CYOA Wednesday 2025 #21 [Beyond the Woods 21]

This fantasy CYOA story continues today. Synopsis below:

When Derek, Jade, and Clara go camping, they stumble upon a portal to another dimension filled with strange creatures and sexy seductresses.

Derek helps Aethera. Jade serves as bait. Clara runs to the generator to activate the portal. She succeeds, but at what cost? You decide.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/129557910

Read the twenty-first segment below:

21 – Activating the Portal

“I’m the strongest, so it makes sense I’m the one to get Aethera out of harm’s way,” Derek said. “Jade, you’re the fastest, so how do you feel about being bait?”

“Not what I hoped for, but since it was my idea, sure… I’m game.”

“That leaves you, Clara. We need you to activate the portal.”

“How?” Clara replied.

“Just start pressing things and see what happens.”

“When does that ever worked?”

“We don’t have much of a choice here,” Jade insisted. “We can’t go back now.”

“I know…” Clara sighed. “God, I wish I had never come here. It’s my fault we’re all stuck here.”

“If this works, hopefully we won’t be stuck for long,” Derek said, trying to remain as optimistic as possible. “Are you ready?”

“No, but the sooner we do this the better,” Clara said.

“That means I’m up then,” Jade clenched her teeth and started running towards the generator.

She sprinted as fast as she could. Her movements were exaggerated, arms waving and feet stomping to create maximum noise and visual distraction. “Hey, you ugly thing! Over here!” she shouted, drawing the machine’s defensive protocols into full alert. Metallic panels swiveled, tracking her motion.

Immediately, sharp metallic tendrils erupted from the generator’s base, whipping through the air with deadly precision. They struck where Jade had been milliseconds before. “Missed me, you piece of junk!” she shouted, rolling out of the day and continuing to zig zag erratically to make it harder for the machine to hit her.

Derek seized the moment and ran toward Aethera’s fractured form. He scooped her up without thinking, her semi-liquid molecular structure rippling across his arms. Jade continued to run and scream as he backed away from the danger zone and Clara tried her luck.

The trembling girl approached the control interface, her fingers hovering over a complex array of pulsing crystalline switches and holographic displays. Static electricity crackled around her, making her hair stand on end.

“Okay, what the hell do I do now?” she muttered.

Meanwhile, a laser blast scorched the ground near Jade’s feet. She dodged it with little effort and laughed. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Clara took a deep breath as she started touching things at random to see what stuck. Whatever happened next would determine their fate and if they would ever get the chance to see home sweet home again.

Already next to the Wanderbeast, Aethera looked at Derek as if he had committed the greatest crime of all. “Clara…” she whispered, “She… she shouldn’t be doing this. It’s too dangerous.”

“We need to try,” Derek said. “Try to get some rest now. Is there anything I can do to help you heal?”

“No, I… Clara…” she continued to mumbled as if she had looked into the future and seen nothing but disaster. She closed her eyes and collapsed on Derek’s arms.

Clara’s fingertips brushed against a crystalline node, sending a violent electric surge through her nervous system. Her muscles seized and spasmed, but she gritted her teeth and maintained contact. Another node. Another shock. Sweat beaded on her forehead as raw energy coursed and spread beneath her skin.

Across the chamber, Jade’s sprint was becoming ragged. Her movements grew slower, less precise. The metallic tendrils kept striking closer, forcing desperate dodges. Her lungs burned with each desperate inhalation.

“Come on… Something’s gotta work,” Clara muttered through clenched teeth, her hand trembling as she pressed another interface. A deep resonant hum began building within the machinery.

The generator’s defensive systems suddenly seemed to hesitate, its tracking mechanisms confused by Clara’s random interactions. Jade seized the opportunity, diving behind a massive conduit to catch her breath, muscles screaming from sustained exertion.

“Clara,” Jade yelled between breaths, “Hurry! I can’t keep this up much longer.”

A particularly violent surge of energy erupted from the panel, throwing Clara backwards. She slammed her head on a metallic grate, her vision momentarily blurring. The chamber’s ambient lighting shifted from a dull red to a pulsing blue-green. Something was happening.

Derek watched in tense silence as Aethera’s breathing grew fainter with each passing moment.

A spiral of energy erupted overhead, tearing reality itself into jagged fragments. Unlike the previous dimensional breach they had traversed, this portal ripped through space with violent and predatory intent, a massive wound in the fabric of existence. Jagged crystalline edges erupted from the portal’s rim and stretched across the chamber. The colors of the center vortex oscillated between a deep ultraviolet and a sickening shade of crimson, almost as if it were bleeding.

Metallic fragments from the generator began to levitate, drawn inexorably toward the gateway’s gravitational distortion. Clara, still dazed, watched in horror as the machinery around them started to disassemble, its pieces spinning toward the menacing portal.

“Oh God, what did I do this time?” She said.

“We need to get out of here,” Derek shouted, but his voice was swallowed by the portal’s increasing resonance. The vortex grew larger and larger, becoming almost the size of the chamber itself, and that’s when everything fell apart.

Jade was the first to be pulled in, her body twisting in midair, limbs flailing against the impossible gravitational pull. Derek felt himself sliding, leaving Aethera’s unconscious body behind. Clara screamed, her fingers trying to grip some stationary surface, but the portal’s energy was merciless.

The Wanderbeast, sensing imminent danger, unfurled its massive form around the shapeshifter, creating a protective cocoon that shielded her from the violent dimensional turbulence.

The humans weren’t so lucky, though. One by one, they were dragged into the cataclysmic storm and projected to God knows where this time.

A thunderous implosion rocked the chamber. Crystalline shards of the generator exploded inward, collapsing into a singularity that consumed itself. Sparks and electromagnetic residue scattered like dying fireflies, the machine’s complex systems fragmenting into cosmic dust.

When the initial shock subsided, Derek found himself tumbling through an impossible landscape. Fractured realities pressed against each other like shattered mirrors, each shard reflecting a different version of existence. Jade’s distant scream echoed from somewhere beyond the dimensional boundaries, while Clara’s terrified breath came right behind her.

No one knew what was about to come, and that made it all even more terrifying.

To decide what happens next, head over to my Patreon (you can join for free), and vote on the poll there until next Sunday. 

If you’re new to these CYOA stories, here are the basic rules:

1) You can only choose one option;

2) If there’s a tie at the end of the poll, and the competing options can be combined somehow, I’ll do that. If not, I get the deciding vote to keep the tale going.

3) The process continues every Wednesday until the story runs its natural course.

Have fun.