Chapter 4: Welcome to the Other Side
Ford kept pounding on the door until his knuckles turned white.
"Andrew! Please open up!" he screamed. Suddenly, the door swung open and Ford almost fell forward by the exaggerated motions of his fists.
"What in the world? Ford, what are you doing?" Andrew asked, aghast at his friend's disheveled appearance.
"Your portal!" Ford gasped. "It got turned on! My brother and my niece and nephew were pulled through the gateway!"
Andrew blinked a few times. "What? You mean it works?"
"Yeah it works—" Then he narrowed his eyes on his friend. "Wait a minute. You never tested it?"
"Well, not exactly. My partner and I finished the construction of it, but no, we never 'tested' it.
"Partner?" Ford asked getting suspicious. "And who is your partner?"
"A college buddy of mine. He's currently out of town."
"Why didn't you guys test—" Ford stopped. Remembering what happened to his long time friend during their test, it was probably for the best that Andrew didn't make the same mistake. "Listen, you need to tell me everything about that portal and we are going down there right now and bringing my family back!"
Andrew stared at Ford with a vague expression; his face was hard to read as his mouth stayed in a straight line and his eyes carelessly stared back at him. Ford felt everything boil inside of him.
"Okay. Let me get something else on," Andrew said. He shut the door.
Ford stood in the hallway, impatiently tapping his foot. When that motion wasn't enough to keep him calm, he began pacing. Where were Stan and the kids? He had tried to keep the images from that other world out of his head, but he had to remember them now. What was the first place he saw when he first passed through the gateway? An image of chaos crept into his mind—a blood red sky, parts of the Earth moved up and down. There were multiple screams and monsters roaming everywhere...
"Damn it Andrew, hurry up!" Ford grumbled.
The door to Andrew's bedroom opened. He changed from his bed robe into a white polo and black pants. Didn't he just have normal dress down clothes? Ford wondered.
"Okay, I'm ready," Andrew said walking towards the library. He turned to his bookshelf to pull the secret book for the passage, but Ford pointed to the already open spot behind the bookshelf.
"What? Amazing! You and your family found my secret passage?"
"How else do you think we got to your portal? And by the way, it was my niece and nephew who found it," he said rather proudly.
Andrew raised an eyebrow. "You have some super sleuths in your family, huh?" He laughed lightly.
Ford shrugged. "And con artists," he added. Andrew squint his eyes unsure of what to say to that.
They made it down to the study. Andrew actually stopped, as he seemed to be in a tour guide mood.
"Well, you've found my private study," he said. Ford kept walking towards the second passage. "Not interested, huh?" Ford stopped, spun around tossing out a hard glare at his friend whose relationship was hanging on by a thread.
"No offense, but not right now! I was serious about dismantling that portal, Andrew. You have no idea what you've caused. Building a portal like that caused a synthetic rift. It's unstable and anything can come through it at any time."
"A synthetic rift," Andrew said as if the term astonished him. "So, that's what he meant—" Ford turned around.
"Who are you talking about?"
Andrew's eyes grew wide. "N-no one, I uh, I mean, my partner—he talked about it, the rift or whatever." Ford eyed Andrew for a moment, before continuing through the second passage.
Finally, they reached the large room where the portal stood. Ford looked at its Octagon shape. Then he asked a lingering question that had been on his mind since he first saw the contraption.
"Where did you find the means to build this thing?" He should have asked them earlier, but he was so taken back by someone else building a portal. After that, he became distracted with his only rational thought that his friend needed to dismantle the portal.
"I had the shipments brought right to my house," Andrew replied.
"Shipments? From where?" Ford asked, raising a curious eyebrow. He had to scout for his parts.
Andrew waved a finger. "Sorry, I can't say. It's a security issue."
"Security issue my ass!" Ford raged. "You risked all security when you built the damn thing!" Andrew withdrew with wide eyes and mouth agape. Ford softened his eyes. "Okay. Forget it. I guess it doesn't matter where you got the parts." He paused in thought. "Do you have a long rope?"
"Rope?" Andrew asked, confused by the request.
"Yeah," Ford replied rather harshly. "I'm not getting stuck over there. I'll tie the rope around me and when I go through, hopefully, I'll see my family and I can pull them back through."
"Okay. I believe I do have some rope. Hold on."
Andrew walked off to the far corner of the room, opened a door and went inside. He returned with a rope of decent length, about thirty feet. Ford wasted no time in tying it firmly around his waist.
