It was coming up to 5.30pm when Jodie eventually pulled into the driveway of Danny’s home. She pulled up on the crunchy gravel outside the large bungalow.
The autumnal nights were drawing in and dusk, in its gloom, lay all around. Jodie parked her car next to the vents from the basement laundry. She walked the short slope up to the front door. Michael answered.
‘So you're a friend of Danny’s then?’ Michael asked in a jolly tone as he led Jodie down the hallway.
‘You could say that. I was in the explosion at the Central library. Anyway, I met Danny whilst I was in hospital. We became friends.’
‘Mmhm. Lucky to be alive really, by the sounds of it. Danny’s been talking about you a lot today. Well he sure needs his friends does Danny. Before you go into his room, let me show something.’
Michael took Jodie to the fire escape door in the dining room that looked out to where the old holly tree used to be. There was lawn there now. But over the patch of newly laid turf there was a ghostly blue glow shimmering in the fading light of dusk.
‘That’s where the strange lightning happened. Weird, huh?’ said Michael with some pride in his voice.
‘Well, I am getting used to weird right now I must admit,’ replied Jodie diplomatically.
‘Well if it’s weird you want, you've got the right man there.’ Michael chuckled.
He indicated Danny's door. Jodie briefly watched Michael disappear before proceeding to knock at Danny's door. Just before her hand made contact with the wood the door drew itself back. Danny had pulled it open with his mouth via a cord attached to the inside handle.
‘I saw you c-coming,’ mumbled Danny in his low and slightly strangled tone as Jodie entered his room.
The bedroom was a long L-shape, half of which was dominated by the wardrobe and the electric tilting bed. There was a central gangway that was just about wide enough for Danny's wheelchair. The other side of the room was completely occupied by electronic equipment of the entertainment variety. Odd-looking control boxes sat here and there. These had orally activated switches that were fitted for Danny and little flashing rows of lights. One touch of the oral switch would start the lights flashing through a sequence and another touch would stop them at the appointed function.
Jodie wandered over to the window at the far end of Danny's room and looked out over the gardens. Dusk was turning to night and she couldn't see much. After a short period she turned around to look at Danny. She made herself comfortable on the edge of his bed. He brought himself closer and whispered, ‘I guess you want to know the f-full story?’
Danny had to push the words through his reluctant vocal cords and out into the cold world beyond. Danny persevered, ‘The events in the library caused me to spend n-nearly as l-long as you in the hospital. But we went somewhere else too. There was an entrance to another world inside the l-library. That was why the Special f-forces were there. It was a world very far away. It is a world not of this realm. We retrieved a gateway. A gateway to an even m-more fantastic realm called the Akashi. That gateway is now inside my head!’
‘I would like you to tell me all about that Danny. I really would. I know you're not mad. But first I need to tell you about these strange dreams I've been having. I've waited a long time to tell someone...’
Jodie told Danny all about the dreams that had been haunting her during her time in the hospital. About the surreal, dark industrial landscapes, the reactor dome, the evil entities she was trying to escape. She told him about the flying through the air, the horrible supermarket version of the library. She described the sad image of her dad all alone in the scrap-yard.
‘When you are n-near to the opening of another realm it can play havoc with your m-mind. It p-pulls things up from your past, like your dad and the sad f-feelings.’
‘What about the reactor dome?’
‘That may r-represent the energy needed to open the portal.’
‘And the scrap-yard?’
‘Not sure. The main thing is about going to a new realm and how that makes you feel.’
Danny went on to describe his journeys to the Sapient and Akashi realms and the two mind entities that had helped him.
‘We went to a planet on the very furthest edge of another reality called the Sapient Realm. It is a nature realm, a place where no h-human has ever lived. The Sapient Realm is a difficult v-vibration to enter. To travel to the far side of the Sapient Realm is nearly impossible.
‘When we were there we found the Akashi diamond. The diamond is a gateway to a deeper realm still, the Akashi. Within that special place is the great g-g-galactic library of the mind. Anyway Jodie,’ continued Danny, ‘to cut a long story short, we're back now and we’ve got the diamond gateway to the Akashi realm.
‘I have also visited my friend Thinking Stone. He is a tree who lives in the Sapient Realm but in a part that is much closer than where we went before. Thinking Stone told me that you are the key we need once we have opened the Akashi portal.’
‘Really? That sounds so bizarre.’
‘My life’s bizarre. And it just gets w-worse. I have two mind entities camping out in my head at the moment for instance.’
Just then there was a knock at the door. Danny put his mouth to the joystick and motored over pulling it open with the cord. Ben was sat there with his usual look of startled surprise upon his face.
‘Come on in Ben,’ said Danny. ‘M-meet Jodie.’
Ben looked at Jodie rather seriously. After some time, and the failure of small talk to lighten things, Jodie felt a subtle force begin to move her. The energy lifted her hand right up and moved it toward Danny. Jodie didn't fight the force and her hand made contact with Danny's chest. Ben reached out and placed his hand upon Danny's chest too. Energy could be felt crackling in the room. The air was stuffy and close.
A blue laser light suddenly emitted from the top of Danny's scalp. It pulsed around the ceiling in a circle and then flashed up and down. It formed a hologram of the Akashi diamond. It was the size of a large man suspended in mid-air. The holo-form became steel-like. The diamond surged forward, turned momentarily to water and enclosed the three of them. It then resumed its impenetrable diamond surface.
