The Wide

It wasn't always a first step. Sometimes it was a second, or a third or several more. But eventually the stairs disappeared altogether and left me levitating in the air. The vast world would fall away, and in the deep silence that followed a vision would fill my mind.

The gates.

As a slipped down the barren fields turned to sand, across scrubby plains and out of exotic forests, I began to see the spires. Jutting up from the pinnacle of desolation, these alien and curved horns didn't so much crackle as hum. The hair lifted off my arms and every sense I owned tingled, like freefall but on solid ground.

My steps no longer became my own, but rather my will simply propelling my body. The sand slid and shifted underfoot, but my eyes were on the heavens. The spires above.

This time I would make it. This time I would see.

My heart beat faster, the landscape shifting into instability as I clambered and ran across the sands, desperate to capture my one-way ticket. The hum was louder now, the air thick with energy. I gasped in static as much as air and choked on the electricity in my breath, feeling my limbs grow heavy.

So close.

A shiver ran through me. Spiralling from my head and right down through my core. It invigorated me, tricking my extremities into another pulse of action. Nerve endings jerked into motion and I stumbled atop the dune.

My eyes closed and I breathed in chaotic fields of friction. No breath left, no energy of my own.

A life spent dreaming. A dream unfulfilled.



A breeze whipped across my face, filling my lungs and lifting my tear-stained eyes.

To wonder.

Chaos and life surrounded me! The portal now far behind, I watched as another mechanical platform whizzed past me, it's rider one of dozens in the air. I ducked as something hot sprayed against my face and a concussive blast knocked me from my feet. And then I was being pulled up to join the madness in the air. I grabbed on tight, finding my feet and wrapping my hand across another's wrist.

And somehow, I knew. I knew. The soft and strong grip that held my own so tightly should never be let go.

I wouldn't let it go.