The Color Bridge

The Luma Tide sat at anchor in a quiet bay, sails furled, the water around her still and dark. The crew had gathered on deck. He leaned against the ship's wheel. Not because he needed to steer anywhere but because it just felt right.

"I need to tell you something," he said. "A story first. Then I'll ask you a question, and whatever you say, I'll understand."

He looked at each of them in turn. Amara, steady as always, arms crossed, watching him. Taye leaning against the rail. Rafa sitting on a coil of rope with his notebook open. Finn perched on the bow, feet dangling, a big grin on his face. Scott took a breath.

"Our story starts with a girl. Her name is Lily," he said. "We met at a university. She was there researching ancient artifacts. I was giving a lecture called 'Myths You've Never Heard Of.' I'd told one story I must have heard a hundred times. A remote workshop and an inventor named Johan Tohlen. The workshop door had some weird squiggle symbol on it. I even showed a rough drawing I'd sketched from the stories I'd heard. After the lecture she walked up to me and pointed at the symbol on the screen and said 'Hi, I'm Lily, and I know where that is.'"

He paused.

"But, I need to go back a little further," he said. "Bear with me."

He told them more about Johan Tohlen. He was an inventor and a builder who believed that alongside our world - right beside it, just out of reach - there existed another one. A world of color and light. He spent years trying to build a bridge to it. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a drawing - old, the paper dry and yellowed at the edges. On it was a drawing of a cube, each face a different color. Red, yellow, green, purple, magenta. And one face missing from the drawing entirely.

"He called it the Color Cube," Scott said. "It creates a bridge between worlds."

Finn sat up straight. "What kind of worlds?"

"Are they dangerous?" Amara asked.

Rafa leaned forward. "Has anyone else been through?"

Scott held up a hand. "I'm getting there."

The town was small, tucked between the ocean and the jungle. A coastal road stretched away in both directions, and there were only a handful of buildings. Firefly Landing.

We drove in late afternoon. Lily saw it the moment we turned off the main road - I could see it in how she leaned forward. The building was at the edge of town, right where the road ran out. Overgrown at the base, the walls the color of old cream. A spiral was carved into the stone above the door - the same one she'd photographed years ago.

I stood in front of it for a moment. I wanted to take it in. She tried the door. It opened and she was inside before I knew what was happening.

The place was small, but packed - maps on every wall, diagrams pinned above every surface, and notebooks. More notebooks than I'd seen anywhere outside of a library. I went straight for them. That's how I make sense of things - I read until I understand.

Lily went for the stuff. She was hunting around on a workbench and found some colorful tiles sitting in a pile. While I was still on the first page, I heard two of them click together behind me. I kept reading.

The first notebook was Johan's introduction to the Color Cube - what it was, what it did, how the bridge worked. I skimmed it quickly. The second went deeper. The cube had six faces. Five colors and another panel. He called it the Unicorn Panel. I flipped the page and that's when I saw the warning note. He'd written it three times: Do not place the clear panel last without reading this section first.

"Scott, have you seen another one of these panels?" Lily's voice came from behind me.

I had seen it when we walked in. I pointed across the room without looking up.

The clear face, Johan had written, was different from the others. It was where the power came from. The clear face activated everything - the full power of the cube. Once it was in place, the cube activated. I wasn't sure what that even meant. What would happen when that last tile clicked in?

That's when my brain registered what Lily had just asked me. Had I seen another tile. I turned and there she was about to drop the last piece onto the cube.

"Wait!" I said.

It was too late.

The last tile snapped into place. The unicorn face came alive - not one color, every color at once, a soft rainbow shimmer, steady and quiet. Lily dropped the cube and it hit the floor with a thud that seemed too loud for its size. The wall in front of us started to shimmer and wave. Then in a burst of light it was gone. And in its place - a bridge. Made of color, stretching off into the distance.

I was too amazed. I couldn't stop myself. I just walked right in.

When I stepped onto the bridge something changed. I looked the same, felt mostly the same, but also somehow - different. Like a slightly more colorful version of myself. Lily joined me and we practically ran up the bridge until we came to an intersection. It doesn't matter which way we went first. Here is what we found. Eight lands.

• The Ancient Lands - ruins, old paths, weathered carvings.
• The Tide Lands - familiar somehow, sea and ships and a world that moves by water.
• The Creative Lands - bright with color and movement.
• The Spark Lands - loud with invention, tools and gears and the hum of things being built.
• The Grove Lands - quiet and warm, animals in the trees, the feeling of being happy you were here.
• The Coral Lands - a whole world shimmering beneath clear water, light bending through the deep.
• The Cosmic Lands - enormous and full of stars and wonder.
• The Cloud Lands - strange and light and alive with laughter.

The crew was quiet for a moment.

"Where did you get the ship?" Finn asked. It was so out of place, but also so Finn.

Scott smiled. "That's a story for another day."

"We went four times," he continued. "Each time we came back, one face of the cube went dark, but we didn't notice it until the fourth crossing."

Rafa looked up from his notebook. He had been doing the math. "One face left," he said quietly.

Scott nodded. "You were paying attention. Someone else probably would have thought two more trips."

"But the sixth side is the battery," Rafa said.

"So we can only go once?" Taye asked.

"That's where it gets interesting." Scott answered. "Johan's notebooks described a key - a key shaped like a unicorn head - designed to fit into a depression on the clear face. It's a power source."

"Like a battery!" Finn exclaimed.

"Exactly. To charge it, it had to be carried through all eight lands to find the unicorns who lived there. Once fully charged, place it in the cube and the bridge stays open forever."

There was a moment of silence. Then Amara, who had been quiet all this time, spoke up, but in barely a whisper. "Did he do it? Did Johan charge it?"

Sadness crossed Scott's face. "We don't know what happened to him. We believe he's still in there somewhere."

Taye turned to the horizon, as if looking toward the key. "He took the key with him."

"Yes," Scott said.

"So he's in there," Amara said. "With the key. And we have one crossing left to find him."

"That's it exactly."

Scott looked at each of them.

"Lily has her crew. They go inland through all eight lands. We take the coasts, the islands, the rivers. Between us we cover everything." He paused. "If we come back without the key, the last face goes dark. The bridge closes. Permanently."

He said it simply. Just the shape of the thing.

"But I have hope. Because of all of you."

He looked at Amara. "You hold steady when everything around you is shifting. When the instruments fail and the charts are wrong, you trust yourself. We're going into eight lands none of us know. We need someone who can lead without a map."

He looked at Taye. "Nothing gets past you. Our journey needs someone who sees ahead, can warn us of any dangers and can spot any clues. You've been doing that your whole life."

He looked at Rafa. "Whatever state that key is in when we find it - however it works - you can figure it out. You fixed a compass that everyone else would have thrown away. That's a talent we need."

He looked at Finn. "There are going to be moments in those eight lands that need someone who doesn't hesitate. Someone whose energy carries the whole crew forward. Someone who can keep our spirits up when things look dark. That's you."

He was quiet for a moment.

"So I promised you a question. Here it is. Do you want to go?"

Finn hopped off his seat and walked over to the helm wheel and put his hand on one of the spokes.

Taye turned back from the horizon, moved to the wheel and put his hand on another spoke.

Amara didn't even have to move. She just reached out and grabbed a spoke.

Rafa closed his notebook, capped his pen. He walked over and took hold of a spoke.

"Rafa!" Amara said, pointing at his pocket. It was glowing.

He pulled it out. The needle spun back and forth and then settled.

"Where's it pointing?" Taye asked.

Captain Scott just smiled. "Firefly Landing, of course."