Free Kirev's Door by JC Andrijeski Page B

Raising the hand holding the gun, he pointed it in the direction of that bright light, using his aleimi to scout out the locations of the other seers in the small room so he wouldn’t hit any of them if he had to fire.
    He felt none of them, however.
    He groped around again with his living light, looking for Wreg...looking for Venai and Tan and Ute and Rigor...knowing he couldn’t do anything without knowing where they were.
    As he did, he opened his eyes. It occurred to him only then that he’d closed them, shielding his irises from the onslaught of light.
    Once he opened them again, he let out a low gasp.
    The illumination didn’t blind him.
    He found himself in a long, white room with sharp blue grid lines on the floors, ceilings and walls. He was alone in that room. No other seers were with him.
    “ Di'lanlente a' guete...” he gasped, looking around. “What is this?”
    He didn’t expect an answer. He more said it to remind himself he was alive.
    It didn’t really work.
    “Wreg!” he cried out, still in a combat crouch by that strangely glowing white floor. He aimed the gun behind him, then around at the walls. “Wreg! Venai! Are you here? I can’t see you...”
    He stared up at a mirrored white ceiling, saw only his own pale face. His his heart pounded harder in his chest.
    “Wreg!” he shouted, louder that time. “I am in a different place now...a white room. There are...” He studied those glowing lines. “...Lights. Like a grid of light. The floor is a pulsing white. Can you see where I am? Can you hear me?”
    He didn’t expect an answer that time, either.
    He could see no one, not anywhere around him.
    He aimed his gun into those four corners yet again, but there was nothing to shoot.
    Then, right in front of him, a body began to form out of that empty air.
    It coalesced like molecules being pulled from the space, like matter being rearranged from a gas into something solid. Kirev could only stare while it happened, watching as the white light became something with flesh and bones, watching skin appear, then hair, then eyes and teeth and lips. Hands formed, then feet. He saw a small chest, those eyes becoming eerily bright, a sharp, diamond-like yellow, like sunlight only few thousand times harder and sharper.
    When the body and face finished forming itself, it even wore clothes.
    Dark gray, dusty, Asian in cut. Human.
    Clothes Kirev recognized.
    His eyes scaled back up to that small face, the features that went with the child’s body that stood in front of him, and suddenly, terror exploded in Kirev’s chest. A child’s terror, like something out of one of his most hidden nightmares. Nightmares where he woke up sweating, his heart thudding in his chest, sure he was back in the camps, sure they’d come for him next.
    The eyes. Those sharp, diamond-like yellow eyes. Those were different.
    Everything else was the same.
    Everything else was exactly the same.
    “Coreq?” he whispered, staring up at the small seer. His vision blurred. He thought he might pass out, then realized tears ran down his face. He thought he might be sick. He thought he really might be sick. His hands shook as he lowered the gun from that small chest, so thin the bones pushed out the brown, dusty skin.
    “Coreq...” he said, and it was almost a gasp. “Brother...” He choked on the word, letting the gun drop to that white tile floor, gripping it now in both hands like it might keep him moored there. When it hit those white tiles, they rippled out on all sides, almost like water.
    “Brother...” he managed, unable to tear his eyes off that face. “Brother, is it you?”
    The small-boned seer smiled at him.
    “How is it you are here?” Kirev said. Understanding reached him then. “Am I dead?” he gasped. “I am dead, aren’t I? I am dead...”
    The seer with the sunlight-colored, diamond eyes shook his head slowly.
    Kirev stared up at him, confused, but the child seer didn’t speak.
    “Where am I?” he said