The First Door

[Guu]

Continued from "The City of Ambrosia"

As Guu stepped through the door, she could feel the sudden change of air pressure, telling her that she was now in an enclosed space; a fact that became much more apparent as the door slammed shut and disappeared behind her.

In front of her was a long dark hallway, which was only lit a few feet in front of her. Curiously, the roof was only four feet high. It was as if this place was built specifically for her. Nonetheless, she wasn’t used to the ceiling so low, she had a sinking feeling, like it could collapse on her at any moment. Paranoid, she pressed forward, hoping to find some place bigger.

It didn’t take long to notice that the light was following her. Darting her eyes around, she noticed that it was herself that was glowing. Puzzled, she stopped and searched herself feverishly for the source, only to find that was emitting from her whole body. Now thoroughly weirded out, she double-timed forward hoping to find answers. Eventually, after a few twists and turns, she spotted a light at the end of the tunnel. Running forward, the tunnel opened into a room.

There was light, there were high ceilings, but there certainly weren’t any answers to be found.

[Guu]

The room was composed of purple and blue crystals, all six walls shiny and shimmery, polished to a smooth surface. Inside the room was however, only brought more questions than answers.

It was a children’s playground, much like the kind she’d seen kids play with in movies and television, but she had never actually played on one because you couldn’t really find too many of them in the jungle. It was composed of a slide, a jungle gym, a roundabout, and a pair of swings. All of them look worn, as if they’d seen many play sessions over the years. However, the oddest feature is that every single one of them had yellow tape around them, with the words “caution” repeated in bold black lettering. Every single playground accessory was blocked off thanks to the tape, with exception of the roundabout.

Guu figured that none of this was accidental and she was intended to find this playground in such a state. Thinking the roundabout was important somehow; she grabbed onto its thick metal bars, and started pulling it around in circles, building momentum. As she did, she heard a metal chain dragging around somewhere. Thinking she was making progress somehow, she kept going, the chain grinding against some metal surface. She ran at top speeds, the playground around her turning into a blurred mess to her vision.

Eventually, the sound of the grinding chain halted, but to her surprise, the roundabout didn’t stop. Thinking she had accomplished whatever she was intended to do, she hopped on with the intention to ride the momentum out.

However, as soon as she felt those g-forces pressing against her body, her adrenaline suddenly kicked in. Her heart was racing, her body was trembling, eventually, she just shut her eyes and let it all come to her. One would say she was enjoying the rush. As the roundabout slowed to a stop and Guu’s head stopped spinning, she witnessed as the tape around the jungle gym suddenly burst into light and evaporated away.

Heading over to the jungle gym, she inspected it carefully, both with her eyes and her senses. It was composed of multi-colored monkey bars, arranged in a cylinder with a rounded top. She guessed it must have been three meters tall at least. Something was hanging from the ceiling just over the jungle gym. It was way too small to make out exactly what, but it was attached to a rope. She stretched out an arm to reach at whatever it was.

But felt it slapped away by something. She suddenly noticed the white monkey playing at the top of the jungle gym, swinging around on the bars. It peered down at her and laughed before disappearing from sight in a single jump.

’Could the monkey suppress its presence like I could?’ She thought.

She sent out her arm again, only to feel it swiped away by another paw.

’I guess I’ll have to meet it half-way.’

She placed her foot onto one of the metal bars. Grabbing onto another bar, she used it to lift herself up, climbing her way up the jungle gym. She carefully listened for the monkey, expecting it to shove her off or something. Eventually, she made her way to the rounded top of the jungle gym. Taking the slope to stand freely, she scanned around for the monkey, only to not see it on the jungle gym at all. In the corner of her eye, she saw it running off away from the playground and through a door that dissipates as soon as it’s through.

Confused, she climbed the rest of the way up. Sure enough, it was a rope, but at the end was a diamond bolted onto the pointy end of it. She thoroughly looked it over. On the middle of the long flat end was the words engraved: “Cubic Zirconia.” She sensed around, seeing if she missed anything. Sure enough, the rope was attached to some strange mechanism. Following her instincts, she tugged on the rope as hard as she could. Not far away, the tape around the swing set disappeared into light, much like the tape around the jungle gym. She climbed her way down and headed that direction.

