Prologue (4)

Cody followed Jason into the job site office tucked in a small corner of the ground floor. Stepping inside the office, rows of desks were lined up against the walls and at each sat a safety-vested, white hard-hatted man, either typing away at a computer terminal or speaking loudly into crackling block radio.

A few of the men glanced up at Cody and Jason as they walked to Jason's desk on the far wall, although most acted indifferently.

"Okay! Let's get some of this paperwork filled out!" Jason slapped his hands together and almost skipped over to a filing cabinet. He started pulling xeroxed page after page out of half a dozen folders.

Waiting in a flimsy metal folding chair next to Jason's desk, Cody's curiosity was beginning to get the best of him. "Hey, uh... Jason? You mind if I run and use the bathroom? I really need to go."

He honestly did need to use the bathroom, after drinking an energy drink on his morning commute, Cody hadn't had a chance to use a bathroom yet this morning.

Jason had returned to his computer and was looking up more forms to print out, he responded without even looking up, "Yeah, no problem, it'll take me a few minutes to get everything ready."

Cody walked outside of the office towards a row of pale green plastic portable toilets lined up against a fence and stepped inside the nearest vacant one.

He was already planning his next steps.

He would move quickly from the port-a-potty through the nearest door to the building. Once inside, instead of going to the lobby of the building and waiting for the elevator, he would go to a narrow utility stairway that led back down into the basement. It was so narrow, that it wasn't used, a person could hardly walk up it even with a tool belt on, so people tended to use the elevator and wider main stairway that were both located off the lobby in the front of the building.

Pausing for a fleeting moment, Cody concentrated on the pulling sensation. Whatever was causing it hadn't moved. Something was still pulling him to the dark place in the basement.

{Time to go.}

Cody kicked open the door of the port-a-potty and walked quickly to the door to the building. A plaque hanging above the door displayed "The Henry Building - Built 1909."

As soon as he entered the building, Cody walked straight to the service stairs. Luckily, most of the work being done was on the upper floors, so he didn't see another person. Chances are no one would recognize him, even though everyone was made aware of what happened this morning during the daily safety meeting.

He opened the door to the stairway and started down the steps. Now that he was this close to the basement, his body started vibrating. It was like being close to high voltage power lines with their nonstop buzzing.

As he exited the stairway, he was already turning his body to face the source.

A tall, black shape floated about a dozen paces from where Cody had left the stairwell. As soon as Cody's eyes came in contact with the black object, the magnetic, pulling, vibrating feeling that had plagued him since he left the clinic cut out instantly.

It was roughly oval-shaped and was solid enough to cast a shadow on the ground.

Cody estimated it was around 5 feet tall and maybe half of that distance across. If not for the otherworldly hovering act, it could have been mistaken for a mirror that someone had spray-painted black.

Cody began inching closer to the black mirror through the dimly lit room. Temporary lighting crisscrossed the basement ceiling, but the space seemed darker than it should have been. No matter how close he crept forward, or what angle he peered at it, the object remained totally motionless.

Cody pulled out his cell phone. 11:15 A.M. was displayed on the home screen as he punched in his code. He snapped several poor quality photos before opening a web browser and attempting to find out what this thing was.

'Floating black shape'… No results

'Floating black oval'…. No results

'Black hole'… yielded too many results. Furthermore, it didn't look possible for it to exist.

{No information… not even any message boards mentioned something similar. It's not a coincidence that this thing is floating here in the basement after what happened this morning, and now I can't be hurt...}

As Cody stood puzzling out his next move, he looked again at his hand. After all his attempts to puncture his skin, he couldn't even draw blood. {Why am I so worried, I'm basically invincible now, right? What could happen?}

For the last 12 years, Cody had been working at a job he didn't like, grinding through every day, playing the hero in games, and watching films where heroes saved the world.... now something was happening to him that could have easily been ripped from the pages of a comic book.

Cody balled one hand into a fist, clenched his teeth, and stretched his other hand out to touch the surface of the object.

His hand passed straight through!

"Holy shit!" Cody yanked his hand back from surprise. There was no resistance at all! He inspected his hand closely, looking at his palm and then flipping it over and looking at the back of his hand. There was nothing to see at all. He hadn't felt anything as his hand broke the surface, it was as if it didn't actually exist.

{It's a hologram!}

Cody laughed nervously as he reached his hand out again and began to swish his fingertips back and forth through the black surface. Other than the unsettling experience of watching your hand be totally obscured in the blackness, it didn't feel like he was touching anything.

He extended his arms farther into the space, all the way up to his armpits. There still didn't seem to be any ends or boundaries.

Cody argued with himself, weighing the risks of going further. {What is the worst that can happen? I am pretty much indestructible right now, and so far it seems pretty innocuous... }

Deciding to go for it, Cody leaned forward and pushed his face into the darkness. As soon as his face broke the surface, he found himself in a foreign place.

He could still feel concrete under his feet back in the Henry Building, but his eyes were now looking down a nearly pitch black, rock-lined tunnel.

If anyone had been present just then, Cody would have appeared as a floating torso.

He stood perfectly still for a few moments in an attempt to discern any clues that might tell him where this tunnel led.

There weren't any tool marks on the walls, it looked like a natural cave formation as far as he knew.

As his eyes adjusted, Cody discovered that the only reason he was able to see at all was because of a green, glowing material streaked across the dark stone walls.

After a few minutes had passed in silent, focused observation, he determined that the coast was clear and began to relax a bit. The tunnel appeared to continue on for some distance. Cody could see the glowing streaks continue on and finally dip out of sight around a bend in the tunnel.

Emboldened by his discovery so far, Cody finally stepped fully into the tunnel.

A faint crackling noise came from the black portal Cody had just stepped through, like the sound of ice breaking through. Startled by the noise, Cody reached out to the portal again, but his hand came against a cold, unyielding surface.

The portal had sealed itself.