When Toma saw what was behind them, she closed the doors immediately, and proceeded to have a mild panic attack. After a minute or two of shaking slightly, she sprang into action, and began pacing the room frantically (for reasons not entirely known to her.)
What! But... the... it's, it can't be, it's-
"Bigger on the inside!" she yelled aloud, for want of a more climactic resolution to her thoughts. It... had seemed that there was an entire world beyond those doors, a world of teeming life and sound. All multicoloured shapes, blue and green light, spires like coral, teeming with power. It was bigger on the inside! Bigger! She felt as if she needed to say the phrase several times, just to do justice to the utter bizarreness of the situation! Bigger! Bigger! As in the opposite of smaller! As in boldly defying the laws of physics!
Recognising how inane she was beginning to sound, she lay spread-eagled on her bed, staring out her window at the stars.
There was no question about it now; she was on some sort of substance. But what? What kind of drug made you see blue phoneboxes with whole worlds inside them? She really wasn't experienced in this field. She turned to the box, half-expecting it to have turned into an enormous teakettle (or something) by now. But no, it was simply standing there just like it had been before, as if nothing had happened.
She couldn't face this alone. She had to call someone. And, truly, there was only one choice for this type of situation. Ignoring the voice of reason shouting in her head, she grabbed her phone off her bedside table and dialed a familiar number.
"Yo!" Torako had been reclining on the couch, watching some faintly amusing sit-com from New Zealand or somesuch, when the phone had rang. "Torako? It's me."
"Toma!" replied the luxuriant blonde. "How've ya been?"
"O..kay, I guess." the bespectacled girl stammered in response. "Listen, I... something weird's happened... is happening."
"Really? Brilliant!" Torako beamed. She loved weird things.
Toma glanced at the blue object, again, no change. "It really... well, I'll let you make up your own mind. It's hard to explain. You kind of need to see it. Please. I need you here. If only to prove I haven't gone violently insane."
Torako was equally concerned and intrigued. "Okay, I'll be right over."
And without another word, she donned her coat and ran out the door.
Later, Toma sat slumped against the wall of her room, staring at the blue box. She was feeling slightly better now that she knew Torako was on the way. She was perfectly aware that, rationally, it was a bad idea to add her to this scenario. But in the end, she didn't trust anyone else like she did Torako. Not even Toma's own parents. Despite her confusion and incomprehension regarding the box, she felt strangely... attached to the bizzare object. It was like she didn't want to have to share it with anyone.
She heard a knock at the door, and leapt to her feet.
Almost anyone.
"Aaaaah!" Torako exclaimed with incredulous delight.
"It is quite something." Toma reflected, mostly to herself. Tora ran up to the box, examining it from all sides.
"When did you get it? Also, what is it?"
"That's just it." said Toma sheepishly. "I didn't get it. It just... appeared, when my back was turned.
Torako glanced at the writing at the top. She screwed up her face as she attempted to read it. Foreign languages were not her area of expertise.
"Purisu... puburiku..."
"Call box" Toma finished for her. "Police public call box. I don't know what it means either. Some type of... artistic statement, maybe?"
"Let's open it!" said Torako, as if she were an excitable child.
"'Let's open it.'" Toma repeated flatly. "Not 'What is it?' or 'How did get here', or even 'Why did it get here?' Just 'Let's open it'. Sometimes, Torako, I wonder about you."
"Hey!" Torako protested. "I did ask what it was, and I didn't get an answer, so I assumed you didn't know."
"Oh. Sorry." Toma paused, and stared up at the stars. "I've been awake for too long."
Torako had ran up to it, and was pulling on the doors with all her might. Toma was about to tell her that she had to push, before she remembered what she would see if she did. Come to think of it, why could she get in at all? It had a lock, why wasn't it sealed?
"Ugh!" Torako strained, "Why won't it open?"
Toma supposed that she should find out sooner rather than later.
"You push it."
"Oh, right. Here goes"
The door creaked.
Toma closed her eyes, and counted to three.
"Aaaaaaaah!"
Torako had collapsed in shock, she lay on Toma's bed, awestruck. "It's, it's, it's..."
"Bigger on the inside?" Toma suggested helpfully.
"AWESOME!" the blonde bellowed, grinning wildly. "Did you see all those cool wires, and that giant control panel, and all that weird light, and those walls with all the spheres, and-"
"You're... taking this rather well." said Toma, baffled.
"Well it's obvious what this is, isn't it?"
Toma's temper blared. "Well obviously its obviousness isn't obvious to me!"
Torako took on a scolding tone. "There's no need to lose your cool. It's clearly some type of government experiment."
"That just teleported its way into my room by accident?" replied Toma incredulously.
"Not by accident!" exclaimed Torako theatrically. "Maybe you've been chosen, for a top secret mission!"
"And not INFORMED about this fact at all?" said Toma in a droll fashion. Bastards could have at least left a note.
"Or," said Torako, rapidly changing the subject, "it's an alien spacecraft!"
Toma stared at her blankly. "That's... beyond ridiculous."
Torako leant towards the sitting Toma. Her cleavage was positioned not too far from the dark-haired girl's face. The familiar flame of arousal stirred, licking at Touma's insides. She crossed her legs, and turned away in an inept attempt to disguise her blush.
"To-ma!" the blonde chastised didactically. "There are some phenomena that are just beyond our understanding!"
"Yes," said Toma impassionedly, glad for a distraction, "there are some things science can't explain yet, but why does that mean that they must be exactly what you've already decided they are? There could be"... she gestured vaguely in the direction of the box, "millions of explanations for this." Most of them utterly insane, she added mentally. "Why does the fact that it could be your thing mean it must be your thing?"
