The next morning, I woke up to thuds on my front door. As I tried to find my shirt from the pile of clothes, I heard a Sam voice behind the door. "Make sure you buy an alarm clock when we are done with this gig," Sam said with excitement in his voice. While I was putting my shirt on, I walked towards the door and turned off the corridor light, which I forgot to turn off when I arrived home yesterday from the bar. Just when I locked the door behind me, Sam put out his hand with coffee in a plastic cup and smiled at me, "It's time, Simon, are you ready?" As I grabbed the coffee and gave a small glimpse at him, I said with a smile, "Let's do it."
When we saw the blue ominous portal pulsating from the corner of our eyes, there was already a small group of people, maybe 6 or 7 of them; most of them wore military uniforms, and a few had casual clothes; they seemed civilians as well. Most of them then talked with each other, and I could feel excitement in the air; even I felt an uneasy feeling. Without permission, civilians are not allowed to enter into the portals. While Sam and I were talking about what we're going to buy after his job, a young woman disrupted us. "Oh, I think I'm going to go shopping. I'm sure it's the first thing I'm going to do when this job is over." I looked at the young woman standing next to me, a beautiful lady, with white pants and a black shirt, black hair with curls so thick they almost consumed her little body. "I will be the first one in my family to enter the portal; it's so exciting. What are you guys going to do with the money?" She said, trying to hold back her excitement, but it wasn't working since she wasn't able to stay still. "Alarm clock would be the first thing," I answered and looked at Sam. "Well, an alarm clock as well, since I'm not sure if he will not wake up if he only had one," Sam said with a smile and patted me on the back. She was confused, but after a few seconds she replied, "I'm starting to feel left out; should I buy an alarm clock as well?" Sam enjoyed this little joke about me so much that he started to laugh. Interaction with this wonderful girl helped the overall mood to calm down; it reduced tension in the air. She introduced her as Sarah; her friend recommended her, and Richard connected her. It seemed that the gentleman who I met in the bar had a name; it was Richard. Time flew by, and we didn't pay attention to what was going on; we had too much fun. Suddenly a loud cough pulled all the attention to an older man with a war-gazed look, eyes sharp, and when he looked at you, you could feel tension building up in you. Now, when all the attention was on the tough-looking older military man, he opened his mouth.
"I am Mayor Clark; you will call me sir; I am the overseer of this cadet mission in the world B212," he declared with an authoritative tone in his voice. "Soldiers behind me are tasked with taking you into the portal; our portal party consists of me, four cadets and five civilians.. When he mentioned soldiers, my eyes met with Richard's, and he gave me a small nod that made me feel that everything is going to be alright. Three out of five civilians were me, Sam and Sarah. I didn't get a good look at the other two; one was wearing a beanie, and the other one had a hood covering his face. But they looked casual, so I didn't pay much attention to them, since most of my attention went to talking to Sarah and Sam.
"There are few rules when we enter the portal," Clark continued, "You do what we tell you to do; no wandering off or touching anything unless we say it's allowed." He gave us a strong look; eye contact with him forced my head to nod as I agreed to these terms. When the brief introduction about our trip to the portal was over, we stood in front of the huge portal. I could feel how it wanted to pull me in, like it was inviting me. Sarah noticed that I was feeling unsure and gave me a little shove towards the portal. I gave her a small smile and walked into the portal.
Darkness—all I could see was darkness when I walked into the portal, then goosebumps and a flashing light. When I got my senses back in order, I raised my head to look around; all I could see was boundless desert, with big mountains and some rocks. When I looked further, I could see lonely green areas with long trees on the horizon. Most of it was still just a desert, with huge waves of sand everywhere and air so dry it took some time to get used to it. "I'm sure there are worms in the sand; I heard sand worms are a real thing," said Sam, standing next to me while pouring sand out of his shoe. "Don't joke about it," I said while looking around to find Sarah and find out how she is doing. " I'm going to keep some of that sa…" Sam stopped suddenly in the middle of his sentence. "Some of what?" I asked as I was turning towards Sam. Sam was lying on the sand with blood slowly dripping from his head. As I raised my head to see what happened, I saw Richard, with a bloody fist, staring at Sam. Before I got to say or move, I felt a strong pain in the back of my head and collapsed. As I fell down to the sand and looked towards Sam, who lay there unconscious, my vision started to get blurry, and eventually I lost my consciousness and everything got dark again.