Not far from the swing set was two sets of footprints, perpendicular from the swings. She noticed that one was her own, while the other belonged to something bigger: a full grown adult. She stepped into her footprints, the sand felt warm around her feet. She saw it glow in an orangish color. Having a hunch, she hopped in one place, and the force from the jump caused the sand to glow far brighter. She remembered reading from a manga how some kids would launch themselves off the swings and land in the sand; maybe this was what she had to do.

She climbed into one of the swings. She slowly pushed herself back and forth, building up momentum with each pass. Eventually, she was swinging high enough that the chain holding her seat up was at the same height as the bar. She let go, launching herself into the air. She twists her body midair and lands perfectly on the footprints. The sand around her feet glowed brightly. The light was almost blinding. However it quickly petered out.

She pondered to herself what she could possibly be missing. However then she remembered the second set of footprints.

‘Am I supposed to do this with somebody?’ She thought, frustrated. ‘How am I supposed to find someone else? Was I supposed to recruit the monkey?’

However, she felt a hand press on the top of her head. She looked up. It was her adult self, standing next to her, smiling genuinely.

“Would you like to ride the swing with me?” She said genuinely.

Guu wasn’t sure if this was an imposter, or if her subconscious had built her out of her shapeshifting again, but she felt oddly warm seeing her no matter the circumstances. Young Guu lifted her arm up and took Adult Guu’s hand. She nodded to her.

The pair sat side by side in the swing, hands held. They built up the momentum again, and together, they launched into the air, landing perfectly in the footprints. The sand lit up around both pairs of feet, and the tape around the slide dissipates. She looks up to meet eyes with her adult self, but finds that no one is there. She couldn’t help feel a bit lonely at this revelation.

As she makes her way to the final attraction, she took a moment to question the situation. It was obvious someone was trying to test her, but what motivation would they have for that? Why did it take the form of a playground? And why was it so easy so far? He thought gravitated towards the monkey. That monkey could have easily made accomplishing her goal way more difficult to achieve, but it left as soon as she stopped trying to stretch her way to the top. What did they hope to gain from this?

Questions still far from answered, she made her way to the slide. The slide itself was a long tube that span in circles downward. She climbed up the ladder and onto the platform where she stared down the mouth of the slide. With one final big breath, she sat down into it, and pushed herself forward.

Once again, she felt herself having fun as her body was propelled down the tube, but she couldn’t help but notice that the slide was going on for much longer than it appeared from the outside. She was certainly being taken someplace else, but for the moment she didn’t have a care. The inner child that had been chipping away this whole time had finally broken free as her social face takes over and a giant smile spreads across her face, and she yells out in pure glee.

[Guu]

Her joy is quickly interrupted by the sudden exit. She slides to a stop at the bottom of the tube. She’s quick to readjust herself, shifting her face back to “normal,” and senses around to get her bearings.

It was a large room connected to a long hallway. The room itself was filled with tiny Guu sized desks facing a chalkboard that stretches through an entire wall. Scanning around, she spies colorful posters that sported phrases and sayings like “Hang in There,” or “Read a Book!” All the desks have pens, papers, and notebooks on them, many of them, particularly the desks in the front row, where open. Guu climbed to her feet and walked to the nearest desk. Peering inside the notebook. Apparently the subject of the class was acute angles, but the notes just abruptly stop midway. She checked the next one it was the same deal. She wondered if there was a fire drill or something.

Guu wasn’t all too familiar with a school like this. In the small jungle village she lived in, everyone from kindergarten to highschool went to the same classroom. And even then, the class was never as big as this one. She had gone to a school in the city briefly, but that was a rich private school, this one looked very much public if the movies could be believed. She wondered why she was brought here in the first place.

