When World Collide - Chapter One

There exists a parallel world to ours, where creatures humans 'think' are mythical, magical, paranormal, and fantastical actually live. 

It is called 'The Realms.' 

This world is apart from our world. Throughout history beings from that world have come to ours through gates, to which only they know the location. 

Their visits are few and far between, and usually create havoc
or at least 

rumors, legends, and fairy tales. 

But what would happen if our worlds truly collided.

In the not too distant future it just might happen.

"When Worlds Collide" begins...

If you have been reading this serial story and haven't finished, I apologize.
This was just too good not to pass on to my new Agent.
Hopefully, you will see it in print soon.

“If you don’t have something for me to show the Committee in ninety-days I pull your funding, Clayborne!” The general’s voice had risen to an angry level.

“You can’t pull my funding… I am so close,” Professor Clayborne countered.


“Close?... Close?...” the general taunted. “You have been saying that for almost two years.” He slammed his hat back on his head. “Ninety-days, Clayborne, or you’re out of here.” His aide palmed the door open and General Hawthorne marched through it followed closely by his two guards. The door sliding closed was the only silent thing that had taken place in the last half-hour.

Chelsie didn’t say anything. She walked over to the prep unit in the corner of the lab. “2 each, Tea, Orange Spice, Iced.” The unit delivered two tall glasses of iced tea to its dispenser plate. She removed them and then followed that command with another. “One-dozen chocolate chip cookies, warm.” She balanced the plate of the Professor’s favorite treats on the top of one glass and then picked up the other and made her way where Nathaniel Clayborne had collapsed on a stool after the general’s stormy exit.

“You are close,” she said softly as she placed the glasses and plate on the lab’s table. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell him about the light.”

“The man is a fool and can’t see beyond his nose,” Nat growled around a mouthful of warm cookies. “He is so blind to possibilities that he wouldn’t be able to understand the ramifications of the light refraction we saw. He wants a weapon. I see the possibilities of giving him a world.”

Last night, as the professor and his assistant worked on their stealth project they stumbled on something they could not explain. While endeavoring to develop a new device that would allow the general’s men to see through walls, giving them a distinct tactical advantage in battle, the scientist and his associate had witnessed something extra ordinary… daylight in a dark room.

Professor Nathaniel Clayborne was not going to say anything about their discovery until he had time to thoroughly check it out. He really wasn’t sure about what he was looking at. He just knew on the other side of his lab wall was a dark storage room. Until he found out where that light was emitting from, he intended to keep quiet.

Chelsie pulled another stool over. “Do you still think we were looking into another dimension?”

“I really don’t know, but I am going to find out.” Nat sipped at his tea as he contemplated the possibilities. “We need to put the equipment on the same settings and see if we can get past the light infiltration to see beyond. We might be seeing an alternate place on our planet… We might be drilling into space… We might be witnessing another dimension, as you say… We might even be viewing an alternate timeline…” He was trying to stay open to all the possibilities. He laid the half-eaten cookie down and stood up. “We won’t know anything until we look again.”

***** 

Nat adjusted the setting once again. He had sent Chelsie home hours ago. Duplicating the experiment with the settings from yesterday brought absolutely no results, as much as they tried. They sat for hours at the lab workbench fiddling with the googles and testing only to enter yet another negative result in the spreadsheet.

The professor was beginning to think it was a flunk - a chance refraction. If Chelsie had not seen it too, he would have doubted it ever took place.

He finished entering the settings on the goggles. Think man… What’s different today then yesterday? He rechecked the settings and then stood, trying to remember exactly what occurred. We were standing over there. He went back to stand where he had when they saw the light. He activated the sensors with a push of the button located by his temple.

What happened next was astounding. On the other side of the lab wall was a meadow, now drenched in sunlight. The grass was probably a foot to eighteen inches tall. There was a tree, off in the distance, and both dragonflies and butterflies in the air. He could swear he was feeling the cool summer breeze on his cheeks. It was like a virtual reality experience with sensory smells and feelings, as well as sight.

A dragonfly buzzed so close to him that he involuntarily stepped backward in amazement. The field disappeared and he was looking at the lab wall.

“Dammit!” he reached up and fiddled with the settings, but nothing came back into his line of sight.

“Dammit!” he repeated again and stepped forward in irritation.

The meadow reappeared.

Nat could not believe his eyes. He stepped back and forth numerous times. Each time he left the exact spot where he saw the field, it disappeared. It was not the settings on the googles… It was the settings in combination with the place – the ‘Exact’ place. Why hadn’t they thought of that? They had repeated the experiment so many times today, he had lost count, but they never got off their stools at the workbench.

He stood there silently studying and trying to determine what he was seeing, or more precisely, ‘where’ he was seeing. He wished he had equipped the googles with binocular vision. He never thought he would want to see any further than the other side of a wall, but now he longed to see the rocks in the distance up close. They looked like the peaks at the Pipe Stone National Monument, but from an odd angle.

If that was the case, he was just a few miles from where he was looking, because those rocks were at the outskirts of St. Paul, Minnesota where he now stood in his lab. How could he be seeing, not only outside of the lab, but clear through the city… and beyond?

He slipped the googles up onto his forehead and taking a marker out of his lab coat pocket, he leaned over and outlined the toes of his shoes on the floor. He then slipped the googles off and took them to his workbench to check the settings. They were correct. It indicated he was looking at a meadow just beyond the lab wall.

He stepped back into the outlines drawn on the floor and pulled the googles back down over his eyes. The meadow appeared and he was immediately hit by a pungent odor – urine and musk – as though he were visiting the lion cages at the zoo.

“In or out… In or Out!” a deep bass voice growled behind him.

He was bumped to one side and an enormous winged lion came round him. It looked over its shoulder and sneered showing its canines. “Move Human! Can’t you see you’re blocking the gate?”

Nathaniel could only gap at the Shedu as it passed. "Gate? What gate and where the hell does it lead?”

Actual Journal by GearInTheGarden
Modified for Story