Serendipity: "Happy Accidents."
Author's note: This story is a fanfiction written in the same universe as "After the Rain." Graeth's world has never ceased to inspire my imagination. I finally took it upon myself to contribute to his world. Graeth has been gracious enough to extend permission for me to write this and future chapters and I'm looking forward to working with him.You can read the origional series I've drawn inspiration from here (http://www.sofurry.com/page/21119/faves). Graeth is a very talented author who deserves recognition for his work. I hope everyone reading enjoys this story as much as his.
Thomas looked across the horizon stretching out before him for countless miles. The wind blew through his helmet, tickling his hair as he took in the magnificent view. The rush he felt flying this high was marvelous, especially with the startlingly white forest rapidly moving below him. Thomas looked down through his goggles at the ground several hundred feet below and his stomach flipped excitedly. There was nothing else that could compare to racing over the endless winter wonderland at around sixty miles an hour. In his mind, this was the only way to fly!
Thomas looked away from the ground toward his wrist, checking his altimeter as he zipped through the air. His position was holding steady at six hundred and fifty feet. No surprise air currents to throw him to a thousand feet up here in the Yukon, so that was a relief. Thomas shifted his gaze back to examine the harness that kept him connected to the large hang glider; the lifeline that kept him from falling from the bright red triangle in the sky. Everything looked secure in his eyes, so he averted his gaze back further to the trail of wispy smoke that trailed behind him as he flew. It emanated from the nearly silent propulsion system mounted in the center of his hang glider, a by-product of the air getting forced into and back out of the cylindrical engine that moved him along. Thomas smiled, thinking of the hours it took to install that pesky little device onto the red glider, but it had been worth it. With a little persistence and elbow grease his hang glider could move between wind channels as easily as if a permanent wind had been caught under the tough red canvas that stretched across the ultra light metal frame. Thomas could fly! If only his friends could see him now.
The smile faltered at the thought of his past friends; the past life that he'd left far, far behind him. 'Things won't be like that up here,' he promised himself; this was a place that he could find some peace.
The winter of 2066 had blanketed the last place on earth with few people with tons of snow. Big, beautiful piles of snow! It was good for hours of fun to play in, build with, and -best of all- fly over for miles and miles. It never lost its luster, no matter how long Thomas looked at it. The first day it snowed he'd actually cried from the beauty of it. He'd made snow angel, promptly followed by a snow man and a small pile of snow balls that he'd launched at gnarled tree branches with fits of happy laughter. That had been a truly good day; something he'd been in need of for a long time.
Thomas's smile returned as he remembered his earliest days coming to live up here. Only eight months had passed since his arrival, but Thomas knew that this was the place he wanted to stay in for a long, long time. Few places in the world held this much natural beauty and as little population. Camping and flying around the pristine waters and soaring mountains lightened his spirit in a way that little else could. Then the wind shifted and the fragile human banked hard to the left, feeling the equally fragile craft shift and play along the current.
"Oh, god, this is really something else." He said to himself, followed by a long, eager whoop of elation.
"YEAHHHHHAHAHA!! WHOOOOOO!!"
Thomas took a deep breath and let the wind rush past him in torrents, washing him over with cold air that soaked through his protective clothing, invigorating his body with a natural energy that only flight could bestow. He laughed at the freedom, the purity of his flight for several minutes, till his breath ran out in fact, and when that happened he released the bar and pressed the play button on the music player strapped to his arm. Two small speakers installed in his helmet began to hum and vibrate with fast, energetic techno music. Thomas instantly fell into the music and let himself get drawn into the flight even further, cleansing himself; releasing his soul.
The landscape rushed underneath him but Thomas noticed the shape of it begin to change after another forty minutes of flight time. The trees were thinning slightly while the ground shifted slowly into hills; then sharply into various canyons, small mountain chains, valleys and occasional lakes. It was just as beautiful to Thomas, but his common sense told him that he'd gone out quite some distance today. Probably a lot further than he'd meant to. His vision scanned the landscape beneath for a place to land, lest he got lost on his hang glider amid a region known for its sudden, violent storms.
