Into the Other - Chapter 01 - Jumping 101

I was dreaming, in the Other. My body was sleeping in my bed back in my room but my consciousness had entered the Other. Of course, I was not aware of this at the time. I, like many before me, was not aware that my consciousness had left my body at all. At the time, I thought - as many falsely believe - that dreams were my unconscious mind expressing and working things through or some cockamamie explanation like that.

My consciousness was falling, air whistling by my ears, the ground rocketing up towards me, fear rising in my throat. My’s arms were flailing, reaching, scrambling, hoping for something to grab onto. I had to find something before I reached the ground. I had to stop my fall. And then suddenly, there was something. My hand clenched around something round and cold, cylindrical. My arm felt like it was suddenly being ripped out of my shoulder as I was wrenched to a halt, but I managed to hold on. I came to rest, hanging from one arm. I stared down at the ground; it was still a long way down. I could just barely make out the shapes of people, walking around like ants across the ground. Skyscrapers looked like narrow little ant hills. My heart still pounding like a bass drum in my chest, I looked up at my hand to see what had stopped my fall. It was a five foot long black metal rod. The rod was in turn held by a man wearing a flowing black robe. The man...was floating in the air. 

“Who the hell are you?” I asked the man.

“You may call me Trokmid,” the man said from the shadows of the cloak’s hood.

“Okay Trokmid, but that didn’t really answer my question,” I pointed out.

“You’re absolutely right,” the man agreed.

“So...who are you?” I asked after realizing that Trokmid wasn’t going to continue.

“Does it really matter?” the man asked, but continued by answering, “Why don’t you think of me as...a guide, your guide.”

“My guide to what exactly?” I asked. 

“YOU ARE NOT FALLING!” the man shouted suddenly.

I hadn’t realized it, but the two of them had been falling again. As soon as the man shouted his statement, they stopped again.

“Look,” the man said, “We don’t have time for this right now. Get us on the ground.”

“What?” 

“Right,” Trokmid said as if realizing a stupid mistake, “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Just close your eyes,” Trokmid ordered.

I did as I was told.

“Now, your feet are on solid ground,” Trokmid said in a hypnotic voice.

“No they’re no...,” I started, but I opened my eyes and I realized it was true. 

I was standing in the middle of a crowded sidewalk. The people walking by walked like robots, all of them with the exact same stride. They weren’t instep, but they all moved at the same speed. They all wore the exact same suit, only different shades of blue, grey, and black. They all carried the same black briefcase in their right hand. They all wore the same blank expression on their face, staring off into the distance. The street was flooded with taxis without drivers. The taxis moved by themselves, occasionally blaring out a honk at the other empty taxis as they drove through the streets. 

“What’s going on?” I asked, totally bewildered, “Where are we?”

“We,” Trokmid said with a grand sweep of his arms, “are nowhere and everywhere. We are where light can be dark and dark can be light. We are where fire can be freezing and ice can be burning. We are and we aren’t.”

“That...was a such a great description, I am now lost...worse than before,” I said, “I not only don’t know where we are, who you are, or what’s happening, I am now not entirely sure who I am.”

“I like you,” Trokmid said with a slight smile, “You’ve got a quick wit. I’m glad. It would have really sucked if you turned out to be a bore.”

“I’m glad to hear I am to your pleasing, now why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“This is going to take awhile,” Trokmid said, “What’s your favorite place to eat?”

“What?”

“What’s your favorite restaurant?”

“Don’s Burgers, but why does that matter right now?” 

“Because we’re standing outside of a Don’s Burgers,” Trokmid said nodding towards the building next to them.

“What?” I said, quickly turning to see...Don’s Burgers. “There was...a skyscraper.”

“You’re right, there was, but then you decided there was a Don’s Burgers instead,” Trokmid explained as if this was something that was perfectly normal.

“Yeah, right, I knew that,” I said with obviously false confidence as I followed Trokmid into the restaurant. 

“Welcome to Don’s Burgers, just two today?” asked the waitress waiting for them inside the door.

“Yeah,” Trokmid answered.

“Smoking or non?” 

“Non.”

“Alright, just follow me this way,” the waitress said leading the two of them to their table. “Alright your waitress will be right with you.”

“Thank you,” Trokmid said as he sat down. 

I just stood there...this was so wrong. None of this made since. 

“No,” I said, closing my eyes, shaking my head, “No. This is all wrong.”

“Damn it, Andy,” Trokmid said as I opened his eyes, “I was looking forward to a burger.”

