Ghostbusters

Was this old factory some kind of gateway to another dimension? The chances seemed way below 1%. In the movies, such portals were always cool looking rings with ancient runes or mirror-like surfaces. Definitely not grimy dark corners in old factories. I mean, there was even an old Walmart flyer on the floor. No decent alien would open its portal in such a place.

Still, something was there and wanted to come, but we were in some kind of stalemate. I wanted to see it, but it seemed that was exactly what kept it away. Why? Wasn't it used to scientific, rational thinking, to unexcited people? Did it maybe even need something like those bundles of panic behind me? I could try pretending to be a bit afraid, but I sensed that wouldn't be convincing. Whatever it was, it craved real fear. Fascinating.

Suddenly, one of the idiots behind me emitted a blood-curdling scream for no apparent reason, shocking the shit out of me. That was enough. The stalemate was broken. The thing slipped through. I clearly sensed it, mostly because it roughly shoved me aside, but I couldn't see it clearly. Just as I was getting up again, the ruckus had already started.

Every one of those fools was busy fighting nothing. Their fear seemed real; they looked as if they were fighting for their dear lives. All that was missing was an enemy. Chris was clubbing the empty space between them, giving Max a glancing blow, which he didn't seem to mind much, as he was busy stabbing another empty area with his sword, barely missing Cara. It would have looked absurd if it wasn't so damn dangerous.

"Stop, okay?" I tried to sound assertive, but was completely ignored. They were in the heat of a fight for life, and they had always ignored me even in the calmest of times. I filmed their absurd ballet for a few seconds, mostly because I had no idea what else I could do.

Finally, I saw it. The whole room was quite dark, but there was something darker flitting between them. It seemed solid, but I couldn't determine a clear shape. It was as if it was changing constantly. Elegantly, it moved around the group, like it was dancing, like it was playing with them. I checked the movie on my phone, and could see it there too, once I knew what I was looking for. It wasn't very impressive, though, just a shapeless dark shadow. I thought about the long tradition of blurred and underexposed pictures of UFOs, Yetis and aliens and thought my pics followed that tradition perfectly.

Although looking as alien as anything I'd ever seen in even the weirdest SciFi movies, the thing wasn't particularly big, nor did it seem dangerous in itself or even armed. I wondered why the others made such a fuss about it. As a true nerd, contact with an alien had been what I had always dreamed of. There I was, with one right in front of me, and I was standing there like an idiot, doing nothing but gawk.

Suddenly full of joyous anticipation, I walked towards the being. Ducking one of Chris' blows and Max' stabs, I had almost reached it when it began to notice my presence. The thing was featureless and almost indiscernible from the gloomy background, but I knew it was watching me and it wasn't happy. It had stopped its dance, and the group had stopped fighting, too. It seemed everyone was watching me, a feeling I always abhorred.

Still, my curiosity won, and I extended a hand, idiotically saying "Hi." I even smiled. I didn't really expect it to shake my hand, mostly because it didn't seem to have any. Hands, that is.

When I touched the vaguely rubbery surface, I realized this thing was evil, but didn't seem particularly dangerous. Right then, Max stabbed right through it from behind. I immediately knew it was dead. I had just helped kill the only alien I had ever seen or would ever see. I knew it was evil, but I still felt terrible. This was what I as a true nerd had always dreamed of, and I was so close to actually communicating with it. I had so many questions about life and the universe in general.

The group immediately returned to form and started to babble away, desecrating this important moment, as was to be expected. The next disappointment was added when the alien seemed to dissolve right in front of me before I could take a closer look at it.

"...see that damn dragon?"

"Dragon? It was a giant insect. What kind of drug have you been..."

"I don't know what you saw, but the thing I was fighting was a huge reptiloid from outer space..."

"Impressive."

That was clearly a female voice, and it was coming from right behind me, from the corner where the dark blob had entered our world. It wasn't loud, but it sure was unexpected and it managed to achieve a miracle, which was to silence the whole group.

We all turned around and saw a vaguely humanoid woman in peasant style clothing. Her proportions were slightly off. The limbs were a bit too long, the head was slightly too big. In her simple cotton-like clothes, she looked like a lanky rural priestess.

