The Portal Leading To An Unknown Base

The morning sun didn't come with golden rays or bird songs, just a strange sense in my gut. A feeling like the air around us had stopped moving.

I sat up from the cushioned seat, my hair a frizzed mess and my clothes clinging to me after a night of tossing in briny sea air.

Everything was still. No engine hum. No waves slapping the hull. Just this unsettling, absolute silence that sent goosebumps down my spine.

Something was wrong.

I stumbled to my feet, bare toes slapping against the deck, and walked forward. And that's when I saw it.

A portal.

No, not just a portal.

The sky in front of us was cracked open like a wound in the air itself. It was a massive rift big enough to swallow the yacht whole and then some. It didn't shimmer like sci-fi movies or swirl like in fantasy novels. It pulled like a black hole that didn't care what it devoured. Rings of pulsating violet light spun around its borders, each one whispering in a tongue I didn't know but felt all the same.

Shannon was at the helm, arms folded. Phaser stood at the front of the yacht like he'd been waiting for this.

And then… without a word, they dragged the president and the Faction Master forward.

"Wait," I said, heart skipping.

"What are you—"

They didn't answer. With mechanical indifference, Phaser lifted the president and tossed him in like trash.

He screamed until the portal swallowed the sound whole.

The Faction Master thrashed and begged. Shannon rolled her eyes, yanked his chains with one hand, and kicked him right through the portal's surface. It rippled like oil. Then he was gone.

I stared at them, stunned. "What was that?"

"Their punishment," Shannon said dryly. "And our ride."

Then she pushed the throttle.

The yacht lunged forward straight into the rift.

And everything exploded.

The moment we crossed, the air pressure flipped inside-out. Wind screamed from nowhere. My feet left the deck. I slammed down hard, rolling and grabbing the closest thing I could, which was some steel railing that dug into my fingers like blades.

My insides twisted. My stomach flipped. It felt like I was being pulled apart molecule by molecule. Time stretched, then snapped. My eyes burned. My skin itched. My bones rattled like they were about to vibrate out of my flesh.

I screamed but no sound came out. I thought I was going to die.

And then...

Stillness.

The portal behind us was gone. The ocean around us? was different and darker. The sky above us wasn't blue. It was violet. There was not a cloud in sight, but the air felt heavy, like it was watching.

I collapsed onto the deck, panting, hair sticking to my face, every nerve trembling. Shannon and Phaser were unfazed, casually checking instruments and maps like they hadn't just traveled through literal cosmic death.

"What…" I croaked, "…was that?"

Shannon smiled without looking back.

"Welcome to the other side, sweetheart."

It took me a second to realize that I was staring at something impossible. Maybe more than a second, honestly. My mind was still trying to settle from the metaphysical blender we'd just been thrown through. But then I looked up and I forgot how to breathe.

An entire city was upside down, hanging from the sky.

I mean literally upside down. Skyscrapers, towers, highways, and glowing bridges, all anchored to the heavens like they were dangling from invisible strings. It stretched so wide across the horizon that I couldn't even see where it ended. The buildings didn't just hang in a straight line either. They spiraled, curved and wrapped around nothing, like someone had thrown gravity out the window and replaced it with aesthetics.

Streets curled up and around themselves, and I swear I saw cars—or something like cars—zipping along glowing trails in midair. Hovering lanterns and neon signs blinked upside down from open balconies. Massive towers of glass and shimmering silver rotated slowly like they had their own axis, lights blinking in mesmerizing patterns.

And all of it was reflected perfectly in the ocean's surface.

Except… no.

We weren't seeing a reflection.

We were moving underneath it.

The yacht was coasting through ink-black waters, and that city above us was anchored to the sky, not the sea. It hung like a dream, its lights dripping down like stars caught in slow motion.

It was raining. But not on us.

Rain poured from the city like it was crying gently. It shimmered in gold and blue and even soft shades of rose as it fell from the hanging buildings in slow arcs, forming curtains of translucent water. But every time a drop got close to us, it vanished and evaporated in midair with a hiss of mist.

I turned and saw why.

Phaser's hand was glowing again, that ghostly blue Flux coiling around his fingers like lazy smoke. It radiated upward in a soft dome, a semi-invisible shield that pushed the rain away without effort. His expression was relaxed, like this was something he did while half-asleep.

"Damn," I whispered under my breath. "Is this what money and power looks like?"

Shannon, behind the wheel, snorted. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

My eyes were glued to the city above us.

And the deeper we moved forward, the more intricate things got.

A floating plaza hung upside down in the distance, complete with golden trees that dropped glowing petals into the wind. Some of them fluttered near the yacht but were caught in Phaser's Flux barrier, skating off the surface like soft sparks. Enormous holographic screens played silent footage of people doing god-knows-what in languages I couldn't read.

Everywhere I looked, it felt like the place wasn't meant to exist. Not in our world. Not in any world that made sense. Then, just as my brain was starting to reboot from the sensory overload, I saw another ripple up ahead.

Another portal appeared but this one wasn't chaotic like the last. It was smooth, oval-shaped and surrounded by rings of soft green light. Before I could ask, the yacht dipped forward and sliced through it like butter.

The color changed.

The sound of water against wood returned. The air thickened. I coughed a little from the shift.

We had entered a giant aqueduct port.

It was a massive circular structure of stone and steel, almost like a water-coliseum with no ceiling. Enormous docks spiraled around the inner walls, with boats of every kind moored to iron stilts and floating piers. Pipes the size of city buses emptied streams of violet water into huge reservoirs below, and golden lanterns floated above the water, casting ripples of warm light across the yacht as we coasted forward.

Mechanical arms reached out from the walls. Some were carrying crates, others were scanning vessels with long beams of red light.

"Welcome to Reverse Cradlepoint," Shannon said, steering into a curved docking zone. "One of the only places on this cursed planet where down is up, and no one asks questions they don't want answers to."

Phaser stretched his arms lazily and turned to me with a smirk. "Still think you were just giving new recruits a three days ago?"

I didn't answer. I was too busy looking at a whale—no, not a whale—a mechanical beast shaped like a whale flying above the port with wings of light and an entire restaurant lit up on its back.

Yeah.

My life was absolutely, completely, violently no longer normal.