"Where are my friends?"
She stumbled towards him. "Where are my friends?"
The man turned and smiled up at her. He had rich brown eyes that looked sympathetic to her situation. If only he had not put her in it.
"They are here," he said turning back towards the glass again. SPH-003F stumbled towards him and fell forward, her paws slamming against the glass to steady herself. "You are coming along very well."
She covered her breasts with one arm, feeling ashamed that she blushed. "Where are they?"
"There."
"Where?"
"Right there."
"Th-that's them?"
"Yes."
They were all changed. Like her. The room they were in was below her, a large busy room, well, room is putting it mildly. It was as white as the room she woke up in but it could probably fit a football field with ease. People in lab coats hurrying about, some yelling out orders. There was a large machine, with wires spreading throughout the room which were attached two poles that almost reached the ceiling. The four creatures were sitting at a circular table, laughing and chatting with each other. Two had nine, bushy tails, swinging lazily behind them. The other two were like her, body kind of like a lion but a human head of hair. That couldn't have been them...
"Why are you doing this?" she asked, still staring at the creatures.
He chuckled and moved away from the window. "Now that, SPH-003F, is a much more difficult question."
"Why are you doing this?" she asked again, this time in a sterner tone.
He crossed over to the book case, his lab coat flowing gracefully behind him. He started looking through books as he spoke.
"Do you know about the ancient Greeks?"
"Yes-"
"Do you truly know about the Greeks?"
"I-I think."
A smile crossed his lips as his eyes scanned the books. "The Greeks are world renowned for their mythological gods and creatures. One of them being the sphinx. A cat-like being who, in one tale with Oedipus, was defeated when he solved her riddle. Now, there are also kitsune, from the Japanese folklore. They are five to nine tailed foxes who were mischievous shape shifters and could be either malevolent or benevolent. Now, what if I told you that both "myths" have to do with the other. "Well, that's impossible. If you would have asked me that question five years earlier, I would have agreed with you, but-"
He picked up a large, leather bound volume, "-today, I know it for a fact. Each creature's demeanor is conniving. Cunning. Almost omnipotent. Each would play cruel tricks on their victims, or, what we first thought were their victims.
"We now know that, instead of cruel tricks, these were actually tests in a sense."
"Tests?" SPH-003F asked as the man placed the book gently on the cluttered pages on his desk.
"Yes, tests. It is actually clear when the sphinx from Greek mythology when she asked the people of Greece a riddle and destroyed towns when left unanswered or answered correctly, only later being defeated by Oedipus who guessed the riddle correctly?"
She was lost. "You're point?"
"My point is: what if this wasn't just some lesson learned by the hero to save children's souls, but a clue."
"A clue?"
The man looked up and narrowed his eyes at the sphinx.
"You, SPH-003F, have a nasty little habit of repeating things. Yes, a 'clue'. Into something that to most people may sound ridiculous, if not downright foolish."
He beckoned her over, his hand gyrating. He pointed to one page with a dark swirl on it and words that made no sense to her. "It looks like a galaxy."
The professor jabbed a finger at her. "You would be only half right. That, my dear, is a portal."
"A portal? To where?"
"Another galaxy. A parallel galaxy, to be more precise."
The look of skepticism was apparent on caramel her face because the man went on. "And yes, I am perfectly serious. There is indeed a portal to a parallel universe. And-"
Written by Cole Stryker on 06 September 2015