"Mommy, Jamie's having an athsma attack!"
Caroline comes running out the door of the house to her eldest son. "Jamie! James, breathe!" She lays him down and forces a pill down his throat. The ten year old swallows automatically, still desperately trying to catch his breath.
A few minutes later, an ambulance screeches down the street. Caroline leaps up and waves her arms. "Over here, over here!" But the ambulance does not stop at her house; it travels four more houses down to the Robersons' house. The paramedics clamber out and come back with a teenager named Heidi strapped to the stretcher. Heidi is struggling to breathe and they hold an oxygen mask to her face.
Caroline flags them down and soon Jamie is breathing through an oxygen mask, too. The paramedics look harried and they all breathe hard. Caroline suddenly realizes that she, too, cannot seem to catch her breath.
She feels a little tug at her pants. "Mommy, I'm tired!" Sally stumbles as she walks as if extremely dizzy.
By the time the portals reopen, letting in a flood of air, all the stored oxygen is used up and the people are dead.
*****
"Obie, don't run off!" the little boy heard but he was having far too much fun to pay any heed. It was his first trip outside of his home neighborhood out into the rest of Nexus. Finally, he was old enough to see the rest of the world!
Everywhere he turned, there was the sparkle that told him that a portal to a different realm or place was there. Mother had been so worried about so many portals in one place, telling Father that they would all get lost, but Father just laughed. Other families were trekking through the passageway, but since none of them were near his age, Obie ignored them. Instead, he focused on the portals.
Most of them were blank, but a few showed scenes of the worlds on the other side. Obie stared at snowscapes and jungles, under the sea and harsh deserts. One was a city and another looked just like his neighborhood!
He gazed most at an open meadow, where he could see horses...his favorite! He looked over his shoulder to see where his parents were. They were talking to another family, not really watching him. What would be the harm in going to this world, for just a moment? He'd be right back! And wouldn't they be proud at how brave he was?
He stepped through the portal, onto the meadow. His happy cry scared the horses though. They ran off away from him, till he couldn't see them anymore. With his potenital playmates gone, he turned back to the portal. pouting. On the other side, he could see his mother yelling for him, his father already heading toward the portal to bring him back. Obie sighed and got ready to step through the portal...which suddenly vanished!
Obie stared in shock at the air that used to be all sparkly and showing his father and mother. "Mommie?" he called. "Daddie?" he called more urgently.
"Mommie?!?! Daddie?!?!" Obie screamed, on an open empty meadow, toward a portal that none could would open again...
Do not copy or quote the above material without the expressed consent of the owner of this page.