After a minute he spotted a decent enough spot and angled down toward a flat, open area just above a small, sharply inclined valley. Thomas turned off his music and began manipulating the hang glider downward. He cut off the nearly silent engine and glided naturally toward the natural runway, running off nature herself. He had to adjust his pitch and correct the heading of the glider several times, but within seconds he swooped over the flat, snowy stretch of land. Thomas's legs unhooked from the frame and curled beneath him as he eased the glider up to catch more air in its wings. The maneuver worked and his momentum lessened enough that he could execute a running landing. Then a rogue blast of air slapped his glider in the ass and knocked him over, forcing the frame out of his control. Thomas yelped as the glider turned end over end erratically in the face of the rogue blast of wind. He'd been jostled plenty of times in the past, but when he finally landed the air left his lungs with a raspy 'whoosh'. The glider planted itself in the snow and came to a complete-albeit upside down- halt and left a very Thomas hanging over the frame.
"Ohh...That hurt." He wheezed.
The wind continued to blow around Thomas's glider, buffering his face with a deep chill. The scarf he'd been wearing had gone missing in the landing; his helmet and goggles were missing too. He guessed they were behind him somewhere as he tried to untangle the mass of safety chords and tethers keeping him glued to the glider.
"Could've been worse though. I think I can call that good for now." Thomas chuckled as he struggled with one particularly nasty knot that kept him suspended. "Now just have to get...this...little...guy...and-ACKPTH!"
Thomas, in his hurry to get untangled, failed to realize that the knot keeping him suspended held more than one safety line in its clutches and when he undid it...he fell onto the underside of his hang glider with an unceremonious plop.
Thomas coughed once, and then chuckled as he hauled himself up. 'That was a silly mistake big guy! You could have gotten hurt and then where would you be?' He chided himself mentally. In answer he looked around while stepping off the overturned glider. The sight of the natural landscape surrounding the glider answered his question.
"Some place perfect." Thomas mused before he threw his fists straight into the air and loosed a victorious howl that traveled through the empty air for miles. He let loose every bit of energy from his body, feeling it erupt so long that he fell flat on his ass, gasping for air but smiling from ear to ear.
"PEEEERRRRFFFFEEEECCCTTT!!!"
"Hello everyone! Today is February seventeenth and you're just in time for another entry into my personal log." Thomas, after half an hour of scrounging his equipment from the upturned glider, had recovered his tablet computer. Since he'd managed to gather up all of his things and nothing was broken, now seemed like an excellent opportunity to make a video log entry into his personal flight journal.
" I've managed to fly myself several long and cold miles out of my usual flight path today and landed myself into the beautiful stretch of land you can see behind me. Who says there's no such a thing as a happy accident? Serendipity, says I! Ha-ha!"
"As you can see, I'm surrounded by some of the coolest forests, lakes and valleys you can imagine. The Yukon has no end to its treasures and today I'm benefiting from Lady Luck's gentle hand. Here, I'll show you what I mean." Thomas said as he switched the camera to the front lens to observe his surroundings.
Thomas stood at the edge of a cliff that dipped straight into a valley that stretched for a ways around him. Beyond that lay vast forests, and then a majestic mountain range in the farthest distance. Several areas here were small fields or frozen lakes that looked quite beautiful from this distance; snow covered absolutely everything. The sheer amount of white hurt Thomas's eyes, even forcing the tablet to auto adjust for the glare coming from the occasional rays of sunlight that peeked through the clouds.
The entire scene was breath taking.
"Yes, that's right folks sitting at home with your TV dinners and Discovery channel! Eat your heart out."
Thomas laughed and switched the camera back to the screen side lense. He watched his face come onto the screen, smiling and bright, despite the pink scar running down his cheek from the corner of his eye to the edge of his lip and the silhouette of his head and shoulders that seemed to give him a sinister look.
"This is paradise everybody! Sorry you couldn't be here yourselves- I really am. God knows you all deserve to be here." He said with a softly somber voice. "This is for all of you that couldn't be here like you wanted...This is for you."
Thomas switched the view again and the majestic landscape filled the screen. He rotated slowly from the farthest point left he could toward the right, taking in as much of the beautiful forests, icy lakes, crystal mountains and snowy world as he could. He wanted to add something else, something more; express some of what he truly felt in his heart. He paused for a long time and thought. Thomas wanted a lot and planned to say something wise for the recorder for later, but something in the screen gave him pause.
