1034: Chapter 17

The first task Aril set me sounded simple, but ended up being significantly more challenging than I think either of us thought. Due to my supposed “weak connection” to this world — a connection which I felt could have only been weakened by the disastrous and inexplicable encounter with Laura — Aril theorised that I should be able to make use of the “gates,” as he called them, without having to wait for the times when they were at their “widest.”

Each gate was seemingly different in the times it expanded and contracted — that would explain how I had passed through ones in the middle of the day at school and yet the one that was seemingly in Alice’s doorway only opened at 2:30 in the morning. As it was nowhere near that time, we decided to use that very gate as a means to test the theory.

Aril gave me an overly-technical explanation of how he passed between worlds, but it went right over my head, and it involved some sort of technology from his people, anyway. I figured that if I was one of his group of “Crusaders” I might have had a clue what he was on about, but I wasn’t, and I didn’t.

He sighed at the bewildered look on my face.

“Look,” he said, “it’s basically down to willpower. You have to let go of the world you’re leaving and reach out for the one you’re heading for. Your body will follow your will.”

I still didn’t really understand, but I was at least willing to give it a try.

I opened the door to Alice’s room and peered inside. It was just as it always was — empty and devoid of life. I looked around the frame of the door and didn’t see anything unusual — of course I didn’t, why would I? — and grit my teeth ready to make an attempt.

“Focus,” said Aril in a low voice. “You can do this.”

I clenched my fists, though I wasn’t sure why, and closed my eyes. I pictured walking through the doorway into Alice’s room as I had done in the past, and seeing her sitting up in the bed.

I opened my eyes. I was standing in Alice’s bedroom. There was no-one here. I turned around. Aril was leaning against the wall casually, shaking his head.

“No,” he said. “Try again.”

I walked back out of the room and tried again.

Let go, I thought. I don’t belong here. I want to be with Alice.

I stepped through the doorway, and again nothing happened.

“Clear your mind,” said Aril. “You’re trying to reach out for another world, not for your sister. Your sister exists in this world still, too, as a concept at least, so wanting to be with her isn’t going to help this.”

I nodded, stepped out of the room, closed my eyes and blanked my mind as well as I could possibly manage. Then I walked through the doorway again.

This time I felt a strange sensation. It was like the uneasy feeling I’d experienced the very first time this had happened to me, but this time there was a strange tingling all over my body, too. It felt oddly pleasurable in a perverse sort of way.

Then I felt a “bump” as I collided with something, and a voice that I recognised. I fell forward and onto something soft and sweet-smelling.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” said Alice. “Where the fuck did you come from? And also, get off me!”

I opened my eyes and pulled back from whatever I had fallen onto. I saw bare skin and a bellybutton. I immediately blushed and stood up hastily, turning back towards the door with a sickening feeling in my stomach.

I heard the sound of Alice frantically putting clothes on behind me as I gazed out of the doorway. Aril was nowhere to be seen.

“You know,” she said, her voice sounding a little calmer now, “I do appreciate these little visits, you know that, but at least when you were coming at predictable times you were less likely to walk in on me getting dressed after a shower. You may be from a different world or whatever, but you’re still my brother, so it’s still weird.”

“Yes,” I said, mortified. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she said with a slight laugh. I felt her hand on my shoulder. “You weren’t to know. But I’m surprised; what are you doing here now? It’s normally the middle of the night when you show up.”

I sat down on her bed and gestured for her to join me. I explained about the conversations I’d had with Aril, and about our attempts to make use of my… strange properties to help sort out the whole situation. She seemed to take the whole explanation in her stride. I guess Aril was right; her inner strength and ability to deal with unusual, strange and terrifying situations was something else.

Something was bothering me, though.

“Um,” I began, not quite sure how to raise it. “I’m… sorry about earlier.”

“Earlier?” she said. “What about earlier?”

“In the bathroom,” I said. “When you… you know, saw me.”

“Saw you?” she said with a laugh. “I think seeing you in the bathroom probably would traumatise me, but no, that didn’t happen. Did it? I don’t think so. I think I would have remembered that.”

It was strange. I definitely had a memory of her creeped-out face looking disgusted at me kneeling naked on the floor, but apparently she did not. But then Laura had no memory of what had supposedly happened between us, either, so perhaps it wasn’t so unusual. Was this the power of chaos?

“Forget it,” I said. “Too many strange things have been happening to me lately. It’s getting difficult to keep track of them.”

There was something else, though; something else that had been bothering me for a while now and I hadn’t had the chance to ask.

