It was awkward for Julie talking to the school’s administrative assistant with the taste of sperm on her tongue and her vagina oozing into her panti...s. But Julie soldiered through, kissed Daniel on the forehead, and sent him off to class.“So, this is what’s left of our dreamstone?” Khadra carefully unwrapped the rags that surrounded the rock on her coffee table. She pulled her hand away and sucked in her breath when she saw what their precious stone had become. “This has been used for. Your Uncle Ted wants to spend time with you before you go off to college." Uncle Ted wants to spend time with me? He's never home, he's always traveling." "Your Aunt Kathy wants to spend time with you too. Look, you don't have to go. You're eighteen now, it's your life, just give it some thought. Maybe spend a few weeks or a month with them. It's nice at the lake; you'll never know if you don't go, but you might actually have a good time."My mother was right, it was nice at the lake. I've. I woke yesterday expecting to meet with an execution council at 11 AM. Instead I was hooded and led to Ur's train station. We caught the 5:50 to Halab, and then picked up the northern run at Tyre. My chaperone was kind enough to call out the stops for me." Chanah smiled. "The trip took just six hours, so amazing! We arrived before noon yesterday."I nodded back at her and smiled, thinking of the ancient locations of the cities, Houston Texas to Wichita Kansas to Sioux City Iowa, and then west on. Not much is know about the portals, as investigations into them proved fruitless, there were many of them that popped up across the lands, all with the same sunset orange glow affixed in the center of a giant black oval ring, held in place by purplish columns, with strange writings and runes written on them.Of course there have been many who decided to go into the portals, but none of whom have returned, in fact it wasn't until some of the denizens of the world beyond the portals came through.