Disclaimer: Please see chapter one. That disclaimer will cover the whole story.

...-...

It's fitting that they're called demons, you know. I mean, they really do bring hell with them. I was across the street, in that shop, like I said, wondering how I was gonna get through that portal, when...I don't know if I have a world to go back to.

I made it, by the way. Through the portal.

Um, I guess I need to back up a bit. Like I said, I was waiting, wondering if maybe I could go up and lie to the police and tell them I was there to inspect the portal. But then, I'm only seventeen and I totally look my age, so there's no way I'd look old enough to work for the government or anything. Even with fake IDs that look completely legitimate, bartenders won't give me alcohol. And I'm not great at lying.

And I know that it works in the movies, but those shows always strike me as too perfect, you know? I mean, I know that we're supposed to believe that the heroes or villains or whoever it is that's lying is just really good at it, but I always think that those guards or whatever are kind of stupid to fall for it.

I think with that sort of mentality, I could never pull it off—I'd probably look at them like I thought they were stupid for believing me and that would just destroy my story.

So, anyway, I was thinking maybe I could throw something to distract them or make a lot of noise and then run around to the other side or...really I had nothing.

And then the portal opened. I had to take my goggles off because, oh my God. I thought I was going to go blind. The whole gateway between the two statues lit up in this brilliant red and for like a minute, I couldn't see anything other than splotches across my vision. I was stunned, really. I'm not really one to curse, but I was definitely letting a few words fly.

And then I looked back at that portal and without the infrared goggles, it was totally glowing green and swirly. The screaming started and at first I didn't really know what was going on. Like, I couldn't...it wouldn't register.

Here are these policemen, who are all about stopping the bad guy and keeping us safe and...and they were just... There was so much blood. And I could hear laughing. They thought it was a joke. Killing all those people. All of us. Our world. It's a joke to them.

I think I kind of just shut down when I saw one of the men land near the shop window. He was torn in half. I've taken biology, but there's a difference between pictures and...

Like I said, I shut down. The gore and the horror stopped registering and all I could think was that I needed to get to that portal. So, I found my goggles from where I'd thrown them onto the ground and thankfully they still worked, though one of the lenses did have a huge crack in it. I couldn't look directly at the portal, but I could see that there really weren't that many who had come through yet. The street was still kinda empty.

So I made a run for it.

I was almost half way across the street when one charged me. Just before it got to me, there was this explosion and I was thrown through the air along with bits and pieces of road and monster. When they're dead, you can see them. It's like, after the life drains out of them, they're a part of our world.

Well, not only did the explosion leave a ringing in my ears, but the heat from that explosion left me partially blinded again. I jerked my goggles down around my neck and kept running, though I did look back over my shoulder and I saw tanks. Apparently the police were just a temporary thing until the army could come in. They sure weren't there when I first came, though that had been a few hours earlier.

Anyway, there were a few soldiers yelling at me, but I managed to blink past my splotchy vision and kept running toward the portal. I didn't even realize how scraped up one of my arms had gotten.

I think the soldiers did hold off for a second, like they didn't want to hurt me accidentally, but then they started bombarding the place. I probably would have been killed, but I'd just made it to the steps of the portal when the next shell went off behind me and gave me a flying boost through.

I'm not sure what most people would think dimensional travel would be like, but it wasn't anything I'd expected. There was this white path that looked kind of like it was made of trillions of tiny stars. It just glowed near the center, but at the edges you could make out the individual specks. Like star dust.

I barely had time to register it before I was knocked over the side with the butt of a huge axe. And I fell into darkness, looking up to see them. In this world or non-world or whatever it was, I could see them so clearly and they were never ending.

That I fell into darkness was a misnomer, really. If it had been darkness, there would have still been something there. This was just...a void. Nothingness. As I fell, I could see hundreds of starry paths, stretching out like webs, ending abruptly at those gates. The demons swarmed across most of them, but there were a few that were empty. Most of the empty ones had broken portals, I think. The statues looked cracked and worn, from what I could tell.

I don't know how long I fell; I don't think time was connected to that place in between the worlds. Eventually, though, I hit one of the deserted pathways. I suppose that was a lucky break, because a few demons—some like the felguards and some I'd never seen before—lashed out at me and tried to skewer me with their weapons and claws. It didn't hurt, landing, I mean. That time didn't apply, I think it messed with the way space worked, though I could be wrong. Maybe the walkways are just really soft or something. Because they weren't hard. They didn't really feel like having anything under my feet, but I still knew that they were there and that I wouldn't fall. It was weird.

I didn't hear her fall down after me. Or, I guess she probably jumped. But I was just getting to my feet, still pretty much stunned and wondering if any of this was real, when I heard chanting. Like in a really scary, scratchy voice. And even though we were in this great expansive place, her voice fell flat, as though she were being smothered in dirt or something.

When I turned around, I saw that she had all these extra arms and they were all either clasped together or holding swords or in that 'okay' hand gesture. I think that's really some meditative thing, but it feels wrong saying she was meditating. Meditation is a calm, soothing thing, and she was so...you could feel her cruelty.

I tried to run away, but as she continued to chant, the nothingness around us began to twist into somethingness. Like she was making dozens and dozens of portals. Not portals, more like tears into worlds. One minute there was nothing, the next I was overwhelmed with the sounds of a waterfall and some of the spray was hitting me. Then it would be gone. I saw glimpses into so many different places. Some were broken, desolate landscapes, others were thriving civilizations. Others were fighting the demons. I didn't recognize a lot of the creatures fighting them, but I hope they won.

I realized that she wasn't going to stop chanting until she'd expelled me from that non-world and so I started looking at the portals, trying to pick one that she might not want me to go into.

As I was running past one portal that seemed to be connected to a frat house, I heard a slurred voice say something about an Azeroth.

That was the Warcraft world. So I skidded to a stop, turned around, and tried to fling myself into the tear. However, as I stepped up to it—it was already too late for me to change my direction—it shifted away from whatever party had been going on and it wasn't until I'd stepped through it that I realized I was in the middle of the sky.

All at once the chanting stopped and my ears were filled with the sound of wind whipping around me. And I suddenly felt like I had definitive weight again—I hadn't realized how weightless I'd felt in that other place until my senses started functioning again—and as I looked down and saw the world flying up to greet me, I had to laugh at how stupid I'd been, though the wind stole my laughter, leaving me with nothing but a sucking breathlessness in my chest.