The Night Shift

In the Mystigian Realm

Doorways exist in many forms ~ some made of wood and brass, others of opportunity and circumstance. Consider the case of Marcus Webb, night watchman at Safe Self-Storage, where the doors between worlds are more permeable than most, and curiosity becomes both map and compass on a journey into the unknown. For in the spaces between what is and what might have been lies...the Mystigian Realm.

---

Marcus Webb took the night shift because it paid an extra dollar fifty an hour. Darkness was more honest than the daytime hours. At thirty-eight, with two community college degrees he had gotten nowhere fast. A resume full of jobs that led to this one, he'd made peace with disappointment.

The night shift at Safe Self-Storage suited him. Minimal human interaction, plenty of time to read, and the comforting repetition of hourly rounds through climate-controlled corridors filled with other people's forgotten junk.

"Nothing ever happens here," the manager told him during his orientation three months ago. "That's the point of the job. Make sure nothing happens."

Marcus was good at making sure nothing happened. Until something did.

It started on a Monday, during his 3 AM patrol of Building C. He'd been checking unit locks, as usual, marking them off on his clipboard, when he noticed the door to C-636 was slightly ajar.

According to his records, C-636 had been rented continuously for the past seventeen years by someone named J. Blackwood. They paid annually by wire transfer. The unit had never been flagged.

Marcus approached cautiously. He shone his flashlight through the gap. Instead of the expected jumble of boxes or furniture, he saw...nothing. Pitch black darkness. A darkness different from the absence of light. A darkness with substance and depth.

He pushed the door wider.

Where there should have been a ten-by-ten concrete storage space, was an opening into a vast library. Shelves stretching impossibly far beyond the dimensions of the building, illuminated by soft amber light from unseen sources.

Marcus checked his watch: 3:17 AM.

He stepped through the doorway into the library.

---

The air smelled of leather and paper and something spicy. The floor beneath his feet was polished wood. Intricate patterns swirled beneath a layer of varnish. The ceiling arched high above, painted with constellations he almost recognized.

"Can I help you find something?"

The voice came from behind him. Marcus turned to find an elderly lady in a burgundy brocade dress with wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. A journal open in her hands.

"I'm sorry," Marcus stammered. "I'm the security guard. The door was open."

She smiled. "Yes, it opens every night at precisely this time. You're the first to notice in quite a while."

"What is this place? It can't physically fit inside that storage unit."

"An astute observation." The she said as she closed her journal. "This is the Alexandria Collection. One of many parallel realities accessible through certain...junctures.”

"Parallel realities," Marcus repeated.

"Indeed. This particular doorway leads to a world where the Library of Alexandria was never destroyed. The gathered knowledge of antiquity survived and flourished." She extended her hand. "I'm the Curator. And you are?"

"Marcus Webb. Night security at Safe Self-Storage."

"Ah, the new guardian! Excellent." The Curator consulted her watch. "You have approximately forty-five minutes before the doorway closes until tomorrow night. Feel free to browse. But I must warn you ~ nothing leaves the Collection."

Marcus spent those forty-five minutes in a daze. He wandered through shelves containing texts that couldn't possibly exist. Books detailing technologies centuries ahead of their time, written in languages long dead in his world. Scrolls containing philosophical arguments from minds whose works had been lost to history.

At 4:02 AM, the Curator politely but firmly escorted him back to the doorway. "Until tomorrow night, Guardian."

Marcus stepped through and found himself facing a perfectly ordinary storage unit filled with dusty cardboard boxes and a single metal filing cabinet.

He convinced himself it had been a hallucination. Too many late nights. Too much coffee. Too many paperback science fiction novels read under the harsh fluorescent lights of the guard shack.

Until the next night.

---

At precisely 3:15 AM, Marcus stood outside unit C-636, watching the ordinary padlock glow with a faint blue light. At 3:16, the light intensified. At 3:17, the lock clicked open of its own accord.

Marcus found himself stepping into a bustling marketplace under an alien sky streaked with two suns, one gold, one pale blue. Humanoid figures in iridescent clothing moved between stalls selling devices and substances he couldn't begin to comprehend.

No one paid him any particular attention until a woman with metallic scales, instead of hair, approached him.

"First time crossing, Guardian?" she asked, her accent musical and strange.

"I...yes. What is this place?"

"The Nexus Market. It exists at the intersection of seventeen different timelines." She handed him what appeared to be a small copper coin. "Your passage token. Don't lose it, or you'll miss the return window."

Marcus wandered through the market in a state of wonder and terror. Technologies he couldn't fathom were being casually traded. Beings from what must have been different evolutionary paths haggled over prices. At one stall, he saw what looked like smartphones, but impossibly thin and flexible.

"Latest model," the vendor assured him. "Quantum-linked across all probabilities."

"How much?" Marcus asked before he could stop himself.

"For a Guardian? A mere trifle. Your memories of your first love."

Marcus backed away. At another stall, a wizened creature offered him a vial of shimmering liquid.

"Cure for all cancers in your timeline," it said. "Cost you ten years of your lifespan, but what quality years they'd be!"

At 4:14, the copper token in his pocket began to vibrate. Marcus followed its pull back to the doorway, which was already beginning to shrink. He slipped through with seconds to spare.

