A man in his early 60's removed his fingers on the buttons. He sighed as he slowly sat down on his comfortable office seat. Above the collection of buttons were three large monitor screens, standing side-by-side. He sighed yet again as a door behind him opened, and an old maid came in, holding a cup of steaming coffee.
“Your coffee, sir,” she said, her voice was old and bored. She then stared at the table in the middle of the small room. “Shall I leave it on the table, sir?” Her eyes are already poor, but from the lights of the monitor screen in front of her master, she could see his nodding head. “As you wish,” she said. She walked towards the finely-crafted table, and carefully placed the cup on it. “I'll be leaving now sir,” but all she received was a sigh. She bowed her head before she went out of the room and gently closed the door behind her.
Minutes passed before he decided to stand up from his seat. He turned and walked towards the table, where his coffee was waiting for him. Slowly, he held the handle and lifted the cup. Inching closer to his mouth to take a sip, he suddenly remembered seeing Claire on Mount Comet. The cup was only an inch away from his mouth that let out a heavy sigh, as he brought the cup back down on the table.
The hand he used to grab the cup of coffee, he moved it to his pocket to pull out his phone. He never liked the new models of phones, and even those new ones that the companies call ‘smartphones’. Browsing through his phone book, he found his daughter's number, and hit the call button.
What he did back there in Mount Comet wasn't very fatherly, he thought to himself, over and over again. He suddenly remembered the day she disappeared. That was a few weeks after his wife died. He found her letter in her room, where her deepest sorrow and anger was written. Claire wrote how he was now focusing more on his work rather than his two beloved daughters. She wrote how frustrated she was for trying to reach out to him, but he would just either ignore her or scold her for wasting his precious time.
He let out another sigh as he moved his phone from his ear to his line of sight. ‘Line busy’ was displayed on his screen. He tried again, while running in his mind of how to ask for her forgiveness. The line was still busy, and he sighed yet again.
He decided to check on his youngest daughter instead. This year, she's already eight. Somehow, a small smile crept on his lips as he approached the only door in the room. Grabbing the handle, he twisted the knob and pulled open the door. Before he went out however, he turned to look at his computer screens, which were displaying various information of his scientists' work, and on one of the monitor, a video image is seen, displaying the current status of the island - now surrounded by dark mists.
After he closed the door behind him, he slowly walked through the long room where his scientists are busy analyzing data after data on their monitors, while others are conducting experiments in another room. He disregarded the noises as he walked towards the other door ahead of him.
Reaching the handle of the door, he twisted the knob and pulled the door open, and closed it behind him. He sighed, after the noises finally have died down. He was now in a rather spacious basement, where it was transformed into a miniature food court. Several scientists were eating while discussing whatever with each other. He didn't pay them any mind as he started walking towards the stairs that would lead him to the ground floor of his grand mansion.
As he walked on the stairs, he thought back of how all of this began. It all started after he and his deceased wife started working on a project of advance science that would benefit both humanity and their dying world. Everything was always about work, and work, and work, until his wife bore their second child.
As she grew, she was fascinated by the cartoon of ponies, and always commented on how wonderful it would have been if their world would be the same. He and his wife instantly got curious about the possibility of another world. Stupid as it sound, they began their little project, until they have actually stumbled upon information that there was a weird distortion of space and time in the far east of the region. He, his wife, and a group of scientists went to the reported location and began their study. If the distortion was caused naturally, then surely, they could study it and be able to make one with human technology.
He reached the ground floor, and found himself inside a small room, where across was another door. On the other side, after closing the door behind him, was the large living room, filled with ancient and expensive furniture of different sizes and purposes. Walls contained paintings of different themes, and the ceiling held numerous chandeliers. He payed little attention to a few maids that were busy cleaning as he walked towards the set of stairs leading to the second floor.
He realized, after his wife's death, and after Claire has left, that he had indeed given no time to his children. He easily found out about Claire working in the city, and was now an independent individual. Even though she held great hatred towards him, he could a least be proud of his daughter's achievement. But his youngest daughter needed him the most. She was the sole reason why he continued working on this project. It was for him to give her a wonderful world to live in. However, as he was standing in front of his daughter's door to her room, he couldn't understand why she suddenly wanted him to stop the dimensional project that could allow anyone to go in and out of dimensional portals.
This project was to save their world from dying through using other world's resources. It was proven to be a success, however, they did not expect that the world they were trying to open was filled with monsters beyond their wildest imagination. Even so, he was determined to continue the project, and even went too far as to use Claire's dimensional-traveling friend named Jay to gather even more useful data.
However, during one of their test runs, his phone rang, and it was his youngest daughter calling him. She asked him to stop the project, for it was no longer needed. He told her however, that it was for her to be able to live a wonderful world, but she held her ground, saying that she could live happily inside their home, thanks to her new companion.
Cancelling their test-run caused major trouble, causing a giant wood wolf to enter and wreck havoc. They have evacuated the area in time with their private choppers, but carried a heavy heart after he was not able to convince Claire to come with him, to return home.
Arriving in his mansion, he wanted to see who his daughter's companion was, but after he was assured by his maids that her companion held no threat whatsoever, he immediately went to his lab and asked his scientists stop the portals from popping in the island. They did so, and were able to close the portals to decrease the number of monsters from getting into their world. Now, they're on the phase of removing them, but it was far too difficult that required quite a lot of time.
Now, as he slowly opened his daughter's door to her room, he immediately noticed how brightly lit the room was. The room was spacious, filled with cabinets, a large bed, books and toys, and in the middle of the room were lots and lots of pillows lying on the floor, where he found his daughter chatting with her companion while brushing its rainbow-colored hair. Both their backs were on him.
“Rose?” he spoke with a doubtful voice as he stepped inside and noticing how blue his daughter's companion's skin was.
The small girl turned her head to her shoulder, and sprung to life with a wide smile after seeing her father. “Hi daddy!” She set the brush down and stood on the pillows, almost losing her balance. “Did you just come back from your uh...field work?” she asked cheerily.
“N—” he held his tongue and smiled at her. “Yes, I just arrived.” He then moved a hand behind his neck with a guilty smile. “Sorry, Rose. I forgot to bring you anything...again...”
“Aw...” she pouted, but immediately erased that as she turned to her blue friend. “Oh right,” she looked at him, “daddy, this is my new friend!” She then turned her attention to her friend and poked her shoulder. “Say hello, Rainbow Dash.”
Now that he got a better look at his daughter's friend, he found out that it wasn't actually a human, but a creature of some sort. The creature seemed to be imitating how a normal dog sits, and he noticed that its height was almost the same as his daughter, where she was barely four feet in height. Panic was slowly creeping through him.
Rose then turned to him with a sad smile. “Sorry daddy. I guess she's just really really shy.” She then jumped in front of the blue creature's line of sight, and leaned her face closer to it, her shining bright eyes contrasting Rainbow Dash's lifeless and lightless eyes that seemed to stare blankly ahead of her. “She's been very quiet ever since she suddenly appeared here, daddy...” Rose said as she stood up, barely seeing her father since Rainbow Dash was in front of her. “D-do you think...you can help her?” She shook her head. “She's always so talkative and full of life in the show...”