Stairway to the After

by zuz

Three students from a boarding school discover a Window, a mysterious disturbance of the world's matter. In investigating it they get mixed up in the affairs of two secret societies at once, eventually fleeing for their lives. Very loosely inspired by HDM

Stairway to the After

by Zuzana Kocsis

To my friend Anthony who got me to write

and to Mrs. Garnsey who showed me that

I could really do it.

Prologue

Windows in any form are openings to a new world. In some instances, they show the outdoors, or a person's soul, or an application in a computer. However, there are those which open to an entirely new place and change the fates of anyone nearby. These have intrigued humans for millennia and have caused much speculation about their purpose.

Unfortunately, that question will not be answered in the following pages. Instead, it will be an ordinary story about them.

Chapter 1

Unlike everyone else at that night's party, Danyana, her roommate Iasmin, and Iasmin's twin brother Aerek were not dancing, drinking, or otherwise participating in the noisy festivities. They were quite content to sit it out and chat.

"So Dr. Zelman caught you reading under a desk." Aerek concluded with a chuckle.

"Well, it wasn't really under a desk. Besides, I wasn't even reading then. I only read while he was discussing his other classes." Danyana defended herself.

"You were still reading in his class." Aerek insisted.

Danyana glared at him jokingly, "He wouldn't have caught me if I wasn't putting my book away just then. He noticed me as I was picking my bookmark up off the floor."

"You still landed a detention," replied Iasmin, "Even if he was off on a tangent."

"A sine over cosine, you mean?" Danyana brought up the old joke.

"Nah, he doesn't go off on tangents. Everything he says somehow winds up being related to chem. They're more like secants."

"Why do I hang out with you two!?" Iasmin exclaimed, stood up, and left, presumably getting something to drink. The noisy party was finally speeding up, and she disappeared in the crowd quickly, helped by her petite build.

After a moment, Danyana said, "I guess we are nerds, aren't we."

"Of course we're not. We just go to a magnet boarding school and act socially awkward for the heck of it." Aerek responded.

"Well, at least there's two of us" Danyana replied, relieved.

"So... what now?"

"I don't know. We wait for your sister to come back?"

"She's probably off dancing with someone." He listened for a moment, noticing that the music was slower. After a short pause he asked, "Would you like to go dance, Dani?"

"Sure." She replied, and they joined the many couples already dancing. They stood out, since Aerek could practically rest his chin on her head due to his extreme height. The song was nearly over, and when it ended, they walked over to a faded red couch to wait for Iasmin. Despite their usual habit of talking non-stop, neither one could find a suitable topic to breach the silence. Danyana looked off, not really focusing on anything, and Aerek traced a pattern on the armrest with his finger.

Several minutes later, he leaned over to Danyana, and whispered into her ear, "Hey, let's spook Ias. Come on. There's plenty of room behind this couch." She grinned and climbed over the back behind him. It was the only furniture in the room, and worn down to the stuffing in the middle. It seemed that its previous owner had not cared enough to take it while moving out.

"Umm... look at this. Um, Dani?"

"What is it? I don't see any—" she started. "Wait. You mean that fuzziness?"

They were both looking at a spot in the corner, about a foot off the ground, where the pattern of the wallpaper wavered over a little bit, like when hot air bends light differently above a black car in the summer.

"Yeah." He replied, "Any idea what it is?"

"No." then she hypothesized, "Maybe some kind of air current blurring the image?"

"It isn't moving. It's more like the wall is soft over there" He rationalized.

"It's probably just an optical illusion," She continued, "But how did it get there?"

Aerek said nothing at first. Then he started, "Do you think anyone else knows ab--"

Right then, a face popped out over the couch. Iasmin had a look of both glee and worry on her face, "Phew, I was afraid you two left without me. What were you doing here? Making out?" Then she saw their serious faces, and realized that her joke was neither welcome nor appropriate at the moment. "What were you talking about? How did what get where?"

As Aerek was filling her in on what she had missed, Danyana continued to examine the shimmer. When she moved her head slowly, it was visible, because of the way it diffused the light differently, but when she jerked her head to the side, she could barely see it, since it matched the wallpaper perfectly. It seemed to her less shadowy than the rest of the corner, as if there was a light behind it.

Iasmin squeezed in next to her to observe it. By now the narrow space was crowded with the three of them, and it seemed that any minute someone could look over and wonder what they were doing, but no one did. Aerek took off his tennis shoe and started prodding the wall next to it. It was solid, just as they expected. As he got closer, the shoe touched the undefined corners of the spot, and he gasped, trying to hide his reaction. "It did not stop at the wall. It's going into it."

They passed the shoe around. Danyana laughed at herself as she prodded the wall. "Poking is the most scientifically accepted practice to identify the nature of this kind of anomaly."

Aerek rolled his eyes. "Which one of us was denying being a nerd again?"

"Umm... that was you." Danyana replied.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but do you think someone knows about this?" Iasmin said.

"Whoever lives here, most likely," Aerek responded.

"Why would they have a party and not hide it?" Danyana countered.

"Can you go find him and somehow see if he knows, Ias? He would probably be able to tell us what is up with it," Aerek said.

"Or she." Danyana corrected Aerek under her breath, "Half of this world is female, even if males make up ninety percent of the world's ego."

"Sure, I'll go," said Iasmin as she slipped back around the edge of the couch.

In the meantime, Aerek stared at the shimmer and pondered its nature. "Dani, do you have any theories on what it is?"

"Not any good ones. It could be some holographic cover-up of a hidden room or something, I guess." She shrugged.

"What about a Window?" Even in the noisy room, she heard the different way he said "Window."

"A window to where?"

"I don't know. A different universe. Like the whole doughnut theory of the universe and this is covering the shortcut?"

"Rek, I don't think such a tunnel would be as peaceful at the end."

"True. I would imagine something more like explosions and ripping up matter and whirlwinds for that. Our best hope for figuring it out is to wait for Ias to get the guy who owns this place."

"Do you think the spot would show up on a camera?"

"It's worth a shot, but I doubt it," he said. Danyana chuckled.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What is it?" he insisted.

"It's work a shot. Get it Rek? A shot? Like with a camera?"

"It's late. You really need some sleep if you are laughing at such a stupid pun, Dani. I swear it was unintentional."

"Yeah, Yeah." She said, "You know, we should probably go find Iasmin. It looks like she's not coming back soon."

They moved the couch a little closer to the wall on their way out and then pushed through dancing people, searching for Iasmin. In the time they had been debating the Window, the music had sped up, and even more people had arrived to the party. The harder they tried to get through, the more sweaty bodies blocked their way. Eventually, they gave up planning their way, and began to move along with the crowd, not really dancing, but flowing with them. They saw Iasmin doing the same thing a little ways away, while trying to shout a conversation with someone.

It cost them several elbows to the head, but they managed to push over to where she stood. By that time, the person she was talking to was gone, but they agreed to move out of the dancing crowd so they could talk.

"Did you find out anything?" Aerek asked Iasmin.

"No. Turns out that nobody seems to know who planned this party. Alex just told me that he heard about it from Mia."

Danyana added, "Mia got the invite from Jonathan. She was talking about it in lit class."

"Well, that's a great help. Does anyone even know who lives here?" Aerek said.

Danyana tapped a girl with a Celtic knot tattoo on the shoulder and shouted, although they were pretty far from the speakers, "Hey, do you know whose apartment this is?'

"No. Who cares? Are the cops here or something?" she responded.

"Nah, don't worry. I was just wondering." Danyana screamed back, but the girl had already turned away. "We're not going to find out anything from these people.

"Yeah." Aerek agreed, "Let's just go home. It's getting late."

"It's only like 11:30." Iasmin said.

"Well, your slacker brother pulled an all-nighter with his precious roommate Kevin 'studying' for the physics exam." Danyana explained.

"Heh, knowing him, they were studying the physics of video games." Iasmin replied.

"Probably. But I stayed up late, too, and you will wake me up early. Let's go." Danyana gestured at the front hall.

"Oh fine." Iasmin sighed.

"Hey, I'll ask people tomorrow. And maybe Kevin will know." Aerek comforted her.

"Guys? I don't think we should be mentioning the Window to anyone. We're just asking about the apartment. Okay?" Danyana checked.

"Agreed." Aerek replied.

"Besides," Iasmin said, "No one would believe us."

Chapter 2

A sudden urge to go to the bathroom awakened Danyana. She pulled the covers up to her neck and tried to force her dream to come back, but she could only remember the feeling of panic and a strange sense of expectation without an inkling of what had caused them. She saw that she would have to get out of bed very soon and run down the hall to the restrooms, so she reluctantly flipped her covers off to the right and set her feet into the flip-flops that she always left beside the bed. As she stood, she noticed Iasmin's figure bent over the desk, intensely studying.

"Wow, Iasmin, you didn't wake me up the way you usually do. Is everything alright?'

"Yeah. Just about. I was going to shake you awake after Aerek called, but he told me to go against my nature and be nice to you." Iasmin replied.

"Go against your nature? You are the sweetest person I know. Except at 7:30 in the morning." Danyana said.

"Well, that's sweet of you."

Danyana stretched, "I'm going to go to the bathroom. Be back in a few minutes. I think there was something I wanted to ask you, but I am not awake enough yet. Hold on, ok?"

