The Other Side of the Door (Doors of the Dreamer, Chapter 2)
Unseen enemy
Author’s note: For the month of July I am challenging myself to write and post one chapter a day with minimal planning and outlining. You can read the first chapter of Doors of the Dreamer here.
Something whistled past his ear and slammed into the door behind him.
He leapt away. Scrambling behind one of the seats, he scanned the room. Still empty. He caught a glimpse of the freestanding door, which now stood ajar. There was something beyond it. It was decidedly not a door to nowhere. Before he could make sense of this, the seat in front of him was plucked like a flower and hung suspended in midair.
David’s instincts finally caught up to him, and he ran.
He made it up a couple of steps before pain exploded in his back and the ground rushed up to meet him. Somehow he managed to stop his fall with his free hand—the other still clutched his smartphone—and he clambered up out of the theater like a wounded animal.
He reached the hallway before he collapsed. The blow had knocked the wind out of him, and he lay on the floor sucking in breath. His vision narrowed. His mind spun, trying to assemble a coherent thought. In his right ear he heard the jingle again. It was the sound effect Doors of the Dreamer played when a monster was nearby. He dragged his phone up to his face. Towering over David’s avatar was a creature that appeared to him a blur of black and red, and as his brain tried to make sense of its shape, seemed vaguely familiar.
Still gasping for air, he pushed himself up. He had to get back out to the street. After that, he didn’t know. He staggered forward. Something blocked him. He realized he was going to die.
His unseen enemy struck him in the temple, and his legs buckled.
Consciousness came and went. David remembered being bound, carried, and tossed onto a hard surface.
Stalker. The word floated up out of the depths of his memory. An insectoid creature based on the real-world mantis, black as midnight with bulbous red eyes, taller than a man, and forelegs that could fold in on themselves before shooting out like a boxer’s punch. That was the monster he had seen on his phone.
He saw other monsters now. Not constructs of a game, but flesh and blood. Some looked almost human, others not so much.
Had he made some mistake? Was this his fault? Was Oliver okay? How long would it be before anyone realized he was gone?
Darkness took him.
When David awoke, there was a continuous low rumbling like distant thunder. With some effort—his hands and feet were bound and every muscle in his body ached—he flipped himself on his side. He was in the bed of a carriage or cart that was being pulled by some huge, grotesque creature. The cart was enclosed by wooden boards on all four sides, limiting his sight lines. He struggled against the rope around his wrists, but it held.
“Where are you taking me?” His words came out strained and frail.
The beast did not respond. Instead, a gray, oblong head appeared, peering over the side of the cart with beady eyes. David repeated his question, with more force this time.
“To the Dreamer, of course!”
David winced. The gray creature spoke like it was laughing. Its voice was razor wire in his brain. He wanted to ask it more, but he also never wanted to hear it talk again. It had other ideas.
“Ah! I see! You humans are always so particular about these things! You are under arrest! You have the right to remain silent or some such! Ha! Just kidding! You have no rights here, you worm!”
Every sentence was an exclamation. Every syllable was emphasized.
“You’re lucky the Dreamer wants you, or you’d be dead already! Ha!”
“Why—”
“Though he’s just going to kill you if you aren’t useful to him! Understand this!”
“What—”
“Ha! What a pathetic existence you are, worm! Perhaps I should kill you myself and spare us all the effort!”
David, realizing he was going to get nowhere trying to question this imp, instead focused on contorting his body such that he could sit up. With his hands tied behind his back, this proved more difficult than he expected. He had managed to force himself onto his knees when the gray thing uttered some noise and the beast came to an abrupt halt, flinging David back onto his side.
“Careful! Do not be foolish, or I will slice your peeper!” A bony arm had joined the face, and it held a long knife inches away from David’s eyeball.
“Ha! I want to do it! I want to hurt you so badly!” The knife quivered.
A strange coolness came over David. “Do it, or shut up and leave me alone.”
“You have nothing! No power! Ha! You are alone!”
“Be quiet.”
“Worthless worm! You should be grateful! We have given you a chance to do something meaningful—”
“For God’s sake, stop talking.”
At last, it was silent. Its face twisted into a wrinkled, toothy sneer before it retreated. It barked another command at the beast, which resumed its trek.
David exhaled, feeling relief for the first time since entering the movie theater. He was in a strange place, he was likely to be killed, and every bump in the road jolted the cart and inflamed the aches pervading his body, yet he still drew breath. He knew of only one thing he could do in this situation: pray.
They must have traveled for at least half a day. David had little sense of time in this place; every time he craned his neck to look skyward, he saw only a bruised purple. There was light, but it never seemed to change. After a while he closed his eyes and tried to rest, but his sleep was shallow. Once, he noticed a shadow pass over him and looked up expecting to see some hideous bird. It was a highway sign. In his surprise he attempted to sit up, forgetting the ropes, and smacked his head against the wood. Thankfully, that did not seem to elicit any response from the gray creature. David scooted himself over to the rear end of the cart and pressed his face against the boards. Peering between them, he realized that he was looking at the back side of the sign. The world he saw—at least, this tiny slice of it—looked strange and flat to him, but one thing was unmistakable. They were traveling along a highway. He flipped himself over and watched for another sign.
Time dragged on. His stomach rumbled and his throat was dry. The discomfort kept him from dozing off, at least. And the gray impish thing had not made another appearance. These little silver linings kept him going.
Eventually, they passed another highway sign. David smiled. He knew where they were, or at least, where they should have been. But this new information began to confuse him the more he considered it.
The cart stopped. The beast’s head was gone. Its body sunk under its own weight, but never let go of the cart. David froze. He heard the gray creature yell in another language, then suddenly squeal like a dying pig.
Footsteps. Something approached. There was a metallic clinking as it moved. Adrenaline flooded David’s mind. He tried the ropes one more time. No luck. Should he play dead?
Whatever it was reached the cart and jumped inside.
“You alive?”
Very slowly, he opened one eye. Standing over him was a suit of medieval armor. He prayed there was a human being inside.