4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
Colours on a Clinic Wall
Her father told stories about doorways made of colour. Glenda half-believed them—the way you half-believe anything beautiful and impossible. But now a patient is whispering words that should never be spoken aloud, and the wall is bleeding light, and her phone shows one word from the man she loves: Run. Some doors only open once. Some choices can't be unmade. She steps through. He follows. And neither world will be the same.
Luke came for a doctor. Jamie is dying in another dimension—wound festering, fever climbing—and Luke needs someone willing to cross lines that most physicians won't acknowledge exist. He's done his research. He knows about the Fox Order. He knows Glenda De Bruyn is more than her white coat suggests.
So when she calls his name in the waiting room, he doesn't list symptoms. He whispers a question: What do you know about The Testing?
Her reaction tells him everything.
Glenda has heard her father speak of Portals—Gebhardt's stories, wrapped in fable, dismissed as fancy. She never expected to see one bloom across her examination room wall, colours swirling like ink in water, impossibly beautiful. She never expected the choice to be so sudden.
Then her phone vibrates. Pierre's message is two words: We've been compromised. Run!
She hands Luke her hospital keys, her ID, her trust. He promises to bring Pierre through. She steps into the light.
Welcome to Clivilius, Glenda De Bruyn.
The newspaper will call it a disappearance. The police will call it suspicious. Only two people know the truth—and one of them just left Earth behind.
