Chapter 4 PORTAL 989

📖 MAIN STORY

CHAPTER 4 - PORTAL 989

The new room was no longer silence or fire, but a misdimensional garden. The air was damp and heavy, smelling of old metal and freshly dug earth. From the ceiling, if it could be called a ceiling, hung a collection of strange crystals that pulsed softly, emitting a grayish-purple light that shrouded everything in long, unnatural shadows. It was the Garden of Broken Whispers.

The ground beneath one's feet felt springy, like walking on dead flesh. Strange plants flourished; there were flowers with petals shaped like whispering human ears, and grasses that moved on their own like fingers clawing at the air. In the distance, tall, thin shadows moved slowly, gathering something indistinct and stuffing it into sacks made of spiderwebs.

Shayla immediately felt the sadness of this place. "They... are all lost here," she whispered, her sing song voice faintly heard over the rustling leaves. Mr. David struggled to stay focused, the static around him ticking erratically, like a constant alert system. "This place... is not for the living. This is a shelter."

Suddenly, from behind a large tree whose trunk resembled a giant, twisted spine, a mechanical squeaking sound was heard. Rosi, the cat, curiously approached the source of the sound. He sniffed at a rusted metal panel embedded in the ground, decorated with worn buttons and a cracked screen that still faintly displayed the number 989.

Inadvertently, Rosi's paw pressed a button.

BZZZZZT—KRAAAK!

The panel glowed with a sickly green light, emitting a creaking, noisy mechanical sound. An unstable energy portal protruded from the ground, not as a door, but as a wildly spinning wormhole, sucking in air and sucking in everything around it.

Preet, who had learned from the energy vibrations, tried to analyze it. His tetrahedron shape spun rapidly, transmitting data. "Warning: Gravitational anomaly. Source unknown. Reading... remnants of human consciousness... bound to this location."

From within the chaotic vortex of the portal, a figure was dragged out and fell to the ground with an unpleasant crunch.

It was OKMan.

His appearance was horrific. His body was a hideous fusion of human and machine. Parts of his flesh had rotted and peeled away, revealing a rusted, malfunctioning robotic skeleton beneath. One eye was a dull yellow, broken-lens camera, spinning erratically. The other was a real human eye, filled with madness and deep loneliness. He wore a tattered and dirty luxury business suit, complete with a half burnt tie.

He sat up, coughing, then laughed, a sound that was a mix of a hoarse human voice and a broken robotic speaker.

"Heh... finally... visitors," he muttered, his voice hissing. "Been... here... years... alone. Portal 989 only brought scum like me... and now... you."

OKMan stood unsteadily, his robotic body creaking. He reached out a hand half flesh, half metal—toward them.

"Welcome to my playground. You... will be my company. Forever."

He laughed again, and from within his torn jacket, small, spider-like robotic arms emerged and began crawling toward them, ready to capture them.