---

Night after night, Marcus discovered that unit C-636 opened into a different reality between 3:15 and 4:15 AM. A world where the Roman Empire never fell. A timeline where electricity had been discovered in the 12th century. A reality where humans had evolved from feline ancestors rather than primates.

He took notes and documented the differences. He built a map of possibilities. Each night, he was recognized as "the Guardian" and granted access. With the same cautionary rules, not to interfere, not to take, not to stay too long.

"Why me?" he asked a Curator, in a world where books were grown rather than printed.

"Doorways require guardians on both sides," the old man explained. "Your predecessor watched for seventeen years. Now it's your turn."

"And if I quit this job?"

The Curator's smile faded. "The doors must be guarded, Mr. Webb. If not by someone who respects them, then by someone who might exploit them."

Two months into his discoveries, Marcus made his first mistake. In a world where digital technology had taken a biological rather than electronic path, he couldn't resist slipping a data-seed into his pocket. A small, pearlescent object that supposedly contained the complete works of philosophers who had never existed in his world. It was a fantastic find & so tiny.

That night the seed transformed into a miniature replica of his own head. His mouth frozen in a silent scream. He never took anything again.

But he continued exploring. He continued documenting. His apartment walls were covered with notes and diagrams. He stopped socializing. Used all his free time to research historical divergence points, technological differences, evolutionary paths. An endless maze of wonder.

Then he made a second mistake. He mentioned his discoveries to Diane, the day shift guard.

"Building C gets weird at night," he said casually over their shift change coffee. "Especially around three in the morning. Ever notice that?"

Diane gave him a strange look. "You should talk to management if you're seeing things, Marcus. The last night guy, old Mr. Blackwood, started rambling about parallel universes before they fired him. Dementia. Poor old guy."

J. Blackwood.

The name on the rental agreement for unit C-636?

---

Marcus located him in a state facility for the mentally ill. James Blackwood, 86. No family. No visitors. His case file described elaborate delusions about alternate realities accessible through a storage unit.

"They're not delusions," Blackwood told him in the visitor's room. His blue eyes clear despite his frail appearance. "They're watching you now. Making sure you keep the passage safe."

"Who is?"

"The Administrators. They exist in the spaces between realities. They built the doorways eons ago." Blackwood leaned forward. "They let us see the other worlds because they feed on wonder. On the awe we feel encountering the infinite. But they'll never let us bring anything back that could change our world too quickly."

"But why me? Why us?"

Blackwood smiled. "They choose people who won't be missed. People who won't be believed."

That night, Marcus stood before unit C-636 as the lock began to glow. When it clicked open, he wasn't surprised to find himself stepping into a stark white room where three figures waited. Their forms shifted. As if they were being viewed through heat rising from pavement.

"Guardian," the central figure said. Its voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "You've spoken to our previous watcher."

"Yes," Marcus admitted. "I have questions."

"As did he. As do all chosen to guard the thresholds." The figure gestured, and a doorway appeared. A perfect replica of the storage unit entrance. "You have a choice. Continue as Guardian, with the gift of witnessing what might have been, or return to your world and forget."

"And if I choose a third option? If I tell others? Bring proof?"

The figure's form settled briefly into something almost human. "Others have tried. Some have succeeded in bringing small items through. Seeds of change planted in infertile soil. A mathematician's theory too advanced for his peers to comprehend. A composer's symphony too complex for contemporary ears. They become anomalies. Curiosities."

"You're manipulating us," Marcus accused. "Showing us these possibilities but ensuring we can never reach them."

"We are gardeners," the figure corrected. "Cultivating potential across an infinite number of realities. Some flourish. Some wither. Yours is promising but erratic."

"And my role in this… garden?"

"To witness. To remember. To make small choices that might, over time, guide your reality toward better paths." The figure extended what might have been a hand. "We offer expanded perception, Guardian. Not control."

---

Marcus continued his duties at Safe Self-Storeage. Each night, he visited different realities. He never brought anything physical back. He brought back ideas, perspectives, glimpses of what humanity might become, or might have been.

During the day, he volunteered at schools, telling "science fiction stories" that were actually descriptions of technologies he'd seen. He anonymously mailed concepts to researchers working on similar paths. He couldn't bring back the cures or the devices or the advanced theories, but he could plant seeds of his own.

Six months later, Diane stopped him during their shift change.

"You ever figure out what was weird about Building C?" she asked.

Marcus studied her carefully. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I switched to night shift at my second job last week. Came by to pick up my paycheck at 3:30 AM." She hesitated. "I saw you coming out of unit C-636. Except it wasn't you. Not exactly. You had a streak of silver in your hair and a scar on your cheek. Could have been your twin."

A chill shimmied down his spine. "What did he say to you?"

"He said to tell you that 'the Administrators have authorized limited cross-temporal communication.' He gave me this." She handed him a folded piece of paper. "Said you'd know what to do with it."

On the paper was a simple diagram. A modification to the water filtration system at the treatment plant where Diane's husband worked. A small change with potentially massive public health implications.

"What is this?" she asked. "What's going on?"

Marcus made the decision. "Do you have a few minutes before your shift? There's something I need to show you. It opens at 3:17."

We are travelers in an ocean of possibilities, separated from countless other realities by membranes thinner than we dare imagine. For those who stand at the crossroads, who glimpse what might have been or yet could be, the question remains: Are we merely witnesses to infinity, or its architects? The answer awaits those brave enough to work...the Night Shift...in the Mystigian Realm.