"Just so you know, under normal circumstances, I would never do this, but I'm left with little choice," Ford said curtly. "Tie the other end to something firmly planted in the ground." Andrew tied the other end to a metal rod stuck in the floor.
"Start the portal," he said.
Andrew went through the sliding door to the control panel. Ford gazed at the huge portal opening. His heart was pounding so hard. When he went through his own portal by accident, it was one of the most terrifying moments of his life. He knew what to expect this time, but still... And right now, it was the waiting on Andrew to get the damn thing started that nagged at him at the moment.
"Hurry up!" Ford yelled furiously. The motor of the machine roared and the bright light from the octagon shape in the middle of the portal cast out brilliant light. Ford felt himself being picked up. A giant lump formed in his throat. He tried to calm his breathing, as he got pulled closer to the light and finally passing through.
Ford expected violent screams to pierce his ears. However, all he heard was the howling wind. He had his eyes closed with his hands firmly pressed against his glasses so he wouldn't lose them. Daring to open his eyes, he found himself floating inside a white void.
"Okay, not what I was expecting," he admitted. He turned back to see the rope still around his waist, and the rest of it going through the portal. He waited for a moment, floating in a place of nothingness.
"Andrew?" he called out. No response. Well, there wasn't any response from Stanley when he went through the portal thirty years ago. He was in another space and time. Maybe he should pull himself back through. As Ford grabbed onto the rope, he heard a snap coming from the other side of the portal. His thoughts raced. No! Suddenly there was another sharp snap and he fell straight down.
He fell until he landed oddly enough into a large body of water. There was nothing but water for miles. He pulled the rope towards him only to find the other end had broke. His eyes widen with horror. What did that? It looked like it might have been cut with a knife. He put that idea out of his head. That would suggest that... He shook his head.
He treaded water in silence. All of the sudden, he was pulled under. Struggling to get back to the surface, Ford began to panic as he felt himself drown. Then, without warning, came another quick jerk. In the next moment, he got spit out and landed on a piece of smooth rock. Slowly climbing to his feet, he found himself in a cave.
"This is odd," he said to himself. Gathering all the memories inside his head, Ford tried to remember if he'd been there before. "I know I saw many caves in those thirty years. Not sure if I was here." He walked a little before halting at the sound of a group of wild creatures further inward. Ford immediately went for his gun. He moved towards the opening of a smaller cave to see giant spiders wandering about. He wasn't going to bother them if he didn't have to. Instead, he turned around and headed the opposite way. He moved along the cavern wall shifting his glance all around each corner, keeping himself alert for anything that may attack him.
He didn't know if his family was in these caverns. He prayed they weren't too far away. The portal should put everyone who passes through into the same place. However, he couldn't be sure if that was the case. The rift the portal created when his family went through probably was enough to make it unstable, especially if three people went through. Then he went through, probably making it worse. He cursed at himself for even trying this. What was the use of going through the portal if he would end up somewhere different than his family? Then another thought came to him. If the three of them went through together, they should end up in the same place. At least that's what he hoped. Plus Andrew had to bring them back. He had no way to communicate with him, however. Ford's head swam with all these thoughts buzzing around.
Focus! He chastised himself. Find the family, and then worry about getting back home.
He calmed himself down just as he heard eight quick footsteps come up behind him. Turning around, he aimed his gun at a spider twice the size he was. He pulled the trigger, however, a bunch of sparks flew off of the barrel. Trying again to squeeze the trigger, only more sparks came out. His gun was malfunctioning! The spider raced at Ford, who only had the option of running. Quickening his pace, the sixty-something year old man ran at the speed of someone half his age. He got ahead of the spider and began to feel confident he could get away—until he saw a group of three more gigantic spiders straight ahead.
When Stan woke up, he couldn't begin to fathom what had happened. One thing he knew was that he grabbed Mabel by her legs as she held onto Dipper's hands.
"Hang on kids! I got you!" The individual force of the portal pulling them into the portal was too strong. "Damn it Ford shut this stupid thing off!" Apparently, his brother failed to do that in time. He let lose a smirk as it was the opposite of what happened thirty years ago.
"I guess we're even now," Stan said to himself.
The three family members took in their new surroundings. Dead grass lay out before them for miles. Above, a red sky with thick gray clouds hang over them.
"So, we're on the other side of the portal?" Dipper asked. His eyes darted around.
