The Power of Space

"Jesus, get it together..." Axel slammed his palm against his forehead repeatedly, each impact leaving small dents in what should have been an indestructible skull. "Think about... I don't know, PUPPIES or something!"

But puppies made him think of meat which made him think of...

"MATH! Two plus two is four, four plus four is eight..." He paced frantically, each step cracking tiles. "The square root of pi is approximately 1.772453850905516..."

His enhanced brain supplied the numbers with computer-like precision, but even that betrayed him. Calculations led to measurements which led to portion sizes which led right back to...

"FUCK!" He punched a wall, his fist going through concrete and rebar like wet cardboard. "Need a distraction. Need to... need to figure out what else this stupid body can do."

The portal ability. Yes. Focus on that. Anything was better than dwelling on the hollow ache in his gut or the way he could hear every heartbeat within a hundred yards. He held out his hand, concentrating on that same desperate desire to be elsewhere.

The air rippled, colors bleeding together until reality itself seemed to fold inward. The portal materialized - a perfect circle of crackling energy. And just like before, he could collapse it whenever he wanted. He practice opening and closing it to the point that it became natural to him. It was as if he had this ability all along.

"Come to think of it, I had never examine carefully what is on the other side... aside from those monsters," Axel murmured.

Axel squinted through the latest portal, studying the subtle differences he'd been too panicked to notice before. The abandoned mall on the other side wasn't quite the same as his. The architecture was... sleeker somehow. More modern.

"Hold up..." Axel pulled back from the portal's edge, forcing himself to think rationally. "What if I can't make another one to get back? What if THIS is how those things spread - stupid humans walking through weird portals like moths to a bug zapper?"

The thought of being trapped in that other world, where monsters prowled, was enough to kill his curiosity. He wasn't some video game protagonist, charging blindly through every glowing doorway he found. He needed to be smart about this.

"Test the range first." He closed the portal, then tried creating a new one aimed at the far end of the mall. Nothing happened. "Okay, line of sight maybe?"

He moved to where he could see down the main corridor, focusing on the semi-defunct fountain. The air shimmered, and a portal appeared exactly where he'd intended. Through it, he could see the same fountain - but intact, water still flowing in that other world.

"Distance isn't the issue then. It's more about... targeting?" He closed that portal and tried creating one behind him, where he couldn't see. No dice. "Yeah, need to see where I'm putting these things."

For the next hour, Axel experimented methodically - or as methodically as someone running purely on adrenaline and yesterday's forbidden feast could manage. He discovered he could place portals on any solid surface he could see. Vertical, horizontal - it didn't matter. On the floor or the ceiling.

"And they're always matched..." He muttered, noticing how the portals aligned perfectly with their counterparts in that other world. "Same spot, same orientation. Like... like they're actually the same door, just opening to different places."

Speaking of doors, he found he couldn't create portals through existing doorways or windows - the energy simply refused to form in those spaces perhaps due to the obstruction. The same went for areas that were blocked or filled in the other world. It was as if the portal needed an enough solid anchor point in both realities.

"Watch this..." He created a portal next to a 'FOR LEASE' sign, then tried to make another one a few feet away. The first portal collapsed instantly as the new one formed. "One at a time, huh? Makes sense. Don't want to tear reality TOO many new assholes."

His stomach growled again, but he forced himself to focus on the experiments. The hunger would have to wait. This was important. This was...

"Science!" He declared to no one in particular, his voice echoing off empty walls. "I'm doing science. Like a proper mad scientist. Except I'm the experiment. And I eat p-... I mean, I have unique dietary requirements."

The self-deprecating humor helped, a little. It was easier to think of himself as some kind of supernatural research project than... whatever he really was. He went back to testing, determined to understand every nuance of this new ability.

"Let's try something different." He held up his hands, focusing on creating a smaller portal - about the size of a dinner plate. To his surprise, it worked. The miniature gateway hung in the air, showing a perfectly circular view of that other world.

"Now that's interesting..." He tried for an even smaller one, managing to create a portal barely bigger than a golf ball. "Okay, so size is variable. But what's the practical application? Not like I can fit through something that small..."