A loud deep sound could be heard as energy surged through their bodies and the diamond started to spin. The sound got quicker, higher, louder, all consuming. Jodie felt her mind exploding to the size of the whole solar system, and then back again, explode again and back again. All was blackness and power from horizon to eternal horizon. She felt exhilaration, then blinding lights and then fear. The fear dissipated. Consciousness imploded. All was dark for a moment or two.
Jodie looked around. She was in a dark subterranean passageway. Water was dripping relentlessly from what appeared to be a stone ceiling six-foot above their heads. She had been asleep on the slippery wet floor. Jodie noticed the walls and ceilings of the tunnel were giving off a dark greenish vapour. The vapour was hardly distinguishable in the pitched darkness. There were four others with her. They appeared deep in thought.
‘I think we've all died,’ thought Jodie. The words just floated out of her mind and effortlessly became sound. She could see Danny and Ben. Adjacent she also saw a semi-transparent orb of milky-white colour with a round beating nucleus and a brightly golden frog about the size of a small child. The frog hovered just above the floor. Those must be the two mind entities Jodie figured.
Orb bristled in her newly found freedom. Her beautiful translucent globe sported a blue glowing heart in the centre. She could have been a deep-sea jellyfish. Her thoughts could almost be seen swimming within her plasma. She was about the size of a large beach-ball.
‘It’s not very posh for the entrance to the Akashi library,’ said Ben telepathically. The environment softly spoke his words.
‘You just silly boy,’ butted in the mind entity, Golden Frog, imperiously.
‘Can you please all be quiet? Go hang out with Orb why don't you Golf. This is serious business,’ chided Danny.
‘Poor, poor child! Danny, you really are a Class A fool,’ telepathised Orb helpfully.
‘Too right!’ added Golden Frog.
‘If that’s how you both feel, when we get back you can find someone else's mind to hang around in. Mine needs some more elbow room anyway. And you Golden Frog, if I remember rightly, were more than happy to invade my mind once upon a time,’ Danny noted.
‘Sneaky agency, they tell poor Golf big lies. They say Golf big boss and Danny very very bad. Say I must use Danny to get them what they want. Then they will send me back to my own world. And in meantime they give lots of nice things to Golden Frog. Make out me best thing since gunpowder. When I took over human’s body, whathisname?’
‘That would be Michael. The one you nearly killed. You trashed his car too.’
‘Ah yes! It was too much. Too much power. I went mad!’
‘So what happened?’ said the Orb.
‘When Danny escape from me, they punish poor Golden Frog with Mindsnapper. They had stolen Mindsnapper from Orbs of Fargone. It awful. They made me into a kind of psychic energy-shield to protect the evil one they call, "The Leader". I was locked into his mind, forced to obey. They said they had tried, "subtle". Now ‘cos Danny very bad, force only option. Only a Fargone can stop a Mindsnapper. Orb is Fargone. So, when she attack, I escape.
‘And anyway, I help save your life and heal broken bones after man-dog attack. Though Orb did most of work.’
Orb was definitely feeling something for Golden Frog, but exactly what she wasn't sure. Being a Fargone, she knew just how powerful the Mindsnapper was. The device on full beam was like experiencing the pain of complete and utter madness beamed directly into your mind. There was not a millisecond's respite. Nor the smallest chance of escape - usually.
‘Hello,’ said Jodie out loud. ‘Has everyone forgotten me! I’ve never been to another realm before.’ The words boomed out across the environment.
Everyone stopped talking telepathically and just looked at Jodie.
Danny and Ben's bodies looked real enough. In fact, they were just as real as they looked normally but lighter somehow, a little less material. Their clothes were not made of cotton and polyester any more but threads of light. In the etherial realms their bodies were fully able.
Danny started to move down the tunnel. Ben followed next and Jodie trailed behind, lost in her own thoughts. It was only after some time had passed that Jodie realised that it was completely pitch black here. Despite it being completely dark she could actually see.
Darkness was not completely blind after all. It was just a very deep shade of blue. Just wait till I tell people back home about that one, Jodie thought. Then she remembered. The people back home would never understand where she had been or why.
Jodie was enjoying seeing in the near-blackness when she sensed the outline of two tunnel entrances some distance before them. As they approached she noted that each tunnel was marked overhead with a green glass box. They looked Victorian. Within them sat a single gas flame. The boxes themselves bore the words, 'No Return,' and 'Return,' respectively.
Above the two glass boxes, between the tunnels were some further words. Carved into the wall in a beautiful flowing script was a statement. It read, 'Welcome To The Akashi Realm,' the words morphed from English into a hieroglyphic font. It was as if the sign was reading their minds and choosing the most appropriate languages for them all. The shapes glowed blue against the green cavern walls.
‘So which is to be?’ Danny thought to the group.
‘That easy,’ said Golf. ‘Akashi realm contain mind of entire galaxy. To enter is to be reborn. If choose, "No Return," you no return to former life. On leaving you reborn in new body. To enter Akashi realm is to die - and to live.’
Ben reflected on Golden Frog's words. He was hoping that the group would go through the tunnel marked 'No Return'. Part of him even considered just scooting off that way on his own account. But he knew, deep down, that easy way outs were not really an option.
First Danny, then Golden Frog and Orb, Jodie, and lastly Ben entered the ‘Return’ tunnel. As each person moved into the tunnel the whole entrance spun 360 degrees to the right and lit up with a piercingly brilliant blue-white light.