"This doesn't seem that traumatizing. Ford always kept his time in the multiverse a secret," Stan said. Then he fell into deep thought. "I asked him again while we were sailing around in the Artic. He just said, 'it didn't matter.'"
"So, he's still on the other side, right?" Mabel asked with hope filling her round eyes. "He'll just bring us back, right?"
"Well, until then, we should find some type of shelter and make a fire," Stan said, looking out into the distance.
"Uh, Stan, we should find a good source of water," Dipper strongly suggested.
"Right. Uh, water—" He looked around. There was just miles of nothing. "I guess we should start walking."
It was at that moment that Dipper recalled having hold of the book as he was being raised up into the light. He remembered putting it in his vest pocket before Mabel jumped up to grab his hands. Reaching back into his pocket, he discovered the book was still there.
"Hey, this is Andrew's book," he told the others.
"Great, you got the nerd's book," Stan said. "Now what?"
He shrugged. "Well, I can read the rest of it and see what else he wrote."
Stan turned his eyes upwards at the gray clouds. He couldn't tell if harsh weather was coming or not.
"Let's look for some shelter first."
It seemed to go on forever; just an endless barren land lay in front of the three family members. Their feet tread through the harsh terrain, the long blades of dry grass barely gave way as their legs brushed though. A harsh desert wind blew, the breeze cutting their skin.
"Something just occurred to me," Dipper began. "Do we need to be at the same spot where we first came into this world in order to be brought back?"
"The hell is if I know," Stan returned crudely.
Mabel suddenly pointed towards something in the distance. "Hey, I see smoke in that direction."
"Alright, It's the only thing we've got. We still should be cautious," Stan warned.
After walking for several minutes at a time, the family reached the location of the smoke. However, it wasn't what they hoped for. Their six eyes lay on a wasteland of burned houses of what probably once was a quaint village. They didn't see any humans, but a group of some kind of creatures sat by a huge bonfire.
"What are those things?" Dipper wondered. They all studied the figures around the fire. Most of them were large in statue and some were half their size. The light from the flames showed green scaly skin, a lizard-like faces with huge black eyes.
"Maybe we shouldn't bother them," Mabel said.
"Let's leave before they notice us," Stan said as they started to turn around.
They hurried back the other way. It didn't seem like they were noticed at first. Being as quiet as possible, the family changed course and made their way down the hillside. It seemed liked a steady decline at first, but it became a lot steeper really fast, and it became harder to keep their footing. Mabel and Dipper were doing all right keeping their balance, however, Stan wasn't so agile. He was unlucky enough for his foot to catch a small depression in the ground, which caused him to trip. His leg buckled under him and he cried out as he fell into Dipper. The two of them yelled as they landed hard into the dry grass, which somehow felt like concrete.
Mabel ran down the hill towards them. They looked up at her, but the girl's wide eyes gazed straight ahead at two large reptile men staring down at the family, their eyes glowed yellow. The lizard men spoke to each other in a foreign language.
"Uh, so is this the type of community anyone can join?" Stan tried with a wide grin. One of the reptiles picked up the old man with little effort and the other one picked up Dipper and Mabel. The three family members were carried up the hill towards the bonfire and thrown down before the rest of the tribe. One of the lizard men stood, am imposing figure, larger than the rest. The flames only showed its face, more brown in color as the others had greenish scales covering their bodies. He spoke in their foreign language.
"Uh, no speak the lingo, buddy," Stan said swiftly. The creature picked Stan up by his shirt and held him close to the fire.
"NO!" Both Dipper and Mabel screamed.
"Whoa! Hold on!" Stan cried out.
At that moment, Dipper stood up. "Wait a minute! Look, we'll leave if we're not welcome! Don't throw our uncle into the fire, okay?" He tried desperately to get any mercy from these things. Suddenly, the lizard man tossed Stan onto the ground. He turned to the two lizards who brought the family there and spoke to them. They picked up the confused and horrified family and carried them off. All three of the Pines watched helplessly as they entered a large tent. Inside was a small cage, one appropriate for keeping sheep or something like it. With one quick toss, the three family members were rolled into the cage with it locked behind them.
Author's Note:
Hello,
After three chapters in, things are going to pick up. I'm brainstorming what different types of things will be found in the other dimension. If you have an idea for a certain type of world or creature, leave it in the comments. I know where I want the story to go, but it's a matter of figuring out the different places and things the family will find.
Thanks for reading!
