THE MOMENT
"Every door just gets me more and more...," Terry lost hope as he tried going through another door. Except, after crossing the threshold he didn't just find himself in another room he could step out of again like he had been. Instead, he found himself in the center of a hallway intersection. "...lost." Four identical hallways stretched out in different directions. There were no other doors as far as he could see, and each hallway had the same drab yellow carpet and peeling wallpaper. He spun around slowly taking a long look down every direction, and they were all longer than he could see. "Great," Terry sighed. "I guess I just pick--- HEY!" He was shoved suddenly from behind. "OH SORRY!" the culprit, a teenage girl with short pink and purple hair readily apologized, as she moved towards the nearest wall. "But, why were you standing in the middle of the hall?" "What? Where'd you come from?" Terry asked. He was too distracted to remember his current predicament. There hadn't been anyone there moments ago. "Dude, move!" the girl smiled but grabbed his wrist to pull him closer. He did, and he glanced around expecting to see someone else there. "What? Why? There's no one there?" He asked. "I mean, not now. But, this is a high traffic area," she said. She glanced at him up and down. He thought he saw her eyes flash gold, but it happened so fast that he couldn't be sure. "You didn't know that..., and you're not an Estrella.... how'd you get here?" she asked. "I'M LOST!" he shouted with a touch of panic. "I don't know where 'here' is, and all I want to know is how to get home." He didn't want to sound like he was angry, and fortunately she smiled. "Oh, that explains it," she nodded. "I'm Pyxis," she added. "What's your name?" "Terry," he nodded. "What's explained?" now that he at least had someone listening to him, he felt comfortable enough to ask questions. "How you got here," she nodded, but shrugged at the same time. "I don't know how you got lost exactly, but if you were looking for a way home it made sense you found your way to such a busy area," she said. "What?" He looked around again taking a moment to stare at length down each hall, but they were all completely empty. "Where's here? And why do you say it's busy?" "It has a lot of names," she said. "It's just kind of an endless maze, if you don't know where you're going. But just watch," she pointed at her eyes for the instruction, then pointed at the empty hall. "There've been like five people passing through here since I bumped into you," she said. As she explained it, a black portal opened in the air. A woman in a blue blazer with short white hair wakled out of the portal, too two steps, then she walked into another portal that appeared in front of her. It happened in less than three seconds, and she was gone again. "See?" Pyxis giggled. "C'mon," she gestured at the air and another portal opened up. "Let's get you registered with Sharp Development and get you home." "You can really get me home?" he asked. Pyxis half-nodded and made a 'so-so' gesture with her hand. "Technically I can, but I'm not going to. I'm kind of in the middle of something else, so I'm just taking you to a multiversal depot. Traversing between universes is trival and depending on how busy they are you'll be home in.. a few hours maybe," she said. "Is it really that easy to hop between alternate realities?" he asked. He was inching toward the portal with every question, but he still had doubts. "How'd you get here?" Pyxis asked with a smile. "I really don't know...," he said. "I got lost on an endless stairwell with each door leading to another parallel world. The last door I went through put me here in the middle of the hall," he said. He'd been paying attention out of the corner of his eye and he noted two more pedestrians walking by between dimensions. "There you go," Pyxis nodded. "Apparently it's easy enough to hop between realities that you can do it accidentally."