Clark froze in place.
His eyes slowly widened, and a cold shiver ran through his body.
The sound had not come from inside the room.
It had come from the door.
The very door he had tried to open moments earlier, only to find it would not move.
Clark stared at it without blinking.
Then…
Knock…
knock…
This time, the knocking was louder.
Clark’s fingers tightened around the book as his heartbeat quickened.
He did not know who was standing behind the door.
More importantly…
He did not know how anyone could have gotten there in the first place.
The knocking stopped completely.
Silence filled the room.
Clark remained standing there for several seconds before slowly approaching the door, the book still clenched tightly in his hands.
He looked at the handle.
The handle suddenly moved.
But this time, it was not moving from his side.
It was being turned from the other side.
Someone was trying to open the door.
Clark felt his breathing become heavier, the air leaving his chest with an audible sound.
He slowly reached toward the handle.
He grasped it.
He stopped.
His eyes lifted toward the peephole in the center.
He hesitated for a moment.
Then he bent down and looked through it.
And that…
Was the worst decision he had ever made.
He did not see a room.
He did not see a human being.
He saw death.
A completely black entity stood behind the door.
It was tall and unnaturally thin, as though its body had not been created according to any familiar form.
In the middle of its face were two enormous white eyes, each centered by a tiny black point staring without blinking.
Its mouth…
Was horribly wide, stretching across a large portion of its face and revealing rows of pristine white teeth, unnaturally large.
It did not look like a creature that possessed the concept of death.
It looked as though death itself had taken on a visible form.
Clark froze.
He could not breathe.
He could not even think.
Then…
The entity slowly moved its head.
Its eyes settled directly on the peephole.
It had seen him.
Clark’s eyes widened, and he jerked his face away from the door in an instant.
He stumbled several steps backward, nearly falling to the floor.
He covered his mouth with his hand, trying to silence his trembling breaths.
His entire body was shaking.
He did not know how the entity had known he was behind the door…
On the other side, the entity continued trying to open it.
The handle moved again, then stopped.
The door could not be opened.
Clark quickly backed away from it and returned to the sofa, then sat down as he tried to regain his composure.
He took a slow breath…
Then another.
He placed a hand over his chest, trying to calm his racing heart.
After a few moments, he raised his eyes toward the clock.
Numbers and hands had appeared on it this time, but something was wrong.
The hands were moving backward.
From the number 2…
Toward 1…
Then 0.
Clark stared at it for several seconds before understanding what it meant.
He whispered:
“In two hours…
that entity will be able to enter.”
He swallowed hard.
He did not know what would happen when the hand reached zero, but he was not prepared to find out.
He stood and hurried toward the bookshelf.
It was filled with old books, neatly arranged one atop another.
He pulled one out.
Yellowed pages.
No words.
He turned another page.
Blank.
Then another.
Nothing.
He opened a second book.
The result was the same.
And a third…
And a fourth…
All of them were completely devoid of words.
Clark remained standing before the bookshelf, the book in his hands.
Then he looked at the clock again.
The hand was slowly approaching zero.
For the first time since awakening in this place, Clark realized that he had a problem far greater than figuring out where he was.
He had to find a way out…
Before the time reached zero.
Clark sat down on the sofa again and placed the book across his lap.
He began turning the pages one after another.
One page…
Then another.
Then another.
Time passed without him finding anything.
After nearly fifteen minutes, he suddenly stopped.
There was a page unlike all the others.
It was completely golden.
There were no words on it.
Clark stared at it in confusion, then ran his fingers across its surface.
“What is this…?
Why is it blank?”
Anxiety began creeping into him.
He felt sweat gathering on his forehead, then whispered:
“I’m afraid I won’t find a solution quickly…”
He closed his eyes for a moment.
“If only I knew why I’m here.”
And suddenly…
A word appeared on the page.
Then another.
Sentences began taking shape before his eyes, as though invisible ink were writing from within the paper itself.
Clark froze.
He stared at the words, then began to read.
“You are being watched…
by the Gods of Chaos.”
His eyes widened.
Another sentence appeared.
“The Gods of Chaos seek to erase the chosen ones, so that no entity surpassing their authority can emerge.”
A shiver ran through Clark’s body.
Then the following words slowly appeared:
“They send their followers to eliminate every chosen one…
then cast their bodies into the Abyss.”