The restaurant was gone. The whole city was gone. There was nothing. A smooth white floor stretched out in every direction under a white sky. 

“Why couldn’t you have just let me eat a burger before you decided to change everything?” Trokmid asked. He was now wearing a pure white cloak with the hood down. His head was smooth and perfectly hairless. His eyes were an odd shade of purple. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, “Where are we? What’s going on? And don’t give me any more of that bullshit circling nonanswer crap.”

“Very well,” Trokmid said, “It turns out that the answers to all of those questions are the same.”

“And it is...”

“That’s you’re sleeping,” Trokmid said, “And dreaming obviously.”

“So this isn’t real,” I said. 

“Oh no,” Trokmid said, “This is very real. For starters I am a completely separate being from you.”

“Okay...,” I said, processing this, “So...what?”

“This is your domain,” Trokmid said, “You’re in control. You decide what’s here. Whither a city full of businessmen or nothing at all.”

“I...decide.” 

“Yes,” Trokmid said, “I kind of convinced you of a few things, but you in the end decided what was what.”

“Literally,” I said.

“Yep,” Trokmid confirmed.

“So...how are you...in my dream?” 

“Well, that’s where things start getting interesting,” Trokmid answered, “But let me backup and do a little more explaining first.”

“Sure.”

“Okay, as it turns out whenever someone begins to dream they create their own reality, or domain,” Trokmid explained, “And if they know what they’re doing they can enter other peoples’ domains.”

“So...you’re dreaming too.”

“Correct,” Trokmid said, but there was something about his face that made me question the truth of that statement.

“So...what now?” I said, choosing to ignore what I had seen on Trokmid’s face.

“I want you to turn the floor blue.”

“What?” 

“Turn the floor blue.”

I tried to imagine the floor blue, but it remained that boring white. Staring into the floor, I tried to make it change, but nothing happened.

“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked finally.

“Close your eyes, and decide the floor is blue. It’s as simple as that.”

“Sure, that’s easy,” I said as I closed my eyes again, “Decide the floor’s blue. The floor is blue. The floor is blue.” I opened my eyes to see...the floor was white.

“All you have to do is believe you did it,” Trokmid said, “If you believe you did it, then you did.”

“Okay...,” I said, but before I closed my eyes quickly asked, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this? Why didn’t you just let me dream?”

“Just turn the floor blue,” Trokmid said. 

I stared at Trokmid, trying to figure him out. Who the hell was this guy? 

“What the hell kind of name is Trokmid?” I asked finally.

“I don’t know, why don’t you know?” Trokmid asked.

“What?” 

Then a loud beeping shattered into the moment before Trokmid could explain himself. 

Trokmid was trying to shout over the beeping when everything went black and then....

I was sitting up in bed. The alarm clock was going off. My waking hours followed my then usual boring routine. Wake up, get dressed, walk the couple of blocks to school, eat breakfast, shower, go to class...I may have forgotten the right order. It’s not important.

I did not return to The Other until that day in class when I fell asleep at my desk…

“Finally!” Trokmid exclaimed, walking over to me across the green and pink checkerboard which was stretching out in every direction. Occasionally, there was a two story tall chess piece standing in a square. Half of them were purple; the other half were tie-dyed. “And what the hell kind of weird ass psychedelic dream is this?”

“What?” 

“Please tell me you still remember the last time we talked,” Trokmid asked.

“Yeah,” I assured him, “I just thought....”

“It was just another dream,” Trokmid said, “Look, it doesn’t really matter if you believe that this isn’t just a dream. You just have to save us all anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Look,” Trokmid said, “You were gone for a really long time. We can’t risk waiting; you’ll just have to...figure it out as you go along.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The speed at which time passes isn’t constant in The Other,” Trokmid explained, “Basically, an hour in your waking world may be less than a second, or several years here in the Other.”

“Okay… I’m still lost.”

“The Other is being conquered,” Trokmid continued, “You’re the only one who can save it.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I’m afraid I’m deadly serious. A prophecy said that you would save The Other from the Bringer of The Dark.”

“A prophecy,” I repeated, not at all convinced.

“You can imagine it can’t you?” Trokmid exclaimed, “It is therefore perfectly possible for prophecies to be true in The Other! Why can’t you get your head around that? You’re supposed to be some sort of...super imaginative being, but you can’t even imagine the reality of your situation!”

“Reality? What reality?” I retorted, “This isn’t reality. This...this is just a dream.”

“What rule is there that says there can only be one reality?!” Trokmid yelled back.

I stood silent for a moment, just thinking. 

