A Window To Hope.Or Oblivion...

The stars were blinking in and out of the inky void of a sky. That was the first sign that something was abnormal. The dazzling specks of light were there, gone, then back again. For a moment, Garrett Thompson invited the thought that his last fight with that Brute gave him a concussion, but that thought was quickly put to the side, however, as though the small window, a whispering draft of cool wind crept into his nose, carrying pine and wet grass. Garrett relaxed as the familiar scent reminded him of simpler times. Times when he’d sit on the grass in a kid-less park and read the newest issues of his favorite comic books, watching as the wakeful yellow sun descended to a warm orange and slowly trodded down to crimson with the hue of violet lining the horizon. All until it was gone, and he was back in his bedroom, looking out at the starry night sky…

Only the starry night sky Garrett was viewing through that particular window wasn’t one of the fallen stars whose light was finally reaching him, but of living stars running. Running from something. Each blink of a star was a life loss. A life being taken. Garrett didn’t know this though. He only saw a surreal light show before the window changed before him. Literally. It was hard oak, then the next it was a tall mirrored window, from floor to ceiling and now Garrett wasn’t looking out into a night, but a fiery day, a bright star in the center of his vision, far too large to be the sun, and not as humble, as it's ferocity was setting the world outside in ablaze. Garrett’s eyes traced the ground hundreds of floors below, as little fiery dots sprinted and ran in agony. The inferno was unmerciful and all-consuming.

As quick as the fire appeared, it disappeared and in front of Garrett now was an old creaking window, where outside its occupancy, a mist loomed in a dark field. Deep in his thoughts, Garrett wanted to pull away, to divert his eyes from it, but he willed himself on, to keep viewing, to keep staring through the window and outside. The dark mist slithered across overgrown grass and faint whispers entered the boy’s ears. Most words were indistinguishable but the one he could fathom sent creeping cold talons across his nerves. The mist seemed to part and out of that gap, a huddle of figures appeared. To the blurry eye, they appeared human, but Garrett knew with certainty, that most humans were eight feet tall, emaciated like corpses, and faceless except for stretched skin widening where their mouths were when they spotted him through the window. They were a mile away, then only a few yards. It only took the first blink, for Garrett to move on to the next world, the next viewing.

He was looking at the infinite expansion of space, nebulas in the distance, orbiting solar systems, gaseous giants for planets, and even a black hole. Colors misted around space, leaving Garrett awestruck. He saw it. A little dot, arcing across space. It grew until the lit revealed itself as a hunk of large metal, a spacecraft, not slick and clean like the ones Garrett saw in his favorite books, but monstrous, barbarian in size and trailing fire behind it. If there was sound, he would have heard it roaring with psychotic glee as it traveled to the next planet it was going to conquer. Garrett moved on.

Garrett looked through a dingy window stained with dried red liquid to see a scuffling through an alleyway. Sudden lights along with booms appeared and its originators sprinted away from their bullets’ target. A cloaked figure traced after them, but not before stopping, and turning its head to look into Garrett’s eyes. Garrett changed the scene again. The window was maintained, freshly painted, but the scent of rotten meat and smoke made him grimace. Outside, in the lightless world beyond, limping dead things walked the streets. Garrett cursed to himself. He didn’t need to see that world, that’s for sure.

His quest continued. One world, to another, one window, to the next. Behind the terror and disgust, glee and nostalgia Garrett felt, there was curiosity. The same throbbing energy he felt when he first opened that box on his doorstep when he was thirteen and found the Omnitour and its A.I. A.D.O.N.N.A. He felt its electrical surge meet him once again. He kept watching, kept viewing. A world of machines, a world of living rainbows, a world of sentient clouds, warring Atlanteans and Earthbenders, fiery men fighting against kaiju, titans fighting against the very gods of space themselves. The boy’s eyes ached from unblinking. His hands felt raw as he clasped the edge of the window tighter and tighter. His mouth was gaped open, then twisted into a smile, looks of terror.

Behind Garrett, lounging in a soft maroon chair by a fireplace, was a lone man. Well no necessarily a man, more so a being that decided to look like a man, all the way down to the ebony skin, long locs for hair and slim gold-rimmed glasses that went alongside his tan sweater, brown slacks, and dark loafers. This being has lived for millennia, filled with the same awe as the boy had as he stared out into the window of The Orrery, the middle ground of the Multiverse. This entity admired the young human’s passion, determination, and hope. No matter how many endings Garrett Thompson has seen of worlds, no matter how many pestilences or apocalypses he grew paranoia at, he still kept looking. The entity, once a being known as an angel, but banished from his heaven by a father and brother he neither sided with, felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time: happiness.

This entity, who went by many incomprehensible names, but preferred to be called Sergei, knew for a fact, that this Garrett Thompson was himself an anomaly of existence. He could see it. Although humans and other middle-dimensional beings couldn’t see into the electromagnetic spectrum as higher beings like him, Sergei could, even more than his brothers. The boy wasn’t a boy. On the outside yes, short, young, and vibrant, but stained with loss and battle(the scars and pending muscles showed that) but on the inside…

He was changing. Not his bone structure, nervous system, or even his endocrine system, but truly inside. It was so great of a change that it was affecting the boy’s physiology itself. Garrett made note of this for a time. How one time he had trouble adjusting to the new sleep patterns of different earths, changes in altitude, atmosphere, etcetera, now he could sleep for only four hours and feel as if he’s overslept. How old muscle aches and wounds bothered him for weeks a month or two, now healed in days. How languages he didn’t know he needed to know, now imprinted themselves into his mind and alongside that, tactics and styles of combat, unarmed and armed.

