Written By Dice

“It’s this door,” declared Alexander gesturing to a white-wood moulded door, one of many in a seamlessly ending corridor which repeated in the same pattern of doors, plant pots and portraits of old men.

“I think you’ll find it is this door,” disagreed Zander demonstrating towards an identical door three doors down. Every door in the endless corridor was identical in every way. Having been led through a maze of identical, inter-crossing corridors full of identical white doors, Alex had no idea why these two should be different from any of the others. He decided it was best to ask Jennifer.

“This one is closer.”

“Who invented the room?”

“Who discovered its potential for inter-universal travel?”

Jennifer was the woman who he had met in the Impossible Room, which in turn had transformed into a replica of Number 10 Downing Street with this endless maze of corridors. Jennifer was the only one in the Impossible Room who wasn’t a parallel universe version of himself. She was slim with brown hair and a pretty face. She wore little make-up and had her hair drawn back into a low ponytail.

“What are they arguing about?”

“Which door leads to where we want to go,” she replied simply.

“But I thought we were, you know, travelling into the past.”

“We are. Each of these doors is a collision with another part of this universe. The Alexander has the ability, well it’s more of a sense, but anyway they can tell which door leads where, normally there’s only one Alexander, so there’s less arguing. Only less mind, Alexander’s favourite interlocutor is himself.”

“About the only one who knows what he’s talking about,” whispered Lexis, leaning into the conversation.

“So where are we going exactly?” enquired Alex.

This time Alexander answered: “a henchman of our enemy is attempting to sabotage a lighthouse, a lighthouse currently, well in the past, but current to this door,” he empathised the use of the word ‘this’, “is currently guiding a ship as it lays the last of the Transatlantic telegraph cable.”

“If the cable isn’t laid human progress is slowed, and any delays in progress weaken us.” explained Jennifer.

“And we have no time to waste, so I’m going through this door.” announced Alexander.

Meanwhile a tall man dressed all in black grasped onto the railings of the lighthouse. He was not good with heights and felt nauseous as he slowly made his way around the top balcony.

A noise made him start. It was faint, but recognisable – it sounded like the turning of a door knob. Suddenly something hit him in the back and sent him screaming over the railings towards the cliff below. He bounced off the cliff down to the waters below.

At the top of the lighthouse Alexander leant through door he had opened.

“Sorry! Didn’t see you there!”

“What happened?” came a call from inside the impossible room. Alexander smiled as he realised who he had sent falling to his death. It was the henchman they had come for.

“Serendipity happened, my favourite of the dipities.”