Chapter 1 - A New Universe

At first Nate wondered if he was dead. Was this all his life was going to end up amounting to? A few pieces of art before dying shortly after he turned eighteen? These thoughts plagued his mind for an unknown amount of time before feeling and sight began to return to him. As they did, his jaw dropped in awe, and he sucked in a breath.

He was inside something like a bubble, suspended in the middle of it. The reason sight was returning to him was obvious now. The bubble itself was slowly becoming translucent, revealing the bubble’s surroundings. And what a vision that was. It was like an artist had decided to paint the universe in all its glory in every colour of the spectrum. A rainbow of planets and misty swirls that somehow seemed to connect everything.

Nate could barely breathe; such was the effect on him, but slowly he began to feel a prickling on his arms. He glanced down expecting to see some substance stuck to his skin causing the irritation but found nothing there. Looking himself over repeatedly, he kept expecting something to change but as the minutes ticked by the prickling remained and he could see no reaction from his skin anywhere. It was uncomfortable but not truly painful. Like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

The feeling held his attention so long that he almost didn’t notice the white light approaching. At the last moment he looked up as it appeared in his peripheral vision and realised he was hurtling towards the only speck of white in his vision. Nate had a moment of realisation right before his bubble reached the fast-approaching white light. There had been no black or white in that place he had just been, besides the dot of white he had been hurtling towards. That was his last thought before his bubble collided with the white light, unceremoniously catapulting him into it.

Flying out of the other side of the white light Nate landed badly on his forearms, the impact sending a blast of electricity up his arms and to his shoulders as his nerves screamed. He rolled onto his back letting out a pained moan. Blinking through tears from the pain, Nate managed to glance around and take in his surroundings.

The only thing he could compare it to was the interior of a spaceship, though that wasn’t quite right. Smooth curved metallic walls encircled the room, however, instead of computers and electronics the walls were covered in weird symbols. The symbols looked like geometric shapes crossed with hieroglyphs and interspersed between them were brightly glowing gems in every colour of the rainbow. Through the haze of pain, Nate had a thought that he’d somehow survived the black hole only to land on a spaceship disco rave. That made him laugh, which helped the pain fade a little faster.

Sitting up Nate prepared to take in his surroundings but he felt the prickling on his skin again, only this time much worse. He looked down at his arms, trying to find the cause as the prickling grew stronger, becoming painful. As he was about to scream, a creature entered the room through a side door he hadn’t seen. Nate tried to take in the creature’s appearance, but he couldn’t think of anything else as the pain became more intense until his body felt like it was burning, and he began to scream.

His skin looked fine, but he felt like his whole body was on fire, cooking him from the inside out. Rolling back and forth he knew he was dying. Whatever this was, his body couldn’t handle it. He kept thrashing back and forth for what was probably a minute or two but felt like hours before the burning sensation began to subside. As the pain decreased all he could do was cry from relief until he finally stopped sobbing and lay still on the metallic floor, drenched in sweat.

“Vic darr unte gor misc xeralla voif?”

Nate, groaning, had no idea what the noise was before it came again.

The second time he could hear the forcefulness in the voice. The tone had changed. Gotten deeper.

“Vic darr unte gor misc xeralla voif?”

Nate sat up slowly and responded, “I don’t know what you’re saying.” His voice sounded worn and small to his own ears. Tired, scared, and hurting.

The pause gave him a moment to take in the creature. It was bipedal, like him. That was where the similarities ended. It was a pale purple colour and must have stood at almost three metres, towering over Nate. Where Nate had two arms, this creature had four, evenly spaced, with what looked like three fingers on each hand, though one was opposable, so he supposed that it had two fingers and a thumb per hand. It also had four eyes, two in front, like a human, and two sitting slightly higher on its head, and to the sides, closer to that of a bird. That thought gave Nate pause. Bird, this thing was not a bird. It looked built like a mountain, rippling with muscle. The creature’s head was bereft of hair and while it looked like it had a mouth and lips similar to a human, it had no nose to speak of. Instead, it had a couple of slits like those bad movies with humanoid snakes.

