The tiny patter of little feet drew Minji’s attention to Ava as she crossed the concrete floor with purpose. In one hand she held her Merida doll. Minji started to chastise her, then realized there was no point. Ava and the other had shared a body and mind. There was a bond between them.
“It’s sick, Mommy. Will it get better back home?” Ava asked.
“I hope so,” Minji answered.
The child cooed in her arms, a sound that set her teeth on edge, made her skin crawl, and caused her hair stand on end.
Ava lifted the doll to the creature in her mother’s arms. “You can take it. I can get another one.”
Multiple strands of glass-like flesh snagged the doll and lifted it toward what Minji suspected was a face.
Ava giggled.
“Minji...” Alec’s voice sounded weary and fearful. “I’m going to open the doorway.”
“Ava, go back to Alec. Mommy needs to do this, okay?”
Lightly stroking the other’s many tentacle-like appendages, Ava nodded. “Okay, Mommy.”
The little girl turned on her heel and walked back.
“It takes a playmate from another world to get her to obey.”
With the shake of her head, Minji attempted to study the creature in her arms, but again she found it nearly impossible to truly absorb and understand what she was observing. It was so beyond the realm of reality, her mind could not process the creature’s true appearance.
“Minji...”
“Do it, Alec.”
Somewhere deep in the walls came a terrifying booming, then the air began to vibrate. Teeth chattering from the resonance, Minji stood her ground, clutching the child from another world. Loud blasts of air and sound deafened her seconds before spots formed in her eyes. Blinking rapidly, she realized they weren’t in her vision, but in the air. Like bubbles bursting at the top of a glass of soda, the fabric of reality popped open to reveal something cold, vast, and pulsating with sound and color.
The doorway looked nothing like a door, a portal, or anything she’d seen in movies. Her mind processed it as a rip in the air, even as her senses told her she was standing on a precipice. In the corner of the tear, a tendril, as delicate as spun glass, clung to the reality of the human world. This was what had kept the doorway partially open. This is what had allowed the mother to influence the human world. Minji had been right. The mother had reached for its infant just before the scientists had tried to close the doorway. It was through this tiny rip in reality that she’d destroyed so much of the human world in an effort to retrieve her child.
And then the mother appeared.
Once again, Minji’s senses couldn’t absorb the splendor of the being. She tasted its colors, heard its fragrance, and felt its voice. Feet leaving the ground, she tumbled into the center of its terrible existence. The air was alive with its essence and it flowed around her like the water of the rapids, crashing against Minji like a boulder in its fury. Minji knew it to the core of her being that the mother of the infant in her arms meant her no harm though it could crush her body and toss her away like rose petals. It was angry, hurt, and still thankful.
“I’m sorry,” Minji said, but wasn’t certain she spoke aloud.
A massive tentacle wrapped around Minji for a scant moment. Blinded for an instant, Minji heard the voice of the being, understood its purpose, and trembled at its words. Then, very gently, the mother tugged the child from Minji’s arms while setting the human on the ground.
The mother and child withdrew from the world, the plastic doll standing out among the mass of luminous light and colors. The mother slithered into the miasma of ethereal noise and glowing color. Its many limbs retreated, writhing through the air around Minji until they, too, withdrew.
Then one last limb slid past Minji carrying a blubbering, terrified Arthur.
“No!” Minji cried out, but it was too late.
Arthur vanished into the other world with one last scream.
The thunderous noise in the walls shut off, the undulating air fell still, and reality reclaimed the doorway.
Shaken, Minji slumped to the floor shivering from the freezing temperature within the room and weeping in the aftermath of what she’d witnessed. She wasn’t even aware of Ava’s approach until her daughter was in her arms, kissing her, and patting her cheeks.
“It’s okay, Mommy. It’s okay. They went home,” Ava whispered.
Wracked by tears, Minji could barely speak. “I know, Ava.”
“Can we go home, too?” Ava asked hopefully.