The Portal - VIII

Part 1

Whether it was the night in the house, the chain of events leading up to it, or until now unbeknownst latent ability by him, Thomas found himself in a series of taxis carting him south towards London. The dream that lead him on the path to take the first byway out of Westknell south was like a thorn in his mind that moved and poked his sanity when he flicked his head to the side looking for whispers in distant shadow covered corners.

                In his dream he appeared in a room of threads hanging from the ceiling. Each had their own peculiarity. They were frayed and colored in a special and important method that Thomas was not knowledgeable of. He simply knew that in this room he was tasked with finding the right thread. Was he making a sweater? Is that why he needed the thread? He thought as he brushed past them. Some tickled his face and his ears as they hung by his face. He reached out to grasp a handful feeling that something should happen, but nothing did. He then grabbed for a single blue thread, small and withered more than the rest. In an instant he was transported to a drawing room in a distant place from Thomas. A small man sat in the room, very old, very withered, not unlike his thread. Thomas knew in his mind’s recesses that the thread represented the man’s life, it was his lifeline.

                Thomas took a step forward to examine the dying old man, for he truly was dying. Breathing heavily, wheezing each word he said to someone in the room that Thomas could not see. The old man was speaking in German, perhaps passing on his final will to someone beyond Thomas’ perception.

                “This isn’t where I need to be.” A voice said in Thomas’ head and he released the blue thread. Without movement he was returned to the room full of threads. It took him a second to put the pieces together. Thankfully in dreams time is not actually tangible. A minute in a dream could be a millisecond in the real world, or a second could be an hour depending on the mind. Thomas knew this, he knew that and many other things. His mind informed him of his knew reality as it unfolded, filling in the gaps and clearing away the dust layered on the facts. With a trained hand now feeling from thread to thread not pulling until he was sure which one to grasp he thumbed past a million different strands. With his abundance of time he felt glimpses of tens of thousands of lives pass before him and over his body. They felt like the same shudders he felt with his ticks. They were almost telegraphed, predictable and with each new sensation he became accustomed to what he saw beyond the veil.

                He travelled to a woman in America pining over a lost love, holding the temptation of endless sleep in one hand as a bottle of pills and his picture in the other. He appeared in the room of a young boy, sick and tired from fever, clutching his teddy bear weeping silently, feeling that his last breath was soon upon him. He was whisked to the mountains where a man was pinned down by a bear, his mouth moving swiftly belting out its last prayer to Heaven before the great jaws fell upon his face. Thomas saw the death of or near approach of death of thousands such lost souls. Despite their vividness they held no weight in his heart. He knew from a young age that death was inevitable and mourning of those beyond helps reach was a waste of energy. He felt he could spend an eternity in this room seeing and experiencing the deaths of millions of people but he wasn’t here for that purpose. Something else drew him around the room.

                In the back corner away from the light of the windows and the lamps burning, Thomas saw a cluster of threads in the shadows. His heart jumped and his stomach lurched at the sight of them. All the threads behind him were in the light, they were all witness to death by normal means. This cluster however, was entwined with a shadowy mist that enveloped the strands. A hesitance that hadn’t proceeded the other interactions came over Thomas as his fingers moved closer to the first strand. He grew tense and a flame started to burn in his soul. It reminded him of a seizure he had once after being exposed to some powder. His muscles were willing him to stay away but his purpose drove him forward. The tip of his forefinger grazed the first strand and he fell to his knees.

                The image that flashed before his mind was not of a person who was living now, on the verge of death now, as the other threads had shown him. It was older much, much older. The image and the information already stored in his brain coalesced into coherence and he said one word.

                “Mathias.”

                The image he saw was of an elderly Mathias McMahon returning to Westknell after years of travelling. He wished to return back to his old home where he had been with his wife and daughter. He had some business to take care of. He sold the house to a man named Darrows and left the place for good. For he would only live another hour before being stabbed in a mugging just outside town.

                Another strand blown by a spectral wind fell into Thomas’ hand and he doubled over in pain.

                “Amelia.”

                The old woman was sitting in a den eyes fixed on the firelight as a boy of about sixteen comes to sit next to her. Papers sit on the side table, a deed and a release from possession of the old house. It has been sold to a new family, a name Thomas cannot make out. The boy sits and hears her tell a story of her youth, a story she has told many times to the boy. A story of shadow and fear and how grand and terrible the world beyond your door can be. How monsters do exist in the dark and how you need to keep your faith strong and your wits about you. When the boy leaves Amelia, turning her attention to the papers, signs away the deed to the new tenants, feels the weight of existence lift from her shoulders, heaves a sigh of relief and expires.

                Thomas stands and his weight shifts him into the cluster letting his body be caressed by the multiple strands.

                “Oh god!”

                He tumbles into a void of existence. All around him are the faces and shapes of lost souls consumed by the shadows. They have a silvery glow around their form. The plane in which they exist is cold and desolate and stretches on for an eternity. He feels eyes on him and he turns to see a man looking upon a creature biting the face off a young woman. He spins in fright to see a young woman, not the same as the assaulted, taken in hand and let into a room just off the shadow plane. It all feels like a stage play, a performance. Yet, the characters don’t realize they are in it. He is pulled again and sees an old man clutching his head losing his sanity. His hands are covered in dirt and his shirt is tattered and old. Another turn, spinning now, Thomas sees a bloodied woman over the body of a man as another looks on in horror. Finally he sees a young boy sitting in a corner rocking slowly back and forth. He is whispering to himself.

                “What is it boy?” Thomas says moving towards the innocent.

                “I…Ian…kyeh…”

                “I can’t understand you speak up.” Thomas inches forward and places his hand on the little boy. A flash of pain erupts over Thomas as his ticks come back in full force. The image of the young boy standing over a bed holding a pillow inches away from another sleeping boy…his brother, burns itself into Thomas’ mind. He can finally discern the words.

                “Kill Ian…Kill Ian…Kill Ian…Cillian…Cillian…Cillian.” With that the boy holds the pillow down.

                Thomas is transported once again from the shadow plane to the room of thread and he sees a shining thread and he clutches it firmly between his fingers, wrapping his fist tightly around it. A new image emerges, of the two men from the sanitarium, travelling south on a bus towards London.

                A cold sweat greets Thomas in waking and before he has time to gather his wits fully he has found a canister of kerosene and doused the house. He knows somewhere inside him that the house isn’t the vessel for these occurrences but he feels it should still be done. Coincidence be damned. With a flick of his wrist a lit match flies into the open door and the blaze begins. He himself is headed to the bus depot on the westside of town. His feet move of their own accord but he lets them. They intend to carry him south towards London. As he passes out of the town he has spent the better part of his adult life he feels the tension of Tourette’s wither from him. He spurts his last slur to the wind, this time of his own volition, as the fire can be seen from the bus window.

                “Fuck this place.”

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