"That was fucking impressive, dude," she remarked in a surprisingly profane way. I admired her English until I realized she hadn't moved her mouth. And "dude?" Seriously? What sort of alien says "dude?"

Unsure how to react, I looked back at the cosplay cohort, but they were too busy just staring at her to be helpful. You'd think they'd never seen an alien before. As always, they weren't really worth anything.

"Thanks, I guess," I replied. She nodded, and I was relieved she understood me despite my odd way of using my mouth for talking.

"That was the second to last one. This nightmare is almost over."

"Nightmare?" I spoke slowly and distinctly in the hope of getting some useful information, for once.

"They are surviving bio weapons from some long-forgotten war. They've been plaguing my world for generations. They make themselves into something different for everyone, usually the person's worst nightmare. They make people kill each other, even within families, or kill themselves. They are among the most dangerous weapons ever made. We've been hunting it, so it spent more and more time in your world."

"It didn't seem overly dangerous, to be honest. I would have loved to inspect it a bit more."

"You want to see one? Good. I want to invite you on a trip to my world. We have another one there. You're more than welcome to inspect it however you want."

"Is that a joke? You're inviting me on a trip to your world? Where do I sign up?"

"Right here," she thought into our minds and led me into the dark corner where I had first seen the distortion.

"Tim," Cara shouted from behind, and I looked back at her. "Be careful, okay? Don't get hurt, and please come back, okay?" I just nodded and decided to think about her unexpected behavior later. As I turned around, she smiled a bit and waved her small hand. As usual, I found female behavior difficult to decode. She might have been genuinely worried.

When I was young, some girl I fancied at the time had talked me into trying to surf. Later, I understood it was just a huge prank. Everyone knew I was a typical nerd and was athletic as a rock. She and her friends were sitting on the beach, waiting for my best fails with giddy anticipation.

Through a complete miracle, I climbed on top of the board and glided down the first wave as if I had never done anything else in my life. The feeling was exhilarating. Sadly, I was never able to repeat it and the initially disappointed crowd got their money's worth and more later. Still, I have never forgotten those few seconds of bliss.

That was exactly what I was feeling as we smoothly glided through nothing. There wasn't blackness around us, there was plain nothing. After an unquantifiable amount of time, a huge tree suddenly appeared above us, surrounded by what looked like a garden world from some cliché eco movie.

There were people around, and they looked like my companion, slightly too long limbed, wearing those eco-hipster priestess clothes, and they all seemed to be bored out of their minds. Our arrival out of nowhere obviously didn't impress any of them. The world itself looked damn nice, though. The civilization seemed well advanced, mostly because I couldn't see any technical stuff. Everything looked like a well-tended park. That was how I had always envisioned the way truly advanced civilizations lived.

"Follow me," she said, and she surprised me by actually using her mouth for it. Still, I knew what she was saying.

"Okay," I answered, and realized I hadn't moved my mouth this time. Odd.

People here seemed amazingly uninterested in anything. If I as an arriving alien didn't pique their interest, I wondered what would. Some followed us silently for a while, probably because they didn't have anything else to do, until they realized where we were going. Then they suddenly seemed to have something else to do, which looked suspiciously like nothing. When we reached the entrance of a cave, we were alone again.

"Okay, monster-slayer. Inside there is the last one."

"Shouldn't the entrance be littered with the bones and weapons of failed heroes?"

"That's not how the thing works. It only works on your mind."

"You mean only mental wrecks reappeared from that cave?"

She just shrugged, obviously not wanting to confuse me with too much truth.

"Listen," I said without words, "this is not even my world. Countless have obviously failed and paid a high price. I'm just some clueless nerd. Why exactly am I the one who should do this for you?"

"Because you can and you want to. You need this. You've always wanted this." It sounded like something Irina would have said.

"Really?" I thought about that and tried to decide if she was right. The probability seemed higher than 50%. "Are you sure I have a chance?"

"No, but I'm optimistic. I have watched people in your world a lot from the background. The gates have always been open, but we're not supposed to interact..."