Torako was silent for a time, apparently taken aback by Toma's display of vehement verbiage. She then piped up again, with renewed vigour.
"You're just being closed minded."
Toma lay back on her bed, exasperated.
Can't believe I'm in love with this moron.
"You have to believe in some things without proof," she concluded, "otherwise life seems meaningless."
"Maybe it is!" said Toma frustrated. "It wouldn't contradict what I've seen so far."
Toma lay down next to her, smiling, a wry grin on her face. Clearly, she was greatly enjoying confounding Toma.
"Okay then, what's your theory, smartypants?"
"We're... all hallucinating or something?" Toma uttered uncertainly.
Torako smirked. "Now THAT is ridiculous."
Toma lay back, closed her eyes, and sighed. This morning, she had been worried about her brother stealing her cyberpunk manga and the upcoming biology exam (which, to her credit, seemed overly preoccupied with the intricate particulars of mitosis). Now, she was being forced to deal with the sudden appearance of a bizarre dimensional anomaly in her bedroom, with only the help of the ditzy girl she was inexplicably in love with. It was a lot to take in. As much as it pained her to admit it, Torako had a point. It was... possible that the box was supernatural in nature. She should really call someone. Her parents were automatically out, as was any of her immediate family or friends. She highly doubted that they would contribute anything meaningful to the situation. The police? As much as she mistrusted the government, she suspected they would be able to offer the most support in this situation. Her mind was made up.
"Torako? I think we should call the..."
She stopped, realising she was alone. The box's door was slightly ajar.
"Torako!"
Concern overcoming her fear, she ran into the box as fast as she could.
It was just as she had remembered. The walls were so high and... strangely curved, neatly dotted with orbs. There were great, massive structures that rose up from the ground that looked like bizarre trees, or coral. The scene was bathed in a brilliant green light. But one feature drew her attention most of all. A ginormous... she supposed were she to classify it, a control panel, rose from the middle of the scene like a column. It was a great terminal of buttons switches and wires, surrounded by a handrail, it's base a strangely shaped contraption, like an overstuffed discus. Rising from it, was a brilliant clear cylinder that connected to the impossibly high ceiling. She stood there in awe, marvelling at the absurdist tableau laid out before her.
Maybe, the thought, an impossible idea worming its way into her brain for not the first time that night, this is real.
Toma spied Torako leaning over the control panel. She walked over to her, her footfalls making truncated clanging sounds. The terminal's surface was covered with all manner of strange buttons, levers, wires and orbs. Everything in here felt so... wrong. And yet, somehow, she felt right at home.
"What are you doing?" she inquired.
"Looking for a message, of course!" said Torako, searching intently.
"Of... course." Toma echoed drolly. "From who, the... government agents, or aliens, or... what?"
"I dunno. Your guess is a good as mine." the blonde repeated, intensely examining a large protuberant green disc.
"Listen, Torako, I don't know if we're doing the right thing. I think we should call someone."
"No!" said Torako, as if Toma had uttered something utterly scandalous. "They could be watching the phones and networks!"
"WHO!" bellowed Toma in frustration, "WHO could be!"
"The aliens or government agents of course!" said Torako as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Toma slank back, defeated.
Only to be thrown forward again not a second later.
Toma put out her hands to steady herself against the control panel as the very ground beneath their feet began to shake. The great pillar in the middle of the control column began to ascend and descend slowly, and a tremendous grinding noise filled the air. Torako yelped as she fell sideways, before Toma grabbed her, stopping her descent. They both grabbed the handrails surrounding for support as everything in the room shook and lurched as if it was being ravaged by massive tremors.
"WHAT," Toma screamed over the grinding as the room lurched left and right, while she fought to hold on to the handrail, "IS GOING ON!"
"I don't know!" yelled Torako, as she did a bizarre sort of pelvic thrust in order to stay upright. "It's like we're in an earthquake!"
"But is it affecting the whole house, or just the box! No way this is a coincidence!" said Toma, as she skidded to the left like a fiddler crab to avoid a painful collision with the floor.
"Actually, no," said Torako, apparently to herself, "it's like riding the train when all of the seats are taken and you have to use those stupid dangling thingies."
"Why couldn't I have just left the damn box alone?" Toma despaired as she the wires of the ceiling came close to showering her shoulder in sparks.
"And you're riding the bus during a massive earthquake in San Francisco and there are giant elephants rampaging everywhere!" said Torako, clearly having an entirely different conversation as she gripped the handrail, her knuckles bone-white.
There was a powerful upwards motion and Toma's stomach lurched.
"No, it's like we're... flying!"
A tremendous starboard thrust sent Torako flailing away from the rail and into Toma's chest. Toma, too, lost her grip and the pair of them fell backwards.
The last thought that entered Toma's mind before her head collided with the metal floor and she fell unconscious, (apart from a few stray perverted ones due to her close proximity to Torako) was: flying very, very badly.
Toma awoke alone, still lying on the cold floor. It felt like morning. Her head rang out in pain. She sat up, massaging a sizeable bump on the back of her head. The ground had stopped shaking, at least. Torako was standing up, stretching. Toma got to her feet.
"Toma!" yelled the blonde delightedly, embracing Toma hard, "you're okay!"
"Yep, yep, I'm fine." replied the bespectacled girl, blushing and gently pushing Torako away.
There was a slight moment of awkwardness between them.
"We should... get back to my room." said Toma at last.
"...That's kind of the problem." said Torako reluctantly as Toma ran to the door.
Toma thrust the doors open...
...and was greeted by the sight of a vast grassland. Her jaw dropped. A scene of untamed wilderness lay before her. Strange shrieking caws sounded throughout the air, the landscape bordered by cycads and tall trees.
"We're not in your room anymore."
Toma gulped.
It was going to be a long day.