5 – Camera Shy

"This is the place! This is where I woke up!" Eric exclaimed as he and Heather stepped into her studio. He turned all around, then pointed at the big bloodstain on the floor near the portal, "I went into the bathroom, and when I came back out there was this…Thing here. It looked like a girl—kinda like you—but it was crawling on the wall like a spider and it was shaking its head like crazy." He shook his own head to demonstrate, "I freaked out and ran Downtown. I thought someone slipped me some bad drugs or something, like I was having a bad trip."

"Oh, no. It's all very real." Heather assured him, "Trust me…"

Approaching the Halo of the Sun portal she'd crawled through, Heather turned to Eric and asked him,

"Hey. What does this look like to you?"

The young man raised an eyebrow,

"What? That? Some kind of graffiti or symbol or something. Why?"

She frowned,

"You don't see the tunnel?"

"Tunnel…?"

Heather sighed, placing her hands on her hips and staring at the floor in thought. Eric looked worried and asked,

"What are you talking about? Should there be a tunnel?"

"I kind of had a feeling this would happen," she said solemnly, "Basically, yeah, there's a tunnel right here that leads into my apartment. My real apartment. But you can't see it, I think because you aren't meant to pass through it."

"What?" Eric rushed forward and touched the wall, his palms pressing solidly against it. Through Heather's eyes, his hands pressed over what should have been thin air. A ghostly apparition of the wall appeared under his hands.

"S-So I can't go back? There's nothing I can do at all?" he looked at her with desperate, fearful eyes. Heather shrugged and leaned against the flipped-over futon,

"I don't know for sure. If there are other ways to get back, I don't know about them. Valtiel makes these portals, and I'm pretty sure he resurrected you too. Or at least half-resurrected you." She furrowed her brow in thought as she tried to recall some notes she took in her journal, "He's resurrected me before, and I couldn't leave until—" the memory of Valtiel turning red valves crossed her mind, "Well, until he allowed me to leave. I don't think people end up in this shit-hole for no reason. You're usually here because your soul is dirty and you need to repent for something."

Eric looked at her like she'd just spoken French.

"What are you talking about?" he nearly wheezed, "You're saying I gotta kiss an angel's ass to get out of here or…?"

"In my case, I had to birth a God." Heather answered casually, "But I…I kinda took a different route. Either way, the Otherworld didn't need me anymore by the end of it, so Valtiel let me pass back into the real world. I don't know what this place wants out of you. That's your problem."

Eric blanched, standing frozen by the wall.

"Heather, please. Please, you have to help me." His tone was pleading. The woman crossed her arms,

"No, Eric, I really don't. You should have thought about that before you attacked me." She glanced up, spotting The Metatron crouched in the corner of the ceiling, "You're here because you deserve to be, and the Otherworld will decide when you've served your sentence."

She kneeled before the Halo of the Sun and mentioned,

"You'll want to find a weapon as soon as possible." With that, he watched in disbelief as she phased through the "solid" wall in the center of the Halo.


Two days later, and Eric was still listed as a missing person in the paper. Heather continued to obsessively check the forum about the Supernova incident, and new posts were surfacing. She created an account just to keep the thread alive and press people for info. One of the posters was an employee at the club and said that the police were looking for the person who fired the stun gun. It was now being considered an assault charge. Heather was fascinated and very relieved to read that when they went to obtain the security footage, that particular part was scrambled beyond recognition. So far, all they had was a description to work with, and it wasn't even an accurate one. One of the posters described her as "an Asian chick with medium-length hair and a brown coat".

She wasn't Asian, her hair was short and blonde now, and her coat was green. Leave it up to a bunch of drunk college kids to remember anything properly.

Heather knew Valtiel's presence had something to do with the botched security footage. He caused radios to lose their signal, watches to stop, televisions to play static—all just by being near them. She tried taking photos of him numerous times to prove to her therapists he was real, and the pictures turned out black and grainy. As far as she knew, there was no way to record him. Even audio recordings would just play back static.

Valtiel hadn't been around as much since Eric was banished to the Otherworld. He went through quiet periods in the past where Heather wouldn't see him for days or weeks at a time, but she never knew where he went until now. Supposedly he had been in the Otherworld, tormenting the miserable souls lost there. In this case, Eric Martin. She hoped to find the man's corpse and get some closure, some knowledge that it was deep in another realm where police would never find it. But now she was paranoid. She didn't know what was going on. Had Valtiel killed him or just banished him? Could he eventually earn his way out? If so, she could be locked up for life depending on what he decided to tell authorities.

