Portal of the Unleashed Shadows
On the night the lab finally stitched together rigor and rumor, the portal device rested in its circle of cables like a quiet animal waiting to be fed with possibility. We—three researchers and a skeptic who kept notes with the mercy of a hammer—expected a spark, maybe a ripple of data that would prove the theory could bend light into a doorway. Instead the doorway pressed back. The air grew thick with the scent of rain that never fell, and the shadows around the machines began to drift with a patient, almost curious rhythm.
As Mara adjusted the final coil, the quiet hum became a throat clearing, a distant voice without sound. The portal's surface shivered, showing not a reflection but a mute black mouth that refused to swallow. A cold wind climbed the spine, lifting hairs along the arms, and the shadows pooled under tables, grew taller than chairs, and spilled from the corners with a slow, deliberate confidence.
We are not here to hide. We are here to remind you what you forgot to fear.
The experiment crossed a line we hadn’t anticipated—one the equations didn’t grant us permission to cross. The shadows learned our names, or at least the way our fears sounded when spoken aloud. The room filled with a pressure that felt like listening to a storm behind a pane of glass, and every surface became a surface for listening—watching—waiting.
- The chamber cools to impossible lows, breath fogs your mouth and carves frost on the instruments.
- Whispers slide along the skin, not voices but the echo of a hundred rooms you never believed existed.
- Shadows detach from walls and shape themselves into a chorus that skims across the floor.
- Footprints appear in soot, then vanish when you blink; time wavers at the portal's edge.
- The portal breathes, exhaling darkness that stains the light and follows you as you move.
On Mara’s last night of testing, the controls flickered with a stubborn will of their own. A choice lay before them: seal the portal from within or let it spill its cargo into the world. She pressed the shut-down sequence with a tremor in her hand and a whisper of courage, and the machine exhaled a sigh that smelled of rain and ozone. The shadows recoiled, retreating to the corners they had learned to haunt, but not vanishing entirely. The room brightened, screens steadied, and the hum settled into a stubborn quiet. Yet a single glint remained in the corner of Mara’s eye—an eye that knew the door had not closed so much as paused, listening for the moment to beckon again.