It wasn’t supposed to be like this, I wanted to help people. My research had limitless applications—like transporting food and medical supplies across the globe within seconds.

The FEDs quickly took notice. And even though it meant signing my soul away, I let myself be seduced by the fast talkers with their fancy suits. The military no doubt had their own ideas about how to use my technology, but I needed their funding.

In those first few years, my team made countless paperclips and apples vanish. All we had to do was set an object on the platform and zap it with enough energy.

Bringing objects back was much easier than figuring out where they went; we just rigged a timer to generate an energy signature the device could latch onto and then recall.

We began transporting live matter, starting with lab rats. We set their cages to generate the signature after two minutes, then three, then four. They always returned intact.

I’d successfully opened a doorway, but to where? The radiation scrambled any and all camera footage. I spent countless nights staring at my bedroom ceiling, wondering where there was someone—or something—on the other side humanity could communicate with.

The bigwigs began asking about ‘practical applications’, their way of saying, ‘show us how this crap helps win a war’. I needed a human subject, one who could walk through that door and report what lay on the other side.

Within days we had our first volunteer. My assistants strapped him into an environmental suit and gave him a rundown of the procedure: all he had to do was sit still and the equipment would handle the rest. After the leap, he’d have one minute to observe the other side, then the timer would bounce him straight back.

When he disappeared into that flash of white light, we held our collective breaths. That single minute seemed to stretch into days. Would he return with news about alien lifeforms, one that could help us better understand our place in the universe?

A giant cheer went up when he returned, although it cut off abruptly, because the man’s eyes were gone, along with his tongue and lips. His fingers and toes had been severed, and every inch of skin was covered with an intricate grid of lacerations. He died quickly, leaving behind more questions than answers.

It was only a matter of time before funding got pulled. The question of what lay beyond that door would remain unanswered, perhaps forever.

But then strange energy fluctuations began occurring, after which a small, oval object appeared on the platform.

It was an eyeball. Just an eyeball.

More fluctuations followed, accompanied by more detached body parts. Within minutes they were getting sent and recalled.

Then all together, my team shared the same chilling revelation. There IS something on the other side of that door. And now it’s reaching out to us…