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Ben had loved Olivia with a feeling so deep and so . . . permanent. It felt as if he had always known and loved her. His feeling for her permeated his every sense, and ran deep into his soul, taking root in the center of his being, and, for a time, threatened to consume his will. She had loved Ben back with the same intensity. Her words, her touch, and the way she looked at him made it clear there could be no other man in her heart.
And yet, it had ended.
It was no accident, or twist of fate, but a conscious, logical choice on both their parts. The logic did little to take the edge off the pain of that choice, but they knew it had to be so. It was foolish enough for someone in this line of work to get involved with someone before retirement age, but this was unheard of -- they were both on the job. With each having only a one in three chance of surviving to retirement, the odds against them as a couple were staggering. Besides, the Establishment forbade relationships between personnel.
Ben still remembered the night they parted ways as if it were yesterday, as he’d thought about it many times in the three years since. Ben had been in the Program for one year longer than Olivia. He had promised her that after he retired he’d wait the one year for her to retire, and then they would be together. Olivia had said that knowing he was waiting for her would be additional motivation for her to make sure she stayed alive. Ben had looked into her dark eyes and felt her strength and determination, coupled with the soft kindness and warm sense of humor that resided behind those mesmerizing eyes. He’d run his hand through her long dark hair, and caressed her cheek. Then they kissed, one long, final kiss, and disappeared into the night in opposite directions. That was the last time he’d seen Olivia.
It was only one year later that he heard the news – she had become one of the statistics that scared people away from this profession. Her body had never been recovered. Apparently, the promise of their reunion had not been enough to keep her alive.
Of course, Ben was bitter, but he wasn’t blind enough to blame Olivia. He knew the risks of this job, and he knew that even the best sometimes fell prey to the dangers. And Olivia was the best he’d ever seen. And that made her death all the more stinging to Ben, both as a fellow professional and as the man who had loved her.
Still loved her.
And now, here in this otherworldly place, beyond all rational explanation, was Olivia, alive and well, on the other side of this mysterious door in the darkness. It made no sense. Ben once again began to reconsider his belief that he was not dead. As he did so, his mental training took hold once more, and he applied logic to the problem.
Starting with the assumption that death was the end of existence, he could only assume that he was still alive. If that was true, and he could see Olivia alive beyond the door, then either he was looking into the past, to another time and place, or he was hallucinating, or she was indeed still alive. Hallucinations would mean he was losing his wits, and such a conclusion could lead to despair, so he ruled out that alternative. There was only one way to find out if what he was seeing in the display on his watch was a representation of reality or some trick being played by this environment – he had to find a way through the door.
So far, the laser had been successful at boring a hole through the door. However, the door would not move at all, so Ben saw continuing to blast away at the door as his only option. He fired up the laser and picked up where he left off, hoping to widen the keyhole-sized aperture.
The work was long and tedious. The fumes nearly overwhelmed him, and he had to stop more than once to step back and breathe some of the cleaner air further from the door. Eventually, however, the hole grew, until it was finally large enough for Ben to climb through.
The world that existed on the other side was so bright in comparison to the tomblike setting he’d emerged from, that it took a full minute for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he looked back to see the hole he’d come through. Thick, velvety darkness lay beyond the hole, which seemed to float in the air. He walked around it. It appeared two-dimensional, just as the door itself had seemed. As he watched, the hole began to close like a wound healing at high speed, until it disappeared completely. He reached out his hand to where the blackness had existed a moment before.
Ben found himself standing in a lush garden. He could smell the fresh flowers all around and feel the warm breeze on his face. He heard some voices coming from beyond a deep green hedge, and moved toward the sound. As he rounded the bushes, he saw a group of eight people, men and women, sitting on lawn chairs in the sunshine and talking among themselves. A dark-haired woman with her back to Ben suddenly turned toward him and smiled with recognition.
“Ben!” she said with joy in her voice. She got up and came toward him.
Ben staggered forward, his face awash with confusion. He suddenly realized he was exhausted and fell to his knees in the soft, well-groomed grass. Olivia dropped to her knees beside him and put her arm around him.
“It’s going to be alright, Ben. You’ve made it. You’re going to be just fine now.”
Olivia’s words echoed and swirled around Ben’s weary head. Everything was spinning and he felt nauseous. He looked into her eyes, and then everything turned to black.