Guu made her way through the classroom, looking through notebooks and book bags, trying to get a lead of where she at least wound up. The book bags didn’t quite tell her much, full of textbooks and sack lunches. Notebooks weren’t helping either. Penmanship was different from notebook to notebook; some had doodles in them, some were completely blank. However one notebook caught her eye: her name, written in red ink, inside the crude drawing of a heart.

Curious, she flipped through. Her name popped up all over the place, many of them in hearts. She was surprised to see several doodles of her as well, making it very clear that it wasn’t some other girl named “Guu.” She began to think that maybe this boy was a fan of her’s, like he maybe have watched her youtube channel. She wouldn’t be shocked, considering the weird stuff she had uploaded in the past. Her channel would be something a little boy would frequent.

However, something else caught her eye, her name again. It was woven into the backpack strung up in the chair one desk up. She moved up and reached in for the contents. Textbooks, a “My Little Pokute” lunch box, but the most curious object was a photograph. It was her, posing with her adult self. Looking up from the photo, she saw the notebook on the desk. The familiar heart shape was on this notebook too, but this time the name in the shape was “Truth.” To get a better look, she slid into the seat.


“Truth! Are you paying attention?” Yelled a voice from the front of the class. Guu’s attention was pulled from drawing hearts in her notes to the teacher, a tall beautiful woman with blue hair and cheetah print tank top.

“Yes I am Miss.” Called the boy behind her. The rest of the kids in class turn to look at him, this was Guu excuse to look as well. Hiding her blush with a shoulder, she looked upon the boy. Underneath his clean rich kid clothes was someone with milk white skin, no eyes or nose, just a barely visible smile. He grinned awkwardly at the teacher.

“Alright, you may be seated.”

As he sat down, his eyes glanced into Guu’s for a split second, causing her to shoot her face forward, her face completely red. She could hear several girls in class giggling. She wasn’t sure if it was because of Truth getting called out by the teacher or they had noticed what had just transpired between him and her. No way for her to tell.

The lecture proceeded as normal. She tried her hardest to focus on her studies, taking notes on boring stuff like math. However her mind kept floating off to that dreamboat sitting behind her. Oh she wished they were in switched seating so she could stare at the back of his head all day.

Eventually, the bell rang out. The teacher excitedly called out to class.

“Class is adjourned for the weekend. Teacher’s gotta go get plastered now!” She said, dashing out of class before the students barely had a chance to stand up. Slowly, everyone files out.

Guu walks down the hallway, her thought fixed on that hunk, Truth. But then she felt a pair of hands grab her by the shoulders. She looks around in surprise only two see a pair of friendly faces by her side. One had ebony colored hair and wore mostly black. The other had purple colored hair and a purple dress, thigh high socks.

“Oh, hi Sylvia, hey Desco.” She said calmly.

“Sooooo, we saw you peeking a look at Truth back there.” Sylvia said mockingly.

“You’re face was so red!” Replied Desco.

’Oh darn’ Thought Guu, too young to know curse words.

The two go “Oooooooohhh” accompanied by a volley of giggles. Guu blushes red scarlet. She ducks her face behind the books in her arms in an attempt to hide it. However, one peek from Desco proved that this was too no avail.

“She’s blushing! She’s blushing real hard!” Desco said, giggling uncontrollably.

“Guu and Tru-uth, sitting in a tree!” Sang Sylvia.

“Can you two please knock it off?” Guu nervously pleaded under her books.

Eventually the taunts would die down and the group would devolve into idle chit-chat. Guu mostly listened, only landing a joke every now-and-then. She was the designated “joke” person of the trio.


Eventually, they would reach the outer perimeter of the school. It was a beautiful spring day with not a single cloud in the sky. All the kids were making their way home.

“Ha ha ha, Pokushy is my favorite. I love it when she gets assertive.” Says Sylvia, laughing.

“Rainbute Dash is the best though! Cause she’s cool!” Says Desco bluntly. The two turn to Guu, waiting expectantly for and answer. It takes her a second to catch on.

“I’m more a Pinkie Pokute fan.” Guu stated.

