• Thirty Years Later •

I flipped the master switch, hoping with all my being it would finally open to the world I left behind.  It slowly hummed to life, shooting sparks if electricity through the air.

Lazily, a notorious metal-eating beetle landed on the portal, completely unaffected by the miniature lightning bolts zapping through the air.  It started to munch on the outside, leaving small holes.  "Oh, no you don't," I growled, grabbing a fly swatter and taking a swing at it.  It buzzed off, annoyed at having its dinner interrupted.  "AND STAY AWAY FROM MY PORTAL!" I shouted, waving the fly swatter at it.

One of the inhabitants of this dimension, a blue-skinned male, ran off towards town, muttering something about the crazy scientist lady.  I sighed.  That's what I was reduced to now, the mad lunatic always working on the same failed project. 

I glared at my operating portal, once again opening into the wrong place.  The Nightmare Realm was the world between worlds, with no laws of science applying to it.  Why did it always open here, of all places?  I opened my hand to shut it down, when I noticed the ring was changing.

I turned over the ring in my cybernetic palm, gazing at the inky black stone.  I was starting to think jewelry hated me.  This one had tried to warn me about the danger of the portal, but I was too young and stupid to take it seriously.  My life would be so much different if I had just listened to the palm reader.

So far, three of her predictions came true, not including the ring.  The moon: I was definitely lost and lonely, no other humans in this dimension.  The snake and triangle: I was always in eminent danger, for choosing the wrong partners back on earth.  The knight with two swords: I chose to be there for the portal test, and look where that got me.  The skull... I shivered.  I hadn't died, not yet. 

I looked at my own creation, a smaller copy of the portal I came through so many years ago.  Every time I turned it on, it worked - but showed me the wrong dimension.  It would always open up to a pitch black world, filled with odd swirling colors and patterns, like the inside of a lava lamp.  The locals here treated it like taboo to even speak of it: the Nightmare Realm.  Home of the most savage beast known to civilization, Bill Cipher.  None of them dared to speak his name, should he be summoned into their world. 

Another failure.  It had opened up to the Nightmare Realm again.  I clenched a fist, about to cuss out my inanimate creation, when I noticed the jewel in the ring, the one that had stayed black for thirty years, had lightened to a sapphire color.  I could hardly believe my eyes.  My glasses, loose once more, slid down my nose.  What had the palm reader said?  When these are blue, you may pull through.  

My tattered grey lab coat flapped in the breeze created by my portal and pulled inwards towards it, as if hypnotized.

Pulled in?!

Oh, no.  I had a bad feeling about what I had to do.

The witch had meant it literally.  It was time to pull through my own portal.  Praying this wouldn't be the stupidest thing I'd ever done, I jumped into the swirling vortex.  

It felt like I had jumped into a tub of ice water, bone-chillingly cold.  My body tingled all over, not used to the new temperature.  Slowly, I opened my eyes, regretting my decision immediately.  The realm was even more chaotic than usual, its constantly moving shapes imploding and reforming, with the triangle I had come to fear in the center.  But for once, it looked like Bill wasn't the one doing the tormenting.  He was being chased by a mysterious stranger clad entirely in black.  All of Cipher's demons had abandoned him, it was a one-on-one duel, though it was heavily one-sided.  The stranger's large gun glowed with a blue energy, and Bill seemed almost afraid of it.  

The triangle zipped through his universe, desperately trying to outrun the stranger, but he was too late.  His attacker had a clear shot, even a novice could make it.  He pulled on the trigger to shoot him and-

Without warning, a new portal appeared, making the attacker miss his shot and pulled both me and the stranger close to it.  I desperately struggled, this couldn't happen, not again!  Not when I was so close!  I tried to thrash out of its hold, but it was a lost battle.  My vision went bright white as, for the second time today, I was pulled through a portal.  I could only hope it didn't lead somewhere more disastrous. 

Again, my body tingled all over as the blood started moving.  Slowly but surely, my eyes adjusted, and I saw where I had arrived, a place I never thought I'd see again: The lab in the basement of Stanford's house.  The stranger and I stood up, taking the sight in wonder.  For the first time in thirty years, I was home. 

"Wha- Who is that?" A pubescent voice asked.  I whipped my head up to see a small boy with a blue pine tree hat, looking extremely freaked out. 

A familiar old man adjusted his red fez.  "The author of the journals..."

The stranger took of his mask, revealing himself. 

It couldn't be. 

I was caught staring into the eyes of the one who had stolen my heart so many years ago, the reason I was sucked into the portal in the first place. 

"My brother."