The months got colder and the sun was hanging low in the sky despite how early it was. Heather threw on an oversized gray hoodie and partially obscured her face with a Happy Burger ballcap. Her time working at Happy Burger was brief. She was promptly fired after she had a "hallucination" and attacked a customer in the bathroom—A customer that to her, at the time, looked like a monster. That was the incident that landed her in the mental hospital for a hundred miserable days, locked in a small room with no one to keep her company except Valtiel (Insulting, considering he was the reason she ended up there in the first place). Heather kept the cap as a reminder that her perception of reality was not everyone else's. Not in this world.

The roads were backed up with evening traffic. Heather walked to the convenience store just down the street from her apartment. She'd scrounged up enough change for nachos and a soda; not the ideal dinner, but the one she could afford after rent was due. The gas station parking lot was full, cars lined up at the pumps and honking occasionally. Heather crossed the lot and crunched on her nachos, oblivious to the dog barking at her from someone's open window. She never saw it as it wriggled out and went bounding after her. Heather let out a yelp as it darted under her feet, and down she went. The soda cup exploded on the pavement, chips scattering around her as the dog jumped back and forth in a frenzy.

Heather winced at the pain in her knees. Her hoodie was wet and sticky with soda. She looked down at her ruined dinner, then glared at the barking dog. It was tan and white with a curled tail, pointed ears, and puffy fur. Its collar was red, decorated with sparkly studs. It stopped barking briefly to eat some of the chips off the ground.

"Mira! No! Bad dog!" a frantic voice called. Heather turned to the girl rushing towards the scene, who quickly snatched the dog up in her arms. She was somewhere in her teens, her long flaxen hair pulled into a messy ponytail.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry!" the girl apologized to Heather, "Are you okay?"

With a small sigh, Heather got to her feet and shook the soda off her hands,

"I'm fine. It happens." She grumbled.

"I feel so bad," the girl frowned, "Hold on just a second, I'll be right back!"

Heather watched her carry the dog back to a white car and place it in the back seat before cranking up the window. She then ran into the convenience store exclaiming,

"Dad! Dad!"

Heather waited for a moment, until the girl and an older man with graying blond hair stepped out of the store. He was carrying what was obviously a 40oz bottle of alcohol in a black plastic bag. His eyes were weary, forest green in color. A bit of stubble was visible on his face as the girl led him to Heather. The girl was carrying a new tray of nachos and a soda, which she handed to the older woman with a grin. She had multicolored braces on her teeth.

"Here!" she beamed. Heather graciously took the food, looking a bit bewildered. She responded quietly,

"Oh…Thank you. This is really nice."

The man finally spoke, shuffling his foot slightly in embarrassment,

"Sorry about that stupid dog…" he turned to the teen, "This is why I wanted to leave her at home, Laura. See what she did to this poor woman? She has soda all over her clothes. What do you say?"

The girl sighed,

"I already said I was sorry!"

Heather nodded,

"She did. It's fine, really. This ratty old sweatshirt will survive." She forced a little smile, assuring the girl it would be okay. Suddenly a horn blared, followed by someone's angry shouting. The man and his daughter turned to the car parked behind their white vehicle, waiting for their turn at the pump.

"We're holding up the line," the man grunted. With a bag in one hand, he clumsily dug through his pockets until he found a five dollar bill and handed it to Heather, "Sorry for the trouble. Buy yourself something else too if you'd like. Nice meeting you, uh…"

"Heather," the woman introduced, then wiggled the bill and grinned, "Thanks. You're a nice dude."

She thought she saw a hint of a smile as he shot her a nod and began walking away. Laura waved enthusiastically back at Heather as they got into their car and drove off. Heather hated dogs—feared them, actually—but she couldn't complain with this extra cash she so desperately needed. Maybe he thought she was a homeless person, with the old baggy clothes she was wearing…As she began to leave, something crunched under her foot. She lifted her boot, and beneath was a business card. It was crumpled but otherwise clean. It must have fallen out of the man's pocket.

Little trinkets like this always grabbed Heather's attention. It was from a therapy center of all things, listing a therapist named Judith Stewart who specialized in patients with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and chemical dependency. Heather arguably suffered from all three of those things. The name of the patient was scrawled in blue ink: "James Sunderland", and his appointment was written in at 10:00 A.M. . .She stood there holding the card for a long moment. Events like this were too strange and coincidental to ignore. This was significant. Some unseen power was pushing her into something, and Heather decided she wasn't going to fight it. Things got better with her anxiety when she stopped fighting it, her relationship with her monster-roommate improved when she stopped fighting it…Why fight this?

A number was listed on the card. She was going to call tomorrow.