Stranded on the Other Side

It was eleven p.m. when twelve year old Benjamin Mills rested his head on the living room coffee table. His brown hair hung limply to the side and his left cheek scrunched against the wooden surface. As the television behind him droned lowly, he burbled incoherently in his sleep. The clock on the wall ticked the minutes away.

He had spent the day mentally exhausting himself with musings about a looming and inescapable adulthood drawing ever so near. Adulthood, and all the negative things he'd seen come from it, wasn't something he was excited about.

It was the thirty-first of October. While this might seem inconsequential, it was a very important day. Not only was it Halloween, but also Benjamin's thirteenth birthday. At the stroke of midnight, he would be a teenager.

Little did he know that would be the least of his worries ...

The basement opened with a loud bang that startled him from his slumber. Squinting away the sleep, he looked around and reached for the cellphone beside him. A message notification displayed on the screen:

Happy Birthday sweetie!
Sorry I couldn't be there. Have a double shift.
Love you!

Mom

He set the phone down and walked into the corridor. The clock chimed and announced the beginning of a new day. A peculiar feeling overcame him when he peered into the darkness. Cautiously stepping through the doorway, he flipped the light switch and descended the steps.

The basement was empty and a small window facing the stairs was closed. There shouldn't have been any reason the door slammed open the way it did.

Something was different.

He looked around and noticed a door on the far wall.

"Where'd that come from?" He approached it slowly.

White and blue symbols glowed on its surface. Yellow and red colors intricately decorated the frame. Its golden handle had a spiral beveled into it. He reached out and turned it.

With the final click, the basement door slammed shut and the strange door burst open. Before he could notice, an invisible force pulled him through the doorway.

Lifting himself from the ground, he looked back to see the door had closed, but he wasn't in his yard. The land around him was peculiar.

Gnarled and blackened trees surrounded him. The air was warm and humid. A gentle gust of wind carried a putrid moldy smell with it. Looking down, he saw his white Converse sneakers digging into some sort of bubbling, slimy gray mud.

He reached around to open the door, but it was locked. The knob jostled in his hand and resisted to turn.

Several squelching sounds came from different directions. A brown figure rushed towards him. When he turned his head, a gloved hand grabbed his forearm.

"Run!" The woman yelled at him and pulled him with her.

He stumbled to regain his balance. Awkwardly jogging behind her, while she stomped through the mud. "Who are you? What the hell is this place?"

"Does this look like teatime to you?!?" She looked back at him with glowing green eyes and face aflame. "Come!"

Beams of light zipped and zapped into a tree nearby. A large translucent bubble expanded and receded, leaving the trunk with a glowing red gash in the center.

"What the hell was that?!?" Benjamin screamed.

"Here!" She pushed him into a hidden tunnel between two trees and covered the entrance with several branches.

Lighting a torch, she led him down the corridor. The flickering light illuminated curved walls containing crystalline shards that shimmered with several bright colors.

"Name's Mel." She said and opened a hidden door to a large room.

"Benjamin."

He looked at the scribbles that filled up one of the walls. The parallel wall was covered with clocks that ticked faster than normal.

"Time's different here. A day is 168 hours. A year is actually 7 years. The plasma ball you saw is from The Eaters."

"Huh!?"

"They look like you, but they're monsters that eat humans."

He trembled. "Monsters? That eat humans??"

"Just had to open the door, huh?" She lifts a thin eyebrow.

"It was locked!"

"You can't leave through it. For that, you need to find a cellar door."

"Great! How do I find one of those?" He nervously smiled.

She grimaced. "They appear at random places for thirty-five hours. Better get comfy though, we're dead if we go out right now. But ... next one's due after a month."

His brown eyes widened. "A month?!?"

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***[746 words]

Yet more; the diff'rence is as great between
The optics seeing, as the objects seen.
All manners take a tincture from our own;
Or come discolour'd through our passions shown.
Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies,
Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.
     Nor will life's stream for observation stay,
It hurries all too fast to mark their way:
In vain sedate reflections we would make,
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.

Alexander Pope

I might develop this story into a novelette in the future. Thank you for reading!