proofread by Daylius

In front of me stood a door as black as void, humongous and gore. The view left a distaste in my mouth as memories of a loved one being taken away ran amok in my turbulent mind. I stared at the door with hatred and disgust, with my fist shivering with rage.

“Now, now boy. Calm down. So shall we begin? Have you got all the things you need? ”

I nodded at the old man. Equipped with weapons and armors of the highest quality I stepped forward, each step determined to bring down the entire door. I approached the door and stood before it alone and gazed at it. Written on the door was,

“Thou who wish to enter!

Thou who bears the desire to venture

Be warned of the perils that befall

For the world beyond this gate is hell

But for the hero with the golden face

Everything is nothing but a gentle embrace

Will you rise or will you fall

Show us with your soul”

‘What the hell are those cheesy lines?’ I gasped out, shocked from the dramatic verse on the door. The moment my mind read those words, the door opened up in front of me. My body tensed and my hands gripped the bow and arrow. My eyes focused on the opening door laying in wait for an enemy to appear from the other side. But nothing came. The door opened up and all I saw was a long corridor stretching endlessly. With a drawn bow I walked forward my eyes wandering all over the place in search of anything or anyone. Once I was inside, the door slowly closed plunging me into darkness. Before I could panic the corridor was lit up by a strange light and to my surprise there was another door a little further. The infinite corridor which I had seen before just turned into a very short hallway with another door at the opposite end. But this door was different, it was a golden door with no carving on it. Just like the black door there was something written on it. But they were written vertically downwards, from the left to the right it read as,

“Dost thou wish to pass?

Dost thou desire to pass?

Dost thou want to pass?”

I was again shocked. ‘Why was the same thing written thrice?’ my brain was confused. I understood that if I had to pass I would have to choose yes but I felt something was off.

“If I choose yes then what would happen, I mean the yes can be the answer for all three at once. So that means a single question would have been enough if the answer were to be a single yes. Then it means I have to choose one among the three. But how?”

I once again read the three lines. The verbs were different in all three so I came to the conclusion that only one of them is correct.

“Wish, desire and want. Wish and desire are similar. Of the three want sounds stronger and shows that passing through the door is a must. While the remaining two do not symbolize that I must pass through.”

Clenching my fist I decided to go for it,

“I want to pass through” I shouted. There was silence throughout and then slowly the door began to open. The door opened up to a room which looked like a sphere, lit up very well. I walked inside the room and slowly the door closed behind me. When I looked around I was surprised for I was not alone in that room. There were fifty or so others. But what surprised me was not the number of people but the type of people.

In the spherical room were what humans of earth thought existed in myths and fantasies. From humans to elves to vampires to mermaids there were people of different races. When I had first seen the door years before, the gate had carvings of these creatures but never once had I believed that they really existed and so right now I was flabbergasted to meet those mythical creatures face to face. I stared at all of them for a while, some stared back at me while others ignored me. It took me a while to regain my sense. Once the initial surprise faded I once again observed the surrounding. At the far end of the room was another door but it was much smaller than the previous two others.

Every now and then a person would open the door and call out one of us. The called out person would then enter and disappear. From this I understood that it was some kind of interview or so. I then looked at the door from which I came from, at regular intervals the door would open and a new person would exit from it. Every time the door opened a different creature would appear and so I understood the door was connected to different worlds of different dimensions. The thought of remaining never crossed my mind, not even once. All I thought about was finding Naoki.

What felt like hours, passed by silently. Every time a person entered the smaller door, the larger one would open up and another person would get in. The smaller door opened once again and the person gestured me to come in. I walked towards the door and then walked in to another spherical room. But unlike the previous one, this room had had mirrors to my left and right. The floor looked like a chess board, no it was a chess board for pieces of white and black were arranged on both sides of the room. I counted the number of squares and it equaled to 64 just like that of a chess board. But something was odd, the positioning of two of the pieces was wrong. The white side had the position of the knight and rook to the right of the king mistaken. Their places were interchanged. Normally in chess, the rook should be at the end and the knight should be before the rook but here the knight was at the end of the pieces. I thought that it was a small mistake as the remaining three were in the correct order.

I ignored it and then looked around, at the middle of the room was a table and two chairs on both sides. On one of the chair was a strange man sitting on one of the chairs. What made me say he was strange was the way that he was dressed. It was a typical business suit but the colors were what made it seem strange. The left side of his suit was white while the right side was black like it showed two sides of the same coin or like yin and yang. I stared at him for a while.

The man stood up and bowed at me.

“How very Japanese?” I shouted at the man, mocking him.

“Welcome Mr. Zeph, Welcome to the chamber of luck”

“Chamber of luck? Such a flashy name. So now what?” I asked indifferently, which was a surprising thing for me as I was not sure why I was so calm.

“Ah, such a straight-forward person. Here, we decide whether to let you live or die. That is all”

“Live or die?” I questioned the man, still calm.

“Yes. We will have you answer some riddles or puzzles. Answer them correctly and you will live, or else…” the man trailed off. He then looked at me with cold eyes which warned me of imminent death if I tried anything funny.

“For this purpose we have administered a drug to you which refrains you from panicking and so you are able to choose your answers calmly. As to when it was given, you have been inhaling the drug for hours, in the room you came from. So let us begin, the first question is, what gets broken without being held?”

