“The next 30 minutes will change everything!” I shouted, as the vortex whirled and swirled in front of us. We’d created the thing using archaic technology that somehow came together to form a whirlpool of light — purple and pink and orange. We didn’t know that it would work out so well.
“What do we do next?” asked Dawes, his voice screaming to be heard over the thunderous roar of the vortex.
“Simple,” I yelled back. “We wait for this thing to stabilize, then we step through it! There should be a whole other world waiting for us on the other side!”
We stood in silence for a long moment, watching as the various colored light spilled over us. The vortex roiled and boiled, trying to find a place to settle. We knew it was possible it would simply collapse back into the nothingness from which we’d conjured it, but I didn’t think that would happen. I had too much riding on this, and we’d done our calculations over and over and over again until we were sure of the result.
I just wanted to be rid of this world. The climate had been crashing for decades, with no one in authority seeming to care one whit what happened to the planet. International politics were all about wars and war-mongering now. There was no place safe left. And my personal family and social dynamics were trash. Everyone I knew was either dead or had disowned me. It probably hadn’t helped that I’d isolated myself in this bunker for so long chasing the dream of a fresh world, untouched by humanity.
“It looks like it’s finally settling,” Dawes said. And indeed, the cacophony of the vortex seemed to have died down some, and the swirling patterns of light were a little less chaotic.
We watched it for another 20 minutes until the vortex had settled into a vertical whirlpool of purple haze. We couldn’t see anything through it, but I just knew there was another world waiting on the other side for us. This was the moment we’d been waiting for.
“Are you ready?” I asked Dawes, no longer needing to shout.
“I guess so,” he replied. “Will we be able to find our way back?”
“Why would we want to?” I sneered. “C’mon, this is the culmination of everything we’ve worked so hard for! We’re right on the brink of entering a place that should be a utopia for us! Why would we ever want to come back here?”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Now, let’s cross the threshold, and enter a whole new world. With any luck, the vortex will collapse behind us, and no one will be able to figure out where we went.”
With that, I stepped into the vortex, not knowing or caring whether Dawes followed. All I knew what that I was finally accomplishing my dream.
