The Void Between Worlds

Axel stood in the kitchen, the pale morning light filtering through the curtains as he unfolded the town's crumpled Yellow Pages. He dialed Mario's Pizzeria first, as it was a safe bet for anyone in town craving a slice. However, after several fruitless attempts, each resulting in a dead line, a cold realization washed over him.

"What the hell..." He murmured, frowning at the silent receiver in his hand. The busy tone or the long waiting time, he was ready for it. A silent line? That's odd, even for a Sunday.

"Try 'em again!" Emma's voice floated from the living room, half-commanding, half-pleading. He could picture her wide eyes from here, expectantly glued to the screen of the ancient TV.

"I am," Axel replied, punching the numbers once more despite knowing the result would be unchanged. "You think a bear ate their phone line?"

Lisa giggled, popping her head around the corner. "Or maybe they've got a bear working there now, and it accidentally sat on the phone."

"Right," Axel said, playing along. "Imagine stomping into Mario's and seeing Luigi the Bear making pizzas with those huge claws."

That earned him another round of giggles, and he grinned despite himself. Keeping the twins in good spirits eased some of the tension knotting in his gut.

He flipped through the pages, finding the names and numbers of several other pizza places scattered throughout the town. One call after another met with failure: understaffed due to concerning "bear outbreak", closed for renovations, or simply "Sorry, no delivery today."

"It seems nobody wants to bring us pizza today," Axel called out, trying to mask his growing annoyance with a casual tone.

"So that means... adventure time!" Lisa cheered, appearing beside her sister with a conspiring glint in her eyes.

"Uh, no. That means you guys stay here, and I run out pizza-less," Axel corrected quickly, already anticipating their protest. His new heightened senses had nothing on the infamous tandem power of the twins' persuasive techniques.

"But Axel-" Emma began, her voice dipping into that wheedling tone that usually meant she was about to request something outrageous.

"No. Hard no. You both are staying home. I won't be gone long. Twenty minutes tops," Axel insisted, wagging a finger for emphasis. "Mom's orders, remember?"

They pouted in unison; the effect was almost overwhelming. "But we're practically teenagers," Lisa argued again, trying to resurrect their earlier debate.

"Practically, but not actually," Axel countered. "Which means you need to be inside, behaving, and alive when I get back. Can you do that?"

They sighed dramatically, conceding the battle with exaggerated expressions of exasperation. "Fine, but would it kill you to bring brownies back?" Emma negotiated, crossing her arms.

"And maybe some kind of... dinosaur gummy candy?" Lisa added, eyes wide with false innocence.

"I'll see what I can do," Axel agreed, chuckling. "Just no wild parties while I'm gone, okay?"

"We promise. We'll just conjure bears to keep you company on the way back," Emma said with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Gee, thanks," Axel rolled his eyes but couldn't help his own smile. As frustrating as their antics could be, they certainly brought life into the house.

Leaving them to return to their animated TV series and art projects, he slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind him. The street outside greeted him with a strange stillness, broken only by distant murmurs carried on the wind.

He took a deep breath, inhaling more than just the morning air. Every scent, sound and sensation was heightened, swirling together around him. Yet, notably, the fierce hunger that usually stalked him like a shadow was quiet for now, dulled by the renewed sense of purpose that came with his inadvertent lunch date.

He allowed himself a moment of quiet relief. For the first time since his transformation, something positive anchored his thoughts firmly in place, driving back the darker urges clawing beneath his skin. It was a small victory, but an encouraging one.

As he started his way down the sidewalk, a symphony of sirens crescendoed in the distance, unsettling the morning peace. His enhanced hearing automatically zoned in, picking out distressed calls and fragments of radio chatter. Something about rats. Giant rats.

"Rats huh? Weird," Axel murmured, making nothing of it even though he recalled the abandon mall was infested with rats. It was closed to Mario's too. "Maybe they also got bitten by zombies and turn into monsters."

Then a realization hit Axel. He had tested his power at that mall and accidental allowed one of the monsters to come through from the other side. Although it was dead due to the portal slicing it in half, its remains was still there, melting through the floor of the abandoned mall.

Axel's heart hammered in his chest as he weighed his options. The sirens were a stark reminder of the chaos lurking beneath the surface, much like the hidden darkness he carried within. The realization that he might have inadvertently unleashed something more dangerous than bears or rabid animals was unsettling, to say the least.

