Of Shadows and Darkness

Chapter 9

I couldn't see anything or feel anything, it was just blackness. White blotches appeared in my vision and then everything blurred in a milky swirl. My eyes focused finally, I could see my hand next to my face. I was lying on the floor again. My body felt numb and prickly. I moved my fingers bit by bit until the numbness left my body and my mind could finally focus. I sat up, pain shot through my head like a branching bolt of lightning.

"Shit," I groaned and held my head. The pain eased after a few seconds. Jumping through this portal was less painful than last time.

I looked around. I was surrounded by blackness. The ground, the sky, everything was black. Gregor was on the ground beside me.

"Hi. Are you feeling alright?" he asked with a smile.

"Hi," I smiled back. "My head aches but it's not as bad as before."

"That's good. Also you were holding this when you came through the portal," said Gregor and held up the crystal.

"Oh okay," I said. Gregor grabbed my bag which was lying on the ground on the other side of Gregor.

"I took this off while you were sleeping, it didn't look comfortable."

"How long was I asleep?"

"Maybe ten minutes. You collapsed when we arrived here." said Gregor.

"And where is here exactly?" I asked as I looked around.

"About that...I seemed to have messed up really bad. Sorry," said Gregor and turned away from me.

"What do you mean?" I asked. I looked around again my mind feeling a bit more awake. There really was nothing around us, just blackness. I looked up and there was a large white cube floating a hundred feet in the sky. "Gregor...where are we?"

Gregor's body slumped. "I'm sorry Tristan."

"Where are we?!" I snapped. An ache still echoed in the back of my skull. I was tired, scared and angry. I wasn't fair to take it out on Gregor but I was too angry to care about what was fair.

"In a nightmare realm...I think," mumbled Gregor.

I laughed. Partly in disbelief and partly because I could not process what he said so my reflex was to laugh. "You're lying."

"I wish I was. But that is the only explanation which seems reasonable," replied Gregor.

"But nightmare realms aren't real," I rebuked. "They're urban legends or creepy pastas. Just stories you read about or what people theorize happen when you fall off the edge of a realm. But there has never been real proof."

Gregor smirked. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand at the white box and the darkness. "Exhibit A."

I groaned and glowered at him. "It's not funny."

"I'm not saying it is," shrugged Gregor.

"How-" I mumbled. How did we get here? How long have we been here? How can we get back to reality?

"My theory," began Gregor almost as if he read my mind. "Is that either the door malfunctioned or I put in the wrong dimension code."

"But you said you knew what you were doing," I whined.

"I thought I did," said Gregor. "But I also didn't know exactly how old the door was. About sixty years ago when they started discovering more realms they changed the coding system so I might have set a code that didn't exist when the door was made. So..."

"So we ended up in a nightmare realm?"

"Yeah. At least that's what I think," replied Gregor.

"Fuck me," I groaned.