Anyone who has ever worked in an office knows they are not the most inspiring of work spaces. The Gatekeeper's office is certainly no exception. While the floor space is a generous eleven feet square there are no windows, only one door and a desk of Brobdingnagian proportion fills most of the space. In fact, it might be considered comically oversized were it not for the mountain range of paperwork adorning its polished wooden surface.
Slouching forward behind the steadily growing kingdom of pending forms and requisitions was The Gatekeeper. Narrow, red rimmed glasses slid down her freckle smeared nose and her eyes, grey as aged granite, peered intently at the yellow form in front of her.
The sharp ringing of a phone screamed, shattering the stale silence. The Gatekeeper moved various collections of paperwork aside, trying to find where the device was buried. At long last her fingers wrapped around the receiver. Lifting it from its dock, she set it to her ear.
"Yes?" She answered.
"Moira, we have a rift in dimension 746G." A male voice, one of the Janitors, stated.
She stifled a weary sigh, knowing she had told them countless times not to call her by her first name. Instead of chiding them for the umpteenth time, Moira nodded. "On my way."
She heard the Janitor suck in a gentle breath, gearing up to engage in idle banter (something she had also instructed them not to do on several occasions). Uninterested in wasting her time on such a tedious endeavour, she set the receiver back on its hook and stood, taking a few minutes to smooth the creases from her prim black jacket and matching skirt before starting forward.
As Moira approached the door, her hand sought the chain of keys attached to her hips. There were over a hundred keys in all shapes and sizes slipped around the silver hoop held captive by a glittering metal chain. Upon selecting the appropriate one she slid it smoothly into the brass lock and twisted. A series of clunks and clicks and scrapes, like the turning of many cogs, echoed through the door. When the mechanical symphony fell still, Moira pulled out the key, opened the door and strode purposefully out onto a lively high street. There was no time to waste.
~*~*~
Dark storm clouds swirl and writhe, torn apart by forks of lightening. The winding path to the black castle is dark and dangerous yet still the hero rides upon his glorious steed across it. He draws close to the snarled gates under the unwavering gaze of the stone gargoyles hunched at their perches, their eyes red and scorching. The hero pauses to take in the monolith of black stone and bones. The path before him is littered with the broken shells of armour left by those who had come before him and failed.
The hero could not fail. Not now.
Lifting his visor, his eyes ...
Erica stared at the words on the page, squinting hard, trying to visualise what colour the hero's eyes were. Setting her pen back onto the page of the notebook she began again.
Lifting his visor, his eyes were a resplendent blue ...
Erica crossed it out. Not blue. Too many heroes had blue eyes.
Lifting his visor, his eyes were rich and youthful brown ...
Her shoulders heaved. No. Brown didn't seem right either. Perhaps they could be green, like hers, or maybe a more fantastical shade like purple or pink?
Slumping dejectedly, she took several long, hard gulps of coffee.
"Sorry, Erica, we're closing in ten minutes." A familiar voice chirped.
YOU ARE READING
The Gatekeeper
Adventure"If a story seems to be telling itself, it probably is." What if the last thing you read or watched actually happened? What if superheroes fought their arch nemesis in epic battles, or dungeons and dragons were real, or warring factions battled for...