“Figures. You are so into the jokes!”

“My funny bone is flexible!” She responded, waving her arms like they were made of jelly. The other two laugh like crazy.

“Um… Excuse me.”

The trio ceases their laughter and looks towards the source. It’s Truth, fidgeting in place, avoiding eye contact.

“Can I speak to Guu?” He said, his voice barely spitting out the words. “Alone?”

Desco and Sylvia look at each other, grinning like crazy. Then they look back at Truth.

“Oh yes! That can be arranged!” Said Sylvia. She and Desco turn to Guu. “See ya later Guu!”

“See ya at the sleep over tonight!” Said Desco.

The two wave goodbye and run off giggling. Guu turns to Truth, she’s blushing like crazy. She’s not sure if he’s noticed yet.

“Soo umm… Going on a sleep over tonight?”

“Yeah.” Guu said.

“That’s nice.” He responded.

A long awkward moment passed between the two. Suddenly, Truth held up a box with a little ribbon bounding it together.

“I got you this uh… I got you a gift.”

Guu, curious but nervous, picked up the gift. She gently unwrapped it and lifted up the lid. Her eyes lit up. It was a shiny pink bracelet with her name on it.

“I hope you like it.” He stated timidly.

Still in shock, she slowly pulls out the bracelet and puts it on her arm. She admires it for a second before looking up towards Truth.

“I love it!” She said genuinely.

Truth’s eyes light up.

“I’m glad!” He says, barely containing a smile. “Well, good bye!”

He suddenly ran off down the road and out of sight, kicking his heels once just before he goes out of view. Guu admired her new bracelet again, nuzzling it under her cheek as she smiled a little bit. The moment was interrupted by the honk of a horn.

She turned to see an adult woman that looked much like herself behind the wheel of a station wagon. She quickly double-timed it over to the car and got in the passenger seat.

“Hey mom.” She said.

“How was your day, dear?” The woman asked.

There was a pause as the mom started up the vehicle. Guu took another look at her new bracelet and smile.

“It was great.”

[Guu]

It was later that night, Guu sat in her room alone in a cute little sky blue nightgown. The character “Pinkie Pokute” was sewn into her clothing. It was a moderately sized room considering her size. Her dresser had a line of dolls sitting on top of them. Article of her clothing was strewn randomly in the room. Upon noticing the mess, she gets up to pick up the assortments of skirts, scarfs, and bloomers and toss them all in the laundry basket. Considering she had guests coming tonight, her bedroom had to be perfect.

She only had three posters in her room, each one displaying things from shows and music. One poster was again for “My Little Pokute” which displayed a whole cast of colorful character. Another was for a band called “Rickity Stix” which was composed of 20-year-old men in leather, long hair, and tight pants. The final poster was for some live action movie called “Hungry Princess,” which displayed a finely dressed woman eating a giant slice of cake. The odd thing is they all marker scribbled all over them. Guu, for whatever reason, didn’t question these odd scribbles, but instead finished up cleaning and headed out the door of her room.

She made her way downstairs, passed her adult self who was typing away on a keyboard in her workroom, and sat herself down in front of the living room television to watch the latest episode of My Little Pokute recorded on DVR. The episode in question involved Pokushy going the Grand Waddling Gala and her quasi-god friend Mandacord is jealous that she’s going with another friend. She loved it of course. Mandacord was always her favorite for some reason.

Just as the episode was rolling its credits, the doorbell rang to the tune of Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” Guu rushed to the door and swung it open to be greeted by the welcoming faces of Desco and Sylvia.

“We’re here!” They yelled in unison as she pulled them both into a big group hug. The three giggled and gossiped as they made their way up towards Guu’s bedroom.


“Let’s play Spin the Bottle!” Yelled Sylvia.

“Let’s play the dating game.” Said Guu.

“Truth or Dare! Truth or Dare!” Desco proclaimed, bounding on the spot.

“Haha, ok, let’s play that.” Said Sylvia. She turned to Guu. “You first! Truth or Dare.”

