NEW: The Entrance.

 

The entrance lay tangled and close. It shouldn't be here, he knew that. It was never meant to be. But because of so many pathways through time - meeting and crossing, meeting and crossing, the door lay open.

He looked around him, cautiously. Folk. He knew that he was being watched, as he had for much of his life. But now, now the hidden eyes that stared at him from the undergrowth, from the sides of trees, from above crumbling walls, were more intense than ever. He was on the cusp, and he and they knew it.

Was he fated to be here - at this moment, at this space? He inwardly shrugged. The door, after all, lay open for everyone. If you couldn't find your way towards it, that was your doing, no one else's. And he needed that doorway, he had needed it all his life, often without even being aware. He had yearned with all his being, all his soul. Everything had been secondary to him, nothing and no one mattered but the entrance he now stood in front of.

He took a step forward, heard the undergrowth beneath his foot snag and bend. Everything was willing him forward, every living thing around him held its breath in anticipation. Another step forward, another slide towards the darkness.

And then he was gone. The black ink of night beyond the entrance swallowed the boy whole, and he was gone.