Transition

A light flickered on

somewhere at the end of the corridor. Overjoyed, I ran toward it. However, even though I kept running, the mysterious light remained exactly the same distance away as it had been at the beginning. I was about to stop when I saw a large door to my left. On the door hung a sign reading: WELCOME. I opened the door and a long corridor appeared, lit by numerous lamps emitting a cold, pale blue light. To the left of the entrance stood a book on a stand. I walked over to it and opened it. On the first page was the inscription:

Welcome to the world beyond. What was no longer matters. What will be no longer matters. Only what is now matters. Curious,

I wanted to turn the page, but the moment my hand touched the rough paper, I felt a strange sensation. My eyelids began to feel terribly heavy, and my legs felt weak. A second later, I fell senseless to the cold floor.

I don't know how long I lay unconscious, but when I awoke, I felt a searing pain in the finger of my right hand, the one that had touched the book. I looked at my hand and saw the cause of the pain. A sharp needle, resembling the fang of some snake, was embedded in my index finger. I rose to my feet and saw that I was still in a strange chamber, lit by the cold glow of lamps.

After a moment, I spotted a staircase leading upward on the other side of the room. I moved toward it slowly, constantly glancing around. When I reached it, I quickly ascended. This staircase was exceptionally long. It ended about fifteen stories above the mysterious chamber where it began. At the very end of the stairs, I found another door, but this one was significantly different from the previous ones. It was small, colorful, and gave the impression of a passage to some other, cheerful world.

I walked boldly toward them and extended my hand toward the butterfly-shaped doorknob, made of what seemed to be liquid light and shimmering with millions of colors. As soon as my fingers touched the exquisite handle, the butterfly came to life and flew away. A small hole appeared in the door, which in the blink of an eye grew large, becoming a rectangle. Through this opening, I saw a magnificent world full of color, and I longed to be on the other side of the strange passage. As if in response to my thoughts, the butterfly doorknob reappeared and slowly fluttered through the opening, inviting me to do the same. Obedient to the butterfly, I wanted to pass through, but something stopped me. It was a face. Or rather, the reflection of a face in the mirror, which transformed all the walls of the room. But despite the reflection in the mirror, I remained alone.

The face seemed perfectly ordinary, yet it unsettled me. It seemed beautiful, yet hideous. It seemed smooth, yet covered in deep wrinkles. It seemed ruddy, yet deathly pale. It seemed happy, yet inexpressibly sad. Next to that one face appeared another, and then another, until all the mirrored walls were covered with strange faces. Each one was different, but they all had one thing in common: their gaze, directed at me, inspired paralyzing fear and suffocated happiness.

I kept looking around anxiously, trying to grasp some message or warning from those awful faces.

Suddenly, on the other side of the door to that cheerful world, a woman appeared. She looked unusually happy, yet I could have sworn I saw her face among those in the mirrors. I turned quickly and began examining the reflections one by one. I was right. I had found her. Her lips moved rhythmically, as if trying to say something but couldn't. Something was holding her back. I looked back at the woman across the aisle and watched intently.

She lay down on the green grass by a small stream with blue water. She played with a maple leaf, placing it in the water and then taking it out again a second later. And so on, over and over again. Always the same action. You could say the image from the other world was running on a tape that had jammed.

Suddenly, the woman turned her head and looked across the aisle. Right into my eyes. I was startled and quickly closed them. When I looked again, the stranger was crossing the stream. But she continued to stare into my eyes. I felt her gaze pierce me. I silently prayed for her to stop staring at me. For her to go away. Fortunately, I found the courage and strength to look at her reflection in the mirror. It was still trying to speak, but it still couldn't find its voice. Others joined in, and after a moment, I heard a soft rustle behind me. All the faces moved their mouths the same way and I still couldn't understand what they were trying to tell me.

Meanwhile, the mysterious woman was approaching slowly, very slowly, the passage between my world and the one on the other side. She was already about ten meters from her destination. Nine. Eight... And the lips of the figures in the mirrors moved faster and faster... Seven meters... Now the rustling behind me turned into something like the buzzing of bees. Six... Five... Panic began to seize me, and the woman's terrifying gaze never left me. Four... Three... Two... The stranger began to reach out towards me... One... And my right hand, drawn by some strange force, began to rise rapidly, and my legs began to move forward... The woman reached her destination. Our hands met at the border between both worlds. She grabbed me tightly and pulled me toward her... I began to fall, fall, fall... The faces I had seen above danced around me at dizzying speed. They kept repeating the same words as in the hall of mirrors, only now I could hear them speaking. But it was too late...

"In the world beyond the world there is no life left..."