A few minutes later she walked back in. "Well, I'm back. What's the plan now? Are we going to get breakfast?" she burst out.

"Breakfast? You've slept through brunch as well. It's 1:30 in the afternoon." Iasmin exclaimed.

"Really." Danyana said. "Hmm. Well, how about lunch, then?"

"In twenty minutes. We are going to meet up with Aerek there. That was why he called." Iasmin told her.

"Okay, that works out well, then. Do you want any coffee before we leave?" Danyana offered, while sorting through t-shirts on the slightly messier side of the wardrobe.

"Yeah, definitely. These French vocabulary cards are putting me to sleep. I'll get you some change, give me a sec."

"Don't worry about that. I owe you for the train ticket anyway. Have you been doing vocabulary all morning?" Danyana questioned.

"Not all morning. Aerek called, and I also finished an essay." Iasmin said.

"When did you get up?" Danyana asked.

"Seven-thirty, as always."

"Of course. I shouldn't have asked." Danyana commented. As soon as she zipped up her jacket, she continued, "Well, I think I'm done. So what kind of coffee would brighten your day the most, mademoiselle?"

"A nice, strong, 'espresso. Without sugar, please."

"I don't understand you. What's wrong with cappuccinos?"

"The milk, the foam, and the sugar. Oh, and the size of the cup." Iasmin retorted.

"You're hopeless. Coffee isn't supposed to be drunk with your nose pinched and head tilted back." Danyana sighed.

"I don't drink it like that." Iasmin said.

"I had a triple 'spresso once, and that was the only way to force it down. I only got one because it was the cheapest caffeine available and I had another ten pages to write in four hours." Danyana continued.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just go get the coffee, ok?" Iasmin offered. Danyana grabbed her room key and disappeared out the door without another word.

Later, over their coffees, they heard the buzz of the downstairs doorbell. They gulped down the rest of the hot liquid, grabbed keys, wallets, and jackets, and met Aerek at the door.

"Good morning!" he greeted them. Then he said, "Let's go, I'm hungry." and jogged toward the dining hall.

"Hey, wait up!" Iasmin shouted after him. "You are always hungry. At least get us a table." He waved back to them, still running. She turned her head to Danyana and rolled her eyes.

"Oh well. At least his metabolism can keep up with what he eats. Imagine if it couldn't; he would not only be tall, but also wide."

They entered together and grabbed trays. Iasmin chose a fruit salad and oatmeal with skim milk, while Danyana got French toast and cereal. Then they joined Aerek at the table he had saved for them.

"So, did you find out anything about the apartment?" Danyana asked between mouthfuls.

"No. I wasn't the one invited. Iasmin might know someone. I thought she was asking people about it already. Aerek replied. "That Windows has been bugging me. For some reason, I really need to know what it's for."

"Well, Jonathan's over there, so I could go talk to him now. I doubt that I'll see him again later. He might know who organized the party, and through that person, we can hopefully get some back-story. I'll be right back" Danyana said, and maneuvered between several tables. She leaned down and exchanged several sentences with a redheaded guy, but then she shook her head, thanked him, and with a sigh, she returned to Aerek and Iasmin. "Nope. He doesn't know. Still, he told me I should talk to someone named Briggs. He said he might know."

Aerek spoke up, "Matt Briggs. Yeah, I know him. He's in my lab group. I'm supposed to meet up with him and Katie in half an hour in the library. I can tell you what I find out at dinner."

"Cool. I've got to get back to my French homework anyway," replied Iasmin.

Simultaneously, Danyana asked to come with him, but Iasmin reminded her, "You have homework, too, you know."

Danyana grimaced, "Oh, fine. I was hoping I could put it off for a while. We've got this amazing Window thing here, and I'm supposed to care about ohms and literary symbolism and the state of my underwear drawer?" Still, she agreed to let Aerek go alone.

For Danyana and Iasmin, the afternoon was uneventful. Finally, when neither of them could stand the sight of another textbook, Ias turned up the music and proposed, "I wanted to put up a couple of posters I brought from home. Can we clean up a bit so I can do that?"

"It's already clean in here." Danyana replied.

"There are shoes and socks kicked all around, the trashcan is overflowing, and I haven't dusted in two weeks." Iasmin said.

Danyana sighed and complied. "Alright, but those posters had better be good."

By dinnertime, Iasmin was washing the windows, and Danyana had curled up on her bed with a novel to keep out of her way.

At six, they met Aerek in the dining hall again. He could hardly wait to tell them what he had heard, and nearly burst out while they were standing in line. However, Iasmin readily hushed him until they found a booth to themselves.

Through mouthfuls of food, he explained. "Matt didn't really know much either. At first, that is. Then he started showing off in front of Katie, and hinted about what he did all day Friday. Turns out he and his friends found the perfect spot for partying. It's not way too far from here, the building's gate is broken and opens up with a stronger pull, there is a service elevator in which they can sneak beer, and, best of all, it is nearly empty, so all rooms have space and there are no belongings to break."

"Hey, spit it out. It's obviously the place we went last night. Who owns it?" Danyana urged.

"Well, that's the thing. Nobody owns it. It's been vacant for a while, and they broke in last week, just in time to plan the whole thing for yesterday."

"If they broke in last week, they must have had plenty of time to move stuff around and search the place. Why didn't they find the Window?" Danyana asked. "Did Matt mention it at all?"

"I doubt they saw it. I wouldn't have seen it if you two hadn't pointed it out." Iasmin said.

Aerek continued, "Those guys were more concerned with placement of speakers and a bar than with shimmers on the wall. I doubt they bothered messing with the sofa. It was probably already like that. The question is who put it there. And who left the apartment in the first place."

Slowly, Danyana brought up a new plan, "Do you remember how you said that our best hope to figure this out would be to ask the guy that owns the place? Well, even if someone lived there, they wouldn't actually own it, right? It's an apartment. We need to go see the landlord. That's the guy that's been there the longest anyways."

Aerek smacked his forehead with his palm. "I am an idiot. I spent the entire afternoon listening to Matt's flirtations with Katie to get practically no information, when we could have just gone back there?"

"Well, what if the landlord sends us off the property? Then we won't ever be able to come back to the Window." Iasmin reasoned.

"Do you have a better plan?" Danyana asked.

"Fine, we'll go tomorrow." Aerek said.

"Tomorrow's Sunday." Iasmin reminded him.

"So?" Aerek said.

"The guy might go to church." She explained.

"So we'll go in the afternoon." Danyana said.

"We can do laundry before then. I ran out of Febreze yesterday." Aerek proposed.

"As long as you don't make me fold your underwear." his sister agreed.

Chapter 3

"I have another load of darks and then we can go." Danyana said.

"Well, our stuff's washing right now, and we have another half an hour to wait." Aerek said.

"Hey, do you think you could watch our stuff? Aerek and I can run and get us sandwiches, that way we can leave as soon as all these clothes are done." Iasmin asked.

"Sure. I'm waiting for a washer to free up anyway. I'll see you twins in a bit." Danyana agreed.

As soon as they were out of Danyana's earshot, Iasmin asked Aerek, "What's going on between you and Dani?"

He feigned ignorance. "What do you mean what's going on. We're not mad at each other or anything. I'm sorry if that's what it seemed like."

"That's not what I meant and you know it." Iasmin snapped.

"Well, maybe there is something; I don't know. Why don't you ask her?" He admitted, blushing slightly.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have bugged you about it. It's just… you two were dancing and hanging out behind a couch Friday night, and Dani seemed a bit odd yesterday, as if she couldn't wait to get out of the dorm room." she continued, "I guess I'm making this bigger than it is, but it would be really odd for me to have my best friend dating my twin brother. I would never know whose side to take. You are my baby brother--"

"—Hey!" he interjected, "I'm younger by four minutes. Would you stop holding that over my head!?"

"And she is my room-mate, best friend, and little sister that I never had." She continued, ignoring him. "And if you two were dating, I would be a little bit of a third wheel. Not that I mind, but it would make it a little bit strange, regardless."

"Ias," Aerek tried to calm her down, "We wouldn't be leaving you out or acting weird around you. You know that."

"Yeah, I guess I do. And if you ever want me to leave you alone, just tell me." she reassured him. "But please don't mess up or make me chose sides in the end. I don't want to deal with any breakups."

"Ias! We aren't even dating yet." He reminded her, "And who knows if Dani would even want to."

"Oh." She stopped. "I'm sorry about lecturing you. It wasn't fair of me."

"It's alright. I told you. At least you got it out of your system, and I know where I stand."

"Okay. Now, what sandwich would Dani want?"

"By now, I don't think she cares. We haven't eaten in hours." Aerek said.

"Yes, hours. Three of them. That's not much, Aerek."

"Yeah it is. I'm starving."

"Well, get what you want, just without onion. She wouldn't like that. And don't let me catch you kissing behind the couch next time." Iasmin teased.

"Would you quit it!" He said, starting to get angry. "You're worse than Mom."

"I'll quit." Iasmin quickly replied. "Don't talk about Mom like that. I don't think she would want to be remembered in that light."

Mentioning their mother out both of the siblings in a much more serious mood. They picked up their sandwiches and returned to eat them with Danyana who had started her last load without a word. All three of them were deep in thought as they sat cross-legged on top of the washers eating to the hum of the dryers.

