The Door to Fiction

Today is the first day that I, George, get to work with my best friend; we got a new job at the same place, the FCF. People know it is a Federal office, but its true purpose is known to only a few. FCF actually stands for the Federal Center of Fiction. Authors of fiction are all registered in files, but me and my friend have a bigger purpose than to classify files and papers. We are going to guard a door in the basement of the FCF building. We’re not supposed to say what it contains; everyone who went through that door never came back. But that’s not the worst. The worst are the things that could come out of that door, into our world.

Me and my friend Jake arrived at work early for our first day. We had already done a training yesterday and learned all the emergency codes. We switched our clothes for black costumes each equipped with one revolver, one knife, and one sword. All in black, we went down the stairs until we reached the cold and dark basement. There was nothing, except for the door and an emergency button. The door was two meters high and many symbols were carved on it. We were impressed.

Our morning was easy; literally nothing happened near the door. So, we were more off-guard in the afternoon which ended up being a huge mistake. Around two o’clock, we were making jokes when a pounding came from the door. Soon, sounds were coming from the door every minute. The boss had clearly said that absolutely nothing was supposed to come from the door, including sounds. We should have made the emergency code as soon as it happened once, but, instead, we got closer to the door to listen. The sounds were too blurry to be identified. We still got closer and when my hand touched the door, it flew open. Jake looked at me and went for the emergency button. He told me to run to the boss, but before either of us could sound the alarm, we were sucked through the door.

We had both lost consciousness. When we woke up, the door and the room were gone. We were in the middle of London, near nighttime.

’Hey George, you okay?’

’Yeah fine and you?’

’Well yeah, I just don’t get why we’re in London. What’s in London already?’

’Come on Jake, I bet it’s Harry Potter’ I answered, excited by the idea of meeting the boy who lived. Jake did not seem excited though.

’Does this mean Voldemort is also here?’

’I guess?’ I realized what was the biggest problem in worlds of fiction: the villains. And which villain would say no to another world, ours, to terrorize? It was important not to reveal the secret of the fiction door.

’George, do you think we’ll be fired?’

’Yeah, I don’t think the boss is going to forgive us.’ As soon as I finished talking, something roared in the distance. We looked around but could not see anything suspicious. Jake and I started walking on one of the many streets and looked around. The roaring grew louder and closer. We followed the sound until we arrived in a park, no idea which. We saw it, a disgusting monster with tentacles.

’That’s not Harry Potter’ I said.

’And that’s not the 21^st century’ Jake added.

I looked around and understood. There was no car, only carriages, and horses. We were so caught up on the question of the time we were in, that we forgot the horrible creature. The roar we heard next was right behind us. We turned around slowly and fell face to face with the monster. We screamed and everyone in the park looked at us in annoyance. They did not see the monster. We started running and, when we turned around, the creature was not following us. It was actually occupied with tattooed fighters wielding shiny blades. We hid in the bushes; if we could get a better view of these heroes, then perhaps we would know in which fiction world we were.

When the monster was disintegrated by one of the shiny swords, a man with black hair got a short stick out, a stele. Me and my friend finally figured it out; they were shadowhunters which meant they were in one of Cassandra Clare’s fiction world. The creature was a demon, and the tattoos were runes. Jake had read those books a few weeks earlier.

’Jake, where would she hide the door in her world?’

’I think I have an idea; Henry’s the best inventor and it might be hidden in his lab.’

All night long we walked in London streets until we reached the London institute where Henry would be. They could not reveal the purpose of the door; they would have to enter the building and go through the door without getting caught.

We succeeded to reach the lab and luckily, it was breakfast for the characters. We searched on every wall, but it was not there. On our way out, Jake stumbled on something on the floor, the doorknob. We heard voices coming, we did not lose time, we jumped right through the door.

When we got out of the door, we were back in the room, safe. We were so relieved. We went up the stairs and we had to find the boss. At the top of the stairs, two men were holding guns in our direction.

’We’re not from fiction, we just came back’ said Jake to the guards.

’We have to bring you to the boss’ one of the guards answered.

We were glad, that’s who we were looking for anyway. We took the elevator to the last floor. The guards escorted us to an office.

’Are you new?’ I asked the guards.

’We’ve been working here for 20 years’, the tallest guard answered.

’Really? Because we started the job yesterday’ Jake said.

’Not possible, we were the ones working’ one of them replied.

We entered the office, and I was wondering, did we spend more time than we thought in a fiction world? We faced the boss just like the guards said, except that wasn’t our boss. We both frowned.

’You look disoriented’ the guy said. I was not sure how to call him anymore.

’Well, we went through the door yesterday’ Jake spoke, not sure.

’Sit down. We’ll figure out from which story you are from’

’We’re from here, the real world’ I told him. He frowned.

’What are your names?’

Jake answered for both of us, ’I’m Jake Thompson, and that’s George Bowell.’

The guy searched on his computer, then looked at us. 'I am sorry guys, but you do come from a fiction world’ he said, seriously. ’You come from the story named ’The Door to Fiction’ and its world looks like ours, which might be why you are confused.’

I was amazed, was this really the real world? Then, we would have been living in a fiction world since we were born.