Adventure Quest. The Elevator - On The Other Side Of The Page
On the Other Side of the Page” 📖✨
📍 Elevator
📚✨😲 Luke was reading The Three Musketeers for probably the tenth time, and by now he knew entire conversations by heart. He secretly dreamed of living among those men of honor and steel for just one day. His parents had long accepted that their son fenced imaginary opponents in the hallway, and one of his teachers had even nicknamed him d'Artagnan because of his restless temper, stubbornness, and remarkable ability to turn an ordinary disagreement into a matter of honor.
That afternoon Luke entered the elevator of his apartment building with the battered novel tucked under his arm. Without looking up from the page, he pressed the button for the first floor.
The elevator descended.
Then it jerked .
The lights flickered.
There came an unusually long metallic groan from somewhere above him, followed by a strange sound that Luke could have sworn was the clatter of horses' hooves.
The doors opened.
Luke took one step forward—and stopped.
There was no lobby.
Beyond the elevator stretched a narrow seventeenth-century Paris street crowded with carts, horses, vendors and pedestrians. Smoke drifted above crooked rooftops. Somewhere a church bell was ringing. Men swords wearing passed within yards of him without giving the impossible metal box behind him a second look.
Luke slowly closed his book.
"Oh," he whispered.
Then he grinned.
"Oh! "
The elevator doors closed behind him.
Luke wandered through Paris in a state somewhere between astonishment and delirious happiness. Every few steps he recognized something—not because he actually saw it before, but because Dumas had built it so completely inside his imagination.
Then he heard angry voices.
Luke turned a corner and froze.
Ahead stood several men with swords.
One wore a broad-brimmed hat and a dark cloak that moved in the breeze. He was young—much younger than Luke somehow expected—and there was something unmistakable about the way he stood, one hand resting near his sword.
Luke's heart nearly stopped.
d'Artagnan.
Not an actor.
Not an illustration.
Not Luke's imagination. But, d'Artagnan — from the “Brave Hearts” collection.
And then Luke noticed the three men beside him.
Athos.
Porthos.
Aramis.
Luke's mouth fell open.
He knew exactly where he was.
This was the meeting at the Carmes-Deschaux.
The three duels!
That ridiculous, wonderful chain of accidents in which d'Artagnan had managed to offend Athos, Porthos and Aramis separately and arrange to fight all three—only for the Cardinal's Guards to appear and interrupt them.
Luke had read this scene so many times that he knew what was coming next.
And sure enough, five guards approached.
Luke almost laughed from sheer excitement.
This is it.
This was the moment when d'Artagnan would choose to stand beside the Musketeers.
Luke crept closer.
He wanted to see everything.
Unfortunately, seventeenth-century Paris had not been informed that Luke was just a spectator.
"Boy!"
Luke looked up.
One of the Cardinal's Guards was pointing directly at him.
"You! Away!"
Luke scrambled backward—and collided with a wooden handcart.
It rolled downhill.
"Oh, no."
The cart struck a stack of barrels.
The barrels toppled.
One smashed into the legs of a guard just as swords were drawn.
The man went down spectacularly.
Everyone stared at Luke.
Luke stared back.
Porthos burst out laughing.
"I like the boy!"
"I didn't do that on purpose!" Luke cried.
"That," said Aramis, drawing his sword, "makes it considerably more impressive."
Then the fight began.
For approximately eight seconds, Luke thought it was magnificent.
Steel flashed.
Boots scraped across stone.
Cloaks whirled.
Athos fought despite his injured shoulder. Porthos seemed to occupy half the street. Aramis moved with astonishing precision.
And d'Artagnan—
Luke forgot to breathe.
He had imagined this hundreds of times.
But books had never told him how fast a sword was.
Or how frightening.
A blade struck another inches from Luke's face.
CLANG!
Luke stumbled backward.
Suddenly this was not fencing with imaginary opponents.
Nobody was playing.
These men could actually die.
And for the first time since stepping out of the elevator, Luke desperately wanted to go home.
Then d'Artagnan was knocked sideways.
His sword flew from his hand.
Luke saw it skid across the stones.
He also saw one of the Cardinal's men advancing towards him.
In the novel, Luke knew exactly what was supposed to happen.
But Luke had changed the scene.
The fallen barrels had changed everyone's positions.
The story was not following the page anymore.
"Your sword!" Luke shouted.
d'Artagnan looked.
Too far away.
Luke was closer.
Every heroic thought Luke had ever had vanished immediately.
He was terrified.
Then he remembered something.
d'Artagnan had been afraid too.
Of course he had.
Luke suddenly understood something the book had never quite managed to teach him.
Courage wasn't feeling anything.
Courage was being frightened—and deciding that something else mattered more.
Luke ran.
He snatched up the sword with both hands.
It was far heavier than the fencing foil he had imagined carrying someday.
"D'Artagnan!"
The young Gascon turned.
Luke threw it.
It was a terrible throw.
The sword spun awkwardly through the air, and d'Artagnan had to jump sideways to catch it by the hilt.
But he caught it.
His grin flashed.
"Well done!"
Steel rang again.
Three seconds later his opponent's sword was on the ground.
Luke stood completely still.
d'Artagnan had just said well done to him.