Then inspiration struck. He focused on creating another tiny portal while maintaining the first one. To his shock, it worked! Two small gateways now hung in the air, offering glimpses of that parallel mall, but at different angles.

"No way..." A third small portal joined the others, then a fourth. Soon, a dozen mini-portals floated around him like bizarre Christmas ornaments. "The smaller they are, the more I can make! It's like... like the energy has to spread out or something."

He let the tiny portals wink out one by one, mind racing with possibilities. "So it's a trade-off. One big portal for traveling, or lots of little ones for... what? Surveillance? Or..."

A memory flashed: the monster bisected by a closing portal.

"Oh." The implications hit him like a truck. "OH. That's... that's actually terrifying."

He created a small portal near a discarded soda can, then quickly collapsed it. The aluminium cylinder fell apart, sliced cleanly in two. Another test with a chunk of broken concrete yielded similar results - the portal's edge cut through material like a laser through butter. No, it was even cleaner than that.

"Note to self: don't accidentally close a portal while something important is going through it." He grimaced, imagining the possibilities. "Like, say, my entire body. That would be... messy."

The experimentation continued. He discovered he could create portals of various shapes - rectangles, triangles, even crude stars - but circles seemed to require the least concentration. He also found that while he could create dozens of tiny portals, maintaining more than a few at once gave him a splitting headache.

"And they're all to the same place..." He studied the view through his latest creation, noting how that other mall seemed perpetually abandoned. No people, no movement except for the occasional monster skulking in the shadows. "Why just there? Why can't I open portals to, I don't know, Hawaii? Or at least somewhere with better food options..."

The thought of food brought the hunger rushing back, making him double over. His enhanced stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself, demanding more than mere meat could provide. He needed...

"No!" He slammed his fist into a wall, focusing on the pain instead of the craving. "Focus on the portals. Just... just the portals."

He created another small gateway, then another, arranging them in a pattern. Through each one, he could see slightly different angles of that mirror-world mall. It was like having multiple security cameras, each offering a unique perspective.

"Could be useful for spotting those things before they spot me." He studied the views, noting how the monsters seemed to stick to shadows. "At least I can see them coming now. Better than last night..."

The portals winked out as his concentration wavered, exhaustion finally catching up with him. He'd been at this for hours, pushing his new abilities to their limits. Even his enhanced body had its breaking point.

"Okay, what have we learned?" He started ticking points off on his fingers. "One: I can make portals to a specific place, but nowhere else. Two: They have to be in line of sight. Three: One human-sized portal at a time, or multiple smaller ones. Four: The portal edges are basically dimensional razor blades..."

He paused, considering that last point. "Which could be really useful if more of those things show up. Or really dangerous if I screw up and cut off my own arm or something."

A distant crash from somewhere in the mall made him jump. His enhanced senses detected movement - too big to be rats, too coordinated to be random debris falling. Someone else was here.

"Shit!" He quickly created a series of small portals, using them to check the surrounding areas. Through one, he caught a glimpse of flashlight beams. Security guards maybe, or cops checking out reports of strange noises. There were a lot of sirens after all... thanked to him and his buffet.

"Time to go." He closed the surveillance portals, mind racing. He couldn't risk being seen - not looking like this, not with his clothes still covered in gore from the monster fight. But where could he...?

The obvious solution hit him, making him groan. "No Axel... they are people. I can't let myself see them. I mean them see me..."

Alternatively, he could enter the other world and hide there for a while. He could make portal in line of sight, and he managed to create one inside the other world while standing still. He immediately tested the ability again, and it worked as expected.

He created a larger portal, eyeing the empty corridor it revealed in that other world. The same mall, but different. Abandoned. Monster-infested, sure, but also devoid of curious humans with awkward questions.

"Just until they leave." He told himself, still not stepping through. "Quick in, quick out. Nothing to it."

The sound of voices echoing down the corridor made the decision for him. It was either risk the portal or try to explain why he looked like a bodybuilder who'd just lost a fight with a slaughterhouse. 

Neither option was great, but at least one of them didn't involve police reports.