After considering the bus, the three of them decided to walk. The apartment building was not too far away, and it took them less than half an hour. When they arrived, the front door opened with only a slightly stronger push.

"Just like Matt said. Piece of cake." Aerek commented. They entered a front lobby area with mailboxes on the wall. The place reeked of old newspapers and damp walls.

Down a short hallway to the right, they found a door marked "Administration" in a typewriter-like font.

Aerek inhaled, his shoulders rising and head tilting downward, and raising his eyes to look at his sister and Danyana, he asked, "You sure about this?"

They nodded. He knocked.

They heard a shuffling inside, and then an old man opened the door a crack. He was a little bit on the short side, and built solidly, especially around the middle. "Good afternoon," he said, asking many questions just by his tone.

"Uh, Good afternoon, sir. Um, we have a couple of questions we wanted to ask you, if it's not too much of a problem." Aerek.

"Well, that depends on your questions." He continued, "Who might you be?"

"Oh that. We're Aerek," he motioned to himself, "Danyana," he pointed, "And Iasmin, my sister. We wanted to ask you something about an apartment on the eleventh floor. The one facing west."

Upon hearing this, the man looked much older, and instead of answering, he motioned for them to come inside.

He led them to a sitting room. The walls were made of bookshelves, each packed with every genre of book imaginable. There was a sofa, an armchair, and a rocker with a crocheted blanket tossed over the arm. Danyana, Aerek, and Iasmin took the sofa, while the old man let himself down into the armchair.

"My name is Mensan." He introduced himself. "I must admit you three are not at all like the people I usually talk to."

"I am sorry if we are taking away your time. We were only curious about one of your apartments." Aerek said. "Number 1104.

"I have stopped renting that one out six months ago." Mensan snapped back at him.

"But Friday…" Aerek continued.

"Yes, I know." Mensan answered him. "I should call the cops, but that would mean letting them into it, and I don't really want to do that."

"Why not?" Danyana questioned. "Is it the same reason you stopped renting it out?

Mensan gave her a piercing look. "What do you know about it?" He ten said angrily.

Aerek got on the defensive, "We just got invited to a party Friday and-"

"Did you come to report who broke in?" Mensan interrupted him, "I don't want to know. I already said I do not wish to report them. I hate police and I hate meddlers who try to act like them."

"Sir," Iasmin reassured him, "We are not here to report anyone." "Relax Rek." she added with a pointed glance in his direction."This may be worse than if we were meddlers or police, but we're just three kids that bumped into something odd behind the couch and are too curious for our own good." Iasmin finally explained.

Mensan groaned, "I was hoping it wasn't that. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Who else knows?"

Danyana replied, "Hopefully no one else that was there Friday."

Aerek added, "No one in their right mind would have climbed behind the couch, and it was not visible from the rest of the room. Anyway, we didn't want to go telling everyone else. Don't worry; it's just the three of us."

Mensan said, "That may be enough of a reason to worry. Three curious beings like yourselves, and all the effort of hiding it is useless."

Danyana, offended by his lack of trust exclaimed, "We wouldn't tell anyone! We just want to know what it was, and why it is being kept a secret."

Aerek gave her a warning glance.

Mensan sighed, "Oh dear. And what makes you think I'm the right person to ask? Well? At least tell me your theories about it."

Silence.

"Oh, come on. Even the silly ones." Mensan urged.

All three were surprised at the way Mensan warmed up right then. He even nearly smiled.

Aerek spoke first, "Well, uh... we call it a Window."

Mensan asked, "Any idea why?"

"Not really. It just came to me." Aerek paused. Slightly embarrassed, he said, "I guess I've just read too much sci-fi"

Danyana helped him by admitting, "We all have."

Mensan then asked, "So what do you think it does?"

Aerek explained, "I kinda thought it could be a portal to somewhere, or like a fault in the universe, or some melting of matter and energy. Scientifically, I would say a wormhole or black hole forming, but it didn't feel scientific. It felt magical."

Mensan praised, "So not only sci-fi, but fantasy as well? That's my kind of reader." "What about you girls?"

Iasmin answered first, but uncertainly, "Well, I'm not the one who found it."

Mensan encouraged her, "Don't let your brother overshadow you."

"Well, I thought it was whispering, but all of us were too afraid to really observe it." she said.

"Could you tell what it was saying?" he asked.

"No." Iasmin replied, disappointed.

Danyana posed the question that all of them had been burning to ask, "Do you know what it is?"

"I do have an idea."

Chapter 4

After a long pause, Mensan began thoughtfully, "It's been... oh, twenty years, give or take, since I first saw one. We also call them Windows." He looked back up at the three students and became more aware of them. He saw the question in their eyes, "Oh yes, there are more. The one you saw is not really anything special. Still, I've been trying to keep it quiet. There are those who would kill to get to it, and I can only hope that they have not found it yet. As soon as I learned of its existence, I stopped renting the place and locked it up. Since then, I only went in twice: once with several others who know about it, and the other time alone."

He reverted to his last visit and stared off into space for a while. Danyana disrupted his daydream, "If it's alright to ask, who were the other people that knew about it? Do they know about the other Windows as well?"

Mensan replied, "They do. There aren't too many of us, but more than there should be. We are a society called the Wardens. We believe that the Windows must remain secret to the public until more is known of them. There is another group that wishes to meddle with them, and those are the ones we try to guard against."

Aerek bombarded Mensan with questions, "We? You mean you are part of this group? How do you know who is trying to meddle? Who all is trying to protect the Windows?"

Mensan reached out his hand toward Aerek and motioned for him to slow down. "One at a time, please. Yes, I am part of the Wardens, but don't expect membership cards. Our problem is that we do not actually know who is trying to meddle; we can only guess. And this 'we' consists of a handful of scientists and other people who have bumped into the windows by accident. I do not know the full extent of it myself."

Danyana changed the topic slightly, "What do those others wish to do to the Windows?"

Mensan carefully replied, "I cannot fully explain that, as I am not one of them. But people have been killed in their experiments. They claim that they could bring them back. It seemed like some sort of witchcraft to me."

Aerek asked, "Has anyone tampered with the Window we saw?"

Mensan responded, "As far as I know, they have not."

"Could we go see it?" Aerek inquired.

Mensan replied, "Not today. Perhaps some other time, yes. Right now, I need to find a new way to secure it."

"That's quite alright. You have given us so much to think about right now anyway, I don't think I would be able to go to the Window now and see clearly." Iasmin said.

Aerek asked, "If we want to help you protect it, does that make us a part of the Wardens?

Mensan shook his head, "The Wardens are not a club, dear boy." Aerek closed his mouth and looked away embarrassed.

A few awkward minutes passed when none of them dared to ask a direct question about the Window. Mensan sensed this, and so he invited them, "You wanted to see the window again, right?" He saw them nod. "Well, come by here tomorrow afternoon, and I will take you up there. It is about time I checked on it, and I do not want to stay around it alone for too long."

"Oh my goodness, thank you!" Danyana exclaimed. "We were worried that you would forbid us from going near it ever again."

"Well, I do, unless you are with me." He said in a serious tone.

"You do what?" a strange voice asked. Everyone except Mensan jumped. There was a young woman at the door with a teapot in one hand, and the other one on the door handle. Her eyes were as bright as Mensan's, and her face had nearly the same shape. None of them had noticed her enter.

"Oh, nothing. Everyone, this is my grandniece, Vocia. Vocia, these are Danyana, Iasmin, and Aerek." Mensan smoothly said, pointing everyone out.

Each of them said their hellos and Nice-to-meet-you's. Vocia returned with three more teacups and a plate of cookies. She was immediately likable and shared a love for science fiction and fantasy with Mensan. It was part of the reason she had come to live with him after he returned from the hospital, in case he had another heart attack. The rest of the family insisted that he had gone crazy and wanted to have him committed to a home. She knew that any home without his library would drive him to insanity.

Since she did not often get out, she welcomed the opportunity to socialize with people closer to her own age. The five of them spent a somewhat cramped afternoon in Mensan's book-lined living room. They did not leave until the place had grown dark enough for Vocia to go flip on the light, and they realized that they had to go home. They all promised to come back the next day.

On the way home, they spoke of nothing but the Window. Mensan had given them plenty to discuss.

"He said that the others want to bring people back from the dead." Aerek remembered.

"Does that mean they use the Window as a passage to the afterlife?" Iasmin asked.

"Who knows" Aerek replied.

"I wonder what part of the afterlife it leads to," Danyana pondered.

"Does it matter? You're still not supposed to bring people back." Iasmin retorted.

"Well, wouldn't you prefer that they bring back someone like Mother Theresa than someone from hell?" Aerek asked her.

"I'm with the Wardens. Humans should not mess with this." Iasmin firmly repeated her view.

"Well, it would be interesting if it worked. It would mess up the world, but it would still be somewhat cool." Danyana said."

"Hey, stop playing the devil's advocate!" Iasmin warned her.

"Eh, sorry. I couldn't help it." Danyana apologized.

Danyana and Iasmin turned to the right, toward their dorm, while Aerek went left, to they men's dorm building. After a quick sprint up the stairs and a shower, both Iasmin and Danyana climbed in bed with a book. Danyana was reading the first book from Arthur C. Clarke's series: Rendezvous with Rama. After reading his Space Odyssey series a few weeks earlier, she had been itching to read more of his beautiful writing. It changed her view of the universe. It belittled her.

