Chapter Two

Portal

"You f***ing Bast*rd!� shrill voice cried out. "Don't call me that, you f***ing B*tch!� a thunderous voice answered.

Screams from Crystal's mother ran through the house as Crystal's father's booming voice thundered after her�s.

From her hiding place in the broom closet, Crystal listened to glass being broken and chairs being turned over in angry fits. It was another morning in her house and right away she knew that her parents had been drinking.

All of her life, she had asked them to stop, but they would just lash out at her and beat her. She painfully thought of a broken arm she got when her dad hit her with a bat. It never got worse than that when she learned to draw little attention to herself and therefore never get targeted.

"I am leaving!!!" Her mom shrieked and slammed the door behind her. The wooden frame of the door cracked and fell off the doorway.

"Fine b*tch!" Crystal's dad yelled after she was well out of earshot and then slumped onto the couch. The couch whined under his weight and a beer belly hung over the cushion.

Crystal felt that it was safe enough to emerge from the closet. She drew in a quick breath then the door creaked open and she gazed around.

She knew that her dad would fall asleep and forget to serve dinner. But it didn't matter. She was going to be twenty that night at eight o' clock and she was planning to spend her day in the park. Crystal figured that she could gather something together to eat. Although, it was hard to buy food in New York City without money nor a job.

Crystal frowned as she thought of the countless jobs that she applied for. Each one rejected her.

"No high school education, no college degree. No job!" They shouted at her. One job that she applied for brought up one of her most embarrassing memories. They said, "You cannot be a model. You are too large and your ears are big and too pointy."

Crystal lowered her head. She was ashamed of her ears. Although countless times, she tried to cover her ears with her long, silky brown hair, but each time her hair parted around her ears.

Crystal remembered a time when she walked by a school of elementary school children all playing on swings and sliding down slides. She was their age at the time and was excited to see them. Her smile quickly faded when the children stopped playing to stare at her. One child, she remembered shouted, "Look! It's a leprechaun!!!" Crystal remembered crying all the way home and then some.

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The park was buzzing madly with life as many people played sports, had picnics, climbed trees, and sat with their families. Crystal turned her head to ignore the people gathered there. She was never comfortable with people. As time passed, she began to despise them more and more.

As she walked, she could smell hot dogs being cooked and sold on the hot dog stands. Crystal knew that if she was going to eat, it would be then.

She approached the stand and quickly hid behind a bush. With her fingers, she parted the branches to spy on the costumers.

"I would like one hot dog, no relish, no ketchup please!" a woman said and gazed down at her baby in a carriage next to her. When the seller finished preparing the hot dog, Crystal darted from the bush.

"Thank you," the lady said and handed the baby the hotdog and pulled the carriage behind her to look at a stand full of souvenirs.

Next thing everyone knew, the baby began to scream and cry and Crystal walked away with a hotdog.

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Crystal's alarm clock on her bedside table shown "7:45PM" and she anxiously waited for her birthday to approach. As she waited for it to become eight o' clock, she wrote an entry in her diary:

Dear Diary, Life is unfair. As usual, today was as dreadful as the ones before. All the same feelings and I regret that I am alive. Nothing new with my parents. They are still alcoholics and my brother and sister still do drugs. I am still the quiet one that cannot get a job or get my own house, although I am nineteen and soon to be twenty. I am old enough to get married and leave this hell. Out of all the wishes that I have shouted into my dark room as I drifted off to sleep, the one wish that I hope would come true soon is to be rid of this world. "If only God would hear my cry for help. If only he could hear my voice," she said quietly looking up from her diary. Suddenly, she heard a scream. Crystal recognized the scream as her mother's. It was not like her usual scream. It was more alarming. More troubling than any other scream that Crystal heard her mother scream.

Crystal found herself curiously peering over the railing at her mother lying motionless on the floor, a large gash at her side and Crystal's father standing over her. Blood quickly stained the carpet and the blood did not seem to stop flowing. To her horror, her father was holding a steak knife that was coated and dripping with blood.

"Dad!" she gasped and then let out a squeal of terror that she spoke.

Her father gazed up at her and razed his knife higher. With a slurred, "Cry-stal come-over-here!" Crystal's heart began to beat faster and she ran back up the stairs. She could hear her father's thunderous footsteps behind her.

"Dad no!" she screamed and ran into her bedroom. Quickly, she pulled her bed in front of her door.

With a cry of fear, she quickly grabbed her diary and ran towards the window. She took a quick look at her clock. It was 7:59PM. Her heart sank as she thought of what had happened on her birthday. "Oh, I wish it would just end," she said to herself.

She turned her head back around and was about to leave before a bright light shone from behind her. Curiously she turned her head to see it.

The most beautiful thing that she could ever dream of seeing was floating in front of her and shining bright aqua blue light on her face.

Behind it, she could hear her dad pounding on the door and sticking the knife into it and chopping at it.

Although the loud yells and screams were frightening, they began to fade into silence. She fell into a powerful trance with the light. The way it shone was so strange, she thought. She knew that it was glowing but it seemed like shining drops of water. There were four of them and each one was connected by what looked like sparks of lightning. Crystal wanted to touch it but hesitated.

It was floating in a small circle and humming loudly. As she peered at it, it began to hum louder, drowning out the sound of her father's murderous actions more than ever.

Crystal burned with curiosity and wanted so much to see what it was. With little hesitation, she lifted up her diary to poke it. When she did so, she could see waves created in the blobs of water-like substance.

The blobs suddenly shook and it began to roar. The area of the circle began to widen and stretch far enough for Crystal to walk through.

Overcome by curiosity, Crystal stepped one foot through the circle. She saw the area that she touched ripple and felt warmth on the other side. With one last glance around her room, she clutched the diary close to her side and walked completely through the circle.

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