With his ankle smashed under a large boulder Tasar awakens dazed and pinned. The murky dust from the explosion begins to settle as Tasar notices his injury.
"Damn!", he curses spying a small pool of green blood under a crevasse in the rock. The searing pain weakens his body but ignites his will. "Is anyone else alive?!", Tasar yells loudly through the fine blackened mist of the still lingering dust.
"I am.", a grizzled male voice echoes from behind Tasar. Tasar's straight black locks whip through the air with a whooshing sound as he spins his head to see the man behind him. A rather scarred face pale lanky old human man wearing no clothing is the image that greets Tasar's stunned eyes.
"Who...", is the only word that is able to escape from Tasar's lips.
"Who am I?", the naked old man echoes. "I am a traveler from another land. I am called X. Would you like some help, Tasar?", the old man explains in a rushed fashion before slowly closing his pale blue eyes. A tremendous torrent of wind floods through the rubble strew cavern and encircles the grey haired man as he begins to float above the cave floor. Making it appear as if he was stuck inside a miniature tornado. The boulder pinning Tasar instantly turns to ash and the wind stops.
"Now, we'll just pull you clear of this ash and heal your leg.", X says in an almost gleeful tone as his bare feet slowly retract to the cavern floor. The old man grabs Tasar by the metal neck ring of his containment suit and drags him out of the ash to reveal a mangled mess of tattered blue skin, exposed violet hued muscle and jagged brown bones poking out here and there. Tasar screams in agony as his broken lower leg scrapes against the gravel beneath him.
"I need to know if the professor was down here with you.", the old man says dropping Tasar's tensed upper half to the ground with a blunt thud. The wind bursts through the cavern again and in the blink of an eye Tasar's leg is perfectly healed. The still stunned Tasar couldn't begin to understand the man's request, let alone answer him with words that meant anything. Tasar had never seen any living thing that could turn boulders to ash and instantly heal wounds.
"Hey, don't go insane. I need answers. Was the Galgan known as 'The Professor' down here with you?", X repeated. Tasar finally escaped his trance and made his way to his feet.
"Yes, he was down here with me and my crew.", Tasar answers hastily dusting himself off. "They were just around the bend with an ancient artifact we discovered.", Tasar continues.
"The light gate...", X utters under his breath and disappears around a huge outcrop of obsidian stone.
"Wait. How do you know about the light gate?", Tasar inquires but his question isn't answered. Tasar hurries to catch up with his weird nude savior. "And why are you naked?", Tasar continued questioning as he too turned the corner to the chamber housing the stone monument. Tasar is shocked to see the professor and the rest of his men have been unscathed by the massive explosion. The odd nude human man was nowhere to be found in the room.
"Why is who naked, Sarge?", one man asks staring puzzled at his commanding officer.
"The old man. He called himself X.", Tasar explains nearly silently still trying to get a grip of the situation.
"An old man?", the man asks. "The only old man here is the professor and he's thankfully not naked, sir.", he continued.
"And the explosion?", Tasar asks confused.
"What explosion?", the human man asks almost as confused as Tasar.
"My boy, you've seen it.", The Professor said chuckling as he pushed himself off the stone and to his feet. "The gate showed you what it is capable of.", The Professor continued.
"What? Explain.", Tasar demanded in disbelief. His gazed locked on to the wrinkled bluish grey skin below the professor's eyes.
"What I mean is, the light gate warped you into the between world. A place where time no longer has any meaning...", The Professor's words drifted off.
"The between world?", Tasar asked still puzzled.
"According to legend, it is the one truth. The place that links past, present and future together. The realm that holds life as we know it together.", The Professor continued as his eyes turned back to the dancing colors in the center of the hollowed pyramid. "IT IS STILL ON, Tasar. And you activated it somehow.", The Professor rejoiced.
"He asked about you, Professor.", Tasar said ominously. "The old human man I saw, he asked if you were down here with me. And he knew my name.", Tasar spoke hesitantly. The Professor's eyes drifted back to Tasar's face once more.
"He asked about me? Well, I guess my reputation precedes me.", The Professor laughed.
"You're not terrified?", Tasar asked bewildered.
"Fear is not a feeling I am capable of anymore. Three hundred years of life have hardened me to such irrationalities. Maybe this X person needed my help with something he couldn't figure out.", The Professor rationalized. Suddenly the colors within the light gate expanded and washed the stone chamber with a brilliant white light that very nearly blinded everyone in the room. All the men veiled the eyes to the light with their hands but were unable to look away from it. A pale, nude human man slowly penetrated the shroud of light. He was tall and slender with grey hair and inescapable blue eyes that contrasted against the intense black rock that made up the cave. The blinding light surrounding the monument ceased at once as if it were attached to a switch that had just been flipped.
"I am X.", the grey haired man muttered as his locked onto the professor. "I need your help, Professor, would you please come with me?", he continued.
"Uncanny!", The Professor exclaimed. "Sure, I'll help you.", he said after a few seconds pause.
"Then please step up on to the light gate with me and remove all of your clothing.", X said hurriedly.
"My clothes?", The Professor laughed stepping up on to the rigid base stone of the monument.
"Either you remove them or you'll experience a fate worse than death. The light gate cannot move anything non biological. So if you're not nude it splay your parts all over the spacetime continuum in intervals according to the random quantum fluctuations of this cave.", X warned.
"Right. Clothes off then.", The Professor finally agreed stripping off his containment suit.
"Now, I need you inside the circle.", X said pointing down to his feet.
"Okay.", The Professor replied moving a tiny bit closer to X. Tasar rushed toward the light gate but stopped short as the two nude old men vanished before his eyes.
"I need a radio. The colonel isn't going to believe this.", Tasar said stroking the top of his head.

"Yes sir.", Tasar voice resonates.
"Then they vanished?", the blue skinned colonel inquires while slowly removing his grey colored beret from his head.
"Like Rendar piss on a Myahlee sidewalk, Gene. I mean sir.", Tasar replied almost forgetting the formalities of military etiquette.
"I don't whether to lock you up or give you a medal, Tasar. You've made likely the greatest scientific discovery since antimatter thrusters but you've also lost the only man who knows anything about the damned thing.", the colonel asserted furiously. The colonel turned to the ornately bordered paneled glass window behind his desk and stood from his chair. Tasar remained seated staring at the dark silhouette of his commander quietly awaiting his fate.
"They want you put in Panyachtu for evaluation before they decide sentencing, Tasar. I'm sorry. It's the best I could do short of them locking me up too.", the Colonel said in a short gasp slightly slumping his shoulders as he exhaled. Tasar managed to only blink once before armed Galgan men dragged him from his seat, threw him to the patterned rose colored rug on the floor and cuffed him.
"No, I'm not lying! They disappeared! I'll swear to it!", Tasar cried desperately while the brutish men dragged him from the Colonel's small office.
© Macabre Entendre