A small gash in the canyon wall opposite him had shuddered. A sharp rumble also reached his ears from the cliff's edge, carried by the wind as it whipped across the snowy landscape. Thomas quirked his head and frowned, zooming in with his tablet. The vertical opening in the rock didn't seem very active, but the longer Thomas looked through his screen, the more he could see icicles shaking and falling from the highest points of the entrance.
The first thing that popped into the tightly bundled mans mind was a cave-in. There must have been an unstable portion of ceiling or something inside a cavern. He couldn't see inside but that seemed right. But then why was no smoke or any air rushing out of the entrance? He'd seen that before in much drier climates before and they always made such a cloud of dust. Thomas shook his head, realizing it wasn't a cave-in.
"Huh. Looks like a new mystery has revealed itself! Should I go explore it, or stay here and make some kind of camp for the night?" He turned the tablets camera back to his face. This time it revealed a knowing smirk and ominously raised eyebrows. Thomas answered his own question with a chuckle. "No way can I pass up a challenge like that. Let's go see what's inside, shall we?"
But before Thomas could do anything, he had to take care of his hang glider. It still lay upside down behind him on the natural landing zone behind him. With it turned neatly on its back and the wingspan two and a half times his height Thomas would be hard pressed to get it right side up again. Placing the tablet back into his backpack the young man pondered on the best way to get his glider down to the base of the sharply angled wall of rock. He played through a number of scenarios (that all ended with a grisly death or broken bones) until the explanation came to him. 'There's no reason I can't just take it apart and put it back together again, then glide down there. I had to put it together in the first place.' But when he turned his gaze back to the latest clouds passing over him Thomas realized he might not have such an easy time of it.
The winters of Yukon are beautiful without a doubt but they were covered with layers of snow for a good reason. Snow storms blasted through the area constantly. Especially in this area, which dipped geographically into the Arctic Circle. Thomas frowned when he saw a large gray wall creeping steadily up the horizon. 'That has the look of a storm; a very large one. I might be spending a night in that cave instead of just visiting it.'
Thomas didn't know just how right he was. Even as he bent down to begin disassembling the lightweight craft piece by piece, he was unaware that this particular storm heading his way had already covered everything in its path with five feet of snow. In fact, the size and intensity of the blizzard (because that's what it became when it plastered a weather outpost like sand on a toy from a dump truck) had already caused several problems in the region in the form of hail, lightening strikes and vicious wind speeds. It was by no means the 'storm of the century' that occurred less than two years ago, but it was already predicted to be the deadliest natural occurrence in several winters. Yet for all its intensity, the edge of the storm moved at a snail's pace. Thomas checked the distance of it every few minutes and felt confident that he could reassemble his glider, travel down to the valley base and pack it up again before the wall of ominous gray enveloped him.
"Piece o' cake." He grumbled while assembling the glider frame. "At least it's not a sandstorm. I'd rather be soaking wet in the Yukon in the middle of winter than smothered by one of those and spend every day kicking sand from my boots."
In all it took an hour and a half to completely break down the glider and piece it back together. Each portion took equal effort and Thomas had a good sweat going by the time he hoisted the propulsion motor up and fastened it into place atop the bright red glider frame. When he looked back to the approaching storm and saw it was still quite a ways off, he smiled jubilantly and began gathering his things. He hooked the personal and emergency equipment bags into place and got underneath the hang glider, then pushed it through the snow toward the edge of the cliffside. Thomas rechecked to make sure everything was stable and secure one more time before his head turned back to the sharp drop in front of him. The glider shifted back and forth as he began to rock it in place for starting momentum.
"Okay then...one...two...three!" he grunted and pushed off.
The cliff provided an excellent starting point. Thomas felt his legs leave the ground as he sharply dipped down. His stomach lurched into his throat for a moment as he seemed to plummet down toward the ground. The glider gracefully tilted away from impending doom however, and gently slipped through the air. With his tinted goggles placed back on his face Thomas steered the large red wing down toward the spot he'd decided on. It was a small open space much like his original spot on top of the valley, but with a few more trees large chunks of rock. Thomas leaned and tilted the glider knowing full well the landing was going to be a bit bumpy with the fluffy undisturbed snow, but he figured this time he could keep from flipping his glider.
