It hung in the center of the clearing, a vertical tear in the fabric of reality. It looked like someone had taken a knife and sliced open the world itself, leaving a wound that refused to heal.
The edges shimmered with sickly blue light, constantly moving and shifting, writhing like something alive was trying to push through from the other side. It hummed at a frequency that made my teeth ache and my vision blur if I looked at it too long.
The sound was almost subsonic, felt more than heard—a pressure in my skull that whispered of things that should not exist.
The Gate was roughly fifteen feet tall and ten feet wide, its shape roughly oval but constantly shifting at the edges.
Through that shimmering membrane, I could see... nothing. Just darkness. Not the absence of light, but something more absolute. Something hungry.
"Holy shit," Juan whispered beside me. His face had gone pale, his datapad forgotten at his side. "It's bigger than I thought."
