(I'm sorry about this. Something happened during the new chapter of Hell or High Water, and then it just...went too far. And i'm sorry. So i deleted it and made it into this instead.)
She traced the invisible edge of the portal with two fingertips, feeling the bare precipice of where reality ended and the secret dimension lay beyond. A jolt, a vibration of sorts, coursed through her body, sending the hair on the back of her neck up and rising her skin in goosebumps.
Oh, how she missed it. She hadn't even known how much she'd longed for it.
The other side of the room was within her grasp. One step and she would be on the other side. But she wanted to take her time with this one. After all, it had been months since she'd even seen a portal.
"Go on," coaxed the surprisingly gentle voice from the speakers, a slight of impatience in her electronic voice.
She drew in a breath, catching it in her lungs as if it were the last bit of oxygen on Earth. Her hand slowly slipped through the interdimensional tunnel. Time and space curved around her skin, as though she was breaking the surface of water, cool and electric and deliciously tactile.
Her forearm passed through, and she closed her eyes. She took a step, inching her body into the gap. The portal enveloped her, consumed her from all sides, surrounded her with warm tingles that made her shudder pleasantly.
Shifting from orange to blue, the portal hummed soothingly as it accepted her. The buzz sounded in her ears, shook her from the inside out, and she let out a whisper of a moan. Reality existed everywhere but here, and she hesitated as long as she could in the space of non-existence before the fear of disappearing completely overtook her.
She set one foot on the platform opposite the room, opening her eyes. She glanced at herself in the far portal; that self was now the past, a memory, a ghost of what once was. The portal had already torn away that self, leaving only something new, something current, something better.
Her right boot was swallowed into the portal, and the moment was over. Breathless, heart thundering in her ears, she found herself trembling.
"You must have really missed testing," the voice purred from the speaker. There was more than a hint of sarcasm.
Struggling to straighten herself, she took a deep breath, releasing it in a warm sigh. She jumped down from the platform, grabbed a cube, and started towards a button with it. Her mind distracted by the experience, she loosed a wide grin across her face.
It wasn't the testing she missed.