“What the hell are you doing just standing there!?” Trokmid said.

“Turning the floor blue,” I answered as the floor beneath his feet turned a vibrant, slightly glowing blue. The color slowly spread out from his feet like a slowly expanding puddle. When the blue found a chess piece, it slowly spread up the side of it, totally encompassing it. When everything in view had been turned to blue, it was like a million tiny slowly moving lights were shining up through the blue, tracing intricate patterns across the floor. 

“I’m still not convinced that this isn’t just a weird dream, but I’m willing to go with you on this one,” I said after admiring my work for a moment.

“Yeah,” Trokmid grunted, still caught up in the mesmerizing lights. 

“So what’s the problem again?” I asked.

“Right,” Trokmid said, snapping out of his stupor, “There’s a being which is taking over a lot of domains in the Other. He’s called the Bringer of the Dark.”

“And you think I can stop him...why?”

“Because a prophecy was given that you would stop him.”

“What does the prophecy say?”

“Andy will stop the Bringer of the Dark,” Trokmid answered.

“That’s it?”

“That’s all there is.”

“Great,” I said, “How do I stop...the Bringer of Dark?”

“No idea,” Trokmid said, “He was created so that he couldn’t be killed by anything.”

“Okay...,” I said, “So I trap him.”

“He was created so that he couldn’t be trapped by anything,” Trokmid replied. 

“So how the hell am I supposed to stop him?” 

“Anything only goes as far as his creator could imagine it,” Trokmid answered, “All you have to do is imagine a way to kill or trap him that his creator couldn’t imagine.”

“Andy!” 

Andy jerked back up in his chair at his desk. “Yeah,” Andy answered, turning to see his boss.

“Are you getting a lot of work done there?” 

“Sorry,” Andy said, “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Just don’t sleep here. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Andy said as he got back to work. As soon as his boss was gone, Andy stopped working and started thinking.

Or was I still in school at this point? Doesn’t matter. Boss, teacher, same difference. Some authority figure thought I shouldn’t be sleeping so they woke me up.

When Andy got back to his apartment, he went straight to bed and tried to sleep. He must have stared at the ceiling for hours before....

“Did you just wake up?” Trokmid asked.

“Yeah, how long was I gone for?” 

“You just...flickered,” Trokmid said, “You disappeared for a split second and then you were back.”

“Good,” I said, “I shouldn’t be waking up again anytime soon.”

“Are you dead?” Trokmid asked, not understanding.

“What? no. I’ve fixed it so that a year in the Other is less than a second in my waking world,” Andy explained.

“Cool,” Trokmid said, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” I assured him, “It should give me plenty of time to figure this out.”

“Okay,” Trokmid said, “The prophecy didn’t say how you’re supposed to kill the Bringer of the Dark and I am not coming up with great ideas.”

“Why can’t I time travel?” 

“Oh, yeah I forgot that when I told you about the rules,” Trokmid said, “You can’t time travel. At least, it’s never been done successfully before.”

“Hm, weird,” I grunted, “The first thing is to find the...let’s just call him BD.”

“That’s simple enough, but first you need to learn the basics of travel through the Other,” Trokmid said before he disappeared.

I blinked a few times, glanced around, and then just stood there, waiting for Trokmid to find me again. I knew it was pointless to even try to look around for him; Trokmid would be back when he felt like it. As I knew he would, Trokmid reappeared a few moments later only inches in front of where I was standing. 

“Where did I go?” Trokmid asked.

“Another domain,” I guessed.

“Correct, now how did I do that?”

“I’m assuming you’re going to tell me.”

“Correct, it is incredibly simple and incredibly difficult. All you have to do is remove yourself from the imagination of whoever’s domain you’re in, in this case, you’re own.”

“Is that all?” I asked, holding back laughter.

“That’s it.”

“Okay...so...how does that work?” 

“I think it would be easiest if you closed your eyes and...let go. Drift, let your mind wander. Let your subconscious guide you. Stop imagining where you’re going. Just...arrive there. Let it surprise you.”

I closed my eyes and did my best to let my mind wander. But almost immediately after I closed my eyes, a fist struck my chin with a blow that sent me sprawling backwards. I landed in a vast meadow of purple grasses, stretching out as far as the eye could see. 

The fist had been Trokmid’s. 

“Damn you have a hard face.”

“I would apologize, but it was kind of your fault you punched me.”

“That’s very true, I don’t blame you for hurting my hand.”

“Great. Where are we?”

“We are in another domain.”

“Whose?”