"Hey, why not? We've been waiting for contact so long."

"I know. Imagine you find a tribe on Borneo. Would the first thing you'd do be to provide them with jeans, TV and loans? Your world needs to find its own way forward."

"Hmm," I grumbled. "So why should I care about your problem if you don't care about ours?"

"Because you're curious. Curiosity is about the only emotion you don't suppress. Walling in your emotions like you did might make you at least partially immune to it. The thing in there might be unable to reach you."

"Let's assume this is true, how would I kill it?"

"I have no idea. We have been living with this plague for thousands of years. That thing dates back from the time when we still had wars. It's like a Ronin, a weapon that lost its master. Two remained, and you've already killed the other. This last one is the mightier one, though."

I didn't want to complicate things by mentioning that it was actually Max who had stabbed the other being.

Sighing, I went ahead into the cave. She was right, I was curious. I was actually looking forward to this. I realized I wasn't even afraid. My life sucked anyway, so why be afraid of losing it? This was just too interesting to not do it.

The cave wasn't as dark as I expected. The walls seemed to emanate some kind of glow. After a while, I reached an open area with lots of sunlight streaming in from above and even a few trees growing. There was a stone bench, and it looked well worn. I had a weird feeling, like I was entering a duel countless people had fought before, and they had all failed.

The bench was facing a dark, recessed area, and I assumed that was where my opponent resided. I wasn't sure how to begin things. Was there some kind of ritual? Was I supposed to say something?

My thoughts were interrupted by a slap to my face. The force was enough to make me struggle to remain standing. I mustn't fall, though, I thought. Most of all, I mustn't cry. Crying would make him even madder. He hated crying.

"You finally got that?" my father screamed at me.

For good measure, he hit me again. I knew he was watching my reaction closely. He was looking for tears. He was looking for that slight twitching in the eyes that preceded me breaking down. He was looking for weakness. I knew he wanted it. He wanted to take out his belt and punish me.

"Mary should have aborted you, as I told her to. Now she's dead. All because of you, you worthless little shit."

I couldn't really remember Mom. According to him, she was a saint, but if so, how could she have married this abusive alcoholic sadist? Again, my head was thrown around by a slap.

"I asked you a damn question."

"I... I don't know, Dad."

This time, he punched me with a closed fist. That was a first, and I couldn't help but fly backwards, onto the ground. From below, he looked like a giant. An angry, drunk giant.

"What did you say, you worthless little shit?"

I didn't react emotionally, as I had trained myself. No emotion. That was important. I was perfecting it. I didn't just hide emotions; the trick was to not have any in the first place.

"I said that I don't know why she's dead," I stubbornly replied.

Grinning, he pulled his belt out.

"Don't you dare talk about her like that. She was a saint, you hear?"

Then he started hitting me as I sat on my ass. The hits hurt brutally, but for the first time, I didn't cover myself. Just let them come, asshole, I thought.

"I don't even know if you're mine. You're probably just a bastard."

"You think she's been cheating on you? Didn't you tell me she was practically a saint?"

He stopped, stunned. Never had I dared to talk back.

"I wouldn't blame her, though. Who would stay with a cruel alcoholic like you? I wouldn't even be surprised if it was you who killed her."

The look on his face was priceless. Suddenly, I remembered things I had relentlessly pushed out of my mind. The stairs. Her terrified scream.

"You pushed her, right?"

It all came back, like a flood. It was a horrific night. Mom was trying to protect me. I saw her clearly for the first time and immediately, a feeling of deep mourning swept through me. It was a powerful emotion, the first I could remember having since I was a little boy. I needed to stay focused, though.

"You killed her. She wanted to leave you and take me with her." I felt calm and secure for the first time ever. He could hit me, but he couldn't really hurt me anymore. I had unveiled his weakness. I felt like I had excised a powerful demon from my head. I felt free.

"I..." he tried to answer, but he just disappeared.

Without transition, I was back in the cave again. I knew I was a changed man. I mourned my mother. I embraced the loving feeling I had towards her. I also noticed I had quite positive feelings towards Cara and really was looking forward to seeing her again. I had something to do first, though, and decided to get it over with.

