A notification pinged on Charlie Turner’s phone and interrupted the silence in the office.  A quick glance and he could see the Blue Bird of Twitter appear.  He casually tilted the screen with one hand so that his face automatically unlocked it.

For a while now, Charlie had been following an anonymous Creator on social media.  Despite having a lot of work to get through that day, the three simple words that flashed up quickly grabbed his attention.

'Diamonds or Dust'?

Without moving his head, Charlie looked over at his boss.  A tall, dark haired man sat behind several large computer screens directly opposite.  He seemed busy enough.  Glasses on with his stern, focussed expression.

As Charlie turned those words over in his mind, a small fire gently ignited in his imagination.  His thoughts skipped to a documentary he remembered seeing about some far distant planet where it literally rained diamonds.  It was always this way with The Creator.  A few words and his brain just raced.

He threw his phone on top of the pile of papers Charlie called his “to-do list” in the corner of his desk.  Today of all days he was keen to keep his head down, get on with work.  It was his annual review and Charlie did not want the day to get off to a bad start.

But the phone pinged again and, now unlocked, the words popped into Charlie’s line of vision.  This new tweet read:

'A portal opens to the future.'

Charlie sat back in his chair and rubbed his forehead, wracking his thoughts for what this phrase could mean.

A portal opens?

If it was the Discord portal, then Charlie was not worried as he was already in thankfully.  The Creator’s Discord was notoriously hard to gain access to, but Charlie had been very lucky on the first day it opened and had been sitting at his computer when the first hundred users were allowed in.

But those words,

‘…to the future?’

Charlie felt something pound in his chest.  His pulse sped up, just a little and he automatically reached a hand up to his heart….