I was breathing heavily as the boy held a glinting knife to the man's throat, the boy's face furious and covered in sweat. I could barely make out the light brown color of his hair and the even lighter blue of his eyes as I began to grab Nessa's limp body and frantically pull her away from the violence occurring mere feet from her. I didn't want her to get caught in the fray.

"Myla, you need to leave," the boy said, his voice much calmer than it had been when he was talking to the man. He turned his gaze from the man to look into my eyes, and it sent a jolt of electricity through my bones. "You need to go."

I stood up and backed away, thinking that was what he meant. I had to get back home. My mind wasn't even thinking about the fact that the door had been on the other side of the roof and the boy had run in from the side opposite the door, meaning unless the boy had been abnormally silent, he hadn't even come through the door. But how else would he have been able to get onto the rooftop?

"No...not that way..." I looked up at the boy when I heard his comment, not understanding. Not that way? What other way was there?

"You've been thinking about it. I know you have been. You've always been one to question the world around you. To not believe just what you see, but to indulge deeper. And I think you know what I mean, but you're too afraid to admit it to yourself."

There came a sharp laugh from the man lying spread-eagled beneath the boy. The brown haired boy gave the man a lethal glare. It did nothing to quell the raging laughter.

"She...doesn't even know?! Wow, you people are such idiots. You really think you can get her to learn in only a couple seconds? You really think anyone could pick it up that easily?" the man scoffed, staring at the boy like he was a complete idiot.

"Be quiet. I know what I'm doing," the boy replied, slightly begrudgingly. He took a deep breath and let it out through his mouth before trying again. "Listen, think about all your ideas. Think about...the universes."

Universes.

Plural.

Not just one, but many. My own concept of infinity. My eyes widened as somewhere deep in my conscious mind something clicked into place, something so frighteningly unknown that I could barely bring myself to face it. But I had to face it.

Because it would explain how the boy had made it to the roof without going through the same door I'd gone through.

It had been an idea I'd tossed around in my mind on multiple occasions, never really getting too far with it before sinking into a pit of endless confusion and questions. The idea of infinity existing and what that would mean.

Infinity. If infinity does really exist, and that's what's out there, beyond the sun and the planets and the stars, and all of the different objects we can point out in the sky, then that means that we can't be alone. If infinity exists, everything exists. Everything is real. It means that there could be, multiple universes, parallel ones, identical ones, ones where things we could never imagine could exist. Because isn't it only logical, that if infinity exists, every possible combination of everything that could possibly ever happen would have to exist? Wouldn't that mean somewhere out there there has to be an identical world to the one I lived in, where another Myla was standing on another rooftop with another odd, but in some way convincing boy telling her something insane that she'd came up with is real?

Because infinity meant that anything we could imagine is real. Somewhere out in the endless vacuum of space it had to be real. Every book, every movie, every idea, story, character, had to exist somewhere. Every possibility had to be real.

And that meant portals between these endless universes had to be real.

And that was what had always confused me. If someone else in another universe had a portal between worlds, why hadn't they come to our universe yet? Were we so minuscule so unimportant compared to the billions, trillions, infinite other universes out there? But why didn't we have access to a portal?

And then everything came together. Because I remembered the idea I had been thinking of just before getting the call.

The portals are our minds.

I only had to manipulate my own mind to believing myself to be in another universe and I'd be there. I only had to force the idea deep into my  thoughts, make sure I believed it, and I'd be able to leave my own universe for another.

"Please...you need to come to my universe...imagine a rooftop just like this one...it should work...," the boy seemed desperate, like he needed this to happen for some reason. I didn't know anything, didn't know who he was, why he was asking me to do something so wild, who the guy who had been trying to capture me even was. But I did know what he wanted me to do, and against my better judgement telling me not to trust him, I closed me eyes.

And I imagined a rooftop.

The gravelly feeling of dirt and cement pressed against my cheek. The dark night above us, where the moon shone down on me from above, the moonlight not enough to overcome the darkness. Stars scattered through the sky as a light breeze fell upon my skin, blowing a sole strand of brown hair into my cheek.

I'm in another universe. I can travel through universes. I am the portal. I am the portal. I AM the portal.

The gravel I was feeling against my cheek was the gravel of the boy's universe. The air against my skin was not familiar. The world I now was in wasn't my own.

I opened my eyes.

I was lying on the ground, the chain still wrapped loosely around my chest. I sat up slowly, my head pounding slightly as I pushed the heavy chain away from my body. Nessa was no longer next to me. I looked across the rooftop, trying to find her, but she wasn't there.

Instead the boy stood a couple feet away, no longer holding a knife to the throat of the man who'd tried to take me, no longer looking so...intimidating.

Then I noticed how different the moonlight seemed to be. Rather than just guessing at the fact that the boy's hair was brown, I could actually see it. I turned my eyes upward, towards the sky.

Two full moons shone on me with their brilliant light, side by side. Two separate circles, shining down on the world beneath them.

"Congratulations," the light brown haired boy said quietly to me as I stared up at the night sky. "You did it."