Rook?

Chapter 11

Nifty sat down.
For weeks he had been alone with the noises, the shadows, and the impossible little details. Now Corey was back.
Whatever was happening, Nifty did not have to face it by himself. It's Time For a while they talked about everything except the collection.
Eventually Corey looked toward the drawings. "You waited." He said
Nifty shrugged.
"Needed a few more changes." Nifty replied Corey smiled. "Of course you did."
Nifty tried not to smile back.
They both knew the truth. Nifty had wanted his friend there.
Corey pulled a chair beside him. "Ready?” He asked
Nifty looked around the cabin.
At the drawings. At the faces from home.
At the leaf and stone resting beside the computer. Then at Corey.
"Yeah." Before they began, Nifty reached beneath a stack of papers and pulled out one drawing. Corey recognized the face immediately.
“Rook” nifty said softly, he had drawn him more times than anyone else from home.
This version was newer. Cleaner.
But Nifty had spent most of the previous night changing tiny details no one else would have noticed. "You miss him," Corey said.
Nifty kept his eyes on the page. "Yeah." There was nothing clever to add to it.
For a few seconds the cabin was quiet. Then Nifty set the drawing beside the computer, close enough to see while they worked.
They went through everything one final time. Artwork.
Descriptions. Files.
Details. Nothing was left unfinished.
Nifty placed his hand on the mouse. For just a second, he hesitated.
These were not merely pictures to him. They were memories.
People. Pieces of a life he had nearly lost.
Then Nifty clicked the final button. The collection went live.
At that exact moment the cabin shook as sound hit the cabin like the sky had split open. A loud thunderous roar came from somewhere outside.
Then a sharp, violent crack. Nifty and Corey jumped from their chairs.
"What was that?" Corey shouted
Neither waited for an answer. They rushed outside.
The forest was still. No fallen tree.
No lightning. No smoke.
Corey turned slowly, searching the darkness. "Nifty." Nifty followed his stare.
Several yards from the cabin, between two trees, something hung in the air. At first it looked like a thin purple line.
Then the line moved. It split slightly at the center.
Light leaked through. Nifty took one step
forward. "Don't touch it," Corey said.
"I wasn't going to." Nifty replied. T
he crack widened another inch. Not in a wall.
Not in glass, just in nothing.
A fracture suspended in empty air. Purple light trembled along its edges.
Nifty moved closer. Through the narrow opening he could see color.
Not the dark greens and browns of the human forest. Something brighter.
Something familiar. He tried to catch his breath.
The crack widened again. A sliver of sky appeared on the other side.
Nifty knew that sky. He knew the shape of the distant trees.
He knew the strange light touching the ground. Corey looked at him and said
"What is it?"
Nifty stepped closer. His voice barely came out.
"That's my world." The Other Side For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Everything Nifty had tried to preserve with pencil, paper, and memory was there.
Not imagined. Not drawn.
There on the other side of a crack hanging impossibly between two trees.
Nifty's eyes filled with details he had been terrified he would forget.
The color of the sky.
The plants. The distant shapes.
It was home..
Corey stared through the opening.
Every story Nifty had ever told him had just become real in a way even meeting Nifty had not prepared him for. Then something moved.
Far beyond the crack, a shape stepped into view. Nifty went still.
The figure stopped. Even through the narrow opening, Nifty could tell it was looking directly at them.
It began walking closer. Corey glanced at Nifty.
"Do you know them?" Nifty did not answer.
The figure stepped into the strange light on the other side.
A familiar uneven grin. A nick along one ear.
The same face that had been sitting beside Nifty's computer only moments before. Nifty forgot how to breathe.
"Rook?" On the other side of the crack, Rook stopped too. For one split second, neither of them moved.