“I have no idea,” Trokmid said, “I just followed you here.”

“So we could be anywhere?”

“No, we could only be here, but here is somewhere we don’t know where.”

“Right, of course, why didn’t I think of that.”

The domain turned out to be that of an old woman who had died in the 1800's. She was all alone in the vast field of purple grass. She seemed very content to just wander alone with only the ever present breeze to accompany her. She was surprised to see us and we had a pleasant conversation before she very politely asked us to leave. 

And so we did. Trokmid led the way this time. I grabbed his arm and closed my eyes. 

When I opened them, we were standing atop my giant chess set which happened to now be all one color of blue. The lack of a second color for half of the squares would have made playing nearly impossible, but the fact that the pieces were two stories tall also contributed a layer of difficulty. 

The two of us, Trokmid and I, practiced jumping as he called it several more times. We went to a domain where everything was upside down, including gravity. Which was supper trippy and I couldn’t explain how it worked if I tried. We went to a domain where there was no gravity at all and the place was filled with giant multicolored marbles that you had to be careful not to get crushed by. We went to a domain which consisted of a single room the size of a janitor's closet filled with stacks of 30 year old russian newspapers. There was no door.

By the end of that first practice, I was able to jump to places I had been before like my own domain or the domain full of purple grass or the upside down domain. 

Then Trokmid took me to his domain. It was the center of a dense wood of red and yellow leafed trees. We stood in a small clearing of orange grass with a small creek meandering its way through before continuing on its way into the woods. Its water was the color of gold and it glowed brightly as it flowed through the clearing. The sky above was inky black without a single star or moon. The only light came from the glowing gold creek.

“Jumping is relatively easy when the ruler of the domain isn’t fighting you,” Trokmid said.

“What do you mean fighting?”

“Try to jump back to your domain.”

I closed my eyes and…failed. I tried again…failed. And again…failed. “I don’t understand, what’s happening?”

“I’m not allowing you to leave,” Trokmid said. 

“Okay…so how do I jump?”

“First you must escape my domain.”

“How do I do that without jumping?”

“What is my domain?”

“It’s whatever you imagine.”

“Correct, so what is not my domain?”

“Whatever you don’t imagine?” 

“Correct again. So how do you escape someone’s domain without jumping?”

“By…leaving their imagination.”

“That’s…close to correct. Here, let my make things simpler.”

Suddenly Trokmid’s domain changed to a single square room about seven feet by seven feet. The walls, floor, and ceiling were smooth white. A single door was in one of the walls. The door was white.

“I have imagined this room,” Trokmid said, “How would you leave my imagination?”

“Through the door.”

“Correct. Try it.”

I walked over to the door and opened it to find a black nothingness. With only the slightest moment of hesitation, I walked into it and jumped. I found myself back in my own domain. 

Trokmid joined me shortly. “Back to my domain,” he said and he jumped.

I jumped to Trokmid’s domain and found it much as I had left it except now there was a second door across from the first. They were both shut. 

“Now try to jump.”

I walked up to one of the doors, opened it, walked through, and found myself standing in the same room with Trokmid. I looked back to find the door had closed behind me. I opened the door I had just walked through and found myself in the same room again. “What is this?”

“It’s a finite infinity.”

“A what?”

“A circle.”

“Can you be a little more helpful?”

“A circle is a finite line of infinite length as this room is finite yet stretches infinitely in either direction.” Trokmid indicated the two doors.

“So how do I jump?”

Trokmid simply smiled.

“Great.” I stood in the middle of the room, pondering the two doors for a good while. I walked up to one, opened it, but did not look through. Instead I looked back at the other door. I saw that I was holding that other door open as well. I could see myself looking back through another door looking at another me looking through another door…. 

It was like someone had removed all the mirrors from a hall of mirrors but had left all the reflections.

“Jump,” Trokmid instructed. 

I glanced around, confused. “How?”

“I have imagined this room.”

I nodded at the unhelpful piece of advice. I began to investigate the room, running my hand over each wall. Each was perfectly smooth and slightly cold to the touch. 

All the while, Trokmid patiently watched me.

Then an idea hit me. I smiled, planted my feet, and ran headlong into one of the walls. I smashed through it into the black nothingness and jumped.

“Why did that work?” Trokmid asked immediately upon his arrival back in my domain.

“Because I escaped the room.”

“No. Because you did something I did not imagine.”

“So you can escape someone’s domain by doing something they didn’t imagine?”

“Correct. You did not escape the room, you escaped my imagination."

To Be Continued...