a different world.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Current Date: July 30, 2058

Character: Oliver Storme
Race: Halfling – Angel / Human
Age: 34, physically about 23
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

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For years now, I’ve done the outing thing every other week or so with Percy. More often than not, we’ll head out somewhere and just spend time together, but a handful of times a year, we’ll meet up in a virtual reality setup that’s been tailored away for us through the years as we spend time in there. At times, we’ll notice something we’re not pleased with or, quite the opposite, we do like to see, and we’ll make sure to have it removed or added on in a more permanent way into the setup.

Most of the way things are set isn’t very far from how our reality is, though, for the most part, it’s mainly centred on somewhere that’s a bit more nature-filled than anything else. If there are buildings, they’re old and abandoned, at times falling to ruins; in general, I think, when I look at our reality in that virtual room, I feel as though we’ve just opted for nature, more nature, and some more nature with near to no technology. Not that our lives beyond the virtual reality room are bad, furthest from, but it’s just a discovery thing.

So, I suppose that no one would be surprised by my own confusion when we found a portal that led us into a wholly different world during our one-before-last outing. There was nothing in our settings that should have generated this particular portal into a whole other world, and I did tease Percival about it to no end.

Mostly because, of all things, with my love of exploring unknown and mostly undiscovered underwater caves, you’d think that I’d be the one most likely to discover a portal that would go to a place we’d never have been before. My brother’s idea of a good, relaxing time is jumping off a cliff. Sure, it gets him fairly deep in the water but I’m the one exploring the nooks and crannies.

So, for a while, I teased him about how if he’d wanted to explore the unknown all the more with me, he could have just told me as such, but he denied ever-changing anything in our settings, and I know he wouldn’t have lied to me about it. I dropped the subject before long, even though I still felt like teasing him at least just a little.

Both of us were wary about stepping into the portal, mostly because it was just something really new and out there. I’d read a few cases of doorways appearing in VR sessions and just leading to new places like these, but it wasn’t common, and no harm had ever come of it, but still.

On the other side of that portal, there was more forest. It seemed as though it was night-time for how dark it was, but it made me wonder a little. We can change the time of the day whenever while we’re in a session, but it seemed strange that it would change while just beyond the portal. Maybe I just noticed this for my still mild discomfort with some shadows; I just don’t know.

I didn’t feel like exploring very far though we looked around a little. The portal remained open behind us, a gaping maw that led into what could have been a cave system behind it but stepping in brought us back to our usual forest. This forest felt just so much quieter. There were near to no night noises if there were supposed to be any. There was no moon that I can see and not a single star, either; all in all, it was a strange experience, and I was more than glad to step back through and into our noisy—comparatively—forest.

Neither one of us really talked about the forest after we’d stepped out from the portal though we made a note of the location of it in the system. So sure, next we went back, we did go back to the spot, more out of curiosity than not and the portal was gone with not even a single sign as to the fact that it might have been there to begin with at all.

It was a baffling experience and the near-absolute darkness that made even the forest around us hard to see made it very clear to me that this hadn’t been a spot that I’d have been comfortable spending time in, no matter my love of dark caves. I’m aware of how strange that might make me seem but there’s just a difference between being underwater with my life, following pathways as I discover them, and being out and about in an unknown place in near-pitch black. I just can’t explain it properly.

Final Word Count: 793

Stuck in a time loop again? Hey, well, same here. At least you’re not alone. | You intentionally tried to leave me in the store. *

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Percival Storme | Oliver Storme
Race: Both are Halfling – Angel / Human
Age: 45, physically about 24 | 33, physically about 23
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 1 510 words
 

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I get together with Oli once or twice a month, depending. I do get together with Kel now and again, but I guess that this is a boys will be boys thing going on between my brother and me. I might be twelve years older than him, but I’ve always just been fond of the idea that I might just be able to tease him for something and he might not even mind, he’ll honestly offer the same teasing in return. I know he makes time to spend with his twin too and that feels right, really. They grew up together whereas, by the time they were six, I was preparing to leave the nest.

The place where we’ll do our outings tends to change from one time to the next. There are days when he’ll just accompany me to the cliff, and he’ll watch me jump. He’ll sit on the edge but that’s about it and you know what, what’s fine. There are times when I’ll sit on the beach, just about where he’s gone into the water, and I’ll watch for his light to come back while I read.

