The Last Portal Read Online Free Page B

a
T-shirt, then ran down stairs and retrieved the key from under the
couch. The glow was gone, but the red colour returned when he
touched it. He had come to a decision. Somehow, everything was
connected; the key, his dreams, and the creek under the old wooden
bridge. Once and for all he was going to solve this. Although he
had spent many long hours clambering along the local creek beds, he
had never walked up this particular one. He rang Susie and Joe and
asked them to meet him down by the wooden bridge.
    When he
arrived, they were both waiting expectantly. He explained the
events of the previous night, and the strange glow that had come
from the key at the height of the storm. Susie and Joe took it in
turns to hold it. As previously, the key changed to a different
colour each time someone touched it.
    ‘Maybe it
responds to the heat from our hands,’ Susie suggested.
    She climbed
down to the stream, which had swollen to a torrent, and being
careful not to get too close to the muddy water, dipped in one end
of the key. It remained bright yellow, despite the water being much
colder than her hand.
    ‘It’s still
warm,’ she announced.
    ‘We’re all
warm,’ Joe said.
    ‘No, that’s not
what I meant. Whatever this thing is... it’s generating heat. It’s
warmer than my hand, even the end I dipped in the water.’
    Chris was only
partly listening. He started heading downstream to where the valley
narrowed between steep cliffs. Between these cliffs, the stream
seemed to disappear. He shaded his eyes from the glare of the sun,
but still couldn’t see anything beyond a certain point. It was as
though he was looking through a heat haze.
    He hadn’t gone
far when Susie caught up to him. ‘It’s getting warmer.’
    ‘Uh…’
    ‘The
key...’
    She pressed it
into the palm of his hand. The heat was unmistakable. Chris turned
back towards the stream. Now that they were closer to where the
stream seemed to disappear, he could see a circular area that
appeared blurred. They climbed over some boulders and arrived at
the point where the stream narrowed. A little further on,
everything, the rocks, the water and the bushes that hugged the
banks of the stream, all seemed to blur.
    ‘Can anyone see
where the stream leads?’ Chris asked. He could tell from the frowns
and squinting eyes that it wasn’t just his imagination. They
finally stopped directly in front of some type of distortion. Ahead
was a blurred area with the stream flowing through its centre.
    ‘This is
unreal,’ Chris muttered under his breath.
    ‘Awesome,’ Joe
agreed, drawing alongside him.
    The distortion
started spinning. The key flew out of Chris’s hand and vanished
into the blur. Suddenly they found themselves struggling against a
powerful wind that threatened to suck them into a growing vortex.
Chris felt himself being dragged forward as the vortex spun faster
and faster, increasing the strength of the wind. As the wind
increased, the stream itself appeared to lift up and funnel into
the centre of the vortex. Leaves, branches of trees and even small
rocks flew past him. The force continued to build until Chris felt
his feet sliding on the loose gravel of the creek bed. Susie flew
past and vanished, followed closely by Joe. Finally, Chris was
swept up and sucked headfirst through the vortex after his
friends.

Chapter
2
    Cathora
     
    Chris tumbled a short
distance and ended up in the middle of a prickly bush. He was
completely soaked. The key had landed next to him, amongst some
rocks. When he picked it up, although still warm, it was much
cooler than before, and changed immediately to red. The wind that
had thrown him through the vortex only moments earlier was gone. In
fact the distortion itself was now barely visible and could easily
be missed. And there was something else; a control panel, or
something resembling one, close to the distortion.
    Joe and Susie
had landed in an untidy heap some distance away and were slowly
untangling themselves,