Guu gave it a lot of thought. She wasn’t much for expressing her feelings so the former option didn’t sound much fun, so eventually the choice become obvious.

“Dare.” She responded.

“I dare you to call Truth and tell him you think he’s cute!”

If Guu had known any curse words, she would have spouted them out that very moment. Sylvia handed her a phone, gesturing with her hands to go on with the dare. Knowing she couldn’t break the laws of Truth or Dare, so she pressed his name on the contacts list. A frog developed in her throat as she heard the ringing on the other end.

“Hello?” Truth’s voice rang in on the other end. It was show time.

“Truth? This is Guu.” She said.

“Oh! Guu! I-I didn’t expect you to call me!” He said, somewhat flustered from the sudden conversation. “Was there something you needed?”

“I’m just calling to tell you… you see, I wanted to let you know… I… I…”

Sylvia was pushing the air as if to nudge her towards doing it.

“I just wanted to know…”

Desco was now making the same hand gestures, though it was clear she didn’t know what they meant and was trying to imitate Sylvia.

“I-I-I…”

“I think you’re cute!”

Guu hung up the call the instant the words left her mouth and started to breath heavily from the complete adrenaline rush. The other two girls were screaming in delight at what they just witnessed.

Trying to straighten herself out, she looked off to the ceiling. But it was at this moment that she noticed something odd. The scribbles on the “Rickety Stix” poster had somehow vanished. They were still on the other two posters, but it was gone on that particular one.

Throughout the night, the girls would just play around, having a good time. The trio would do each other’s hair. Guu’s hair was put in curlers, which is a funnier mental image than it should have been. They watched romcoms together; they played the dating game, having a glorious time. However, Guu would occasionally look up at the posters again. As the night went on, the marker slowly inched itself out of existence. She didn’t want to tell the other girls about it, she was having too much fun as it is. Even though she could have sworn that she had been on many of sleepovers in the past, she had this odd feeling that this was the first.

When it got late, Adult Guu came in to tell the three that it was time to go to bed. The trio brushed their teeth and the Adult ushered them under Guu’s blanket, and turned off the lights. Of course they didn’t sleep, they watched youtube videos for a good hour or so before conking out naturally.

Guu didn’t remember having any dreams that night, though considering the circumstances, that wasn’t a shock.


She woke up in the middle of the night to a strange sound. It was a child laughing maniacally. It wasn’t consistent, only coming in every few seconds or so. It spread shivers down her spine just hearing it. The freakiest thing about the noise was she could have sworn it was coming from under the bed.

Neither Sylvia nor Desco woke to it. She didn’t wake them, hoping it would be just her imagination acting up. She climbed off the bed and crouched down on all fours to look underneath it. At first, she didn’t notice anything odd. That is until she realized that she couldn’t see the moonlight pour over the other side of the bed, it was all just consistently pitch black under there. It looked empty even, so it couldn’t be objects just blocking the lights.

Despite her better judgment, she crawled under the bed.

[Guu]

Guu crawled for what felt like forever. Eventually, she saw a light at the end of the tunnel of sorts. It was of a strange blue hue.

Crawling out the exit, she climbed to her feet and scanned the room she just entered. The blue light was moonlight, coming from a nearby window, but the window was twisted in an odd angle. The entire room, with exception of the window and the floor was covered in framed photographs. Each one had a child in it, each on had their face smudge out. In the corner of the room was a child. She could tell the laughing was coming from that general direction.

“Nope, not going over there.” She said out-loud.

She got on her knees to climb back under the bed when a young girl’s voice called out to her.

“Wait, Guu! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She got up again and turned to the little child. It was a little girl around her supposed age with twin pigtails. However, her skin was pale white and her hair was a dull blonde. The most noticeable aspect of her is her elbow length black gloves she wore that clashed with everything else about her.

“My name is Ulna.” She said. “I’ve sought for your help.”

“How did you know my name?” Guu asked.

“Who wouldn’t know your name?” She retorted.