Our time spent together isn’t always filled with huge adventures. That’s not to say we don’t have our fair share and some of them tend to be spent in a virtual reality. The faintly amusing part, in a way, is that we’ll both be in separate rooms. I’ll be in the VR at home, and he’ll be in his own some streets away, but we decide to meet up somewhere in the middle if you would. At times I pick the destination, at others, he’ll pick. It’s an open sort of mock-fantasy world, depending, and anyone can join in. We’ve crossed others before.

As I log in today, the information comes in, telling me that he’s already picked a place and time and I let the system run the information. The room darkens around me and when the light of morning—mid-afternoon out in the real world—I take in the sight of the ridiculously green forest all around us and the crystal clear water of the crater lake just a short distance off.

Now, there are certain places where we only ever go because it’s a bit of a getaway. It’s a sort of thing we’ve set up for ourselves that lets the other know that the day isn’t going great and there was need for a breather. That breather is rarely needed due to either of our pairs; most of the time, it’s honestly because we might have just had to deal with a case of the Mondays or, you know, just one of these days.

When he picks this particular area, I know that it’s because he just needs to unwind and since it’s our mock-scheduled time together, he allows me into that little spot of his.

Once everything has settled into place, I just sit down on a spot not far from him, he’s staring in the distance at that crystal clear water and his breathing is almost steady. Meditating. I know better than to bother him at that point, but it tells me he might have been logged in for a little while at this point. I don’t mind. I don’t know how he manages to meditate. I’ve tried and I never was able to keep my mind focused on just one single thing long enough to manage anything worth the title of meditation.

After a few minutes of quiet, his breathing shifts a little and he rests his shoulder against mine. We’re sitting side by side, but he’s facing one direction and I’m facing the next. When he’s meditating, I always prefer to just let him have his peace.

“I’m stuck in a loop.” His words are quiet, and they make me pause. It’s almost tempting to take the easier option and tease him out of his mood but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t do him any good. Telling him that he’s not alone and that I’m here wouldn’t do him much good, so I just give him that noncommittal noise I feel like I’ve sort of mock-mastered. It’s my way of telling him that yeah, I’m here, I hear him, but I don’t know what to tell him yet, so he can go ahead and tell me more if he wants to.

He’s quiet for so long that I feel as though he might not answer me at all, eventually, his shoulder sags and he mutters something that could have had to do with just not knowing how to put it into words. That particular feeling, I know rather well.

“It’s like I keep on doing the same thing over and over again. The last few days have been filled with little blips and mistakes and no matter that I know better about how to deal with them, I still make the same mistake over again every time.”

He just sounds so tired that I’m at a bit of a loss. It’s not all that strange that we’ve turned to one another now and again when we want to talk about things like these, especially if we’ve talked it over with our partners beforehand and haven’t really managed to find a solution, but at times, little situations like these just leave me scratching my head, I really don’t know how to help him.

For a little while, we’re both just quiet, sort of breathing. We’re sitting on that log, just sort of being. The air is humid but not all that uncomfortable and there’s a sense of comfort in the quiet sounds that surround us. At times, we’d head towards the lake, sitting with our feet in the chilly water but his focus on that clear lake is all there and I don’t want to take that from him.

At other times, we’d head deeper into the forest, just aimlessly walking and we’d eventually come back to our starting point. It was a good way of unwinding, we both agreed on that much.

After some time of quiet, I nudge his shoulder with mine, “remember, not long before I ended up moving out?”

This is vague and I know it, but there’s a reason for that. He breathes a little noise of curiosity and I find myself offering a tiny little smile. At least I know I have his attention. There were plenty of things we did not long before I moved out, after all.

“In the late autumn, not long after school had ended, it was my last year. Kel wasn’t feeling great, our parents were either busy or trying to take care of her and we needed something at the market. I offered to go get it and you, bouncing with energy, were restless, so I offered, just the same, to take you with me. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

There, a faint chuckle from him as he shakes his head, and I feel as though I’ve won at the very least a tiny little victory. It’s a small step forward.

“You tried to leave me all on my own at the store.”

“Somewhat, but not really. You were running through every aisle, looking at every fruit. Tyron looked amused as could be but every time you spotted him when he had his wings out, you’d balk and run right back to me.”

Another chuckle from him and I can’t help but grin somewhat. Good steps. “I technically didn’t so much leave you on your own at the store as I stepped into another aisle while you were scampering around and when you spotted Tyron, those wings of his out but folded away, you turned around and yeah, I was out of your line of sight. You didn’t even try to look for me, you just started crying.”