“Eh? A Riddle?” I asked. “A riddle decides what my future becomes?” I was surprised but still the effect of the drug made me calm like the clear water.

I was never good at riddles and so I had no idea what the answer for the question was. And then something happened, a memory of the past flowed into my mind.

---***---

A girl and boy were waiting for the fireworks to begin. But as minutes passed there were none. When the sky shone brightly, the girl was so scared that she held on to the boy’s arms. The boy held her tight and observed the sky when the sky split up and a dark fog descended which then turned into huge doors. The scared girl was now tearing up and scared. The boy too felt scared but the girl beside him made him not show his fear outside and so he held her hand tighter and whispered to her,

“Don’t cry Nao, I will protect you. I promise”

---***---

A body laid on the ground motionless, the girl’s heart no longer beating. A boy sat on his knees hugging the lifeless body of the girl, weeping and screaming, calling out to the girl.

“Nao, wake up. Wake up Nao. Don’t leave me.” The boy screamed at the top his lungs.

“I am sorry, I am sorry. I could not protect you, I could not keep my promise, I am sorry”

---***---

My face was sweating. Things I did not want to remember were now flowing freely in my mind.

“Promise” I said.

“Correct. Now to the second question. Are you ready” the man asked, with the drug inside me to calm me down. I nodded.

“1. Answer A.

2. Answer A or B

3. Answer B or C

There is only one correct answer, which is it?”

A logical question this time. I am really bad at riddles but logical questions are easy. Three answers and only one is correct. If 1 is correct the one then 2 will automatically become correct too as both 1 and 2 has A in it.

“Answer B or C”

“Correct”

And so I was asked puzzles and other stupid questions which I answered some way. I had no idea how many hours passed. There was a clock in the room but the clocks hands did not move a bit, it showed 9 o'clock the entire time. I was getting tired of all those questions. I glared at the man with anger which the man understood and then suddenly spoke.

“Here is the last question”

I was excited when he said that next was the last question and with glittering eyes and sharpened ears I awaited his question.

“There are two doors, one to your right and one to your left. Please choose one” when the man finished talking, there was a rumbling sound and out of nowhere there were two doors at both sides, behind the chess pieces.

“Eh?” the sudden trick made me dumbfounded as I looked at the doors to my right and left.

“You want me to choose one of them? What happens if I choose the wrong one?”

“I will leave that to your imagination” the man replied indifferently.

I once again looked at my left and right. The white pieces were to my left while the black to my right. While I was looking at both sides alternatively, it struck to me. I looked at the white knight which was misplaced. The knight in chess was a special piece, unlike the other pieces which travelled in straight lines, knight loved like the letter L.

Then once again I looked at the clock, the hour hand was on 9 while the minute hand was on 12. I smiled at the man who seemed surprised by my sudden gesture.

“I choose the right” I said calmly. This again caused the man to freeze.

“Can you tell me why you chose right Mr. Zeph?”

“Normally in chess, when the players starts playing, the knights could move to two positions. But here, one of the knight, the one that was misplaced can only move to a single point that is to its left. When it moves to the left the path it traces is of an inverted L. Next the cloth there too shows an inverted L.”

“In that case should not your answer be the left door?”

“Yes, that is what people normally do because that is precisely what your black and white suit tells them to do. Is it not test administrator? Black at one side, white at the other. Most would think of this as a mirror effect, two sides of the same coin. I too thought of it so. But then it clicked to me, a mirror image will not undergo a color change so that meant you wearing the strange dress was not for aiding the candidates but to trick them”

“Why would I trick them? Besides not everybody would assume my suit to describe a mirror effect.”

“Ho! Still not admitting it eh? Fine, I will play along. Every single person who comes here will think of your dress to symbolize a mirror”

“And why is that?”

“Because of those mirrors you have to my left and right. When I first came to the room, I hardly noticed the table and chairs, my attention went directly to the mirrors and chess pieces. This was to induce the idea of mirrors into my brain, a visual trick. Once the candidate saw the mirror, he would automatically assume that your suit to symbolized a mirror. But in truth, it does not symbolize a mirror it just shows two opposite colors. And so when the chess piece and clock gave left as the answer, your suit showed the answer to be the opposite of left, the right. So I choose the right door.”

The man stood up and then clapped. He was laughing and clapping.

“Wonderful. It has been ages since some body as smart as you came through. All those idiot would come and choose left or right without even thinking, mongrels. You my boy are smart. Let me introduce myself, I am Workondil Alror, guardian of the chamber of luck and the master of this level. You have passed Mr. Zeph. Now please wear this on your wrist”

The man thrust his arm forward, on his palm was something like a watch with no dials or display.

“What is this?”

“This here is a gardisto”

“A gardisto? What is that?”

“You will understand once you pass through the door. All I will tell you now is never lose it. Ah, before you go, here is an advice, what you search for will come to you when you reach the peak. Now go boy, a new world awaits. ”

The advice made no sense to me and so I did not take it seriously. Getting up from the chair, I walked towards the door to my right in search of the thing that I had lost.

---***---

(hope you like it. kindly review my ff. enjoyyy)

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