Page:Avon Fantasy Reader 17.djvu/5



by Nictzin Dyalhis

UICIDE as a means of escaping trouble never appealed to me. I had studied the occult, and knew what consequences that course involved, afterward.

But I was fed up on life. I was destitute, and had no friends who might help, even were I to appeal to them. At forty-eight, one does not easily regain solvency. And, gradually, I'd lost all ambition. Not even hope remained.

If only there were some other road out—a door, for example, into the hypothetical region of four dimensions it certainly couldn't be worse there than what I'd borne in the last three years. Well, I could try

I seated myself cross-legged on the floor. If I concentrated hard enough, perhaps the miracle might occur at least I should have tried a last resort Gradually a vague state ensued wherein I was not unconscious, for I still knew that I was I; yet a queer detachment was mine—there was a world, but of it I was no longer a part

Click!

Like a movable panel a section of the wall opened, revealing a most peculiar corridor—a strange Being stood smiling at me. It did not speak, yet I caught the challenge: "Dare you?"