Yug's Portfolio

Volcanoes exploding, dinosaurs fleeing in the opposite direction, I was scrambled towards the volcano from an orb-like creature, black with dark, flowing tentacles suspended in mid-air. The ground shook underfoot as I raced over the rocky ground, aching for breath in my lungs from running. My eyes scaled the volcano, stopping at a frozen door carved into the volcano’s fringes. I sprinted for it.

I entered a tundra, where frost giants roamed, pale blue eyes glowing in the dark. Battles between saber-toothed tigers and mammoth creatures resounded in the distance. The orb appeared behind me, but time itself froze. The monster devoured everything in front of it, ejecting darkness as if ink droplets in water were diluting together. Additional doors emerged, bearing strange signs with symbols written in a foreign language. One led to a grassland of flying horses. Another corridor led to an ocean where fish hung suspended in mid-air. One led to cliffs overlooking a black abyss. Doors then completely stopped appearing. The creature pushed me to a corner at the foot of a cliff, where I presumed to look down, only to find myself reflected in the black void below. The tentacles closed in around me.

I woke up suddenly, gasping for air. I realized that I was in my room, but it was dark, although sunlight filtered between the blinds, lying upon stacks of old books I owned. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I trembled in my hand as I turned to pick up my journal from my study desk.

       Every sight I experienced always resembled this. I always ran away from this ball. I didn’t know what it wanted, but I knew I felt it closing in around me every time.

The streets were empty that morning. The sky was a pale shade of gray, and the air felt heavy, as if it were expecting something to happen. My two best friends, Arden and Chris, waited for me at the library. Only they knew about my peculiar dreams.

Arden leaned forward to look at me intently. “Orion, you look as if you have had little to no sleep.”

“I didn’t,” I muttered. “It was worse this time. The orb followed me across worlds. I think it is real.”

Chris scowled at him. “You always say that. Maybe it’s just another nightmare.”

“No,” I snapped. “It wasn’t the same. It feels alive, as if it is searching for something.”

Arden looked thoughtful. “You said symbols appeared on the doors. Did you write them down?” she asked.

I took out my journal to show her sketches I’d copied from dreams I’d had. She traced her finger over a sketch to examine it better.

“These are ancient runes.” “These look like those of mythological texts from old times.”

“Where are they from?” I asked.

“Old stories,” she said. “Some say they mark gates between worlds.”

Chris raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Between worlds? Are you telling me this orb is from another world?”

Arden nodded slowly. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it was trapped there.”

For hours, we pored over ancient texts and documents for answers. One of which, an explorer’s logbook, belonged to a person named Angus Paddington. His account told of an artifact he referred to as The Orb of the Abyss, which functioned as a feeder using worlds as fuel for sustenance, having long been sealed away by the Storymaker.

I felt my hands turn icy cold. As I spoke, I exclaimed to myself, “That’s what I’ve been seeing! That’s gotta be it.”

Arden’s voice turned low. “According to the journal, it awakened when a person began to dream of it.”

“Then you are the one it has chosen.” Chris turned to look at me.

The room fell silent. The library lights began to flicker, and for a moment, I could have sworn I heard whispering, a heavy, pulsating chant that seemed to issue from nowhere at all. I met her eyes. Arden closed her book deliberately. “We have to check for the existence of the seal.”

We headed out to find the seal, and as we moved to all the possible locations there were of where the storyteller could be, I felt myself being pulled to the center of the town like a moth to a light. I realized that the place I was being pulled to was probably the seal, and there was only one place we thought the Storymaker hid the seal, in the antique bookstore that was in the alleyway.

“This could be dangerous; we need to prepare ourselves and gear up.” Arden was right; we all realized that we were all getting way over our heads if we thought that we could win against that thing, the Orb, without further preparation. 

That evening, we proceeded to the bookstore, where we saw similar flickering lights as in the library when we were discussing the Orb. Chris was the first to break the tension in the air, “Guys, I think this is the place.” We went into the bookstore, as the bell rang, as if to signal the Orb of our presence. We wandered around the bookstore, trying to find the seal inside the books.

“H-Hey guys? I think I figured out where the dreams came from,” Arden stammered, as she read the books that had the same settings as all the visions I had. I kept reading, finding out that the accounts of the protagonist were the same as what was happening to me. I realized, “Wait, this is talking about us, our discovery about the orb, even about this exact book.”

“Wh-What? How’s that possible? The book looks like it’s centuries old.” Chris sputtered.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed the flickering light shake, like something was lurking. “Who’s there? Show yourselves,” I shifted into a defensive position, as if to get ready to face something in the darkness.

Then all of a sudden, the book started levitating, pages flipping on their own. Each page’s letters started flowing out, spinning rapidly around us rapidly, as if conjuring a portal to trap us in some unknown dimension. Then, all the letters exploded, splattering all over the walls, books, and everything around us. 

Arden’s voice was shaky after witnessing such trickery. “W-what was that?”

“I don’t know, but I think we’re getting closer to the truth,” I whispered. “We need to be careful. If we don’t tread carefully, we might lose ourselves or get lost.”

“Y-yeah, he’s right, let’s stay together,” Chris quivered.

Then, suddenly, we jumped, hearing a loud CRASH, Chris on the verge of tears, and Arden was like a scared cat. We tiptoed to the source and saw a bookshelf in tatters, with books sprawled everywhere. 

