What Lies Beyond The Portal (Sathenus)18+

[Alichino]

A dark place. A narrow place. Somewhere vacant, somewhere you could go to make sure you wouldn’t be disturbed. This was what Rui was looking for. He needed somewhere quiet where he could do his magic and just disappear for a moment, to catch his breath, regain his thoughts and just recover his strength. However, doing this while you were running from your pursuers wasn’t exactly easy. It felt like he had been running for days. His legs were starting to give in from beneath him, there had been a few times he had staggered in his fast steps and his broken arm wasn’t exactly doing the best job to keep him balanced. At this point he didn’t care what kind of place it was as long as filled in those critirerors. Dark, narrow and private. He kept repeating those words in his head as he looked for it, the streets seemed to be crawling with people or animals or creatures or whatever you wanted to call it, these gray buildings were suddenly met with a spot of color to make out the creature that was beside it. For a moment Rui was thankful this dimension allowed for colorful creatures while all their wonky constructions turned out to be gray. It could’ve been kind of pretty if the pursuers ever allowed him some time to take in the sight, but no. Not this time. 

 

He could hear them, he wasn’t going to be dumb enouh to look behind him to see if they were still chasing him, or how far back they were. He could hear them. The footsteps were many and they were all behind him. Some had tried to follow him on the rooftops to try and cut his path off somehow, but thanks to those wonky buildings they figured it slowed it down more than helped them. So now they were behind him, trying to figure out the maze of streets and allies this stupid city was build in. It was difficult to navigate through and it would’ve been perfect if Rui knew his way around it better than the ones who were chasing him. But he was as much of a stranger to this place as they were. His patience was starting to run thin. His arm fucking hurt, his legs were becoming numb and if you haven’t tried to run with numb legs then you have no idea how difficult it is. At the same time he tried to keep his breath in check so that his body wouldn’t collapse on him completely while his one blue eye darted through allies that was passing around him, figuring he needed a calm space, but the wrong turn could end with his death… or imprisonment, either of those choices was equally as terrifying to the young man. 

 

Rui figured he had to try his luck and darted to the nearest turn and did another turn in order to try and shake that annoying tail of his, he couldn’t run in a straight line or he would never be rid of the people that chased him long enough for him to open a new portal. He didn’t want to risk them following him in there as well. He was very much tired of running and he needed time to catch his breath. Then, suddenly the footsteps were getting less, more hesitant. Rui was creating a path where they needed to think before they could follow him and it was working to slow them down. Now he just needed to do a few more turns of that and then he hoped the last turn he needed to make would be vacant long enough for him to open one of his portal and hopefully this time he would land in the dimension he actually wanted to go to. Not this gray wonky place, but somewhere else, somewhere he could find what he was looking for. He darted for his last turn and his blue eye caught something as he passed by and that was a door not fully closed. Rui didn’t hesitate before he opened the door and walked right through, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that the door couldn’t be closed fully. It was an old door that no longer fit in the hole that was made out for it, but he didn’t exactly had time to think about what kind of dead life it had so for now he just let it be and walked deeper into the room he was in. 

 

As far as Rui could see, it was extremely dark. He could barely see his own slender and pale hand that was in front of him. He made a small noise to see if anything would respond without calling out too loudly to warn his pursuers, but nothing responded. Nothing seemed to be moving and his was the only steps he could hear. This was the place. He wasn’t going to find a better place than this and figuring he had wasted enough time he began to work his magic. He reached out with his hand, creating a circle that started out small. The blue light was instant and revealed a lot of the secrets this room was holding, but Rui could care less about it. He needed to focus on getting his small blue light bigger, needed to focus on the place he really wanted to go to and he didn’t exactly have time to take in everything that was going around him. Luckily, there was nothing dangerous he missed, the room was as vacant as Rui had hoped and within seconds, the blue portal was the size of a trash can lid. Just a little bit bigger, enough for him to fit through, but not big enough for it to take minutes to close down. Time was not something he had a lot of. 

 

Speaking of which before Rui could perfect his portal he began to hear footsteps outside the door and the light the portal gave off would definitely call anyone inside… as he suspected it didn’t take long for his pursuers to find him and push open the door. Rui looked behind him for a second and in a moment of sheer stupidity he decided to give in to his superior side and gave the people a smirk and wave before carefully stepping inside his portal, making sure he wouldn’t get caught on the edges of the small circle as that has happened way too many times. As soon as his whole body was on the other side of that gray world he quickly tried to close the portal, but before he could close it completely an arm stretched out from the other world and grabbed his. In a moment of panic Rui tried to close the portal faster to get the arm away from him, but the person on the other side reacted quicker and pulled Rui’s arm to a point where the blue circle was closing in around his skin it was his arm that got caught in it. It cut off. 

 

The portal was closed. Rui got his wish of being alone and he didn’t feel any relief in that. All he felt was the sharp pain he felt in his arm. It was a pain he was well familiar with so this time he could silence his scream enough while the rest of his body did all the panic for him. He grabbed the sudden bloody stump as he collapsed on the ground, bit down his jaws and let out a more frustrated grunt that his body gave in to the pain even for a second. He didn’t have time to lay on the ground like this! Not only did he have a broken arm to fix, but now he also needed to take care of this?! Oh fuck he did not look forward to the healing he needed to do, but… Thank God he actually had such a power now. Rui took a deep breath to gather his thoughts and some of the strength that hadn’t left him yet. He once again focused on his magic, his stolen power in order to heal the wounds he had gotten. It took him a moment, a minute or two before his bloodied stump began to move. He forced it into the air as it looked like it was starting to grow. His whole body was shaking as it took all his strength to regrow his arm, forearm began to manifest again, his hand and at last his fingertips. He moved his fingers, checking to see if they were working perfectly as they had before and nothing seemed to be defected. It had regrown perfectly. The tattoo of four outstretched triangles on the back of his hand where the base starts by each knuckle, something he carries on both hands, had also been restored. It was as if the accident had never happened. The only thing that marked it was a scar around the area where his arm had regrown. At a closer look, all of his limbs carried such scars. His fingers, feet, arms and legs… all of it carried a lot of those scars. 

 

Rui took another deep breath as his body recovered from regrowing the arm. Great, now that that part is over, only the worst thing left. For a third time in only a couple of minutes he refocused on magic, this time another power of his. He felt his broken arm and this time he didn’t even try to silence his scream as it popped back in place. His tired body began to heal the wound that was left, apparently he had some bruises on other parts of his body that the magic seemed to fix as well.. but the more he concentrated on that kind of magic, his skin appeared to change color. Like a black infection was spreading through his veins, turning them the same black color that had stained one of his eyes a long time ago. As his wounds healed his body started to jerk, his stomach turned inside out and Rui got up on his restored hands as it looked like he was about to vomit and as he opened his mouth to get out whatever it was that wanted out, a vile taste spread through his throat and mouth as a black mass of tar spilled on the ground beneath him. Rui coughed up the last of it as his veins returned to normal, his body fully restored, fully healthy and so fucking tired. The young man rolled over and was careful not to let his sidecut silver blue hair or even white attire get caught in the tar he just threw up in order to heal his wounds and he allowed himself to take a breather, to rest a little bit and gather a bit more strength before he needed to take a look around and see what kind of place he had just landed in. He was glad this place allowed him a moment to be alone before he really did need to ask himself the big question. 

 

“Where the hell am I?” 

 

Even though he had focused enough to make sure he had landed in the dimension he really wanted to visit, there was always a slim chance he could be somewhere completely different. The wonder of dimension jumping, right? You never really knew where you were going to end up. 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Alichino