I stood up and noticed a few simple weapons lying around, probably left behind by earlier contestants. I picked up a nice-looking short spear and walked towards the dark corner.

Visions of a dog that had almost bitten me when I was young popped up in my mind, making me laugh.

"That's all?" I mocked the thing. I realized it didn't have much hold over me, as my father had been my only real fear, and I had just conquered that demon. I noticed the thing itself was emanating fear. A big spider appeared in my mind, but it was laughable. I never had a problem with spiders, the thing was shooting blanks. I entered that darker, smaller cave.

Finally, I found it cowering in a corner. Looking at the mass of bones on the floor reassured me I was doing the right thing.

"Noooo," the thing screamed right into my mind, just as I drove the spear through it. It hung on the tip of the spear like a dark leathery cushion, not impressive at all.

Generations of those people had failed at this? Seriously? That didn't seem so hard. Just as I shook it off the spear and turned around, a flash of adrenaline shot through me. I wasn't used to that and had to sit down again. Damn, I would have to learn how to live with emotions, starting from zero. This was a close call, and it could easily have ended badly. For the first time, I realized I wanted to live, and the concept surprised me. How could I have been stupid enough to fight this being for no real reason? On the other hand, if I hadn't fought it, would I have remained my old rational, unfeeling self? There would be time to figure that out once I got back to my own world. That had a nice ring to it, somehow: my own world.

I stumbled back to the exit from the cave.

The woman who had led me there was gone. It seemed she hadn't been optimistic enough about my chances to even wait for the outcome of the struggle. This made me a bit angry, which surprised me. I still needed to learn to deal with even the most basic emotions, and I had to keep myself from letting them overwhelm me.

To distract myself, I tried to find the path back to where we had entered this world. Anger wasn't an emotion I enjoyed; fear was just as unpleasant. The thought of maybe being stuck in this world scared me. There was nothing I could do to get rid of those emotions, except find my way back home.

Although I never expected a real victory parade, complete with alien confetti and weird music from unicorn horns, just being ignored was plain wrong. I wasn't even sure if they knew about the fight's outcome. Certainly, nobody had cared enough to even ask. These people, if that's what they were, took blasé to a new level. They even left my previous rational emotionless self in the dust.

I felt the anger intensifying, and it didn't feel good. Negative emotions felt just unpleasant and seemed to fog my brain. There was nothing I could do about it, I thought, as I found and stepped on that peculiar round stone I'd seen when we arrived.

To make things worse, I saw the woman who had brought me here and a few fellow aliens. She only briefly looked at me before she threw an S-shaped object through a vertically positioned ring. That was the whole extent of her attention to my presence. The game they were playing looked exceedingly boring, and they all looked exceedingly bored. Still, it was more interesting than me. I didn't think there was a clearer way of saying "I don't give a shit about you, regardless of what you have done for us."

I was seething with anger as I willed myself back to my world. Whatever or whoever was responsible for the transfer complied, and in my rage, I never even gave it much thought. At least the surfing experience was something I could enjoy more than the first time, as I knew what was about to come. The fact that I arrived on my ass and the floor was dirty as hell didn't really help my mood. I had no idea how to keep my emotions in check, and right then, had no intention of doing so even if I knew. I started to embrace the experience of pure mindless negativity. I almost hoped some giant mangy half-wolf would spring out at me, growling and spitting. My adrenaline was so high I was sure I could have torn it limb from limb with my bare hands.

I stepped out of the dark corner and saw Cara sleeping next to the door, all alone in that spooky old place. Her hair was filled with decades-old grit and dust. My anger evaporated and was replaced by worry and affection. Damn, I thought, did normal people experience this roller coaster? It was sure distracting. How could anyone think clearly under this constant barrage of emotions?

Cara woke up and looked at me. She started laughing, and I had no idea why.

"That spear," she said, still giggling. "You look like some stone ager coming back from the hunt."

Confused, I looked at the short spear I was still holding. I hadn't noticed the thing since I had killed that weird alien leather cushion with it. I guess I just forgot to put it down. Oh, well.