“Wait, what is that? There’s something in here,” Arden squeaked. She lifted the bookshelf to find some traces of a black sludge, leading to a trapdoor, which was hidden by an antique carpet. 

As I stood before the trapdoor, a sense of belonging washed over me. This was where the seal was hidden. I pulled my flashlight out of the bag and shone it into the dark abyss that was inside the crevice, to see no end, just steps of ladders leading downward. Come to me, Orion.

“I can sense it. The seal, I mean. I can hear a voice telling me to go down.” I urged, my voice growing louder and louder. 

“I don’t know. What if it’s a trap?” Chris whimpered. “I don’t think we should go. I know we’re too far in now, but everything points to this being a trap.”

“Ye-Yeah, I agree with Chris. Orion, we shouldn’t go in there,” Arden interjected, to console and convince me.

“NO. I am going in, without you or not.” I felt something else take control, speaking for me, and I started heading down by myself. 

Arden sighed as she followed me down. “I’m not letting you go by yourself, I’m coming with you. We need at least one person who’s in their right mind.”

“H-Hey guys! Don’t leave me, take me with you.” Chris hesitantly muttered. “I swear I’m going to murder you guys once this is all over.”

We kept going down until we couldn’t even feel the icy steel bars, let alone see the place we started from. I looked down to see a faint, but apparent light down below. 

“Hey guys, I see the bottom, I’m going ahead of you guys,”  I yelled, brimming with excitement and anticipation, to find out what needed such secure protection.

When I reached down, I found some more ancient inscriptions, inscribed all over, with some of the same runes that I saw in my visions. The moment Arden and Chris reached down, the torches that were on the wall blew out simultaneously. Arden and I clicked our flashlights, attempting to turn it on, to no avail.

“Wait, guys, let me turn on my flashlight.” Chris’s voice shook. “Tell me that is not what I think it is.” As he flashed it around, he shone in one place, where the seal used to be. “Wait, where’s the orb?”

“Umm, Chris, move towards us very slowly,” I warned, after spotting the Orb of Abyss right above him. As soon as he started moving, the orb vibrated. A ripple disturbed its surface, as if a stone had been thrown into water. A deep resonance pulsed in the room, like a heartbeat.

“It’s awake,” Arden whispered

The orb started to rise, and tendrils stretched out into the air. The runes began to flicker upon the walls. I felt something in my mind, a building force for every passing heartbeat. A voice rang in my mind, a gentle but icy whisper. You cannot hide from me.

I staggered backward, clutching my head in agony. Arden grabbed my elbow, pulling me toward the doorway, but before I could get to it, the ground cracked open beneath our feet. The cave began to shift, causing the lighting from the runes to be painful to look at, but I heard Chris yell before everything went white.

As I slowly regained consciousness, I realized I was in the tundra from my previous dream. The stinging air pricked at my skin. Arden and Chris were by my side, both of them looking like they were scared to death. The orb hung before us, larger than it had ever been before. The voice resonated in the icy air. “You are the ones who broke the seal.”

Arden raised her sword to strike at the nearest tentacle, but it passed harmlessly through her as if she herself were smoke itself. “We have to close the gate!” she yelled. “The runes! We can reuse them.”

I scanned around, taking in distant semicircles of light materializing upon the ice’s surface. Those symbols, from before, in the cave. We all loped towards lit areas, chiseling those symbols upon the ice with anything at hand. The orb shrieked, quivering in the sky itself. The ground split apart, spewing forth black, vital energy in zigzagging waves. Chris was bodily hurled to the ice, but Arden knelt quickly to help him to his feet.

“Keep going,” she yelled.

I pushed my hand into the ice to complete the tracing of the final sigil. The lines began to connect, forming a web of illumination across the tundra. The sphere turned, its form dissolving away. The darkness encasing it folded in.

A roar of wind, and then the symbols flashed brighter until they filled everything in sight with radiance.

Then, silence.

As I slowly reopened my eyes, I found myself lying on the ground in the cave. A throbbing in my head, in addition to an odor of smoke mixed with salt, invaded my senses. Arden is sitting by my side, tending to Chris’s wounded hand, which is covered in ice.

Arden scanned her surroundings, whispering, “I think it did.”

The orb disappeared altogether. Only faint traces of what had taken place lingered upon the ground, glowing faintly, like dying coals. The walls of the cave held no sound; the runes did not shift. Chris, it seemed, was weary to his bones. “Is it really over?” I hesitated in responding to him. The quiet between us was unusual, heavy in a disturbing kind of way. 

I walked towards the wall, where a faint thrum indicated one of the runic symbols. A reflection appeared in its surface. My eyes were faintly golden in this reflected gaze. I took a step backward. “Something changed,” I said. 

Arden frowned. “What do you mean?” “I don’t know. I feel like it’s a part of it that’s still here.” 

Chris rubbed his forehead in consternation. “Let’s just leave. We’ll work it out later.” 

     We returned to the cliffs as the first signs of dawn began to appear in the sky. The sea grew calm, its tides almost gentle as they lapped at the rocks below. Arden turned to head back to the cave. “We must destroy the journal,” she said softly.

“Not yet,” I said. “Someone has to remember what happened. If it ever returns, people need to know.”

She nodded reluctantly.

     The three of us just stood there for a moment, watching as the sun rose over the horizon. The world seemed to be at peace, undisturbed.     But inside, I could feel it even then, that heartbeat, slow but strong, that didn’t belong to me.