“Alice,” I said. “There’s something else I wanted to ask you.”

“Shoot,” she said.

“When I first… appeared to you, it sounded like you were calling out to someone, as if you weren’t surprised to see a person in your room. But if what you and Aril have told me about what happened here is true…”

“Oh, that,” she said casually. “Yeah, I thought you were Aril. He’d been paying me regular visits since all this stuff started happening. I thought I was going mad from loneliness at first, hallucinating an imaginary friend or something, but it started happening too often for me to dismiss as just something my brain was cooking up. Unless all of this is a hallucination or nightmare that either or both of us is having. That’d be funny, wouldn’t it?”

She laughed half-heartedly. I did the same. It didn’t seem very funny. I sort of wished that was actually what was going on, because that meant it would all go away and life would go back to normal once the root cause was dealt with. I started to think that was sort of true anyway — but no, even if Aril and I were able to deal with the chaos thing, that was never going to bring Alice and my parents back. And it wouldn’t bring this world’s me back to Alice, either.

But Aril already knew Alice and had been visiting her? Somehow this news didn’t surprise me, but I sort of resented the fact that neither of them had told me prior to this point. It seemed like something that might be a big deal. But apparently it wasn’t. I bit my tongue before I made a sarcastic comment at Alice.

“So,” she said. “What now? You’re here, and I think this is the longest you’ve managed to stay without getting pulled back against your will. What’s the plan?”

The first part of the plan was to get me into a situation where I was able to pass through these “gates” more easily without having to rely on them opening and closing. Beyond that, Aril had had a few ideas about how to proceed, but I wasn’t sure I quite understood them just yet.

“I need to talk to Aril,” I said. “Now that I can apparently do this, I imagine he’s got something terrifying lined up for me to do in order to attract this chaos thing.”

“Probably,” said Alice. “If I can help, let me know, though I’m not sure what good I can do from here.”

“Hmm,” I said. “You’ve come through into my world before, though, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I’ve no idea how that happened or if I could do it again.”

“Can I try something?” I asked.

“Nothing weird,” she said.

“Does passing between planes of existence count as ‘weird’?” I said with a slight smile.

“These days? No, sadly,” she said.

I stood up and offered her my hand. She seemed to know what I was thinking, and took it. I closed my eyes, grit my teeth and willed myself back to my own world as I pulled her through the doorway. I felt the oddly pleasurable tingling sensation once again, and a slight giggle behind me confirmed that Alice had felt it too. When I opened my eyes, Aril was still leaning against the wall, looking rather bored.

“Ah, welcome back,” he said. “Not so difficult, is it? I’d say you’re a natural. And hello to you, Alice. Hope you’re well.”

“As well as can be expected,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “Sorry I didn’t tell you about us sooner,” she added, giving me a sheepish look.

“It’s fine,” I said. I gave Aril a sour look, but he said nothing. “So what now?”

“Well, actually, you might have done us a bit of a favour by bringing Alice here,” said Aril. “You’ve sort of upset the natural order of things. She’s not supposed to be here in this world; she shouldn’t exist. I’d say that probably qualifies as something that might attract the attention of a chaotic entity, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh,” I said limply. “Right. So, uh, what do we do? We fight it?”

“It’s not quite that simple, I’m afraid,” said Aril. Of course it isn’t. “In its current state, there’s no guarantee it’ll want to show itself directly. It’s already messed with you once, so it might lay low for a little while. There’s no way to know for the moment.”

“So that doesn’t really help us that much,” I said.

“Perhaps not,” said Aril. “But in the long-term, it’s more likely to be attracted to this thing that shouldn’t be here–”

“I have a name,” interrupted Alice.

“–and try to use that as a focal point for any future chaos it intends to sow in this world.”

“I still don’t understand why it’s doing what it’s doing,” I said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s because you’re thinking too rationally,” said Aril, “too like a sentient, living being. What we’re dealing with here is not like a human; it’s a primal force that exists only for a single-minded purpose. While it may come across as malicious, it’s simply doing what comes naturally to it. Unfortunately, ‘what comes naturally’ coupled with its own innate power is a spectacularly dangerous combination.”

“Yes, I get that,” I said. “I just wish we could get this over and done with.”

“There’s no quick fix,” said Aril. “I wish there was. But I believe that if we all work together, we’ll be able to deal with it.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said. I put a hand on Alice’s shoulder, and she placed one of her own hands on it. I was grateful for the support. I knew this wasn’t “my” sister, but for now, it sure felt like she was.