TW: claustrophobia, fire, panic

……………………….

The back of the old drug store had been heavily renovated – this was where the new construction melded with the old, and the architecture started to take on a more military tone. Rosie couldn’t hide her curiosity as she watched the number of othersiders increase perceptibly amongst the crowd. There was a gaggle of bright blue ones with shiny, glistening dragonfly wings; a man with skin that was so dark purple he looked a little like an eggplant, but thin and lithe with elongated fingers and deep black pits for eyes; a woman with elegant antlers draped with silver chains, her skin pale green, wearing what looked like a pink toga. There were so many, and they were so different! This section of the line passed much more quickly because Rosie was far more distracted. She was pleasantly surprised at how fast she got to the second gate.

This one was staffed by othersiders. When her turn came up, she approached the stark, plain gray counter with a bright smile again. The man behind the glass at this gate was pale orange, with stripes of creamy white, and pointed ears that hung out to the side of his head dramatically. Rosie couldn’t help but to picture her childhood marmalade tabby cat, and she tried not to giggle nervously. When she got up closer, she saw that his eyes were very similar to human eyes, not all one color – but his irises were neon green, and he had no pupils.

Yeah, the eyes are still freaking me out a bit, she thought.

“Your documents, please,” the man said in English, his voice lilting, but with a little bit of a hiss.

Rosie slid her ticket and passport under the window.

The man took them in delicate hands and put them in a shallow black bowl. He picked up something that looked like a standard restaurant salt shaker and sprinkled some of the contents over the bowl, muttering under his breath. He set the shaker back on the counter and typed rapidly on his keyboard. Rosie squinted at his fingers as he typed, and saw that the keyboard did not have English on it, but rather the Hellish alphabet, which she could not read at all.

“Is this your first visit to Hell?” he asked her.

She focused the beam of her smile on him again and chirped “Yes!”

He sucked in a hissed gasp, and his long ears twitched.

“Have you read your instructional information?” he asked.

“Oh!” She fumbled and pulled the pamphlet out of her backpack’s side pocket. “This?” He nodded. “Not yet,” she said.

“I recommend you read it,” he said.

“I will, thank you!” she said.

He tilted his head and rattled off a disclaimer that it sounded like he said hundreds of times per day – which he did.

“If you have any magical items on your person, please be aware that as you pass through the portal they will become unstable. You can check magical items for a small fee and retrieve them after passing through for a safer travel experience. When you enter the portal you will feel momentarily disoriented. Please stay calm, it is perfectly normal. Maintain normal breathing and do not close your eyes as you pass through the portal. After arrival, a seating area with beverages has been provided for you at no cost in order to aid your adjustment to the changed environment. If you have any magical items to check, please inform me now, or if you are ready to proceed and acknowledge this disclaimer, sign your name on the pad.” He pointed at an electronic signature pad on her side of the counter.

“No magical items that I know of,” she said with a big smile, looking right at the man’s bored neon eyes. She signed the pad and retrieved her ticket and passport as he slid them back under the window.

“Enjoy Brulla,” the man said, his tone less formal. Rosie looked back up at him with surprise. “It’s my hometown,” he said with a closed-mouth smile. “Try to make it to Scaironne if you have time, they have the best desserts, humans love them.”

Rosie gave him a genuine smile. “Thanks! I’ll try!” she said, and followed the arrow signs to the next step. As she walked down a wide, empty hallway behind a woman with a rolling suitcase and a red, scaly tail, she felt something change in the air. It wasn’t a smell exactly, nor humidity, but she felt as if a storm was approaching. It was that same sort of electricity in the air. Rosie shivered from the strange sensation. Was that the portal? She knew it took a huge amount of energy to keep it open, and when she had researched online before the trip she read descriptions of it, but she hadn’t read about how it felt. It felt… impending. Ominous? Radiant? She wasn’t sure how to describe it. But as she got closer to the end of the hallway, she began to see it.

The portal was on a small stage, raised up above the crowd. It was perfectly pentagonal, and looked like a shimmering hole in reality. Oil slick rainbows swirled on its surface, obscuring any view of what lay beyond the glow. The texture was ethereal, like gauze. It glowed a silver light that washed over the people waiting below. There were several folding rows of stanchions linked with ropes that controlled the flow of the line, and Rosie could tell that this is where the slowdown was. She would still be waiting for a while.

