Bonded by the Blues | A Sander Sides Book

Chapter 32 - Dorian's Story

Hi guys! I feel like it's been ages since we last met but I guess it was just a long week for me.

Hope you like the picture. I don't plan on making it a regular feature, I just felt that the picture was too good to pass for this chapter.

I've never tried writing like this before, in a more disjointed POV hopping Dan Brown/ James Patterson style. I might have to ask you to suspend your disbelief for this chapter, I've tried hard to keep things relatively grounded in reality but there's so much I can do! I hope you like fantasy/ Sci-Fi stuff, there's plenty of that in this!

CW: Violence, blood, death, nudity (not sexual), implied sex. Please request for a sanitised version on the chapter if you would prefer one. Whatever is in this chapter is real mild. 

Read on...

Imagine a labyrinth. Circles within circles. The shrubbery was cut in severe geometrical shapes, and row upon row extended in all directions, forming a convoluted maze with twisted paths that would disoriented the most seasoned of hunters born and bred in a jungle, and traps that would foil the most attuned and watchful of minds. Each concentric circle grew smaller towards the centre, and hulking dull green hedges formed the innermost circle, which was only broken in four places, one at each point on a compass. The labyrinth hid in its nucleus the remains of the once stately fountain, like a precious gemstone hidden in the coils of a snake. The pulverised masonry of the fountain and lay in scattered fragments, possibly by the portal that droned and scorched where the spout had been...

A swirling vortex of pulsating white energy hovered among the ruins of the lapis lazuli structure, and the static hushed air was rippled by footsteps beating rhythmically on the dark and misty gravel path leading towards it.

"Dorian!"

The footsteps paused. Their owner turned to look back the way he had come.

"Dorian!"

He heard the fall of frenzied feet and panted breath through the hedges. She was catching up fast, but he knew she could not follow him through to the other dimension. He must hurry.

He ran to the portal and paused a foot away, feeling the atoms of his skin peeling off and sucking into the swirl of blue.

"DORIAN!" She broke through the hedges, picking up speed when she saw him close – too close – to the portal. She hoped she was not too late to stop him, as he would upset the balance for certain. She gulped when she realised that was exactly his plan.

He only smiled and let himself dissolve into the waves of magic.

She slid to a halt. She crouched by his robes and one solitary gold tooth left behind. She shifted through the clothes, searching for his most valuable possession. The medallion. It was gone. How had he taken it with him? The portal only transported biological material. He had slipped away, again, the slimy eel. She had to find other means of stopping him. She turned back and took off running.

The vortex in the portal spun slower and died out. The ruins were once again desolate and cold, no living soul in sight.

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Dorian's conscience rattled in the cage of his body for the eternity of a second, and he was through.

He materialised fully and took bearing of his surrounding with unfocused eyes. He gradually sensed that he was on a garden of sorts, though more rock than plant. The air he breathed was foreign, the black expanse above him was dotted with unusual specks of light, and he could sense the ground rotating. He was on Earth. He had made it. He was now in human form.