Portals. Rifts. Wormholes. Tears. All provide the same function: To transport matter from one point in time or space to another. They may appear at random and send someone to their demise. Or they can be controlled by users of a magic referred to as aethermancy.
For some it takes decades of training and dedication to master them. Others gain the ability at random and are incapable of exerting any control. Still others go through the gates of death, only to return to their world disparate.
A few years back, I met my demise. I burned; stripped of everything I was and ever would have been. I stepped into the blazing inferno of my own creation and returned as a vague crescent of who I once was. I had been irrevocably seared from the experience and yet… I returned whole. New. With capabilities far beyond my wildest imaginings, to the horror and dismay of those who set these events into motion by shattering the idle dreams I thought was my reality.
They forcefully thrust me into a new world I did not know and I retaliated, tearing down the painted walls of our false existence to reveal the maggots and rot that lay beneath. I stripped the world of everything it once was, thinking I was helping the people who were caught in the same nightmare.
However, they did not respond in kind. They wanted to continue believing. They took what I unveiled to them and spat in my face. They revealed my intentions to people whose existence was not meant to aid, but destroy us. They lit the brand that would scald me. They initiated the events that would come to color my very existence.
They thought they were being merciful.
In retaliation and with utter disdain for those I once cherished, those that I once thought would be by my side no matter the storm weathered, I opened a rift. I tore a hole in the fabric of reality and charged through with both animosity and glee in my heart. I would finally be out from under the tyrannical rule of the Overseers and instead be guided by the whims of the Universe. I would no longer have to answer to their false prophecies and their gestures of venomous kindness.
Unfortunately, the irrevocable truth is that the Universe and their deities who may guide us have a unique sense of humor. Something I would quickly discover when I landed not in the cavernous depths of a new home on some planet whose name was not known, but on the sandy dunes of a world I would discover was embroiled in the throes of strife and fear; the likes of which would put even my home world to shame.