Just the Story

“What happened here?” Kirin asked as she knelt down to pick up a shard of the mirror. Her voice echoed in the empty whiteness.

“It ate my world. The whole thing,” Textbox answered grimly. She stood up.

“How did you survive?” She heard Textbox sigh.

“You know how Deadpool knows that he’s fictional? Well, that power has the perks of being able to know about when a cataclysmic, world ending event will happen. I knew It was coming, so I fled before It could come.”

“I didn’t know that Deadpool could sense when disasters were going to happen.” She examined the shard of the mirror. It must have been the window to that universe, much like the one she saw when she first entered the inter-dimensional highway.

“It’s a weird thing. We know about events that affect our world that happen outside of it.”

“So you’re not with the main Marvel universe? I’m only asking because there are still ongoing Marvel comics in my universe, so is there a main universe where these stories come from, or…” Kirin wondered aloud.

“Look, all I know is that It destroyed my homeworld. I don’t know or care about that other stuff,” Textbox cut her off.

“Sorry. What is “It”, exactly?” Kirin asked.

“Bad. Like a giant cloud that destroys worlds in the blink of an eye bad. Worse than Thanos and Galactus combined. Never saw it and I don’t want to. Now, let’s go.”  Unbeknownst to Kirin, a shadow slowly encroached on her.

“What? No. You’re finally giving me answers and now you want to go?” Kirin argued. She felt the ground beneath her rumble.

“Go?”

“Go.” Suddenly, she was being shaken like a ragdoll again as nauseating technicolor lights blinded her. It finally stopped just before she was about to vomit. Once again, she was knocked to the ground. “Man, I really hate that,” she grumbled.

“Tell me about it,” Eli said, he and Lilly standing over her. He offered her his hand. She took it gratefully and stood up.  They were once again in an area where the planets revolved overhead, and the night sky was peppered with stars. Another mirror stood in front of them, this one adorned with lion and unicorn gilding, and there was rope trailing out of the glass.

“What happened? Where’d you guys go?” she asked. The two shrugged.

“One minute, we were examining the portal, the next, we were sucked in and sent flying all around wherever this is,” Lilly replied. Eli nodded.

“This place is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. There were so many worlds. Even I didn’t know there were so many of them. What about you?” Eli said.

“Well, we heard someone yell and came in after you–” Kirin began.

“But we took a wrong turn in Albuquerque and got lost,” Textbox cut her off. Kirin looked into the image in the mirror and saw her basement.

“Well, it looks like we’re home, now how do we get in?” she muttered to herself.

“Oh, that’s easy. See the unicorn in the top center? Just press on it and repeat after me,” Textbox replied. Kirin pressed on the unicorn. The image in the glass began to swirl. “Euras notbal.”

“Euras not–hey! Oh, real cute Textbox. Glad you’re back to you charming self,” Kirin grumbled as she walked into the mirror. Lilly and Eli snickered and followed after her. The basement looked exactly like she had left it. The clock read 3:34 pm, exactly the time which she had entered the portal. “Well, today certainly was strange. Do you guys wanna run more tests or what?” she asked them. They both gave her a look of absolute horror.

“I think we’d better go, what about you Eli?” Lilly answered. They quickly made their way to the staircase.

“Yeah, I think so. Call us if there’s any changes,” Eli telled as they both rushed upstairs. Kirin heard the front door slam.

“Well, okay then. Hey I still have time to write up a review before dinner. What’do say Textbox?” she said as she headed upstairs.

“Thought you’d never ask.”  The wall swirled briefly and a shadow spread across the room. It made its way to the darkest corner and sat, waiting. For what? The shadow didn’t know, but it knew that it had to bide its time.