Clark remained silent.
Then the final sentence appeared.
“Your friends are being watched as well…”
The ink paused for a moment.
Then the words were completed:
“And they are in danger at every moment.”
Clark slowly closed the book.
He continued staring at it without moving.
Then he remembered his friends.
Nerv…
White…
Guanda…
Ben…
Clark stood quickly, worry still written across his face.
“I have to get back to my world as quickly as possible…”
He looked down at the book in his hand.
“I don’t know what happened to the Gate, but there has to be a way back.”
He tightened his grip around the book.
“If I can return…
maybe I can save them.”
He sat down again and began flipping through the pages rapidly, searching for anything that could help him.
Page after page.
Nothing.
Then…
Knock…
knock…
Clark’s hand froze above the page.
The sound had come from the door again.
He raised his eyes toward it for a moment, then returned his gaze to the book.
Knock…
knock…
This time, the knocking was louder.
Clark swallowed hard, but he did not stop.
He continued flipping through the pages rapidly while the sound of the handle moving behind the door came and went from time to time.
Until it suddenly stopped.
There was a different page.
Strange symbols surrounded a large circle, and in the center were clear words.
Clark stared at it, then began reading in a low voice:
“Ritual of Return to the World in Which the Chosen One Was Born…”
His eyes widened.
“I found it…”
Clark discovered that the ritual was not as complicated as he had expected.
He placed the book in front of him and opened it to the page bearing the strange symbols, then began following the steps illustrated there one by one.
There were specific positions for his hands and body, along with symbols unlike any language he knew.
Clark glanced at his finger for a moment, then bit down on the tip.
A few drops of blood emerged.
He dragged his finger across the wall and began drawing the same symbols shown in the book with his blood.
A circle…
Then a crooked line…
Then a strange symbol he could not even describe.
With every symbol he drew, he could feel something strange changing in the air around him.
When he finished, he stepped back.
Then he placed his hands before his chest, one above the other, exactly as shown in the book.
He took a deep breath.
Then he began reciting strange words.
They were not in any language he knew.
They sounded more like a collection of sounds and symbols that held no clear meaning to his mind.
Clark stopped reciting the words.
He looked at the symbols drawn across the wall, then waited.
One second…
Two seconds…
Nothing.
He furrowed his brows and said:
“Nothing happened?”
And suddenly…
A tremendous pain exploded inside his head.
Clark clutched his head with both hands and collapsed to his knees as an unbearable agony tore through him.
At the exact same moment…
Knock…
knock…
knock…
The entity began pounding on the door again.
This time, it was much harder.
The door trembled beneath the blows.
Clark tried to scream, but his voice came out mixed with pain and terror.
Then he opened his mouth and screamed with all his strength.
And suddenly, he disappeared.
…
Clark opened his eyes.
There was no door.
There was no room.
There was no clock, no bookshelf, and no entity.
He was standing in a mesmerizing nocturnal space that seemed suspended between the natural world and the realm of dreams, where the boundary between sky and earth no longer existed.
The sky was vast and clear, filled with countless tiny stars, while a glowing white crescent moon appeared on the distant horizon, surrounded by a soft halo of light.
Behind it stretched blue and cyan lights resembling the aurora borealis, flowing slowly across the heavens like rivers of light.
Clark looked down at the ground.
It was covered in water.
The water was so clear and still that it seemed like an enormous mirror perfectly reflecting the sky above, making it impossible to tell where the earth ended and the sky began.
Emerging from the water and vegetation were enormous transparent crystals.
Some were tall and sharp, resembling colossal shards of glass thrust upward from deep within the earth, while others intertwined into complex forms that seemed anything but natural.
Blue, violet, silver, and pink hues reflected across their surfaces, making them appear like natural sources of light within that world.
Luminous butterflies of different colors fluttered around him, some white, others blue and violet, while tiny particles of light floated through the air like stardust.
Among the vegetation and water were strange little creatures, including birds with unfamiliar forms and small golden dragons gliding peacefully between the crystals.
Everything was quiet.
Beautiful.
And strange in a way the mind could not explain.
The world was not merely a beautiful place…
It was the absolute embodiment of surrealism, in all its mystery and strangeness, as though some dream had somehow gained physical existence.
Clark stood motionless, staring at the scene before him, then whispered in amazement:
“What…
is this place?”