"Are you at all worried about tomorrow?" Iasmin whispered to Danyana.

Looking up from the page, she answered, "Nah, I think I can do okay on Zelman's test. You made me study yesterday."

Iasmin threw here a glare, but it was lost in the dimly lit room.

Then Danyana answered her seriously, "Well, yeah, I am. I mean, we are always reading about people dying, and about other people's views of the afterlife, but Mensan sounded serious. I don't like the sound of the Window anymore. I thought it was a good thing."

"Well, maybe it is. The Window itself could be good, just the people messing with it could be the bad ones." Iasmin reasoned.

"Do you think they really believe that someone will bring them back when they die?" Danyana asked.

"They might. Mensan seemed to think so."

"See? It's like any other religion. All they do is get crazy followers, brainwash them, and get them to kill people for the cause." Danyana ranted.

"Not every religion is like that." Iasmin defended.

"Look at the most common ones." Danyana went on, "They each kill people of the other group because they don't believe in the same invisible guy in the sky."

"But those people make up such a small part! Look at the millions that become better people because of their faith in the God and in the moral code of each religion."

"I can have my own morals without a religion to prescribe them, thank you very much" Danyana snapped.

"I'm not saying you can't, but some people want to believe that this world is not all we have." Iasmin explained.

"Is that why you go to church?" inquired Danyana.

Iasmin admitted, "Yes, that is part of it. But just because I am Christian doesn't mean that I will go on a Muslim killing spree."

"What about your mom? How did Christianity do her well." Danyana asked.

"The same way it helps me. Except she believed in much of the stuff prescribed by priests and ministers which has nothing to do with the faith."

"In other words she took advice on how to raise kids from a bunch of childless preachers and destroyed yours and Aerek's childhood." Danyana provoked, but Iasmin did not argue back.

"If that's how you see it, go ahead. She thought she was saving us the pain of having to find all the answers for ourselves."

"Do you think that's what Vocia's mother was doing?" Danyana asked.

"It could have been." Iasmin said. "Religion can make people do bad things, but it isn't the faith. It is the fanaticism."

"So I guess it is also fanaticism that makes people hunt the Windows."

"Yeah, it could be. But I don't think it's a religion. Mensan never mentioned them having a God, did he?'

"No he didn't." Danyana answered. "Anyway, we'll see tomorrow."

"Good night" Iasmin said, and turned off her light.

"Night"

Chapter 5

Breakfast, morning classes, lunch, and afternoon class flew by for the three of them. Before they knew it, it was four o'clock, and Danyana and Iasmin were waiting for Aerek in the small gazebo, hidden among a clump of oaks. There were two sagging benches inside, and cracked tile on the floor. Every evening, a swarm of bugs attacked the bare light bulb, but in the early afternoon, it was quiet.

"You like Aerek, don't you." Iasmin carefully asked Danyana.

Danyana did not say anything at first. "I guess I do," she finally answered, slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I don't want to make things awkward. He's your brother, and I don't plan on telling him anything and making things odd between us. I am really glad to have you two as my best friends, and I would never hold it against him if he didn't--"

"Uh, Dani? He likes you a whole lot as well, so don't worry. I just want you to be happy."

"Are you sure?" Danyana asked.

"Am I sure I want you to be happy? What kind of question is that?! Of course I'm sure. And if you two want to be alone occasionally, just tell me, and I'll give you space." Iasmin reassured her.

"Thank you." Danyana then remarked, "He's heading here."

"Finally, you slowpoke!" Iasmin exclaimed to her brother. "We almost left without you."

"No you didn't. Come on, this group is nothing without my awesomeness." Aerek said.

Danyana then announced, "If you two didn't notice, I'm the one who holds this whole thing together. You two love me so much you forget that you want to kill each other!"

"Uh, Dani, I hate to burst your bubble, but it seems that you are letting the 'insert-your-own-name-here is awesome!' self-esteem exercise get to you too much." Iasmin laughed.

Aerek hugged Danyana with one arm and whispered, "Don't tell Iasmin, but I do agree that you are pretty cool. How else could the three of us stay together?"

"What are you whispering about? I thought we were headed to Mensan's" Iasmin reminded. As before, the mere thought of Windows focused them, and they set off.

When they knocked, Vocia opened the door, and pointed them inside, where Mensan was waiting for them. He took a key out of his pocket, and wordlessly, preceded them out of his own apartment and up the stairs. He walked briskly for a person his age. Once he unlocked the apartment, they all entered. The place seemed much smaller to them, now that there wasn't a crowd, and when they went into the living room, Aerek moved the couch out of the way.

"How did nobody see this on Friday?" Iasmin asked.

"Maybe it's just that we know where it is, so we are expecting to see it. We didn't at first. Aerek replied.

"Shh. Listen" Danyana warned them. Unintelligible whispers filled the room and echoed from the empty walls. Mensan was the first to tiptoe closer to it, but no one dared to touch it.

"Doesn't it make you feel weird?" Aerek asked everyone, but got no answer. He could feel a kind of pull from it. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to get closer to it or run away.

Near him, Danyana was swaying back and forth, breathing very shallowly. Her eyes were shut, yet she was still staring at the window, absorbing its strangeness with her entire body. Mensan had huddled up on the couch, and Iasmin was sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up to her chest.

"Hello?" Aerek nervously called out. He wasn't sure whether the others could hear him. They were entranced by the Window. Slowly, Mensan shook his head and stood. "Come back down with me. It isn't healthy for you to be here."

Aerek had to take Iasmin by the shoulder to make her get up. They left the apartment in a far more serious mood than when they had entered. Danyana was pale, as is she had seen a ghost, and Mensan looked sad and tired, no longer full of the same energy he'd had the day before. Everyone felt the drowning effects of the Window.

Mensan did not speak until they were all settled on the sofa in his living room. "Now you see why I have only been there twice. The last time, I didn't come downstairs for hours and people got worried. That is why Vocia lives with me now. I just wanted to stay up in that room with the window and go to sleep forever. My relatives thought I had gone off the deep end because I was ranting and raving about seeing fuzzy and hearing whispers in my head. Thankfully, a close friend of mine told me he had a colleague who talked of the same kind of thing, and we got together. Several scientists came over, and we headed up there. With a group, we were all braver. Some people poked the edges of it; others tossed in things on a string. They all came back unchanged, as far as we could tell. A mirror did not show anything, a camera did not take a picture at all. It was odd.

"Then someone suggested setting off a firework and tossing it in. He wished to see what effect it would have on the Window. That was when I kicked everyone out and took it upon myself to keep the place quiet."

"What about the Wardens, sir?" Aerek asked.

"Some of those scientists were the Wardens. I have kept in contact with them, but I decided not to let anyone else near the Windows."

"Is that how you found out about the other group who is trying to use them?" Danyana boldly asked.

"Yes, it is," he replied. "Vocia, could you please bring me the file from the third drawer on my desk? The biggest one?"

She came back, carrying a stack of letters and newspaper clippings, all poking out of a manila folder.

"Thank you, my dear." he said to her. Then he addressed Aerek, Danyana, and Iasmin again, "I have kept all of my correspondence with them.

"There is a secret society with a long interest in those Windows. Long enough to have left records among medieval writings. At first, some of the necromancers found one had formed near the gallows. They had strong belief in their God, and thought that the Window was an image of heaven's pearly gates. They took every martyr executed from that time on and tried out their spells over the body by the spot, thinking that the soul would return and bring the corpse back to life.

"There was one time that it did happen – the noose had been tied oddly and the prisoner's neck had broken, yet the spinal cord stayed intact. However, science was not advanced enough, and these pseudo scientists were amazed by their own powers. They thought others would accept their new discovery, but since the reanimated body spoke nonsense and died before anyone else could confirm, it was claimed to be the work of the devil and they were banished from Britain.

"The necromancers scattered, but one wrote down every aspect of their experiments and passed this down to his apprentice, and to his children, and so on. He signed his work by the name 'The fifth Alchemist' and that is how he is known today. It is a miracle that the church did not find them and destroy every last page." Mensan finished.

"How did they find his writings? How come they are not in a museum or lost today?" Danyana asked.

"I do not know. I have never seen them, nor do I know of anyone who does. Someone has copied bits and pieces of them and they have passed the writings around. My friend had found one of those bits and described what he read in this letter" Mensan said as he held up the thickest envelope from the stack.

"And you believe this?" Aerek exclaimed.

"Of course I do. Give me a moment to explain." said Mensan. "These newspaper clippings all talk of drunken parties and Satanist human sacrifices. One thing these have in common is that none of the witnesses left the room. Another is that there was never a struggle to remain alive, and each witness eventually ended up in an insane asylum, muttering of whispered screams and wanting to return there."

"Windows do that." Danyana muttered.

"Why would all these people kill each other for Windows?" Aerek asked.

"They believe the Fifth Alchemist and see the Windows as a way back when they die. According to the letters, one just needs to get enough life energy centered by the gateway between worlds to call a soul back." Mensan explained.

Aerek thought for a while, and then asked, "Would you want to come back, Mensan?"

Iasmin glared at him for asking such a personal question.