She people-watched for a few minutes, but kept finding her eyes wandering back to the portal and zoning out, just staring at it. It was like a magnet, she was drawn to it. She blinked herself free of it and took a couple shuffling steps forward as the line moved. Surreptitiously, and, she hoped, subtly, she looked around to see if anyone else was as hypnotized by the glowing pentagon as she was. For the most part, the people around her seemed to either be chatting with a companion, reading books, sleeping on their feet, or fiddling with phones and tablets. A couple were looking at the portal, but usually not for long. However, Rosie’s gaze was drawn to the glow again and again.

Well, she thought, this is probably their normal commute. It’s my first time so I’m gaping like a tourist.

It felt like her shoulders were going numb and her feet were aching like crazy, but she eventually made it to the end of the line and was directed by a short, squat, turquoise woman to step up onto the platform and go through the portal. Rosie had been watching attentively as the line ahead of her fed into the silver film in the air. They simply kept walking as if it wasn’t even there, looming and swirling mysteriously. She tried to remember what the orange guy with the ears had told her, just breathe normally, don’t close your eyes, remain calm.

Her jaw was clenched so tight her teeth hurt, and her hands were sweating like she was on a first date. She was not calm. She was not breathing normally. But her eyes were open!

Rosie took the few steps up to the platform slowly, feeling like she was about to be sacrificed in some elaborate ritual. She knew she was doing it wrong, but she held her breath as she walked up to the gauzy shimmer.

The job pays $120,000, she thought. You can do this.

She clenched her fists and walked into the portal, eyes open.

The light overtook her, at first blinding, then soft colors exploded around her and she felt like she was floating in the glow. It was hard to tell which way was up, and she couldn’t feel the ground under her feet anymore. She had read that this sensation only lasts a moment, then travelers arrive on the other side, stumble a bit, and recover their equilibrium over 5-10 minutes.

But the moment didn’t pass.

And the colors began to darken.

Rosie felt a gust of icy cold rush over her, and she gasped for air that seemed to be swept away by the cold wind. The hair on her arms stood on end, and her stomach lurched as she was overcome by the strong sensation that she was falling. The vague shapes and colors around her grew darker and darker, the silver glow fading and coalescing to a pinpoint, and she tried to scream, but there was only silence. She struggled and reached out, grabbing at the nothingness.

Everything was dark. Her heart was beating louder and louder, thump thump, thump thump, until her bones rattled with the vibrations of it, and the darkness around her thickened. It was harder and harder to move her body, and slowly, gradually, terrifyingly, the blackness solidified around her body. She felt it press in, immobilizing. She shook with her pulse against the pressure, and when she could no longer move, an icy chill crept in. She was trapped, frozen, and she couldn’t move or breathe, but her heart kept thumping away, aching in her chest, filling her ears with panicked pounding, until she gave up, closing her eyes, surrendering to the cold blackness.

It was an eternity in the dark.

Her mind was blank, dormant, quiet.

Thump

Thump

Thu-thump

Thum-

Without warning, the darkness cracked and crumbled open and bright white light poured in all around her. She was lifted up, still frozen, into a blinding haze. She felt crushed, lumpy, misshapen, unformed. Her skin was not her own, her body not human. But her heart pulsed wildly still.

A soothing, glowing, deep red heat radiated from far away, and she ached for it to be closer. The warmth was all she wanted. It grew, engulfing her, licking against her lovingly, cradling her and caressing. The chill slowly succumbed to the heat, and she melted, softened, flowed. The redness flickered and danced around her.

The white light flashed and crashed, and she felt herself taking shape. She became smooth. She stretched out and straightened, gently but firmly guided by the red heat and the white light. Her heart fell into place with a satisfying hum, and she spun through the ether, buffeted by warm flames and liquid light. She wasn’t afraid of the fire. The fire was home. The fire kissed her, and she kissed it back. She whirled forever and ever in contentment.

And she opened her eyes, stumbling through the portal to the other side, where she fell on her hands and knees and gasped for air. Rosie sat back on her heels and put a hand on her heart, trying to reconcile what she felt in the portal with the surreal reality of arriving in Hell. Her limbs felt foreign, her skin tight.

Disoriented didn’t cover half of it.

Fire. Why had she seen fire? Why did it have to be fire? It hadn’t terrified her like it normally did, but now thinking back to it, she couldn’t breathe. She could still picture it, all around her, consuming. She remembered the apartment fire she had barely escaped last year and the terror came back afresh. She panted, struggling to focus, as concerned eyes peered at her from the faces of portal staff and other travelers. Rosie couldn’t catch her breath, panic overtaking her, and she fell into blackness again.