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As Zeb passed through the door he kept intently looked at the tiny offender. Once in the hallway he noticed it hadn’t disappeared.
“Guys! Look at this!”
He kept the metallic object in front of his face. And he felt that though the object came from somewhere on the other side of one of these doors, it had been here before.
As the group was looking at the object, The Last one stepped through one of the doors nearby. Smoke billowing from hir singed bright red suit, before the scorch-marks started to heal back into a pristine white robe.
Zeb called hir over to look at the object he held in front of his eyes.
“What do you make of this?”
Ze stepped closer.
“I thought this to be impossible! You managed to take an object into the Hallway?”
“It feels like it belongs in one of the realities that operate under different laws of physics. I’ve never seen an object fall into another dimension that is fundamentally incompatible with it.”
Zeb responded.
“I already felt like there was something odd with this thing! I could’ve sworn that it didn’t cast a shadow back in Geneva!”
“If it operates under different laws of physics, this would make the excellent candidate to make something the scientist deemed impossible a possibility.”
“Guys, I’m sure there is someone out there who’s interweaving these Wrengths into the local human events! And who is actively trying to alter the landscape of the timelines!”
Silence fell as everyone looked at each other, while they let this sink in.
Unobserved the little screw evaporated back into the infinite possibilities of the Infinite Hallway.
When he looked back at his hand, Zeb didn’t even feel like he was shocked.
“See! This is what I’m talking about! …Aaand it’s gone… The odds, the improbabilities and the fact that you can move items between realities if you just focus hard enough. Someone is out there!”
The group looked around at the Infinite number of shining doors.
“Where to begin on that momentous adventure?”, Pepi said.
Zeb looked at his friend.
“We start at the beginning. We stick together. And we’ll resolve this one Wrength at a time!”
With this he led the group through a nearby door that was calling out to him. The Last One joined them.
Leaving the Infinite hallway empty behind… or not.
Pepi looked around at the doors. The corridor. The place he had once thought of as heaven. Now he saw it as a place to return to. A beacon. Home.
But it seemed not even heaven was perfect. Evil was afoot; destruction, the kind caused by the best intentions…Although Pepi had no idea of the theories and technology in play, he felt oddly comforted: whoever was behind this was a human. Those he understood.
“It seems we need to catch someone, or at least stop him. Someone who understands Time better than we do.”, he commented. “Could be the same one that killed the inventor of gunpowder, at Freiberg. Or tried to let the French win at Waterloo.”
Pepi looked at the rest, smiling.
“Indeed, a world without guns, drenched in French culture. Quelle horreur!
“And yet, for all their flaws, I am getting attached to these infinite realms with their crazy people. It would be a shame to let it go to waste, would it not?”
A visions flashed before his eyes, of dying anonymous deaths, suffering for the fate of the thankless, for himself and his loved ones. He smiled it away. After what he’d seen, any alternative would bore him to death before the next sun would have set.
He focused on the reality in the Infinite Hallway, and summoned a hat in his hand. He held it in front of him, frowning. It appeared to be a scaled helmet of some kind, with protrusions that reminded him of antennas of insects.
“Well, this could be interesting. Let’s not waste more time, shall we?”
As he made a small dash towards the door, the rest of his apparel changed to match it, and in a white flash he disappeared.
Elizabeth’s eyes gleamed at all the possibilities. Yes, there would be danger, especially now they knew there was evil intent behind the Wrengths. But what was an adventure without danger? She was game.
With confidence she stepped through the door to… To when?
The Infinite Hallway now their home, the realities it supported theirs to tend to.
Each Wrenght they would right, could lead them one step closer to finding the one that managed to lurk unseen in the brightly lit Hallway.
Times and places awaited, in need of righting Wrengths…
After the last of the group had passed the latest chosen door, with none of them left in the Infinite Hallway to witness, a faint echo of a pair of bare feet crossing from one door to another sounded through the dimensions of the Infinite Hallway. And unnoticed to any of them, another timeline began creaking under the weight of a freshly introduced Wrength.
This story has reached its conclusion. Congratulations!
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