Nate was still staring at the creature in a mix of shock, fear, and awe, when it held out its hand toward him. He was leaning back expecting the worst, but his panic spiked as a series of golden symbols appeared in the air between them then shot into his face before he could react. Nate reached up to touch his face expecting to feel melted skin, but oddly enough he felt just fine.

“Can you understand me now?”

Nate looked back up in shock at the creature.

“You can speak English?” Nate sat up.

“I am not speaking whatever English is, mortal. I am speaking High Valli. The spell is translating for you,” snorted the creature, its voice a deep baritone. “Now, answer my question. How did you get into my portal room?”

“Portal room? That black hole was a portal? Where am I?”

Kneeling down the creature looked at Nate curiously. “How does a mortal end up passing through a portal without knowing what a portal is? Are you from a wild realm?” The creature continued, not waiting for a response. “No, you could not be from a wild realm. If you were, you wouldn’t have started suffering from the mana density differential. No, it is more likely you are from a Dead Realm. Am I right, mortal? Are you from a dead universe?”

“What is a dead universe?” Nate couldn’t help leaning into the hope that this creature didn’t actually mean him harm. Though, it did have an odd way of referring to him. Mortal? Did that mean it viewed itself as a God? Was that a thing?

“A universe that lacks a mana density necessary to employ magic,” responded the creature.

“I think…I think it’s probably a dead universe. I’ve never seen anything I would describe as magic.”

“I see. I see. That helps me to understand your reaction to the environment of my research facility. It does not explain how you got into my portal room. Tell me about the events that led to you arriving here.”

The creature’s four eyes all focused on Nate, and he felt a pressure descend on him that convinced him that lying would be the worst thing he could do. Up until now he had led a life of self-sufficiency and the greatest lesson he had taken from that life was to roll with the punches. While this situation was so far out of his comfort zone, he knew if he wanted to get out the other side all he could do was attempt to adapt. Taking his time, Nate explained his artwork and the black hole, then the travel through the galactic rainbow before he arrived in this room. The creature listened to him without moving until he had finished.

The purple giant held up his hand in front of Nate. “This artwork you speak of, did it look like this?” An image appeared in front of its held-up hand, geometric and arcane but it wasn’t quite the same, so Nate shook his head. As he did so the creature changed the image it projected. Another shake of his head. The image kept changing until the sixth image was shown and Nate blanched. It was the exact same as his artwork and he nodded apprehensively.

“How unlucky for you, mortal. It seems you created the connection rune used by one of my Heralds.”

“Umm, why is that unlucky? Can’t you just use it to open it back up and send me back?” Nate looked at the purple giant hopefully.

“Obviously not. Oh, I suppose it's not obvious to you. A simple explanation then. It’s been so long since I conversed with a mortal. Give me a moment so that I can phrase it in a way that you can hopefully understand.”

Nate felt a little condescended too. But then he also realised he probably knew nothing about portals, or magic, for that matter.

The creature nodded, as if to itself, and launched into its explanation. “A portal is two points connected across space. To do that the two points need to be defined. We call these anchors. That rune you drew was an anchor and it has a matching anchor in this room.

“Normally, that wouldn’t cause any problems. But you are from a dead universe. And dead universes lack mana. That means when you created the connection, my portal room powered the entire connection. That mana, crossing into a dead universe, would have destroyed the anchor on your side. Your anchor is gone. And as it is a dead universe, we have no way to find the way back to it except by random chance. Like searching for a single grain of sand on a planetary body. Are you understanding this?”

“So, you’re saying I am stuck here. That there is nothing you can do?” Nate pleaded.

“Yes, mortal. You could spend multiple lifetimes trying to find your dead universe and then sending a message for someone to create an anchor and still fail. You are ‘stuck’ here as you put it.” The creature looked at him and, though it was hard to tell, he thought it felt sorry for him.

