Freedom felt a lot like walking down a dirty industrial street in his socks, holding a pair of grimy work boots. Leo didn't care. He practically floated home, the ridiculousness of his situation overshadowed by pure, exhilarating joy. He was unemployed. He had no official income. And he had never been happier.
Back in his apartment, with the door locked and the world shut out, he kicked off his socks and did something he hadn't done in a long time: nothing. He lay on his mattress in the middle of the afternoon and just stared at the ceiling, savoring the silence, a quiet punctuated only by the now-comforting sight of crates filled with cash-generating bottles.
But idleness wasn't in his nature, not anymore. Now that his time was truly his own, his mind buzzed with questions. He'd been so focused on the logistics of his water business that he had neglected the most important aspect of his gift: exploration.
He put on a fresh pair of sneakers, grabbed a bottle of Clarity and a granola bar from a new box he'd bought with his pizza, and stashed a flashlight in his pocket. It was time to map his territory.
He opened the bathroom door, stepping into the now-familiar twilight forest. "Okay," he said to the silent trees. "Let's see what's out there."
He picked a direction and started walking. The forest was endlessly beautiful, a constantly shifting tapestry of glowing flora and gargantuan trees. After about twenty minutes of walking at a brisk pace, he expected the scenery to change, to open into a plain or a mountain range. Instead, he saw something that didn't make sense.
It was a wall. Not a wall of brick or stone, but a shimmering, semi-transparent barrier of energy that stretched from the forest floor up into the dark indigo sky. It hummed with a low, silent power, distorting the air around it like heat haze on a summer road. He cautiously reached out a hand. As his fingers got within a foot of the barrier, the air grew thick and heavy, pushing back with a gentle but absolute firmness. He couldn't touch it.
Curious, he turned and walked along the wall's perimeter. It was perfectly smooth, without any seams or breaks. He followed it for nearly an hour, and it curved gently, consistently. A horrifying realization dawned on him: this wasn't a wall. It was a dome. He was inside a massive, enclosed space. A terrarium. A prison?
Panic began to bubble in his chest. Was this place a beautiful trap? He focused his thoughts, picturing his shabby apartment bathroom, the peeling paint, the dripping faucet. He took a step forward, intending to manifest a door.
A glowing rectangle of light shimmered into existence before him. On the other side, he could see his linoleum floor. Relief washed over him so intensely he felt light-headed. He could leave from anywhere inside the dome. The portal was his key. But he couldn't go outside the dome. Not from here, anyway. And the portals were tied to their origin points; this exit would only lead back to his bathroom. He couldn't open a door here that would pop out in Mr. Kim's back room. One entrance, one exit.
His curiosity piqued again, he let the exit portal fade and continued his exploration. If there was a wall, maybe there was a door.
And eventually, he found one.
It was set into a part of the dome where the silver-barked trees grew thickest. But this door wasn't like the rest of the wall. It was formed from living vines and luminous, interwoven plants, pulsing with a gentle green light. It was closed tight, a seamless tapestry of living wood and leaves.
And sitting before it, meditating on polished flat stones, were figures.
They looked like people, but leaner, more graceful. They had long, silver hair that seemed to capture the ambient light, and their ears tapered to elegant points. They wore simple, flowing robes of white and green. Elves. The realization hit Leo with the certainty of a comic book fan identifying a superhero.
There were three of them, sitting perfectly still, their eyes closed. A faint, silvery aura pulsed around them in time with their slow, deep breaths. They were so still, so serene, that for a moment Leo thought they might be statues.
He ducked behind the trunk of a massive tree, his heart pounding. People! Well, elves. This changed everything. Were they prisoners, too? They sat before the only door out, but they weren't trying to open it. They seemed... to be guarding it. Or waiting.
As he watched, one of them opened its eyes. They were the color of molten silver, and they fixed on him instantly. There was no way he should have been seen. He was a hundred feet away, hidden in deep shadow. But the elf's gaze cut through the gloom like a laser.
The elf's expression wasn't hostile. It was one of pure, unadulterated shock. The other two opened their eyes, turning to look at him with the same stunned disbelief.
How did a human get in here? This was the Sanctum of Renewal, the most sacred place in the Elven kingdom of Silverwood, shielded by elemental wards that would shred any unauthorized being to ethereal dust. Their finest archers, stationed in the treetops outside the dome, could supposedly strike a falling leaf from a kilometer away. Getting here unnoticed was impossible.
The first elf spoke, its voice like the chime of small bells. The language was melodic and beautiful, utterly incomprehensible to Leo. It seemed to be asking a question.
Leo just stared, his mind blank. What was the protocol here? Do you wave? Say hello?
He realized he was still holding his half-eaten granola bar. A peace offering? He looked at the processed oat bar in his hand, thinking of its high-fructose corn syrup and artificial preservatives. Offering this to these ethereal beings suddenly felt like offering a pile of greasy fast-food wrappers to a king. It was trash. The thought came, sudden and sharp: What if I grew my own food? Here? Fruits, vegetables... clean stuff.
The elves stood up gracefully, their movements fluid and silent. They began to walk towards him, their silver eyes wide with a mixture of caution and overwhelming curiosity. Their robes didn't rustle. They didn't make a sound.
This was too much. Leo was a water smuggler, not an ambassador to a magical elf kingdom.
Panicking, he did the only thing he could think of. He pictured his bathroom door, squeezed his eyes shut, and practically dove into the glowing rectangle of light that appeared before him.
He tumbled out onto his linoleum floor, his heart racing. He slammed the phantom portal shut behind him, plunging his apartment back into gloom.
On the other side of the dimensional divide, the three elven guardians stopped dead in their tracks. The strange, plainly-dressed human with the odd-smelling food hadn't run. He hadn't fought.
He had simply vanished into thin air.
They looked at each other, their serene composure shattered for the first time in a century. A being had breached their most sacred defenses without effort and then disappeared without a trace. They didn't know if they had just met a god, a demon, or something far, far stranger.