"No. I think I have spent enough time here, and if the after is as calm as those whispers tell me, I would gladly take the stairway and rest for a while. What else is there for me? Your youth makes me want to stay and see what you can do in your life, but I am old, and I have seen children grow up already. When it is my time, I hope I leave as quietly as I have lived the last years of my life, and I hope there are no Windows nearby to bring me back." Mensan answered them.

Vocia came in and saw all of them deep in their own thoughts. She slid into the rocker and waited, wondering whether they would include her in their conversation.

"I would be okay if death just meant the end. It would be simpler." Aerek thought aloud.

"Vocia, do you believe in a heaven and hell?" Iasmin asked her.

"No, I find it hard to now. My mother, may she rest in peace, always spoke of eternal happiness later, and thought that it would be better to spend your life now in prayer. She never forgave me for searching for my own answers, not even on the day the Rabbi last came to her.

"Mothers." Aerek cursed. "Ours made us attend church every Sunday, take the electives at school, and nearly signed our lives away to a Catholic school."

"Aerek!" Iasmin scolded. "Don't say that!"

"Why not, Ias? You know it's true. You rewrapped your books so she wouldn't know you were reading them as well. She tried to control everything about you!"

"There is one thing her religion taught me, and though I cannot remember the exact phrase, I really liked it. You can control my actions, you can beat me, you can enslave me, you can even take away my life, but you can never change my belief. I went through the motions, and she was satisfied with that. Now she's gone, so let her be at peace in whichever level of hell she thought up for herself." Iasmin said.

"But you still believe in God, don't you?" Danyana interrupted.

"Yes, I do. But I had to find it on my own, and she delayed that by forcing it on us too early and in the wrong way." Iasmin explained. "It seemed to her that speeches about eternal flames of hell and hours spent in prayer would make us believe. Instead they created a revulsion that took years to get over."

"I am sorry." Vocia soothed. "There are many ill deeds religion has caused, and I did not realize… Well, if you ever need to talk to someone, I am here."

"Thank you" Iasmin replied.

"Do you still miss her?" Aerek asked Vocia.

"Of course I do. I am not glad she died, and I miss having a mother." Vocia replied.

"And I miss having a niece and a sister - Vocia's mother and grandma." Mensan spoke up. "They weren't always so extreme in their religion. But I think we have honored their memories enough for one day. How about we make dinner for everyone?"

"Dinner? Is it that late already?" Iasmin asked.

Aerek looked at his watch, "It's eight thirty."

"Dinner ended an hour ago" Danyana said.

"How come I haven't been hungry? We haven't eaten since lunchtime." Aerek wondered.

"Well, we don't have anything fancy. I hope you like noodles." Vocia said.

"Thank you very much" Iasmin spoke for them all. "We didn't realize it had gotten so late, or we wouldn't have stayed so long. Is there anything I can help with?" She offered.

"Well, if you want, you can open a can of tomato sauce for me. I'll get the water boiling." Vocia said.

An hour and a half later, Iasmin and Danyana stood to help Vocia clear the table. Mensan reprimanded them, "What is this? You two helped cook and set up, Vocia made the spaghetti. Sit down. Aerek and I will take care of the dishes. Right?"

Somewhat uneasily, they sat down, and Aerek started picking up their plates. Mensan took the silverware and when he returned from the kitchen, he was carrying a bottle and a corkscrew. He reached into the cabinet for wineglasses, but Iasmin started her protest against alcohol immediately.

"This barely counts as a dinner if you cannot wash it down with something." he responded.

Iasmin was firm, however, "We have class in the morning and still have to walk home."

"Well, if you insist, then go ahead. Maybe you should come for lunch next Saturday." He invited them, "Right Vocia?"

She wasn't in the room anymore. "Vocia?"

"Yes, Uncle?" she said from the hallway.

"I just invited these back for lunch Saturday. Is that okay with you?" he repeated.

"Of course. I just had to make a phone call. I'm sorry I missed that." she apologized, sounding shaken.

"Oh, that's alright, my dear." Mensan said to her, patting her shoulder gently.

"Thank you, sir," Iasmin said, "And thank you for taking us upstairs and telling us the story you did. And thank you, Vocia. It is good to know there are people who understand. We have to go back now, or we will miss curfew."

Aerek and Danyana said their goodbyes. They all slipped on their shoes and headed back to school, hoping to be back before the 10:30 curfew.

As they walked away from Mensan's they did not notice the dark, thin figure cross the street moments after they did. They even missed the three larger men who joined him a few blocks later. When they turned into a narrow lane called Green Street to take the shortcut to campus, those three men grabbed them from behind and covered their mouths. Even Aerek, as tall as he was, could not struggle out of the firm grip.

Chapter 6

The room they sat in smelled of old urine. There was no furniture, and it was only about ten by twelve feet, with harsh carpet and a ceiling too tall to reach. Faint light from a street lamp streamed in from a high window; inside there was darkness.

Aerek was rubbing his elbow and peeling off tiny specks of skin from a rug burn. "They could have been gentler."

"Who the f*** are they?" exclaimed Danyana. "They sneak up on us, drag us halfway down the street, up some messed up elevator, and then shove us into this hole. What did we do to them!?"

"What did we get mixed up in?" Iasmin added.

"What do they want from us?" Danyana asked. No one answered.

After a moment, Iasmin corrected her, "What do they not want from us. What do they fear we are going to do?"

"Who knows? They could just want out kidneys, but we have just happened to get mixed up in these supernatural other-world things. I don't want to say it, but just maybe it isn't coincidence that we saw the Window again today and some strange people grabbed us off the street a few hours later." Aerek said.

"What are they going to do to us?" Iasmin asked.

"What can we do about it now?" Aerek said pragmatically. "At least we ate, so we aren't going to starve as fast."

"But we should be in the dorms by now. We'll be in so much trouble for being late." Iasmin panicked.

Both Aerek and Danyana laughed about that. "Being in trouble with the school is the best possible outcome right now."

"Thank you for cheering us all up with that, Dani" Aerek said.

"Uh, guys, could you put away your cynicism for a while and try to get a way out of here?" Iasmin begged.

"Ias, we've tried the window, but it is too narrow to fit through, unless you can shrink your head. Besides, it is stuck shut with about twenty layers of paint that have dripped into it.

The door is locked and beyond any of our power to beat through it, the lock does not open to the inside so we cannot pick it, and the walls are either brick or stone. We might just be stuck." Danyana explained. "Unless you see some magical escape route, I suggest we all lie down and get as much sleep as we can before they start asking questions."

"Are you giving up?" she accused.

"No. I am trying to do what I can, not what I have no control over." Danyana replied. "If you really want, we could double-check our story. It might be best to keep Mensan and Vocia out of it as much as we can. Pretend we thought it was some amazing holographic technology from a sci-fi novel. Anyway, I'm going to try to sleep."

Iasmin looked like she was about to say something, but instead rolled her sweater into a pillow and mumbled, "Good night."

Five minutes later Danyana heard her muttering her nightly prayers. Despite her mother's perversion of it, she had kept some faith. Aerek was still standing up, looking out of the narrow window at the pitch-black sky.

Chapter 7

Aerek's wristwatch woke them promptly at seven. Aerek silenced the beeping without a word, and they tiptoed to the door to see if it was still locked. The handle turned with little resistance, and the door clicked open in Danyana's hand. She jumped at that and gave the others a questioning look that clearly said, "What in the world?" Iasmin picked up her sweater, swept the room with her eyes to make sure they left nothing and that they were not being watched. Then they all pushed their heads out into the hallway. No one was there.

"Let's take the stairs, just to be sure" Danyana whispered, and led the way in the direction an emergency exit sign indicated. The place appeared deserted. They walked out into a courtyard surrounded by run-down three-story apartment buildings. They exited through an arched passage and came out on the other side of Green Street. There Danyana broke into a run toward their school, but Aerek caught up with her.

"Not there! It's too obvious. Let's go to the bus stop." he hissed. Following his direction, Danyana jogged left and at the end of the block saw an approaching bus. All three of them sprinted when they saw its doors open.

"Forget it; we'll have to take the next one." Iasmin yelled.

"A bit more. We can make it. Come on!" Danyana shouted back. Moments later, they skidded to a halt and crammed themselves into the overfilled bus. Aerek's back was pushed against the glass of the door, and Danyana was standing on the middle stair with nothing to hold on to. Nevertheless, as soon as the doors squelched shut, the bus lurched forward and merged back into traffic.

"I think we've lost anyone who might have been following us," Danyana said.

"Aerek, are you sure the door was locked last night?" Iasmin asked him.

"Of course I'm sure. I'm not an idiot. You and Dani both tried it and every other escape route we could think of."

"That means that either those guys just wanted to freak us out, or someone realized we were locked up there and freed us." Danyana reasoned.

"Who would have done that, you think?" Iasmin asked.

"Who do you think? Let's talk more in a bit. I think we can get off this bus now. Looks like a nice crowd over there." Danyana said, pointing to the setup for some sort of a concert. Relieved, they tumbled out of the bus as soon as the doors opened. They wandered a little ways from the bus stop into the shade of a nearby building.

"If anyone unlocked us, it would have been Mensan, Vocia, or one of the Wardens. Unless it was the bad guys themselves trying to scare us away from the Windows." Danyana said.

"Will we ever find out?" Iasmin asked.

"If it was the bad guys, then we don't want to let them succeed in keeping us away. If it was not, then it was somebody trying to make us come back and protect the Windows. Either way, we need to go back to them." Aerek said.

