The World She Went To: Pt1 (Ea)

When I was younger, there was this girl Suzama. She was so kind, funny and pretty, and out of all the people in our school, she found me and made me her best friend. Some nerdy boy, who could barely speak for himself.

The boy no one liked or wanted anything to do with—that’s who she chose as her best friend, and to this day I have no idea why, but I was glad she did. The time we spent together is among some of my most precious memories.

I’d bet she’d still insist on being my friend to this day. Still telling this good-for-nothing not to sit alone and pout, convincing him he should go outside and have fun. If only she were still here… but she isn’t; she’s gone.

It was ten years ago today. Suzama had come to my house early saturday morning and rang the doorbell to my house so many times my father nearly went mad and ripped the thing off. Likely Suzama always had this uncanny ability to make things better.

After he let her in, he came and woke me up, had me get dressed, and told both of us to go outside and play. That’s what we did, but since my house was small without a lot of yard, we decided to walk over to the park, which was nearby.

It had always been okay for us to go, as we lived in a safe neighborhood and everyone knew everyone else, so the second someone sketchy appeared, someone would keep an eye on kids like us to make sure nothing happened.

No one ever imagined anything would happen there, but it did. After an hour of playing on the swings and running around. A strange portal opened up in the middle of the park. Suzama and I looked at it amazed.

It looked to be some sort of portal to another place, and on the other side we saw a castle, flying horses, and different types of people, like ones with animal and monster features. As cool as it was, I was my normal self and too afraid to go near it.

Suzama, on the other hand, was brave and adventurous. So she ran right up to it, and then she ran right through it. From the other side I could hear her talking about how amazing the other world was. She then turned to me and told me to come check it out.

I was still nervous, but I slowly walked to the entrance of the portal. I saw her standing there, but now she looked a bit different. Her hair was slightly longer, and her ears were pointed, almost like elven ears you’d see in fantasy games.

Other than that, she was still herself, and she was spinning around looking up and down like crazy, which made sense as there were so many amazing magical things happening around her in that moment.

She eventually stopped and looked at me. She then raised her hand and told me to come through and see how amazing everything was. I was going to do it, but before I could, things took a turn towards the worst.

Before I stopped through, someone grabbed her. I couldn’t tell who it was, as he was wearing a cloak and a mask that covered most of his face. All I could really tell about the man was that he had some sort of red tiger-shaped marking on his arm.

Suzama tried to fight him off, but he was three times her size and she stood no chance. She called out to me for help and being the useless idiot I am, I stood there frozen in place. When the man had her tied up, he looked towards me and the portal.

He said something about it being interesting and then asked me if I made the portal. He then laughed as he said if I did, I could make him a lot of money. He then started to walk towards the portal which freaked me out.

I fell over backwards and nearly wet myself. I thought he was going to come through and get me as well, but right as he got to the portal, the portal vanished. It was nowhereto be seen, nor was Suzama or that man.

I realized right away how bad things were, and with tears in my eyes I ran all the way home and told my father. He called the police right away and an investigation was started. I spent the next several days talking to police officers and child therapists.

All of them told my father the same thing. It was very likely Suzama was taken by a man, and my child mind was trying to make sense of the trauma by making up a portal and all the fantasy stuff that I saw.

So they never truly took me seriously; they did, however, try to look for a man with a red tiger tattoo, and they did find a few men. However, I knew the truth; the thing with the portal happened, and no one they found in this world would be the man who took her.

Eventually, with no leads and no attempts at ransom, the police called off the search for Suzama, and life sort of went on for most people. However, for me, my family and Suzama, life was much harder.

I was blamed by many people for letting Suzama get taken, and because of that my family was bullied and harassed. So we ended up moving away. As for the Suzamas, they lost their child, and something like that was hard and nearly impossible to move on from.

As for me, I went back to my old self. Alone and useless, blaming myself as much as everyone else for Suzama disappearing. I ended up spending my time researching anything that could lead me to finding another portal so I could find her, but nothing ever worked out.

I still truly believe what I saw, and I know it wasn’t my mind dealing with trauma, but after so long, I was starting to give up on trying to convince myself. I knew I needed to move on; I knew Suzama would have wanted me to go out and have fun for both of us, make new friends, and stuff like that.

So I told myself I’d go back to our hometown and visit her grave and once and for all accept that she was gone. However, like the coward I am, I bailed out on going to see it and instead went to the park where it all happened.

The park was very quiet and looked almost exactly like it did that day. I went to the spot were the portal had been and I looked down. I tried to tell myself none of it happened and she was gone, but my heart wouldn’t let me.

It knew she was still in that other world and waiting for someone to come find her. If only the portal would open again, then I’d step through it without hesitation. I’d be brave like Suzama and face the unknown, and most importantly, I’d find Suzama, no matter what.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected that to actually work, but as soon as I thought it, that damned portal opened up in front of me, and on the other side was that world I had seen before, including the same castle.

Before my mind could fully process seeing it all again, my body started to move on its own, keeping the promise I just made. Before I knew it, I was on the other side of the portal, in this strange fantasy world, just like Suzama.

The portal quickly closed up behind me and I let out an awkward laugh. I was really doing this, and there was no backing out. Of course, now that it’s fully processed in my mind, I was terrified and frozen in place by fear.

I probably would have stood there for hours if a man driving a horse-drawn carriage had not stopped next to me and started yelling. He yelled at me for ebing in the middle of the road, which I apoligized and quickly got out of the way.

As he got his horses moving again, he called me a stupid broad, which was a bit strange since I was a guy, but this was a different world, so I figured it meant something else here. However, I remembered a small detail from when Suzama passed through the portal.

She sort of changed a bit, so perhaps I did as well, and that caused me to look more feminine. So I figured I’d take a quick glance at myself and see what changed. I’ll be honest, Suzama had very few changes, so you could still tell it was her.

I, however, was completely different; not only was I not a human anymore, I also wasn't a man anymore. I had horns on my head and a long, thick tail coming out of my back; my teeth were sharper, and for some reason my skin was blue.

It was crazy, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I’d just have to adjust to this body while I’m here, not that I plan to be here long anyway. My goal is simple: find Suzama, come back here, and then the two of us can go home. I guess in order to start, I need to find the man with the red tiger mark.