Page 13 (1/1)

Still, if only out of frustration, I wandered over to the entrance of the gate and gazed down once again into its swirling, starry depths

I couldn’t help but wonder, What really is beyond that tunnel wall?

Drifting down into the gaping hole, I took a closer look at the wall Reaching out a hand, I dared touch it I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to feel--so My hand h it, as though it were nothing but air I sank in my other arm, and then half of h the wall and left the portal entirely

All noise disappeared I couldn’t catch even the slightest sigh of the wind up on thein a sound booth, buried hundreds of azed around at what appeared to be an endless world of stars, it felt like a drea dots? Were they really stars? Planets? What was this place? Feeling like I was in space, I dared drift a little further away from the tunnel, deeper into the vacuum

Slowly but surely, I moved further and further away from the tunnel, until I was about twenty feet away I turned around to examine the portal from the outside for the first time It was like a wide, s much further into the blackness than I could see

This is just weird

And was this where Nolan and Chantel--wherever they are now--believed they would be taken on a full hosts had dared venture through the walls and out into this wilderness by theht’

I began wandering with no particular direction as I attes Every speculation or idea I came up as just as stupid and far-fetched as the others My attention focused on the shi stars I wondered just how far away they were fro it would take to reach the nearest one Whether they were inhabited planets, or just burning balls of fire…

I felt like an astronaut exploring the ether as I ventured forward tohat seehtest and the largest, I also assuh of course, I saw the flaws in that logic Still, I didn’t see the harht of the tunnel

Ben

I had no way of knowing howas I drifted in the vacuum My vision still focused on what I’d dee up, until I was hurtling forith all the supernatural speed that I had But the star did not see any closer at all I wondered how many days, months or maybe even years it would take to reach it

As the outline of the long, snaking tunnel had all but faded, I stopped I couldn’t get too carried away inlost, this would in any case only turn out to be a detour, a waste of ti my mind off the frustration that still filled me after my encounter with the oracle

I tracedtunnel walls, I paused before passing through it I couldn’t help but gaze around this silent world one last time Almost painfully silent The type of silence that caused a person to go insane if they stayed in it for too long

I felt the urge to shatter it--or see if I could--before I turned my back on the vacuum, maybe never to return

"Hello!" I bellowed I was shocked by how loudwashed out beneath the noises of the living world, but now, it was as though I’d just hollered into ato increase et If I’d had ear drums, they would have hurt, I was sure

Now it’s ti h the walls of the tunnel As disconnected as I was froe of relief as I arrived back on the snowy plateau and took in s

Before thinking about heading back to the supernatural realm in search of more answers, I needed a few moments to recover froh the tunnel again to the supernatural realm, I approached the portal and hovered over it As I was about to dive through,up at h the darkness of the abyss was a face A man But he was a ht he was another ghost, since he appeared to be drifting--the doard pull of the portal having no effect on him at all But I soon discarded that assulow I had never witnessed co A word I hadn’t thought I’d ever use to describe another ht copper-colored hair that flowed down his shoulders and reached down to his lower back He wore a white silk sash around his waist, and another over his shoulder, as well as a silver belt holding two sheathed daggers His eyes were a brilliant amber, his ears were slanted at the tips, and his face was so perfectly sy

Then he spoke, in a deep, al This creature is from the other side of the tunnel walls… "The other side"

MyCould the fable Nolan and Chantel recounted to one because, indeed, the light did come for them?