What Garrett didn’t know was although Sergei was not bothered by tiny things like physics, chemistry, and other areas, he was in fact a scientist in a way. He tested the scientific method on him after all. Yes, Garrett, used his new abilities to open a doorway to another dimension, but it was Sergei who spared him from walking into a world of eternal burning light, and instead into a corrido where each door literally was a way into parallel earths. He tested the boy for a while, watching, waiting as Garrett saw every door appear more nightmarish and cruel until finally, he intervened and introduced himself to the first human ever to be in his home.

What he saw as a lower lifeform to be used as an experiment now was being liked by him now. It was why he allowed the boy to view the window, to see into so many worlds. He wanted the boy to find the secret to it himself. It was more impactful that way. Yes, he could have told him, the secret to his power is not only concentration, but emotion, but he did enjoy watching the human’s thought process flow in front of him like thought boxes of a comic book. Sergei was weirdly entertained like that.

“Heh,” Garrett muttered. Sergei smiled as he read his book. He was figuring it out. Garrett remembered one of the happiest times of his life. It was the first time he saw Spider-Man 2 in theaters in his costume bouncing around as Spider-Man returned to defeat Doc-Ock. The powerful cheerfulness he had. He could feel it then. When he blinked the window in front of him changed. No longer was he looking at a world underwater, swimming with humanoid crocodiles, but now into a shining city. Cars flew in a system of traffic as, through the metal maze, colorful silhouettes in capes soared the skies. Some smiled and waved at people through windows as Garrett felt that same feeling all those years ago. A well of tears started to flood up into his eyes. A smile formed on his face. He remembered his most loving moment, where he truly felt love for somebody besides his family.  Sasha’s face appeared in his mind. Light brown skin appearing like dark caramel in sunlight, shimmering black curls bouncing as they ran alongside each other, not on some adventure into danger, but in the park, back on his original earth, playing of all games, frisbee. Sasha said it was for hand-eye coordination, but Garrett knew better. She was softening up to him. 

Her smiled made butterflies shoot off into his stomach. How she looked at him with golden brown eyes and he noticed she had dimples. Dimples. Garrett felt those same butterflies flutter in him once again. The window changed and suddenly, he was looking out unto an amalgamation of a world. Not too advanced to prohibit the thousands of rooftops sprayed with trees and plant life, and not too natural to prevent solar-powered cars to hover down below. On the streets, a parade was commencing. Crowds of people, of all cultures, colors, creeds, religions, and customs smiling, hugging each other, cheering, and laughing. A Utopia of love.

Sergei finally finished his latest copy of a Stephen King novel. He stood and joined next to Garrett as they stared out into that world. He patted the human on the shoulder. “They’re out there somewhere. Not some alternate version of them. But actually them!” Garrett turned to him. “It's all so simple now...how come I didn’t see it before?”

“It's never that simple Mr. Thompson,” Sergei spoke. “As my brethren said,” Sergei commented, and spoke in a language no human could understand. Garrett looked confused. Then a bell ringed in his head. “Human emotions ain't even like that!” Sergei grinned. The boy knows Enochian too now. Hmm…

The two stared out into a different world. This time a nuclear wasteland, except for a small bubble, showing a clear blue sky and a town celebrating its world’s favorite holiday. The little dome had a tiny ripple and Garrett watched as a figure entered the dome. His crimson cloak sent shivers down his spine. “No…”

“Yes,” Sergei answered.

Garrett felt the hot coils ascend up to his chest. Boiling anger. He corrected himself. Victorious was still out there, plaguing worlds with his-

“Assholery,” Garrett muttered to himself. Sergei raised an eyebrow. “Your training is not yet done, Mr. Thompson. There’s just a few more I would like you to meet.” Sergei put his hand on the window and the scene changed. Tight sandy alleyways with running children filled Garrett’s vision. “It is not out that we are seeking. But within” Sergei flexed his fingers on the glass, and as if a camera was turning, their perspectives changed. Now they were in a candlelit room, looking at a figure meditating in a circle. The smell of herbs and smoke trailed Garrett’s nose. The figure hummed to himself a mantra before he changed. No longer was he a small weakling of a man, but tall, with muddy brown skin, clad in images across his body from scarification and ash-like paint across his body. The figure stood and faced the two staring into the void into the Orrery. 

“Garrett Noel Thompson,” the figure said as a long staff appeared out of the air into his hand. Garrett looked back to him then at Sergei. Sergei nodded to the man. “He is one of the finest half-humans I know. He’s a ‘shaman’ if you will call him that. We call him Sagewalker. He’ll be your next teacher.”

Before Garrett could speak, Garrett felt his porous skin open to sweat as the hot and humid room met him. He was alone, no Orrery, no Sergei, only himself standing in front of Sagewalker. The man appeared like a ghost at first, shimmering like water. Garrett’s blood rushed the opposite direction of his head and he felt one step and he would collapse and keep falling. Goosebumps rose in his skin, and his stomach gurgled. It took Garrett a moment before he could concentrate and that’s when Sagewalker spoke. “The smoke you inhaled has clouded your senses. Give yourself time to recuperate. In the meantime, we shall talk.”

Garrett had a halfway between “Cool Sorceror Supreme vibes” and half  “Papa Midnight” with the man, but if Sergei chose him as his next teacher then, there must be a reason. Anything would have to work. No matter who and no matter what it took, Garrett would find his way home, and he and Victorious would finally, meet again at last.