“Fair enough… I am quite famous… wait a minute. I’m not a tenth grader. Why… What the hell happened? I inspected a classroom and suddenly I was…”

“Whisked away by a fantasy?” She said.

“Yeah!” She exclaimed, and then she dialed back. “I mean, it was a good fantasy, but it’s not what I expected from this door.”

“I’m sorry for the confusion. The monster can only be engaged in it’s own mindscape…”

“Wait… monster?”

“The only way to get into the mindscape is to appeal to its greatest fantasy. In this case, it’s the love and energy of a human childhood. The playset, the school, it's headspace.”

“So I’m trapped in some monster’s dream?”

“Not quite. You’re half awake. These rooms exist, just the monster is effecting how you perceive them.”

“So… what am I supposed to do now then?”

“Oh, fight the monster.”

“Ah… wait WHAT?”

Suddenly, something crashed through the wall. A creature that stood double Guu’s size. It had button eyes and colorful outfit composed of pink suspenders and stripped t-shirt. But it was cut up, blue puss pouring from the wounds. It turned its head to face her as she noticed the fang filled mouth that was painted onto its face. She turned to yell out Ulna to fight with her, but she was long gone. Guu was all-alone on this.

The monster struck, smashing the floor into splinters. Guu just barely rolled out of the way. She made a mad dash passed the monster and through the halls of the house. The monster gave chase, scratching up the walls with giant claws the beast suddenly has now. Guu ran at tops speeds, she heard the creature’s footsteps getting further and further away. Knowing she was in the clearly, she slowed down to catch her breath.

But then she heard it, a crash in the distance. Another crash, this one closer. Another crash. She suddenly pieced it together. It was smashing through walls towards her

Not sure what to do, she starts punching holes in a circle in the ceiling. The crashing gets closer and closer. She punches another hole, it gets closer. She punches another hole, it gets closer. Then suddenly…

SMASH!

It crashed through the wall in front of her. It turned its head to look at her again. It starts walking towards her. Guu leapt out of the way and sent a flying punch to the ceiling. It punched the last hole, dropping the piece of dry wall on the monster’s head. She expected it to take that easily and even stepped expecting it to shrug it off and attack again, but, instead, it poofed into a cloud of smoke. The smoke traveled outward before dissipating at Guu’s feet.

Suddenly, the hall was made of polished gem, like the walls from the playground. She dug around the broken ceiling in search of any sign of the monster. All she could find was a gemstone of some sort, (she didn’t know rocks very well.) However, when she picked it up, all the walls of the hallways fell into the floor. One by one, it revealed a dark landscape of nothing. The only thing ahead of her was a strange white pedestal.

[Guu]

Guu walked up to the white pedestal. It was very plain, with exception to an indentation on the top surface. Following her instincts, she inspected the gem she just collected. The indentation matched one of the corners of the gem perfectly. Carefully, she slid it into place where it fit like a hand to glove. The pedestal suddenly started to glow as it makes a strange moaning sound.

Across from her, a doorway opened up in the dark void that surrounded her present location. It opened to a room made of green. In the center floated a rainbow colored orb she recognized at Omnilirium. The gem on the pedestal suddenly gets encased in a pink bubble, which disappears into nothingness. Then the pedestal sunk into the ground and didn’t leave any trace of its existence. After a day like that day, she didn’t feel like asking anymore-pressing questions.

Instead, she approached the Omnilirium. She knew from experience that any Prime that were to touch it would absorb it into their body. She reached out, hand outstretched as she slowly walked towards it. Her palm cupped over the ball of pulsating light. Slowly, it melted into her, encompassing her being. She felt the power inside her grow, but at the same time she gained something else. Knowledge entered her head. It felt like it had always been there, like she had simply forgotten it. A smile crossed her face as her brain processed the information she just received.

Suddenly, however, she was yanked from the place she stood. She felt herself get propelled at high velocity into the sky. Ahead of her was a portal of light. With a sudden stop, she was launched through the portal, which closed behind her.

Continued in "City of Ambrosia"