The glider silently touched down and Thomas landed in a run to keep the momentum going and avoid crashing. This time he managed to land with no difficulty. Nesting birds scattered as the large triangular shaped fabric came alarmingly close to slapping a couple trees at the wing tips. The thought of those rocks gave Thomas enough motivation to control the flying apparatus properly and with a growl he tightened every muscle in his body, forcing the glider to lurch to a stop. "There," he said with a huff, "piece o' cake."
Once Thomas removed himself from the harness and checked on the progress of the storm (still at least two hours out in his mind) he decided that now was the best time for him to rummage through his gear bag and fish out lunch. Thomas unhooked the bag, unzipped the top and began rummaging through its contents. Because of the two quick trips he'd made in the past hour his food was stuck somewhere at the bottom. On the way down he pulled out the contents: tools for the glider; several boxes of matches; a flint and steel set that was well used; his tablet computer with half its remaining charge; a field survival kit with sewing needles and additional medical equipment (not that he needed it with the portable medicomp and its extended battery pack); a Swiss army knife; two fantasy books he liked from the town library; a good quality survival knife with wet stone; the small gun case containing his forty five caliber 1911 pistol and two full magazines; and finally, Tuna with a side salad, sports drink and chips. The latter was only half his food however. Another large ham sandwich in Tupperware also came out, but that for later. Thomas placed all the gear back in his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, stepping away from the glider and settling on a snow covered log (which he promptly brushed off) and settled in for his meal.
The tuna tasted good; the chips too. They went down easily with the sports drink he'd brought along, but the chill on his insides from the liquid made him shiver. In all it was a tasty meal and he was pleased to have a full stomach when he started to clean up.
"Alright glider. You're coming apart again." Thomas sighed before placing his trash back into the bag with his other belongings. "Lets see if I can get you undone, packed, and up into that cave before the storm comes, shall we?"
Once glance at the storm told him that he still had plenty of time to complete dissembling the glider again. When he looked into the heavens, the storm looked back at him; much darker and fuller then it was before. But it was still far enough away that he had confidence it wouldn't reach him until he was inside the cave. He began to work at removing nuts and bolts from the metal frame and mounting brackets for the engine in order to pack them up.
Thomas, however, was wrong about the storm. Unbeknownst to him the weather had taken a turn for the dramatically bad. A change in the cross wind had begun to push the storm further along at a faster rate than before. The Yukon was known for its chaotic weather patterns in winter and what rapidly began to approach Thomas's position under the cliff face was no different. Thomas couldn't see it, but the snow that fell in the blizzard wasn't cold enough to stay snow. It was the worst kind of sleet and it brought freezing rain over the landscape at an alarming rate. Almost like a big sneaky bully, it crept up on the poor human as he managed to disassemble the second to last portion of his flying machine. It wasn't until he felt the wind begin to drastically pick up behind him and the first few drops of frigid rain land on his coat that he realized he'd made an error; the sun no longer shone as the mammoth storm greedily swallowed it up and cast a long, dark shadow across the land below. Thomas turned toward the storm and immediately realized his mistake.
"Shit! That came so fast! This just isn't going to work." He cursed and turned back to the glider, moving frantically back and forth as he gathered each piece of the frame and dragged the still assembled portion under the nearest tree. He tied his red scarf to the highest branch he could marking the spot. Thomas pushed all the material under the heavy, stunted branches and ran for the cliff; the two bags of gear securely held in each hand as he sprinted.
The storm began to come down. Thomas looked up and realized the edge of the storm had already overtaken his position. The wind began to pick up dramatically, forcing him to don his goggles once again and bundle up before frantically unzipping the second gear bag. This one was full of heavy survival equipment like a pop-tent and a couple tools, but the most important item within now was his climbing kit: boot spikes, a set of pitons, a small rock hammer, bracers for his arms and shins, and (he was especially proud of this) an expandable police baton he'd modified into a climbing pick when fully extended and clipped onto the attachment he'd hand crafter years ago in his previous career.
