The Angel of Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil (from Old Norse Yggdrasill) is an immense mythical tree that plays a central role in Norse cosmology, where it connects the different worlds. 

Officer Nicholas Freeman wakes up in an expansive chamber that seems to go on forever. The dirt floors appear to be fashioned into tiles and the wooden walls curl up to the ceiling coming together like tendrils. The most disconcerting feature of the wooden palace is the parade of doors on either side of the hallway. There has to be a hundred in his line of sight, but he figures there has to be hundreds more beyond the vanishing point. Or maybe millions. 

Nick gets over his momentary awe to get to the first piece of business -- grabbing his gun. Sometime between walking into the treehouse and ending up in wherever this is he must have been hit over the head. The last thing he remembers is looking for a missing kid.

Nick gets to his feet and is immediately startled by a young faced man in all white. He glows in an eerie sort of way that unsettles the officer. Out of pure instinct, Nick aims his gun. The young man does not flich. It is as if he has never even seen a gun to be scared of it.

Nonetheless, Nick feels enough in charge to pose the question. “Where am I?”

“You’re in a treehouse.”

“Don’t bullshit me. I was in a treehouse but someone hit me over the head and brought me to this -- whatever this is.”

“No one hit you over the head.”

Nick hates to admit it, but what the stranger is saying is true: he doesn’t remember being hit over the head. There’s just a lapse in his memory.

“You temporarily lost consciousness,” he goes on to explain -- but what comes out of the stranger’s mouth next is what raises Nick’s antennae.

“Transitioning to another realm,” the stranger says, “will do that to a mortal being.”

Nick holds his gun more firmly as if insanity was a crime punishable by death.

“What do you just say?”

“I’m sorry. Is mortal being not the - what is it - the ‘politically correct’ thing to say in your world? Did I just get canceled.”

Nick wants to ‘cancel’ him for playing so dumb, but he repeats, “Another realm?”

“Yes, you are in Yggdrasil.”

“Yig -- what? Is that some new drug?”

“No, its -- you know that weapon won’t work on me.”

“Oh what you’re like Captain America or somethin’? You superman? Well if you don’t mind I’ll keep this aimed at you until I get some questions answered --”

“You haven’t asked about the boy.”

Nick paused wondering how this man knew about the boy and how he knew...

“I was getting to the boy. And how you know about the boy.”

“Your arms aren’t getting tired of holding that gun up.”

“Your mouth ain’t gettin’ tired of feedin’ me BS. Now give me a straight answer. Where are we?”

“I told you, you’re in the treehouse. Well, technically. This is a porthole to different realities. Same place. Different dimensions.”

“Ha. Right. Different dimensions. Sure I didn’t stumble into a crack house?”

“Oh fine. I suppose when it comes to matters of magic and mystery a person’s word can only go so far. Follow me and I will show you what you seek.”

Nick’s gun never leaves the stranger as he follows him up the endless line of doors. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off him -- but he does occasionally look up to see if an end to the hallway is coming. He tries to hide all external effects of the sickness germating in his stomach as there is no end in sight.

“Can I ask a question?” the stranger posed, the gun at his head not even a nuisance.

“If you’re looking for a game of good cop bad cop, the good cop ain’t here.”

“So you consider yourself a bad cop?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That is how it sounded, by no matter. The question is why are a cop?”

“What kind of nonsense question is that?”

“What? You don’t know.”

“Of course I know. I just don’t feel like fifty questions when I’m trapped in some bazaar place out of a sci-fi movie.”

“Well, in most customs, the role of an enforcer comes with some sort of heroic element to it.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Now are we there yet.”

The young man stops abruptly as if someone has just whispered in his ear telling him to do so.

“We are here,” he says.

The two of them stand there for a moment, before Nick gets irritated.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Open it,” he says, wielding the gun with authority.

The young man shrugs and strolls toward the door and opens it. What Nick sees is what any person would be terrified to see: himself. He is sitting in a chair, face pale and lifeless. Were it not for the spot on facial features, Nick would not have recognized himself. Because this man does not have the stringent posture Nick has grown to embody. The ever-present wariness of his surroundings. This man’s shoulder’s droop forward. His spine contorts into a hook pointing his soul to hell and he wails like a baby to the point that Nick is disgusted.

He slams the door.

“Who was that?”

“That was you. Well, not you you. You in another reality.”

“Another reality?”

“Yes, a reality where you don’t have your badge to protect you.”

“Watch your mouth,” Nick says, aiming the gun even harder.

But the stranger continues, some outward force pushing him to continue his speech. 

“You lied,” he narrated. “You aren’t a cop because you want to be a hero.”

“Did you hear me!”

“Without your gun, or your power, that man in the doorway is who you are,” he finishes, saying the obvious. “You’re a cop because you're a coward.” 

Nick wraps his wrists around the stranger’s neck and much to Nick’s rage, the young man’s expression does not change. Calm, peaceful, the strangling is having no effect.

The  crystal clear quality of the man’s voice is not even affected, he continues.

“That’s why when you woke, your first thoughts were not for the boy.”

“Shut up --”

“Your first thoughts were to escape --”

He shoots the gun into the man’s head. He turns away from the body, somehow knowing what the effect will be.

Nick is sweating, breathing hard, his thoughts having run a marathon. He says to the figure he knows lurking over his shoulder.

“It wasn’t always like that -- at first I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to protect the little guy from the big guy but somewhere down the line --”

“You became the big guy.”

Nick turns and as expected, the man who he sentenced to death is still intact, not a single remnant of a hole where the bullet wound should be -- let alone a scratch.

The stranger then outstretches his arms, palms facing the walls and a door opens on either side of him.

The right one is a bright blue -- the treehouse where he first when in to find the kid.

The left is a dark oxblood color -- torrid winds exuding from the aperture.

“The left,” he explains, “is Earth from the Insippian plane of existence with monstrous carnivores similar to your earthly dinosaurs -- but closer to the dragons of lore. They roam the world and rip apart whatever they see -- they boy is safe for now, but he’s scared, and he is alone. You can save him, but the chances are small.”

“The other place,” the man goes on, “is home.”

Nick feels the blazing heat on his left cheek -- scalding and merciless like being dipped in a witch’s caldron. On his other side, a breeze escapes and brushes against his cheek like a mother’s welcoming touch.

Nick tries to hold back the feeling but tears form in the corner of his eye and a renegade tear tapers down the surface of his face splattering onto the floor.

He mourns because he knows who he is now. 

He knows which door he will choose.