The afternoon shift dragged on under the pale, flickering fluorescent lights of the warehouse. Every scanned barcode, every lifted box, every step on the cold concrete floor felt hollow. Leo's mind was a tangled knot of confusion and suppressed panic. Was this phenomenon tied to his apartment? A geographical anomaly centered on his specific, moldy bathroom? That seemed the most logical explanation in a completely illogical situation.
Two hours after his pathetic lunch, the cheap coffee and a bottle of water he'd filled from the cooler caught up with him. He trudged towards the employee restrooms at the far end of the warehouse, his boots scuffing on the floor.
The work bathroom was as charmless as the rest of the building. Gray cinderblock walls, stainless steel fixtures, and the sharp, chemical smell of industrial-strength cleaner that failed to mask a deeper, unpleasant odor. There were three stalls. He pushed open the door to the one at the end.
And froze.
There was no toilet. No gray walls. No grimy floor.
Instead, a sun-dappled glade stretched out before him. The silver-barked trees were here, too, though the flora was slightly different—patches of flowers that looked like tiny, suspended sunsets, their petals a swirl of orange, pink, and deep violet. A small stream gurgled cheerfully a dozen feet away, its water impossibly clear.
The forest. It wasn't his apartment. It followed him.
A noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaped his lips. His world was officially broken. The rules no longer applied. Standing in a loud, sterile warehouse in one of the most polluted parts of the city, he held open a door to a silent, pristine world.
This time, there was no hesitation. The awe was replaced by a strange, frustrated acceptance. "Fuck it," he sighed, stepping through. He walked to the edge of the stream, finding a relatively secluded spot. This was his life now. Interdimensional piss breaks.
As he stood there, listening to the gentle babble of the water and the soft rustle of alien leaves, the panicked hamster on a wheel in his brain finally slowed down. The fear was still there, but a new thought began to elbow its way to the front. A powerful, life-altering thought, born from two decades of want.
This stream… this whole place… it's empty. There's no one here.
He looked around. No buildings. No people. No 'No Trespassing' signs. It was just… land. Vast, beautiful, unclaimed land.
What if… the thought bloomed, staggering in its simplicity, what if I built a house here?
No more rent. No more dealing with a landlord who considered black mold a "cosmetic issue." No more noisy upstairs neighbors or sirens at 3 a.m. Just… peace. And if a place like this existed, a place untouched by human hands…
What if there's stuff to find? Gold? Gems? Treasure?
His mind, conditioned by years of financial desperation, lit up like a pinball machine. This wasn't just a weird, inconvenient cosmic joke anymore. This was an opportunity. A ridiculous, terrifying, universe-sized opportunity.
He finished his business, his head spinning. He had to know. Was he hallucinating this on a much grander scale than he thought? Was there some kind of gas leak at the warehouse affecting everyone?
He walked back into the stall, the world snapping back to gray concrete and the smell of bleach. He zipped up and stepped out, his face a mask of frantic energy. Sal was walking past, heading back to his station.
"Sal! Hey, man, can you help me for a sec?" Leo called out, his voice higher than usual.
Sal turned, an eyebrow raised. "Yeah, what's up?"
"The latch on this stall," Leo said, thinking fast, "it's acting weird. Can you check it? Just open it and close it. See if it sticks for you." He gestured to the very stall he'd just exited.
Sal shrugged. "Sure, whatever." He walked over, grabbed the metal handle, and pulled the stall door open. It swung inward with a faint squeak, revealing a perfectly ordinary, slightly stained toilet bolted to a cinderblock wall. "Seems fine to me, bro," Sal said, giving it a push so it swung shut again.
Leo stared, his blood running cold. He'd been watching Sal's face, expecting a flicker of shock, of wonder. He got nothing but mild annoyance. Sal saw a toilet. Leo saw a primeval forest.
"Are you okay, man?" Sal asked, his brow furrowed in genuine concern. "You've been spacing out all day. You look like you've seen a ghost."
He clapped Leo on the shoulder, then turned and walked away, shaking his head slightly as he resumed his work.
Leo was left alone in the empty bathroom. Baffled. It wasn't the door. It couldn't be. Sal had opened the exact same door.
He waited until Sal was gone, then tentatively pushed the stall door open one more time.
The sun-dappled glade, the stream, the impossible flowers. They were there. Waiting for him.
He shut it. He leaned against the cool cinderblock wall, his legs feeling weak.
It's not the door.
The realization landed with the force of a physical impact, winding him.
It's me.
The portal wasn't a place. It was a power. A power that belonged to him. It followed him wherever he went. Any door he intended to open for a private purpose, like a bathroom, became… this.
He looked down at his own hands, calloused from work, smudged with dirt from a cardboard box. He looked at his reflection in the polished steel of the soap dispenser—a skinny, broke kid with terrified eyes. Why him? Of all the people in the world, why him? The universe's punching bag, the guy whose bank account was a rounding error.
There was no rational explanation. No scientific theory could cover this. Which left only one, insane, magnificent conclusion. A conclusion straight out of the comic books and cheap fantasy novels he used to read when he was a kid.
It wasn't a curse. It wasn't an accident. It was a choice. Someone, or something, had chosen him.
A giddy, slightly hysterical grin spread across his face.
Holy shit, he thought, the words echoing in the silent cathedral of his mind. I'm the chosen one. I'm him.