One original sci-fi story per day for all of 2023 | Created by screenwriter Timothy Michael Cooper, illustrated using A.I.

Portal

Portal

Each of our churches has its own mini Portal—grown from the massive original, which appeared in the Sumatran forest in 2025. Though no one’s ever come back after Stepping Inside the Portal, we can be sure that they’ve found a life of unending joy, wealth, reunions with deceased relatives, and more. Gaze on its whirling, sparkling rim, its inky-dark middle. For those who doubt what happens when you Step Inside, understand that if the Portal allowed people to return, then believing in it would require no faith, rendering it unworthy of the worship it deserves. And we all say: O-men.