It was only my second trip into the mysterious gateway between worlds. Just like the time before, there was a brief moment of floating, surrounded by darkness, before the substance of the Blackness seemed to form around me, and light slowly dissolved away the dark. I was standing on a black path of marble, winding away like a ribbon both before and behind me until it disappeared on the horizon. On both sides of the path, a great sea of inky, pale liquid stretched out for as far as the eye could see, eventually swallowed in migrating bodies of mist. The sky was dark and grey, as if the storm of all eternity was about to break.

The Ripping through which I had come stayed open, revealing a blurred vision of my home world on its other side. Stay open, little buddy, I thought.

The Blackness looked exactly the same as the last time I'd been there—not a smidgen more inviting. Scanning all directions, I saw no sign of a Shadow Ka or any other visitor, but spotted a widening of the path about two hundred feet away. It had to be the gateway Farmer had told me about—the one leading to the Lady of the Storm. Knowing my time was dwindling with every passing thought, I ran in that direction.

Our world, Earth, was unique in that it did not have a portal to the Blackness, which is why it had gone hundreds or thousands of years without being discovered by the Ka and the Stompers. It was instead separated by the Black Curtain, although how it all worked I had no idea. All I knew was that you could enter or leave the Blackness from any spot as long as there was a Ripping.

I kept running. I was about halfway to the landing.

The air was wet, and my clothes seemed to absorb it and moisten with every step I took. The gently lapping ocean of liquid silver looked menacing, like it would swallow you whole if you even dared to stick a tippy toe in it. Then I remembered my first visit, when the attacking Shadow Ka bounced off the Shield and fell into the waters, screaming, never to be seen again. I shivered as I ran.

The landings that held the iron gateways were made of a different material, resembling sandstone. After my brief sprint, I made it to the one I was to go through, and looked in awe at its less than comely state. The stone was jagged and uneven, with great breaks running through it in all directions. On one side, a large pillar jutted toward the grey sky, tipping precariously at its top like it had been trying to escape gravity and finally gave up.

The horror of those few moments after blocking the Black Curtain rushed into my mind, and I realized that the devastation of it had spread throughout the entire Blackness. I couldn't help but wonder if alien creatures lived somewhere in this place, under the strange ocean, or in the air, or on islands unseen, and whether or not they had been harmed during that frightful event.

But it couldn't have been any other way. The blocking of the Curtain just may have bought us enough time to make it as far as we had. Otherwise, the Stompers would've already controlled all of our minds and dreams to the point of no return.

I stumbled over the uneven ground to the stack of iron rings that formed the barrel-shaped gateway to whatever world awaited me. What kind of place did a Lady of the Storm live in, anyway? As I looked over the upper edge of the rings, something clicked in my head.

The scratches on my dad's arm. Although very crude, they had looked like a series of the letter ‘O’ overlapping each other. It looked a lot like the iron gateway! The revelation was bizarre, and my mind wanted to explain it away as coincidence. But the longer I looked at the rings of the gateway, the more they reminded me of the image of the scratches. But what did it mean?

Puzzled, I looked down at my watch. Forty-seven minutes. My mouth dropped open—how could nine minutes have already passed? I could no longer afford to think or pause for anything.

I placed the palms of my hands on the uppermost ring of the gateway, pushed down, and swung my legs up and over into the middle of the barrel. I knew there was no magic word, no fancy waving of the hand—it just happened.

Several seconds passed, and just as I began to worry that it might not work, a blinding flash of light erupted from the bottom of the iron rings and shot upward. My eyes shut on instinct, and when they opened again, everything had changed.

I was in a world forged by aliens, and it was raining.