there was a trick to that door and Andrew didn’t know it, nor was he patient enough to stand there toying with it. No, this just played into his conclusion that Dan was behind it all.
“I told you, you can’t trap me,” he said, believing Dan’s plan had been to imprison him in the cafeteria and that he had boldly escaped.
“That’s not it, sir. It’s not me at all!” Daniel tried to explain, but if the stranger wasn’t listening before, he definitely wasn’t listening now.
Tracking his captor by the sound of his voice, Andrew lunged in the dark and missed, cursing as he crashed into a pew.
Daniel, who was well-adapted to the dark, evaded the stranger’s efforts easily and slithered into the deepest corner of the hall. Though he was afraid, a sense of empowerment grew in his heart, a oneness with the dark. But he knew the stranger’s eyes would eventually adjust enough to capture him, so he needed a plan and fast. What could he do about the violent intruder? There must be some way to calm him down, Daniel thought, creeping among the pews.
“Danny…” Andrew mocked in a songlike voice. He was approaching his captor cautiously, for fear of unseen obstructions. “I can hear you breathing…”
Panic stung Daniel’s chest and his sense of empowerment vanished. Holding his breath, he crept up the speaker’s platform and hid behind the podium. He tried to take a quiet, controlled breath, but to him the breath sounded like a roaring dragon protecting a treasure hoard; and the harder he fought to control the volume, the louder it seemed. Then he held it again and crawled slowly around the table. There he put his head in his hands, crying. Tears soaked in with the sweat on his palms. The fear was too much. He didn’t know what to do.
“Got you, you little worm!” Andrew shouted suddenly, grabbing Dan by the shoulder so hard he yelped in pain.
“No, please—” Daniel cried, cut off by the sharp sting of the stranger’s palm. Lifted to his feet in the darkness, another burning strike exploded on his cheek, followed by another, then another. Daniel tried throwing up his arms to defend, but the stranger hit even harder and Daniel wasn’t strong enough to stop the onslaught.
His eyes watering from the frequent slaps, his cheek burning and a bead of blood forming by the corner of his lips, Daniel lashed out and was surprised when the stranger fell away from him, releasing the painful grip on his shoulder. Somehow, in his mad flailing, Daniel had inadvertently—or, more likely, reflexively—grabbed up the golden sceptre from the ceremonial table and struck the stranger across the face with it. The violence filled Daniel's stomach with a sickening dread, but the stranger was already recovering.
With his eyes closed, Daniel swung the heavy sceptre hard and cried out when he felt it thud against the intruder’s head. The intruder grunted and collapsed to the floor, but Daniel didn’t stop. Crying and squealing, he brought the sceptre down and down again, bouncing the stranger’s head between the floor and the ornate, ersatz weapon.
Daniel came to when the soreness in his jaw from gritting his teeth became too great, and he paused in his rampage. With his eyes squeezed shut, he hesitated, waiting for a sound or a peep to give him an inkling of the reality beyond his eyelids. His wrists pulsed in agony from the impact shocks of his weapon. Releasing a careful breath, he opened his eyes.
Darker and thicker than the thickest darkness of the temple, a pool of blood had spread out from beneath Andrew’s battered head, a black halo. They shared a moment then, Daniel staring into the lifeless eyes and the lifeless, glossy eyes staring back. Then a thousand echoes filled the hall, the sceptre clattering against the floor, and Daniel crawled away from the sound and the lifeless eyes in repulsion and fear. And then there was another sound, one single beat from a giant heart, and a beam of light cut through the grand hall.
The entrance was opening, and the black halo flashed crimson.
The doors spread outwards like angelic wings, the darkness evacuating wherever it could. Torrential light flooded in, frothing and churning, bathing the room and Andrew in its warmth. Uplifted by the glorious sight, Daniel forced himself to his feet and sprinted towards safety. He was not remotely perplexed by the autonomous door.
Rushing out into the inviting daylight, he prepared to throw his arms out in wondrous welcome of the world that had been returned to him—and stopped short. His eyes were burning from the daylight’s intensity and he raised an arm to shield himself, but that was not what stopped him from welcoming the world. What stopped Daniel from throwing out his arms in jubilation was the nature of the world before him, and he looked at the tall buildings, their thousand-windows gleaming in the sun. He looked at the cars and grimaced at the sound of their horns and squealing engines. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of their exhaust.
By now, some of the people walking in the streets down the long stairway from the temple door had stopped to look up at Daniel, and he looked down at them. It was the world he remembered, but it was… different somehow. The cars were newer; the buildings had changed owners; the people wore different clothes.
Behind him, the temple was the same.
What kind of a building are you? Daniel wondered, staring at the looming stone of the structure that had guarded him carefully these three long years.
As if in response, the door to the temple creaked in a gentle breeze and then it was settled. Looking one last time upon the world outside, Daniel closed the door and filled the temple with darkness. Crossing the hall, he wrapped his fingers around the bloodied sceptre and was comforted.
The next time there was an intruder he’d be ready.
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