"But we don't want to fall into another trap. We shouldn't go back to Mensan's right now." Danyana said.

"Do you think they could have watched us leave the building?" Iasmin asked.

"If they did, they would still be watching now. We really need to get lost." Danyana said. "We stand out too much as it is."

"Especially you," Aerek pointed out.

She glanced down at her violently lime-green shirt. "Oh, great."

"Here, you'll owe me, but I'll go get you one of the band shirts." He pointed to a nearby tent. "How about one of those black feminist ones?" Two minutes later, he was back with a t-shirt for her. It was simple – there was a giant white female symbol on the front.

"Oh, this won't stand out." She sarcastically remarked, pulling it over her head.

"Look around you. These are some strange people."

"Any one of these could be following us." Danyana said, scanning the crowd. She considered a twenty-something year old in a trench coat, but then realized trench coats were abundant in this place. Next, she noticed an elegant woman in bright red lipstick with a thin cigarette, and a very young mother with two children.

Then a dark figure standing in the shadows in an alcove of a huge building materialized. He was wearing a tight gray sweater with the hood pulled over his head, but he looked too serious and purposeful to be a random bystander. He had not moved since she first noticed him.

She grabbed Aerek's and Iasmin's shoulders and hissed, "Wee need to get out of here. I think someone was watching us, but intentionally let us escape. Don't look now, but there's a man in a gray sweater by the bank's entrance who hasn't stopped staring in this direction. I get the feeling that I have seen him before out of the corner of my eye, possibly at Mensan's last night."

"Are you sure," Aerek asked, "That he was at Mensan's?"

"No, but my instinct tells me that he was there."

"So we can't go back to see him. We should split up." Aerek explained, "The group of us is still easier to find than each one individually."

"Split up!? Are you kidding?!" Iasmin exclaimed.

"Only until we lose them. If everything goes alright, we can meet up back at the gazebo at lunch time."

"Aerek is right." Danyana sighed. She tried to keep her tone regular, "See you at lunch." She dreaded the thought of being alone, but with three of them and one man following, it was the best strategy. He would have to choose one and leave the rest.

"See ya then." Aerek choked out and turned away.

With a tone of finality, Iasmin added her, "Later."

Chapter 8

Sariel watched from where he stood. They were scared, all right. They were all scared. The taller girl may have put a brave face on it, but she was trembling inside. He could see it. And the boy. He had to be the gentleman and be brave. Yet Sariel saw how he looked at his friends' retreating forms and could tell he wished that he had held them in an embrace before he left.

"He will wish that again, before he dies," he thought. He was certain of it, and knew that if he were wrong, it would mean he had failed.

He smiled to himself. It was all too easy. They walked into the trap without a word. He would get them, pick them off one by one, like the dirty scabs that they were. The obscene hindrance that they had become.

It was unfortunate that the Watcher's guard had slipped up at the party and allowed random humans to encounter the Window. It would never happen again. The man who had been responsible had already been punished for his mistake, but when any one of the Watchers failed, they failed as a group also, and the rest of them would suffer the consequences, too. It was his personal goal to repair as much as he could. That was the reason Sariel had been sent on this assignment. It was simple and he was determined to carry it out well.

He could linger no longer. He bowed out of the cover of the bank building and slid into the mass of people in the square. He could see one of the girls in the crowd on the left, and the boy brandishing his elbows through the worst part of the crowd.

The one who interested him most, however, was the girl running down the steps on his right. She pulled on her hoodie and jumped down the last three stairs simultaneously, making her jacket stream in the air behind her like a black banner. He could see the sun glaring off her back as she ran, and hoped she could feel his hateful stare on the back of her neck along with it. She was alone.

Chapter 9

Reluctantly, she moved away from her friends and walked to the right, toward the stairs at the top of the square. She pulled on the sleeves of her hoodie as she briskly stepped down the stairs, letting the air lift her black jacket with every stair. She felt the heat of the morning sun on the black fabric, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up as a nervous shiver passed down her spine.

Navigating the crowd became more and more difficult toward the bottom of the square. Tall as she was, she could no longer see over everyone's heads and could only hope she was heading in the right direction. Her plan was to spend the morning in the University Library. Because it required a card to enter, it offered some security. It also seemed innocent enough that she would not stand out.

When she finally broke out of the throng, having received several elbows to her side and one to her face, she stood in an unfamiliar alley. She hoped that she did not stand out with her new bruise. It felt particularly tender on her right cheekbone, and she could feel its warmth on her fingers. Since she could not risk getting lost in the concert crowd again (she would never get out), she followed the alley until it met up with a bigger street, and then went a few blocks down that before the recognized where she was. She had gone in a completely different direction and had to walk a long ways to the library.

By the time she passed the great lions into the building, she had checked over her shoulder at least fifty times. She did not see anyone following her. Few buildings such as the University Library still exist. The walls were solid stone and several feet thick, and the rooms all opened to balconies overhanging multiple courtyards. The edifice had once been a private palace, but now it belonged to the greatest university in the country, of which her school was only a pet project.

She scanned her card to get in as usual, and headed straight to the sci-fi section where she sank into an armchair. She delighted in the familiar surroundings for a moment before checking her watch. However, by then it was past one o'clock in the afternoon, and with a shock she realized that she had missed meeting up with Aerek and Danyana. Even after navigating the streets for so long, she still got a jolt through her system when she realized that someone might be following her. The idea of further wandering around the city alone scared her, so she found a pay phone and called Aerek's room.

His roommate picked up, "Hello?"

"Uh, hey Mark. Is Aerek there?" she asked.

"Is that you Dani?"

"Yeah. Is he there?"

No, actually. Is he okay? I haven't seen him since early yesterday. Is he sick?" Mark wondered.

"I don't know. That's why I called you." Danyana explained.

"Well, if you find out anything, could you call me and tell me what's up?" Mark said.

"Sure. I'll do that." Danyana agreed.

"I can do the same for you, if you want." Mark offered.

"Yeah, that'd be great." She said, "Thanks."

"No problem."

"Bye."

"Talk to you later. Bye." He hung up.

She also called her own room, hoping Iasmin would reply. Then she called Mia and Alex and Lauren, all close friends with either Aerek or Iasmin, but no one had heard from them. They did not eat lunch. They were not in their rooms. They had not been seen anywhere around campus.

The only way to be sure would be to go to the gazebo herself. It wasn't too far, so she left the library for a while and went there. Even from across the street she could tell that no one was there. She went in to check, knowing that she would not find either of her friends and then turned back around to go to the library.

As a last resort, she called Mensan's, yet no one picked up. It was odd, since he had told them that he almost never leaves his book room.

Everyone had disappeared, yet she was hiding out in the library -- Were they doing the same thing? Were they even still alive? She wondered. She could leave to go look for them. But it was too risky without knowing where they were, cut off from the outside situation. And if she chose to stay in the library, she had access to the phone. She could call back to see if Aerek, Iasmin, or Mensan had returned. She returned to the science fiction section, finding comfort in the familiar surroundings. Still, every half our or so, she returned to the phone and called Mensan's apartment and the dorms.

When the library shut at seven, she still had not found her friends or Mensan. She did not dare to leave, so she took a few books with her. Instead of heading to the checkout counter, she wandered the halls for a while, looking for a place to escape the night guard. A door crossed with yellow caution tape caught her attention. There was a sign on it, saying, "DO NOT ENTER. This section is temporarily closed due to renovations. Sorry For the Inconvenience. The PF 394-872 books are now on the Second Level to the left."

It was not locked, and no one saw her slide under the caution tape. She found herself in an empty room covered in dust and broken up walls and floors. Every step that she took brought up puffs of white powder that soon made her cough. She crossed to the other end of the room and out through the door into an enclosed courtyard. It was filled with dead leaves and bare-branched trees. She found a sagging wooden bench under one of those trees, lay down on it, and pretended that she was on one of the benches in the gazebo, with her friends.

Although it was only early October, the night was cold, and she had no coat to keep her warm. She did not fall asleep until several hours of staring at the clear sky later. The cold of the night coupled with her never-ending fear would not let her sleep until sheer exhaustion just took over. The last image before she slipped into her dreams was the pale moon at its roundest.

Her dream was filled with the screams of tortured souls, reverberating through her skull. They said nothing, but she knew that her faults and mistakes made them suffer continuously. This was not hell; the people had done nothing wrong. They were the innocents whom she had not saved.

Then her dream changed. The last cries sounded and then all was quiet. A light appeared and she could see a green grassy land. The sky was blue, and it was warm. When she looked closer, she could see millions of tiny flowers. Then the sky opened above her, and its color faded to a steel gray as she slowly woke. A short moment of confusion followed, but she remembered where she was. She shivered, both because of her dream and because of the cold.

She guessed that the library was open by the sounds of footsteps and doors opening and closing. Then she entered the building, seeking its warmth and headed to a bathroom. When she placed her hands under the stream of warm water, she looked up. She was surprised to see the dark rings under her eyes. She knew that she could not stay in the library forever. She no longer worried whether someone was following her. She simply knew that she could not live with the uncertainty anymore. She wanted to know how Aerek was doing, and she worried about Iasmin. She would go to Mensan's and meet with them if there were there, just not picking up the phone.

