Myst - Book 1
Myst
Chapter 2 - The Imager

The island bathed in the glow of the sun, the water crashed on the land. Myst was calm and peaceful, and it has for a while, but at the foot of the harbour, a visitor dropped in. The man from Earth traveled unexpectedly to the isle, as he did, his profanity stretched thought time and space. After the low murmur of a link, '...hiiiiit!' he partially yelled in his red pajamas, utterly confused and no longer tired. 'WHERE AM I?', he yelled, getting up and pacing on the wooden deck, 'WHAT IS THIS TAING?' It took a second or two to register, 'What a minute.', he scanned the surroundings, 'No way. This can't be right.', checking the other end. 'How the hell did I end up on Myst?' He turns back, 'This is the harbour!', he continued, 'That's the sunken ship.', scanning his right, continuing anti-clockwise, 'There's the sunken gear.......what?' He saw a stange ancient looking building, 'That's not the observatory, it's a bloody temple!' Gazing for a second, he continued, 'That there's the library....oh, hello, what are you?' he asked a suspicious closed doorway. As he went to examine it, the stone door opened, as if seeing him come. The man flinched, 'Whoa.', eyeballing the door, 'Must have a motion sensor or something.', and hesitantly entered.

Blue lights lit a stone passage down into a room, at the bottom, he couldn't be sure but he thought he saw a fountain. He continued down the stairs, draped with a step rug and with blue lights shining from the edge onto the wall. He reached the bottom and he seemed right, in a small circular room, with blue lights shining at its base, water rippled in a circular bowl out of stone, the size of a statue fountain. 'That's nice', he uttered. He lent in to feel the cool water, but to his surprise, nothing, his hand clearly in the water, and he can't feel it. 'What?', he said, touching his fingers, and without realizing, his knee hit the yellow button. A buzzing noise woke the man up, and the water shone white, and disappeared. 'Whoa!', he said, jaw opened, what was left were a series of metal pipes and discs at the bottom. He looked down and saw the button he pressed. He lent down and pressed it, again the noise buzzed again, and the water shone back into the bowl. 'Hologrammatic!' he gleamed.

He turned around, surveying the chamber, and he saw a note on a wall, beside the stairs. The man moved to it, it read;
"Settings - Dimensional Imager
Topographical Extrusion Test ... 40
Water-Turbulent Pool ... 67
Marker Switch Diagram ... 47", with a green button at the top left corner. '40? 67? 47? What is this?', he asked, 'What's with the numbers?' Noticing the button, he pushed it, the note was on a hatch opening, it opened, and behind it, a machine with switches, a red button at the bottom, and two displays saying 67. 'Oh, right!', he sighed, thinking, 'Let's see 47.' He switched the number to 47, and pressing the red button. It beeped and the hatch closed, the imager set to off. He went back to the imager and turned it on. Again the buzzing started and in the middle of the imager, a three-dimensional look of a marker switch. Triangular in shape, with a square wooden plate in front, and a switch at the top. It span for a second, then the imager turned off. 'Great! Wonderful!........What do I care?', he said, 'How about 40.' He went back to the hatch and clicked up to 0. When the second number reached 9, he clicked up, and nothing happened, he pressed it more, it didn't click to 0. 'It doesn't cycle though the numbers.', he sighed, and clicked down to 0, and closed the hatch. The man turned on the imager and a grid appeared, it rose to varying heights, and then added terrain and span. The test detailed a valley between snowy mountains, the view rotating 360 degrees. 'Fantastic.', awe struck by the machine. 'What happens if I put in a different number?', he began to wonder, shuffling to the panel again. He put in 60 to test, and closed the hatch, and turned on the imager. It buzzed for a while, but nothing happened, he tried again, it buzzed, but nothing. 'Well, that settles that then.' he said, gazing at the imager, 'What a piece of machinery.', he made his way up and out, wondering how the technology was possible.

When he returned to the harbour, the door closed, it finally struck him, 'Great, I'm a character in a fictional story. OHHH, JESUS!', kicking the air in a fit of rage.