“I thought you’d left me there with him! I don’t even know why his wings scared me. I still don’t know. I certainly don’t mind them now.” He snorts and shakes his head a little. I remember feeling a little bad about his reaction, but he did learn a small lesson that day. When in the store with an adult—which I nearly was at that point—running off without keeping track of said adult, or asking for permission to wander off, just wasn’t the best way to go at things.

“Thanks, Percy.”

And that’s reason for another slight noncommittal noise of sorts. I know why he’s thanking me, but I don’t really see the point of needing his thank yous for it. He’s my brother. If I had this sort of setup with Kel, I’d probably be doing the same. They’re both my siblings, I do love them equally, I just guess that I have an easier time of things with Oli.

“Let me know when you feel like heading back out, we still have plenty of time, but I do want to make sure that you’re okay before we log off, yeah?”

He huffs, it comes out with the hint of a faint laugh attached to it and it makes me smile a little. At least I know he’s going to be okay.

* this is a double-prompt post as both randomly generated characters and prompts worked well enough together that they were written as one.

Will you stop talking to the shadows? One of them might follow you home.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Oliver Storme
Race: Halfling – Angel / Human
Age: 32, physically about 23
Final Word Count: 708 words
 

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When I was younger, I used to be afraid of shadows. I’m not even sure where the fear came from, not really. I had a need for a night light from the get-go, I think. Or, well, from the moment I could express myself well enough to make myself understood about needing something with some brightness.

Of course, it’s only further into my tender years that I realized that sleeping with a night light was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because, yes, it meant I had some light, some safety with me at night, but on that same note, it was around that time—I might have been six, maybe?—that I realized that sleeping with a night light also threw strange shadows around my room and these were the very reason why I had needed the light, to begin with. I had been terrified that the shadows would eat me.

Looking back now, as I swim through a sunken cave system, the light on my helmet and my wrist the only source of light, that fear only stayed with me until I swam through my first cave. Here, in this darkness with just my own light to show the way, there are shadows everywhere and I know that I’m safe from them. I’m not afraid anymore.

I still was afraid when I moved out, though; it really did take going onto my first cave dive to overcome that almost mind-numbing fear of shadows.

I remember, at one point I think it was Percy who came to walk us back home from school, though it might have been daycare. He was just so much older than us, he seemed invincible to me, back then.

Almost invincible.

We were walking back home, I was at one side of him, Kelsie was at his other side and while I wasn’t hanging onto his hand, I wasn’t very far. It was a slightly chilly autumn afternoon and the sun was already mostly low in the sky and it threw strange shadows everywhere. I was uncomfortable and wanted to be home as soon as possible but Percy was taking his slow, sweet time.

Looking back, I knew he was talking to Kel, but to my mind, back then, all I could really see was that he kept on talking over his shoulder and, to me, it looked like he was talking to the shadows. I remember telling him to stop talking to the shadows, stating that if he kept that up, one of them might very well follow us home and he gave me this confused look before he’d plastered on a smile. I didn’t know it was a fake smile back then but, looking back onto the memory, I guess I can see it now.

That night, I spent a good part of it half asleep with dad; I’m so fuzzy on that particular moment that I wouldn’t be able to tell you whether it was Christopher or Nathaniel. In the fuzzy memories like that, all I remember is the dark hair and the comforting warmth of their heartbeat.

I suppose you could say I might have been a bit of a clingy child when I was afraid of something. I look back now, it makes me feel a little weird to realize how strange my behaviour was but I was just a kid, what was I supposed to do, really? I had no control over my fears, after all, how could I ever do?

Eventually, I think, they found one of those underwater lights, it would throw a sort of shimmery blue glow over my walls and my ceiling, effectively hiding the shadows better than a meagre little night light plugged into the wall ever had, and I possibly started sleeping better from that point on.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that light is what drew me into all things relating to my love of being under the water and in caves, though. The shimmering effect of that light still stays with me and I still have that lamp somewhere in my things. I haven’t used it in years but I still remember how comfortable I was in my room when it was lit.

Let’s have fun.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 3rd Generation
Characters: Oliver Storme
Race: Halfling – Angel / Human
Age: 30, physically about 23
Final Word Count: 590 words
 

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My definition of fun isn’t quite the same as what I figure everyone else’s definition. Like, say, I look at Percy. His definition of fun includes jumps off the high cliff and into the ocean. Jumps during which he shrieks or hollers and just, yeah. He finds that to be seriously fun and I’m glad he likes it but I can’t will myself to do it. I’ve gone out there every year, once a year, to see if I can overcome the discomfort that the idea of jumping off a cliff side brings out in me but I can’t.

