Inga, a young professional expat is seeking herself, and looking for love and good life & work. Everything seems great, until she stumbles upon the biggest secret in her life. A hidden world begins to unravel in front of her eyes. How can she know what is real?
Inga never imagined her life to turn upside down like this. After getting hired into a prestigious company in Seattle, Inga was hopelessly falling for Alex, who doesn’t seem to be interested in her. Soon Alex realizes Inga is very good at her work and decides to exploit her talents, until they both get fired. As a result, Inga loses everything: her job, apartment, independence and self-confidence.
Meeting an artist, who also has visited the alternative reality, helps Inga to cope with her life. Inga wants to prove to Alex that her love and the alternative reality are both true, but almost gets them both killed by trying to visit together the place in between. Alex begins to resent Inga and decides to destroy her.
Rainbow in Kaanapali, HI - NCS 2021
Two moons
Turning her face up, Inga gazed at the two moons. While both were having friendlier color than the cool moon in Seattle or Waikiki, to her eye they also seemed to have slightly different hue. The bigger one shone with a touch of red tones in its light.
I wonder how many others have watched these moons. This is like being a part of an ancient ritual.
Inga closed her eyes letting moons shower her with their gentle light.
I can almost feel the light on my face.
The moons had been here before the dawn of humanity, and they would remain here long after humans had vanished.
The Forest
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Stepping through the invisible gate with Alex was a very unsettling experience for Inga.
Instead of feeling the usual tingles and wonderful clarity enveloping her after the step, Inga was left with her heart racing and a cold sweat building on her forehead. She looked around and couldn’t see a tiniest flicker of blue anywhere, no ocean, no sky, just more of the trees and moss and huge boulders of cold rock. What is this place? And the time has changed. Shadows are so short it must be noon. Huge dark trees were looming over her, taking away the comforting presence of sunlight. These passive-aggressive giants were just waiting for the intruders to make a mistake and give them a reason to attack.
“What is this? Where ARE we?” said Alex, pale and breathing heavily. He sounded absolutely terrified; an expression Inga had never before heard in his voice.
“I don’t know. I have never been here before” said Inga, swallowing tears and fear.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” said Alex, and grabbed Inga’s shoulders, furiously shaking her so hard her teeth clattered.
“You have been vanishing into the secret world of yours for several weeks now, talking about what a wonderful place it is, with a cabin and all. So where – is – it?” The three last words were accentuated with three additional shakes.
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“Let go of me!” said Inga and stepped backwards. “This place is nothing like my cabin on the beach. I can’t see or even hear the ocean, so I have no idea about where we could be. Let’s try going back where we came from!”
Inga knew better than that, but she still wanted to try to track their few steps to the place where the portal had been. Yep, the gate already vanished, this is another anomaly. But how did this happen? And how can we get back
? Nauseating panic began to tie her insides into tight knots. What if they were truly lost, and could never get back home? How could something like this even happen? Inga glanced at Alex, shivering with the thought about the aftermath of this incident when a sudden swooshing sound emanated from the darkest part of the forest. The previous silence they had already gotten used to made this new sound creepier than anything they had ever experienced. Alex and his temper is the smallest of my problems right now!
Sailboat and crab pots
There was a loud thump, when the oar hit her behind the ear. The woman had no time to react to this attack, as she was already unconscious when she hit the deck of the sail boat and laid there limp like a ragdoll. This was probably a good thing, because she would have felt awfully humiliated when her clothes were torn and cut off, and a biodegradable rope was tied to her ankles. The other end of the rope was tied to a defunct crab pot, filled with rocks to keep the body in the bottom of the ocean.
An observer would have noticed the splash, when the incapacitated body was heaved over the ocean side of the boat, alas, there was nobody to witness the violence, except the floating jellyfish hitchhiking a lift from the current, and an occasional seagull flying by the reefs. The time had been carefully chosen: the low tide allowed the body to sink fast to the bottom, and let the crabs to start their feast as soon as possible. Such darlings as the crabs were, efficient and tasty!
The skipper took a last glance over the area, to be sure to visit the same place in few days and see if there was anything suspicious floating around. Then the sails took the wind and the beautiful boat danced over the waves towards the islands.
Dark Rainbow (WIP) is the first book in Dreamportal Series. Stay tuned.