Thomas wasted little time and strapped on the spikes to his heavy shoes. Then he opened the baton and attached the pick. He looked up. The opening into the cave was at least eighty feet off the ground. The gathering storm around him continued to build and the first wave of sleet began to fall to the earth; far off the sound of powerful thunderclaps echoed through the storm. Thomas growled and stretched quickly, then grabbed the first handhold he could find and began to climb.
This was not the ideal climbing environment and Thomas immediately felt the effects of the freezing sleet as it landed on the valley wall. It made everything slick, even his boots had difficulty getting a toehold in the rock as the storm began to roll over him. Within a minute his fingers were numbing out and his progress began to slow, but that didn't stop him from making progress. In years past, Thomas had tackled more than one rock wall in adverse conditions and, while this one was probably wasn't the hardest, he hadn't tackled many with a raging blizzard -complete with distant lighting strikes and freezing rain. He gritted his teeth, tried to shrug off the chills that raced up and down his backside, and kept moving upward toward the cave entrance.
Twice he slipped and nearly fell; the second time he very nearly lost all of his equipment. The wind buffeted him hard now and the temperature was dropping rapidly from wind-chill. Thomas looked up and saw he was three quarters of the way there before a particularly savage gust tried to dislodge him yet a third time, but he held fast to the stone like glue. The storm noticeably played on his body now and he knew that time was running out. Another twenty feet and he'd be done: saved from the storm within the crag he slowly approached. Thomas shook his head and forced his hands and arms to move, grabbing wherever he could and spiking the rock with his climbing baton when couldn't find anything to grasp through his gloves.
Thomas managed to make it to the lip of the entrance when the first lightning bolt stuck. It happened so quickly that he didn't know what happened until debris began peppering him from higher up on the cliff. A massive lightening strike smashed into the stone above him and shattered it to pieces. Thomas yelled in surprise, closing his stinging eyes to protect them from the harsh light. He tried to move, but the sound had deafened him as well, sending a high pitched ring into his brain. Instinct began to kick in, coupled with some very good training he'd gotten in the past; an important lesson in violent weather events that emphasized MOVING YOUR ASS to safety. He grunted and swung his spike into the stone with a growl, sending it a solid inch into the rock. He took a deep breath and hauled himself up, throwing the two bags into the mouth of the cave; they clattered noisily along the floor. Thomas then pulled the last of his body up and over the lip, mostly falling into the entrance, sputtering and coughing while he struggled to move further away from the howling wind and lightening behind his back.
"Sonuvabitch!" he wheezed. "Next time I'm going to bring a weather monitor!"
The wet, cold and shivering human took a moment to catch his breath. The effort of dragging his ass into the cave had been grueling. The lightening strike was still strongly affecting him as well with vision spots and an audible ringing in his ears. He simply lay there, quietly letting his breath puff out around him in steamy clouds while he gathered his strength and let his vision return. He knew that ringing wouldn't go away quickly, so he did his best to minimize it in his head.
After ten minutes Thomas began to get up. He flipped onto his stomach and shifted onto his knee's. A pang in his legs alerted him that he'd forgotten the pads in his climbing gear. He shook his head and moved onto his feet, annoyed that he'd just left them in the bag next to his feet. 'What's the point of having the gear if you don't use it?' Thomas chastised himself before bending down and grabbing for the two bags, hoisting them over his shoulders as he looked into the cave. He was in a tunnel and it was very dark; removing his tinted goggles didn't improve anything. The tunnel stretched for a way, but he didn't think he'd be moving on until his eyes adjusted fully to the darkness.
The wind howled outside now that the storm had fully ensconced the area he'd landed. It was truly something to look back and see the sleet slap against the entrance of the cave; the wind hurl across the battered landscape; the snarl of the lightning and thunder as it smashed into the stone once again, and then strike another spot farther away. It charged the landscape like it had a mind of its own, deciding that the land below needed to be punished with wind and ice. Thomas let out a deep sigh of relief as he turned and took his first steps into the cave tunnel, just glad to be out of that icy hell just on the other side of his natural sanctuary.