I’d rather explore underwater caves.

Mind you, I can climb down the cliff wall to get to the caves I’m exploring though I prefer to get to the entryway by boat if I can help it. It’s soothing to be on the water before a big exploration and the bigger the cave, the more fun I find it to be. I love figuring out twists and turns in these places, finding new rooms and creating a world of stories and ideas about what could have happened or not in these caves.

I don’t know if anyone else ever swam through them before and I’m not actually sure if anyone else in town is interested in cave diving. That doesn’t really change the fact that I love this particular activity and I know that it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Could you imagine if somehow everyone everywhere liked the very same things and always agreed on everything? We’d be a really, really boring place and I think I’d probably die a little inside every day that I had to be a clone of everyone else.

So sure, leave the cave diving to me, I’m fine doing it on my own. I’ve done spelunking too but it doesn’t hold my attention quite the way diving does. I think it might be the sense of weightlessness that really puts the cherry on the cake and it’s a mighty fine cake.

I tried to convince Percy to join me on a dive once, he balked. It was that day that he realized that his teasing me about just needing a spark, a push of courage to get me to jump off that cliff just wasn’t going to work out. I didn’t tease and push him to do something he didn’t want to do and he learned to do the same for me, most of the time, in any case.

Now and again, he still teases me about not having taken the leap yet but I just remind him that I’m still waiting on him to join me down in the cave that’s at the foot of the cliff. There’s a secondary cave further down the hole he tends to jump in and I’ve spent time in both. It’s a little harder to manage the diving in the second cave, though; the entryway is so tight that you can only get in with a lot of squirming and without any equipment on. Passing equipment through the tight fit is also a nightmare. I know that we now have masks and rebreathers that don’t require air tanks but I’m not used to them just yet, I don’t know how much time I’ll need with them before I feel comfortable using them for dives. I’m always a little afraid that I’ll run out of air.

With cave diving being what I do for fun, I don’t need that fear nagging at the back of my mind.

All you need, my friend, is a little spark to help you.

Timeline/World: Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Oliver Storme
Race: Hafling – Angel / Human
Age: 28
Final Word Count: 540 words

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“I seriously don’t know.” I was looking down at what I knew to be a deep pool of water below the cliff side and it didn’t look appealing. Jumping down from the top of the climbing wall at the pool in the park was one thing, but jumping down the cliff side into this hole in the water was something else altogether. I knew that hole was pretty much endless, it was one of those weird ocean hole things but it was a bit weird it was so close to the cliff. It leads to a full underwater cave system that I’d partially explored just a few years back, so I knew it was safe but it was the thrill of the jump that didn’t, well, thrill me.

Standing behind me, Percy was looking down at the hole himself, a grin playing on his lips and a shrug of his shoulders, “Seriously, Oli. It’s not like you don’t know what’s waiting for you at the bottom, it’s just water and more water. Warm water at that.”

I knew that. Most of the ocean water at this time of the year still was just a little cool, not cold, it just made swimming during hot summer days comfortable, it cooled down our temperature, but there was a current in the hole, the water was warmer there, which was strange since usually, the deeper one went, the colder the water but it was the other way around for that one place.

“All you need, is a spark, a little push-”

“Don’t you dare push me, you jerk!” My eyes were wide but it wasn’t from fear. Percy’s laughter earned him a playful shoulder punch and I stepped out of the way for him, motioning towards the hole at the end of the cliff.

“I was going to say a little push of courage, a spark.” He grinned; his eyes bright and amused and he took a few steps back, then ran forward and jumped just barely moments before his feet would have run out of runway. He hollered something I couldn’t make out and I leaned a little closer, watching him free fall for a moment before he straightened himself, took a proper dive position and entered the water smoothly.

I shook my head, feeling my heart still beating at an uncomfortable pace. It wasn’t fear, at least, I was sure it wasn’t fear but I didn’t really know what it was. I wasn’t afraid of looking weak to others if I didn’t do it, but I faced this particular dilemma every single year when I came here to do the jump and I’d yet to do it. I just couldn’t will myself to run to the edge and jump over.

I think it was the idea of the free fall that made me uncomfortable. I’ve had too many dreams where I was falling and always end up waking up on my floor to be comfortable with the sensation.

Maybe, just maybe one of these days I’ll manage to overcome that fear but for now, it’s just not going to happen and I can live with that. I only want to do this for myself, in the end, not for anybody else.