Chapter 10

Getting to Mensan's was not a problem. She remembered the building's location easily, and walked quicker due to the chill of the morning. The downstairs entrance opened with the push of a shoulder just as the previous times, yet no one answered her knock on Mensan's door. She repeatedly rang the doorbell, and in her impatience, she reached for the doorknob anyway and was surprised that it opened. She remembered that Mensan had latched it carefully behind them, even putting up the security chain. It did not seem like he would easily abandon that habit.

The sight inside scared her even more. The dishes from their dinner still sat on the counter. The food remains had now dried to them. It looked as if everyone had disappeared from Mensan's apartment only minutes after she, Aerek, and Iasmin had left. She inevitably wondered whether someone had broken in to take Mensan and Vocia at the same time. If so, "Where did they take them?" She whispered, as if the room could tell her. She was sitting on the edge of Vocia's bed, and after she startled herself by whispering, she listened to check whether anyone had heard her.

She did not hear any movement in the room. The only sound was of a door creaking on its hinges in the draft, and a steady "tick-tock-tick-tock." It came from the bedside table, from a small wind-up mechanical alarm clock.

Clocks like that do no stay wound for more than a day, yet here she was, nearly two days later, and the clock was steadily ticking away, still on time. Its hour chime rang to announce nine o'clock, and Danyana jumped several inches off the bed in fright.

Someone had wound it up after the night when she, Iasmin, and Aerek were taken. Mensan was not at home, despite claiming never to leave the apartment. The clock was in Vocia's bedroom. Vocia had left dinner to go make a suspicious phone call. It added up.

Vocia had called someone, gotten Mensan, Iasmin, Danyana, and Aerek captured, and then returned to the apartment. Danyana had seen enough to suspect her.

For the past day, Vocia may have been ignoring her phone calls because she could not give her a good explanation for still being there. Aerek and Iasmin were gone. Mensan was gone. She did not know whom she could go to, and instead chose to search for any signs that those three could have left – any warning or directions for her. They would be scratched in among the graffiti on the cement walls or written on a piece of paper, perhaps a gum wrapper, and stuck into a hollow part of the bench. That was the usual way they left notes for each other.

She did not find anything from Mensan, but it was possible that he had no time to leave a warning, or Vocia hid it. If Aerek or Iasmin were going to leave a message, it would be at the gazebo. They had planned to meet up there if they could. Sure, it was dangerous to go back, but nothing she did now was safe.

The morning air was still chilly, and a brisk wind had picked up. It bit her bare hands and got in through her jeans and jacket. She jogged a little to warm up, not stopping until she got back to the square where she, Aerek, and Danyana had split up. Eerily, it was empty. The trashcans were overflowing so that the wind blew scraps of paper and plastic cups around.

On one of the benches lay a black jacket. Danyana wrapped it around herself, then looked at her reflection in the glass doors of the bank. It had narrow sleeves and covered her down to nearly her knees. She put her hair up into a tight knot without a single loose strand. With the dark circles under her eyes, she looked almost ghost-like. The image would have been nearly perfect, had it not been for another such figure standing on the opposite side of the square behind her. It was the same one she had seen right before she, Aerek, and Iasmin had split up; the one they were trying to avoid.

Chapter 11

She cursed herself for lingering in one spot for so long. She pulled open the heavy glass door and entered the unfamiliar building. She looked up and saw many floors up in the wide-open vestibule, with giant windows along the wall. There were tall palm trees growing inside, all the way to the ceiling.
In front of her were two ostentatious staircases, each leading three floors upward to the same balcony. She ran up to the landing, from which she could observe the entire atrium without being seen from below, while she thought of an escape. She glanced around for a good place to hide, but she knew that he would search for her unrelentingly until he had her. He was thorough and enduring.
She would have to wait and use any wits she still possessed. If she failed, she could still have the dignity of handing herself over, instead of being taken by force. If she failed, she could keep her honor. This man knew what he was doing and wanted to re-capture her and her friends.
She stood still in the center of the platform and waited. Her breathing was deep and even despite her terror. She knew that, for the moment, she was alone in the atrium. No one would witness this, and if she were successful, the figure whose outline was visible through the glass would not get to tell, either. She took a deep breath, clenched her teeth, and waited for the dreaded door to open.
She did not hear him stride across the ground below her, nor mount the first set of stairs. She heard nothing but a faint squeak on her left, by which she knew to expect him. She had no weapon, and no concrete plan. He certainly had the advantage, unless he let his guard down. That was what she hoped to make him do.
She stood up yet straighter, and looked ahead, not a hint of fear left in her expression. He came around the corner of the staircase, and she could see he was shocked to see her facing him. His hand immediately reached for a knife on his belt, but he did not take it out. He approached her, hesitant, but not as cautious as he should be.
"Why do you want me?" she nearly whispered, when he had come close, standing not two feet from her.
He frowned, the first expression she had seen on his face. The frown did not take away from the perfection of his face, only enhanced its mysterious beauty. His black eyes looked away for a fraction of a second, while he gathered himself together. "I am following orders. I do not question their intent, and I advise you to not do so either." He replied.
She stepped closer and looked up at him. He was half a head taller than her. "What is your name?" she questioned him again, against her nature.
Surprised by her audacity, or perhaps rashness, he answered by instinct, "Sariel." He paused. "You will have no need of my name, unless my superiors are upset by your answers and you turn to me for help."
"They do not plan to kill me straight away, then." she acknowledged.
"No they do not. They are curious about something you and your friends have stumbled upon. Something that was not meant to be disturbed." He confirmed. His answers were sharp and quick whispers, but they were not angry. He was curious about her; not many people he had met were brave enough to talk to him. Begged, yes; talked, no. He rarely had to read their emotions, since his victims usually had just one – fear. This girl was different.

"What are my options?" Dani asked him.

"You have no options. You will help our cause whether you wish to or not." Sariel said.

"What is your cause, then?" she continued.

"The ultimate cure. If we learn from the Windows, they are our salvation. A cure for everything. They are the elixir of life. We owe it to the millions who have died unjustly. If we can find the path back from death, we become immortal." Sariel explained.

"The path of death is a one-way street." Danyana argued.

"If that's what you choose to believe." he scoffed.

"So this is your cause? Do you fear death, then?"

He chose his words carefully, "Death itself is nothing to me."

"But you fear whatever comes next." she replied for him.

"There is no heaven or hell." he defiantly argued, but she could sense a hesitation in his response.

She ventured far enough to say, "Those sound like the words of a coward to me. Are you sure of that?"

He did not respond. Danyana could tell that he was intrigued. He seemed... almost expectant of something. Sneering, he asked her, "Tell me; what do you think you know of death?"

She lowered her gaze, as if embarrassed by his question, and noticed that he no longer had a grip on his knife. She looked back up, at his face, which he had tilted slightly to the side as he questioned her.

"Perhaps I do not know much, but the way you are going, you will know soon." she answered softly. Before the shock registered on his face, his own knife was pressed against his throat with inexpert, yet steady hands. Their roles reversed, and Danyana looked Sariel directly in the eye.

She did not have it in her to kill him. Despite what he thought, there was no going back, and he was a brainwashed pawn doing what he was told. A powerful pawn, but killing him was not worth the stain on her conscience, even if he had killed many before and deserved to die.

She merely knocked him out using a trick Aerek taught her the year before, one she always hoped not to need. A powerful hit to the side of the neck could take out almost anyone if done right, but it was a difficult move to use in a fast-moving fight. Not expecting it, Sariel stood perfectly still and she knew that she did it right. He would wake up in a matter of hours with a pounding headache.

Chapter 12

Vocia watched Danyana leave the bank. She had been following her ever since she saw her outside of Mensan's, but could not speak to her without revealing too much. She knew Sariel could not kill her, so she waited. It took far longer, and she nearly went into the building herself, but then she saw Danyana leaving alone, completely unexpected. She was supposed to be knocked out, or at least led out by Sariel.

If Sariel was dead, and he sure looked like it when she got up there, Vocia's lack of intervention would not go unnoticed. Thankfully, he still had a pulse.

She shook him, "What in the world did she do to you!?"

He did not move. She shook him again. Nothing. Frantically, she smacked his face, and finally got a response. He rolled his eyes at her.

"Get up!"

"What?" he squinted. "You weren't supposed to be here."

"You weren't supposed to let her go."

"Who sent you?" Sariel asked.

"The usual. I need a report from you on everything that's done so far. I'm taking over."

"I can't let you do that, Vocia." he said, "Thank you for helping me right here, but it's still my job."

"You can barely talk."

"I can do whatever needs to be done." He stood quickly to demonstrate. "I've gotten Mensan out of the way, so you don't need to watch him for us anymore."

"Congrats. The old fart was driving me up the wall." she said smoothly. "Anyway, I have to go. Is there anything you want help with?"

"Well, they've split up, so I'm going to get the twins. If you want to deal with this devil, you're free to chase her down yourself unless I get her first. But you do the explaining afterward." Sariel relented.

"Thanks. Cleaning up after you was getting boring." She said. She watched him sprint down the stairs. Clearly, he had gotten a nice shock from Danyana, and now decided to pick off the three one by one, starting with the weakest. He would go get Iasmin, then Aerek, and save Danyana for last, no longer trying to bring them in, but just killing them quickly and mercilessly.