Thomas was so relieved to be out of the storm that he nearly failed to realize he could see inside the cave, without the aid of a flashlight he was about to retrieve. A natural light filled the tunnel as he progressed making it easy for him to move with his bags and avoid bumping into the walls. He looked around, but there was no sign of natural illumination, or any kind of natural sky light. If there was it would be dripping water onto the floor from the storm outside and this area was not only dry, but it felt rather warm on his face.
"That's...weird." He muttered to himself as he progressed further down the tunnel. Soon enough he found something else that made him pause. The tunnel widened out into what seemed like a larger cavern ahead of him. It, like the tunnel, was also filled with light. When he stepped into the large natural chamber it occurred to him that the walls themselves exuded some kind of light. The entire place was filled with it; a constant and cold pale aqua. Thomas narrowed his eyes curiously and turned to the closest wall for a closer look. Several small symbols and glyphs decorated the face of the cavern.
Then he looked further into the room and observed architecture of very unusual design. In all his time in the world he'd never seen stuff like this and he felt his heart thump excitedly. Something new? No, he decided as he tied his coat around his waist (it was warm in here and the coat was soaked) and wore his backpack properly, leaving a hand free to brush over the xenographic symbols. No, this was very, very old.
"Wow...Just what in the hell IS this pl-" He began to say but froze midsentence instead.
Across the far end of the chamber lay something that stopped the young man in his tracks. A massive black ring -two actually- sat quietly, with a natural ramp extending down and away from the center. The outer ring seemed to glow with another, different light than the surrounding cavern; far more white and pale blue instead of blue and green. Thomas looked at it for a second, unsure of what to make of what he had stumbled upon, but then stepped across the cavern toward the massive object. Its bottom most portions lay in the stone floor and a stone podium lay some feet off its right. Thomas noted a lot of decorative carvings on the rings outer portion, but nothing inside.
"What on earth did you just find Thomas?" The suddenly humble young man muttered to himself. "Definitely not something NASA would sink its money into, that's for certain."
Thomas examined the cavern for several long minutes after that. Halfway through the heat convinced him to surrender his remaining wet clothing. He dropped his stuff and broke down the baton-spike. He doubted he'd be going outside anytime soon with the storm just waiting for a chance to smite him. When he'd finished exploring he moved back to the stone podium.
Thomas examined it closely for several seconds before realizing the top was a cover, hinged at the top. He managed to work his fingers into the gap of the cool stone and lift it. If he was confused before about this place, it didn't help when he spied the mass of carved, circular tiles with symbols placed on each surface. He pushed the cover up so it rested against the podium and ran his fingertips over each of the tiles. This was definitely the strangest, most unusual thing he'd every come across-and there had been some interesting things in his past for sure. The tiles even had a little give to them, but Thomas didn't dare push them down for fear of a booby trap or...hell, he didn't even know what to expect at this point.
"Curiouser and curiouser." He mumbled, smirking at the thought of aligning his days' adventures with Alice. "But I doubt any rabbits with big pocket watches are going to jump into the cave and yell at me for being late. He started to turn away and dog for his second sandwich when something on the ground caught his eye.
"What the hell?" Thomas whispered, kneeling down investigate.
A folded piece of paper sat nonchalantly on the stone floor. He closed his fingers around it and immediately felt something unusual in its texture. It felt rough in his fingers, but weighed and felt like regular stationary: like really thin construction paper. It was square; he noted four folds creasing the surface. It was just big enough to slip into a pocket. He began to unfold it and stand back up, grabbing the podium for support.
The next few moments passed in flash. When Thomas snatched the folded piece of paper and stood, the supporting hand on the podium brushed a tile with enough force to activate it. The symbol flashed to life and shimmered sultry azure. Thomas cried out and scampered away from the podium as the rings behind it began to vibrate and shift, filling the cavern with noise; bursting into life as the inner ring quickly began to rotate. The air within the cavern filled with a deep electric sizzle as tongues of blue-white light danced across the pair of rings, like the entire thing was building up for some kind of discharge. Thomas took another step back when the shadows dancing along the walls disoriented him, but stood his ground when the blue white glow of a symbol appeared on lowest right hand box of the outer ring.
Thomas stood awestruck as his short brown hair flipped around in the sudden wind invading the chamber. It wasn't cold air from outside, but cool air originating from the strange machine he faced. 'My god. What is this thing?' he thought desperately.