Wait. He was the bear. At least, he was the bear they were looking for. The flashes came back. The guilt did not.

"Rats won't be missed, not like the people," he told himself quietly, though it didn't ease the discomfort. If someone were to discover what truly happened - or worse, find a way to trace it back to him - things could spiral out of control faster than he could manage. But venturing back to the scene felt just as risky. Ignorance was safer; without direct evidence, he was just another face in the town.

Lost in thought, Axel's feet moved almost of their own accord, driven by an impulse stronger than fear - the prospect of lunch with Laura. Hormones and anxiety intermingled in a confusing but undeniable pull towards normalcy, to something that didn't involve violence or suppression of monstrous instincts. 

As much as it pained him to admit, the choice, while complicated, was ultimately simple.

He needed this lunch. A fleeting moment of humanity amidst the chaos. He had to focus on that - on being a fifteen-year-old teenager consumed by typical adolescent concerns rather than someone entangled in supernatural predicaments.

Passing by familiar streets lined with quaint suburban houses, Axel's attention wandered to the old Reynolds' backyard. The place had been abandoned for months, Mrs. Reynolds moved to a care home after a nasty fall. The idea struck him then - an empty shed, a safe haven of sorts. A place to stash things. Not that he had anything specific in mind, but it was good to keep the option open, should the need arise.

That was when the air around him shimmered. The familiar feeling of wanted something so much. His power manifested once more, and a portal appear. 

Axel flinched and hastily wished it to be gone. However, a glimpse of what beyond the portal stopped him. There was nothing beyond the portal. No alternate apocalypse reality of his town. No monster prowling behind corners.

It was pitch black. And like any teenager, Axel threw a rock into it, finding it floating in darkness. He closed the portal immediately and look around to see if anyone had noticed. No one was watching - as far as he sensed at least.

"Alrighty, need to test this out," Axel told himself. "But where? Oh, I know."

The gravel crunched under Axel's feet as he veered off the main road, taking the overgrown path behind the old textile factory. Weeds pushed through cracked concrete, and chain-link fences sagged with age. Perfect. No one used this route anymore, not since the factory shut down in '92.

"Okay," he muttered to himself, a habit he'd developed since his transformation. "Let's figure this out."

He concentrated, focusing on that peculiar feeling of wanting - not the primal hunger that haunted him, but something more specific. The air shimmered, and a familiar blue portal materialized before him.

"Hello, nightmare world," Axel said dryly as the gateway stabilized, revealing the twisted version of his town. The factory looked different there - walls stained with something dark that might have been blood, windows shattered, and strange growths spreading across the facade. In the distance, he could make out shambling figures moving with unnatural jerky motions.

"Nope, not today," he closed the portal quickly, but not before noting something interesting. There had been a moment, just a fraction of a second, where the portal showed nothing but darkness before the other world appeared.

"Let's try this again," he focused, this time paying closer attention to the process. The portal began to form, and there it was - that brief flash of absolute darkness, like a loading screen between realities.

Axel's enhanced vision caught every detail of the transformation. The edges of the portal seemed to crystallize from the air itself, forming a perfect circle about six feet in diameter. Then came the darkness - not just black, but a complete absence of light that seemed to swallow everything it touched. Finally, the other world would fade in, like a photograph developing in reverse.

"Wonder if..." he concentrated again, but this time, as soon as the darkness appeared, he held it there. The portal stabilized, maintaining that perfect void. "Huh. That's new."

The rock he'd thrown earlier was still there, suspended in the nothingness. It hadn't moved, despite him being several yards away from where he'd first created the portal.

"What are you?" Axel asked the darkness, not expecting an answer. He picked up another rock and tossed it through. It joined the first, floating motionless in the void.

"Okay, this is getting weird," he commented, then caught himself. "Says the guy who turns into a monster and eats people. Real high bar for weird there, Axel."

A distant car horn made him jump, reminding him that he wasn't completely alone. He quickly closed the portal, looking around nervously. But his enhanced senses told him no one was nearby - just the usual neighborhood sounds carried on the wind.

He walked a few more yards down the path, then tried again. The portal opened easily now, muscle memory making the process smoother. The darkness appeared, and there were the rocks, exactly where he'd left them.

"So it's like... a pocket dimension?" he mused, remembering terms from the sci-fi movies Mike was always watching. "My own personal storage unit in the void between worlds. That's... actually kind of cool."