Nate lay back down on the floor and stared at the ceiling. It was covered in hieroglyphs that he now realised were the runes the purple giant spoke of. He realised he could almost make sense of them, but he was distracted by his distress. He was stuck here. His life as he knew it was over. This was definitely not what he had been expecting. He had a few friends from school that would miss him, definitely Michael and Jung, but, in that moment, he realised that he had been alone most of his life. Never like this, though. He was truly alone now. He had no one anymore. The thought brought tears to his eyes. It was like when he had lost his parents, only this time he had lost everything and everyone. Nate didn’t know what to do.

“I am sorry for your loss, mortal. But you cannot stay here.” The words of the creature brought Nate out of his reverie, and he sat back up slowly, looking up at the purple giant.

“Oh. Yeah. Your portal room. I guess I am kind of in the way, aren’t I. Where will I go?” Nate asked absently. He was so lost he wasn’t sure the answer mattered anyway.

“You misunderstand me, mortal. I would let you stay if you could. But the only thing preventing the mana density of my research facility burning you out is me. I am actively blocking the mana from you. I cannot do that and manage my research. So, you cannot stay here. I will send you down to the planetary body we are orbiting. It has mortals like you. Humans, among other things.”

Nate blinked in shock. “Wait, the planet has humans on it?”

“Oh yes. It’s not that surprising. You are one of the most common races in the multiverse. The mana density of the planet will likely be a little uncomfortable for you initially, but it won’t burn you out. I will make you an offer. I sense something interesting in your pocket. If you give it to me, I will give you a few things to help you survive down there. I will also make the translation spell I cast on you permanent, so you can communicate with the native mortals. What do you say, mortal?”

Nate reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Something interesting? Do you mean this?”

The creature nodded to him and held out its hand for his phone. Nate couldn’t see a reason not to. The phone was useless now and he was about to be kicked out into the unknown. Whatever this creature was, it had means to create portals that crossed the multiverse as it put it. Hopefully, whatever it gave him would help keep Nate alive in this new world. Because, for all the loneliness he felt, disconnected from everything he had ever known, Nate still wanted to live.

Nate nodded back and handed his phone to the creature. It looked tiny in the creature’s three fingered hand.

The creature made a face that made Nate think it was pleased. “Fascinating little invention. Very well, wait here while I collect a few things. Do not touch anything, mortal. For your safety. I doubt you could damage anything in this room, but I assure you, some of those runes or the mana in those crystals, is more than capable of frying you from the inside out.”

With those parting words, the purple giant left through the door it had come and Nate lay back down on the cold metallic floor. Staring at the ceiling as he tried to piece together his thoughts, he began to notice that he really could make sense of the runes if he focused on them.

Staring at one it evoked multiple words in his mind. Trying to parse what his brain was telling him he slowly drew out the individual words. The rune was geometric and arcane. Much like his artwork. With circles and whorls and clean lines interspersed with little pictures that could’ve been runes or hieroglyphs. He realised it was these images that were evoking the concept of language in him.

The one that looked like a round shield with a slice of pie in it, that meant Barrier. And the one that looked like layered pyramids with a circle on top, that meant Strength. Wait, that was wrong, it meant more than just strength. It meant Strongest. The apex of strength. Another had two little arrows pointing away from each other with a line in between them. Nate could tell that it meant Both Directions.

After Nate had committed that one rune to memory he began to glance at others. Power was concentric circles with a sunburst at the centre. Fitting, if anything was power it was a star after all. There were multiple ways to define connection apparently as he saw it written in at least eight different ways, always using wavy lines. Sometimes, when it hinted it was connecting multiple runes the wavy lines would be overlapped horizontally and vertically. It was beautiful to Nate. And it was enough to distract him from the fact that bubbled deep down. That he was now more alone than he ever had been. He wondered how long it would be before his friends, Michael and Jung, began to suspect he’d gone missing.

Nate tried to maintain the distraction but now that the thought had overtaken him, he couldn’t let it go. He lay there on the floor, wallowing in his grief for what could’ve been a minute or an hour before he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. It was almost time for him to leave, it seemed.