Several minutes passed before Thomas felt a pain in his hand. Looking down he saw the knuckles were white from the strain of clutching the folded paper that had caused him to activate whatever it was in front of him. With one eye on the rings, he quickly unfolded the paper and gazed over its contents.
The paper held a large amount of writing across its face; several kinds of notes from the look of it. Several portions were written in sloppy English, but the rest of it was in some strange, elegant language he couldn't read. Thomas had never seen anything like this kind of writing before, but he instantly recognized a string of symbols in the middle of the paper, along with a single word in English: Home.
Curiosity managed to get the best of him as he leaned in to examine the symbols. The first was the very one that he'd inadvertently activated. Several symbols along the circular collection of buttons on the podium also matched the note. Thomas suddenly felt the overwhelming need to explore this further, but he hesitated before touching the second symbol. "Is this really something you should do, man?" He asked aloud. Thomas held his hand still, hovering over the button for several seconds. Then his hand contact and compress the symbol, activating it.
The ring formed a matching symbol on the opposite side of the first symbol. More electricity, more wraithlike shadows playing across the walls and strange architecture surrounding him. He pressed the third, then the fourth. He pressed every symbol down on the panel before stopping at the final one. It was a jagged swirl of a design planted right on the center on the largest button of all. Thomas took a deep breath and looked at the gate across from him. The very last box lay empty on top of the second ring. It glowed brightly with white-blue light that had intensified with each appearing symbol, also glowing brightly. This was the last one in the sequence. Thomas took yet another deep breath and looked back at his hand.
Thomas let it fall and trigger and last button.
The energy in the room instantly rose to a feverish pitch. The light coming from the outer ring filled the chamber, nearly blinding Thomas as he shielded his eyes with his other hand. The very last symbol appeared on the top of the second gate, but very slowly and from the top down. It filled in like sand from an hourglass falling upward instead of down, taking the shape of the last glyph in a vibrant orange. The inner gate ran faster and faster, then stopped suddenly and its empty center exploded out! Thomas dove for the ground as a column of angry white water rushed for him. He dared to look back and saw it had fallen short of his position and then retreated back into the center of the two rings where it coalesced into a watery, glass like surface. It thrummed with activity and massive amounts of energy; the whole cavern basking in its cold, fluorescent glow.
Thomas breathlessly stood up and gazed at the wonder that had come to life in front of him, before his very eyes."Holy...God." He whispered in awe, yet somehow knew that god had nothing to do with this. With shaky legs, he stepped from behind the podium, gathered his bags, and approached the wondrous machine.
The hum in the air made every hair on Thomas's arms stand on end. His eyes adjusted quickly to the bright surface of the center ring; a radiant pool of light that rippled like water. Thomas cautiously walked up the ramp, taking his time to avoid tripping. He couldn't afford an accident in the presence of this thing: one wrong move and he might be dead in an instant. Thomas stopped directly in front of the bright and glassy surface. It was smooth and calm like a pristine lake hours after a storm, not a ripple of disturbance. Instinct guided his arm as it boldly rose and penetrated the surface. It looked like water and sent ripples across the surface like water, even echoed the sound of a small splash; seeing his arm vanish within the surface however, he realized it was something else entirely. Not a drop of fluid covered his flesh.
"Amazing!" he said, barely even forming the words in his utter disbelief excitement. That was the only word to describe how this entire thing looked. Nothing short of astonishing! Thomas wanted to experiment more with this device and witness what it could do. The thought sent his stomach flipping and turned his legs to lead, even drying out his mouth as he stood there, steeling himself for what he was about to do.
There was no other way to know what lay beyond this fantastic and alien device. No way but to step through it and find out. Thomas had no idea what lay beyond this place and what he might expect, but that was something he liked the thought of. His heart fluttered at the mystery and majesty of the shining pool before him. There was something beyond this thing that he wanted to see: that he needed to see. He took another deep breath to steady his legs, and then another to calm his beating heart.
Then Thomas stepped into the watery field of energy and vanished.
Wow! Just what will Thomas find on the other side of the strange machine? Where will he go, what will happen to him? I hope y'all like this start of the new series. Keep an eye out for more and let me know what you think. Feel free to comment! There will be more in the future; I promise!