Free The Portal in the Forest by Matt Dymerski Page A

a crappy, terrible solution, and it
would hurt them all badly, but it might just -
    Handing the book to the boy on my back, I
turned around, gripped the girl and the nearby boy by their arms,
and began dragging them.
    They screamed as they slid against sharp
angular obsidian, and traces of blood began soaking their clothes…
but we were moving.
    In turn, we approached each of the other four
fallen children, and I had them grip each other with all their
remaining strength. They were all young, and small - thus, they had
been the first to fall - and that fact also made them
draggable.
    Screaming at the top of my lungs from the
strain, I pulled six crying children across shards of broken
volcanic glass, while one clung to my back and shouted continually
for them to hold on.
    All I could see was the roiling blazing
bulwark slowly catching up to us; even licking at the shoes of the
farthest boy now and then. If he were to lose his grip on the leg
of the boy above him, even for a moment…
    Just pull...
    Just drag...
    Breathe...
    Foot down, push...
    The other foot down, push...
    The agony went on without end, but I would never -
    A perfectly straight line of pure red, like a
laser, cut across my awareness, and a swath of despair followed the
twinge of pain.
    I fell to one knee as the flare in my spine
broached extreme levels of agony. I'd pulled something, or strained
something, or simply reached the edge of my endurance… sometimes,
there was simply no way out. I knew that, I did, but I could never
accept the reality of it.
    But the bloodied and battered children did
not slip into the flames and die. Given the break they'd needed,
they staggered up and began running again. Ryan handed me the book
and took off after them. Turning in amazement despite the searing
torsion in my back, I saw them desperately charge toward Danny, who
stood… right next to a small oval in space.
    On the other side, children silently waved
and shouted and motioned for them to come. Wasting no time, they
tumbled through - with a little push from Danny each.
    We'd made it. We hadn't lost a single person…
without the boy on my back, I could move a little easier, and I
gripped the book tightly with one hand and my side with the
other.
    "It's still not big enough for us," Danny
shouted as I approached, reaffirming his earlier unspoken concern.
His eyes jumped to the wall of flame not twenty feet behind me.
    I came to a stop, swayed in front of him, and
lifted the book with a pained gasp. "Time for a wild guess, then…"
Without hesitation, I thrust it through the small oval portal. I
waited a tick, and then pulled it back. I did this thrice more, and
then…
    Space began ripping around the small rift,
rapidly expanding the portal to three times its original size.
    "Go," I told him.
    He nodded gravely and dove through.
    I waited as the heat and roar grew behind me
to screaming intensity. I could just stay here, and the book… the device , whatever it was… would be destroyed with me.
    Or would it?
    I couldn't make a gesture like that unless I
was certain.
    A little relieved, I tumbled through the
portal. "Get back!" I roared, as blessedly cool forest air flowed
around me like an eddy in a river.
    Remembering what I'd told them about shouted
warnings, they all immediately darted away.
    I rolled forward, spine sparking body-filling
agony, as the portal ruptured further behind me. By the time I
scrambled to a small hillock and looked back, it had torn out
across the entire clearing. Beyond, I saw only descending
flame.
    I lolled my head back on good old dirt, and
stared up at the trees. I'd done it. I'd avoided the choice… I'd
found that elusive third option that people were so rarely
afforded… all that training I'd given them, and all the pain I'd
ever gone through… it had saved these kids today…
    I laughed. It was a deep, satisfying thing,
and I let it go on with all the relief, humor, and wonder I felt.
The internal armor I'd lost was gone, but I