She had known from the start that infiltrating the Watchers would be lethal, but it seemed like she achieved so little from it. Her whole life was a lie. The Wardens needed to hide that she was one of them, and even Mensan could not know that she was playing double agent. He worried too much for her.

She had tried to protect him by making sure that she was in on everything the Watchers did, but she had not expected such a massive attack. Turning them all in guaranteed her a part in it so she could sabotage it, but she had to do it quietly. Unlocking the three kids was simple, but she had chosen them over Mensan. While she was gone, Sariel had killed Mensan. He did not trust her anymore. He proved it in telling her to go after Danyana. He wanted her out of the way.

She did not know where anyone was anymore. Alone, she had failed Mensan, and would fail Danyana as well. As much as she hated it, she needed to get the help of others. There was hope, if their response was quick enough.

Chapter 13

Hearing Sariel speak showed her that he was as much of a fanatic as many religious extremists. The Windows were his religion, just as Aerek and Iasmin's mother had clung to Christianity with every ounce of her strength, until the very end. Religion was just a way for people to comfort their fears.

"No one loves you forever. No one is there to look out for you. No one would sacrifice any part of himself for you. After death, you are alone; with no one. No one knows how you feel. No one understands you. No one hears you. No one still loves you."

That was how she felt at the moment, but she did not fall to the same seduction as others had. She comforted herself in self-reliance, while others simply replaced the words "No one" with "God." Sure, it sounded nicer to say something like:

"God loves you forever. God is there to look out for you. God would sacrifice any part of himself for you. After death, you are alone; with God. God knows how you feel. God understands you. God hears you. God still loves you."

Yet she knew she would be lying to herself and could not deal with that kind of doublethink. Iasmin could. Iasmin saw the worst sides of religion, and at the same time turned to it for guidance.

With that thought, she smacked herself on the head. Iasmin had been as predictable as medieval peasants. She was probably in some church at the very moment, seeking refuge from whatever cult of heretics was following her. The Windows had shaken her beliefs some, but fear would have redoubled them. Just as Danyana went to the library, Iasmin would have gone to the closest church.

Aerek's hiding place was tougher. He was a hardcore atheist. He liked books, but in smaller doses, and detested the overly organized atmosphere of a library.

She could work on the later. Right now, she had to go find Iasmin. The entire time, she had been walking toward the school and the gazebo, but the church was in a completely different direction. She turned around, walked back half a block, and then turned to her left.

The pain hit her before she reached the church, as she was taking a shortcut through a deserted playground. Danyana clutched at the nearest lamppost as her vision tunneled and her hearing sharpened painfully. She could hear the wind whistling by her ears, and felt its icy bite as if she were naked.

She got a vision of Iasmin in a bare, ugly room. The walls were yellowing, more so toward the bottom, and the floor used to have a carpet, but now it was a ripped up mess with concrete showing through the majority of it. This room was new to her, but she recognized Iasmin even in the dim light. What was worse, she recognized Sariel standing over her, holding her up by her hair and hissing something into her 's expression was the worst part. Her eyes were begging him to leave her alone. The ghost of her mother did not let her fight back against the will of others, the will of God.

Danyana floated back to reality, realizing that there was nothing she could do to save Iasmin. Sariel had taken her to a place unfamiliar to Danyana, and the way things looked, she would kill her soon. At first Danyana searched through all her memories, fighting to remember where that room could be, but it was new to her. Besides, she did not know where the vision had come from. It was more realistic than any dream she had ever had; it really seemed to her that she had been in the room with Iasmin and Sariel, but that was impossible. Besides, it did not have to have happened yet, and it could be a fake altogether.

Yet that was not right. Her intuition screamed that it was true, and that she could do nothing about it. Knowing that Iasmin was about to die, Danyana sank to her knees right where she was. She thought that she would cry at first, but she was not able to. Iasmin's death was a foreign concept. The heroes of her books could die in a very moving and dramatic ending, but this was unnecessary and anticlimactic. Iasmin had done nothing wrong to deserve this. Last came the guilt. Although Iasmin was older, Danyana often wished to protect her like a younger sister, and she had failed. She felt a responsibility for whatever had happened to her.

Sitting among the woodchips in this playground was not helping anyone. She had to get going, since she now realized that Aerek would have headed straight to the Window. His curiosity defined him, just as her own love of books and Iasmin's hard-working faith. Besides, the Window had caused all the trouble. Perhaps it had a solution for her. As she stood, she bumped her bruised cheek and winced, remembering their pathetic plan to lose Sariel.

Danyana's black shoes made no sound as she took the stairs in Mensan's building, two at a time. She knew she had to get to the Window quickly. Sariel had gotten to Iasmin, and she felt that he would find Aerek as well, unless she beat him there.

Partway up, a second vision slowed her ascent, but she kept going, one step at a time. She saw Aerek in a hallway, kneeling, just as Iasmin had, but biting his lip until he drew blood to keep silent. Sariel had gotten to him before her despite all her efforts. He crouched over Aerek's huddled form like a dark spider, threatening with his knife instead of a stinger. The vision faded just as she passed a landing, and she realized that it was the same one where she had just seen Aerek. Sariel would have seen her.

He killed Aerek quickly just to be rid of him, and chased after her. She could hear two sets of footsteps echoing in the stairwell, and with a shudder realized that hers were slower ones. She chanced a glimpse over the banister and saw the dark shape only a floor and a half below her. As much as she longed to stop, and as heavy as her insides became, she had to keep on going.

She had failed Mensan, Iasmin, and now Aerek. She was only fighting for herself now. She had to run past the stitch in her side and her burning lungs. If she could turn the corner before Sariel, he would not see her. If she could slip into the hallway before he rounded the last corner, he would not see her. If she could push the apartment door open with her shoulder before he got into the hallway, he would not see her. If she could duck behind the couch before he entered the apartment, he would not see her.

When she boldly reached her hand into the Window, right through its fuzzy appearance, she felt the warmth of a sun and a slight breeze. That did not seem so bad.

She stepped through, and when Sariel finally stepped into the apartment, holding up his bloodied knife and fuming by the overturned couch, she was not there anymore.

Chapter 14

The warmth of the Window spread to the point that her frozen fingertips burned as when she had poured cool tap water on them as a little girl after playing in the snow. At first the fear of Sariel bursting in behind her kept her eyes clenched shut, but the warm air and the sun's peaceful rays softly tickling her skin soothed her until she opened her eyes a sliver.

Danyana's face was half buried among the dense blades of grass and tiny white flowers, but above them, she could just see the edge of a forest nearby, and a blue, cloudless sky above that. She smelled the nearly bitter, yet still sweet smell of dandelions and the mud of a stream flowing nearby. It was like the setting of a children's story she scarcely remembered: After a princess had fallen down a deep well, she landed in a spot like this one until the handsome prince came to get her.

Perhaps this was some place from her imagination. Yes, she felt that it was. But then she wondered where she really was.

It must be the world of the Window, since she had gone toward it as she ran from Sariel. Along with that, she remembered what he had done, and she saw the images of Iasmin and Aerek in her mind. Logic told her that they died. It was Sariel's task to bring all three of them in, but eliminate them if needed.

She knew all these things, yet there was no other way she could have learned them. The way this place was, it had just made her realize it.

Mensan had been right. It was a world of no war. After all, how can there be war if people understand; if lies are impossible.

And then she did. Understand, that is.

Aerek and Iasmin? And their mother. And Mensan. They were all here, too; she felt it. And that meant that she had died as well, upon crossing through the Window.

So this was the afterlife Danyana found. Well there wasn't a heaven and a hell, but through understanding, people quickly become at peace with themselves. They have only their memories for the rest of eternity, and they can relive their favorite parts and be with those they knew and miss without the bitterness of death, just as she had created this fairytale land for herself by instinct.

On the other hand, they have the knowledge of all their sins. That is the hell, the inferno. Nobody, not Pluto, not Hel, not Allah or Yahweh or God, needed to judge them. It was Truth. It was Truth they discovered, and from which they could no longer hide. Truth made it heaven or hell for them.

Complete understanding was not simply given to them. The impossibility of lies made them find it. Without the ability to deceive oneself about the way things are, a person must face his or her conscience. Danyana did, and found many bitter conclusions, yet she also saw true friendship and a desire to keep good and happiness in the world until the end.

All these thoughts took but a moment. She was finally at peace, and the Window had sealed itself.

Epilogue

Windows are gates between life and death, usually made only for one person. If that person is unable to deal with death, they wait. Warmth and knowledge come through the window for some, for others it is full of bitter threats. They provoke the subconscious and tempt some, like the necromancers in the past and Sariel's lot with a mirage of immortality.

They wait for a sacrifice, for someone confident enough to seal the window with their own death. Danyana had taken on that task unawares, yet she succeeded. Although some people died in the process, the Window was forever closed.

Now, if it were the only one…

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank, first of all, my wonderful Project Facilitator, Mrs. Garnsey, who put up with my writer's block and procrastination for several months as I completed this project and edited it so thoroughly that even by using only a part of her edits I spent many hours rewriting parts of the story. Next I would like to thank my parents and the rest of my family for letting me spend day after day cooped up in my room working on "that project." Also to my friends who saw very little of me the month before the deadline, and to my school for requiring this project, as stressful as it was, because without their encouragement and without the requirement I might not have gotten around to writing out this story which started out as a dream.