Unfortunately, another guard had noticed.
He seized Luke by the collar.
"And what have we here?"
Luke's feet almost left the ground.
“A very bad idea,” Luke answered honestly.
The guard dragged him backward.
d'Artagnan saw.
His expression changed immediately.
He disengaged from his opponent and came towards them.
The guard put his sword near Luke.
"Another step!"
d'Artagnan stopped.
Luke had read enough Musketeer adventures to recognize a stalemate when he saw one.
He also had enough to know what d'Artagnan would probably do next.
Something reckless.
So Luke decided to beat him to it.
He stamped as hard as possible on the guard's foot.
The man howled.
Luke ducked.
d'Artagnan moved.
A moment later the guard's sword clattered across the stones.
D'Artagnan grabbed Luke and pulled him behind him.
"You," he said without looking around, "have an alarming instinct for trouble."
Luke could hardly believe the accusation.
"Me?"
Even Athos laughed at that.
The fight ended almost as Luke remembered it, although the fallen barrels, runaway cart and mysterious boy had certainly not appeared in his copy.
When it was over, Luke sat on a overturned barrel trying to make his knees stop shaking.
d'Artagnan approached.
Luke looked up at his hero.
For years he had imagined exactly what he would say if this impossible moment ever happened.
He remembered none of it.
"You were afraid," d'Artagnan said.
Luke's face reddened.
"Yes."
"Good."
Luke blinked.
"Good?"
"A man who is never afraid is either a liar or a fool."
Luke hadn't expected that.
d'Artagnan sat beside him.
"Courage comes afterward," he continued. "When you know you're afraid and do what must be done anyway."
Luke looked down at his hands.
They were still trembling.
"I always thought you weren't afraid of anything."
D'Artagnan laughed.
"Then whoever told you stories about me has exaggerated terribly."
Luke couldn't help smiling.
"You have no idea."
Athos approached them.
"We should go."
Porthos pointed towards Luke.
"Are we keeping him?"
“No,” said Athos.
"Pity."
Aramis studied Luke's strange clothes.
"I suspect he already belongs somewhere."
Luke suddenly remembered the elevator.
And home.
And parents who would probably be wondering why their son had went downstairs and disappeared sometime around the reign of Louis XIII.
"I have to go."
D'Artagnan nodded.
Luke hesitated.
There was one thing he desperately wanted to say.
"You're my hero."
D'Artagnan stared at him.
Luke immediately wished the ground would swallow him.
But d'Artagnan didn't laugh.
Instead he removed one glove and held out his hand.
Luke took it.
"Then choose your heroes carefully," d'Artagnan said. "You may discover they're only men."
Luke thought about everything that had happened.
"Maybe that's better."
For once, d'Artagnan had no quick answer.
Athos smiled.
Luke ran back through the streets carrying the book under his arm.
Behind him came a shout.
"Luke!"
He turned.
D'Artagnan stood at the end of the street.
Luke had never told him his name.
For one strange second neither moved.
Then d'Artagnan raised his sword in salute.
Luke raised the book.
And ran.
The elevator was waiting exactly where he had left it, absurdly modern against the ancient stone wall.
Luke jumped inside.
The doors began to be closed.
In the last second he saw four figures appear at the end of the street.
Porthos was pointing at the elevator.
Aramis appeared deeply suspicious.
Athos simply watched.
And d'Artagnan was laughing.
The doors shut.
Luke pressed 1.
Nothing happened.
“Come on.”
He pressed it again.
The elevator jerked violently.
The lights flickered.
Luke squeezed his eyes shut.
DING.
The doors opened.
His apartment lobby.
Same carpet.
Same mailboxes.
Same flickering light that his father had complained about six months.
Luke stepped out.
Then stopped.
He opened The Three Musketeers.
The pages looked exactly the same.
Almost.
On the page describing the fight with the Cardinal's Guards was a tiny brown smear.
Mud.
Luke touched it.
Then looked down at his shoes.
The same reddish-brown Paris mud covered the soles.
Luke smiled slowly
.
🏠📖⚔ That night Luke sat on his bed with the battered copy of The Three Musketeers lying across his knees. There was no photograph of that impossible Paris street on his phone—nothing he could show anyone as proof. The only picture he had of d'Artagnan was the familiar figure on the worn cover of the book, but Luke now handled that shabby old volume more carefully than any treasure.
Sleep was impossible. Again and again he replayed the flashing swords, the runaway barrels, his terror when the guard grabbed him, and the impossible instant when d'Artagnan caught the sword Luke had thrown. Most of all, he remembered something he had never understood while just reading the story: heroes could be frightened. They could make mistakes. They could be reckless, stubborn and very human—and perhaps courage was meant more because of it.
The following morning Luke told his best friend everything with such burning excitement that he nearly reacted the entire sword fight over breakfast.
His friend didn't believe a word.
Luke didn't argue.
He smiled and later checked the bottom of his shoes, where a little seventeenth-century mud still stubbornly clung to the tread.
And from that day onward, whenever Luke stepped into the elevator with his beloved book under his arm, he always hesitated before pressing the button.
Because when the doors opened, he never immediately assumed there would be a familiar hallway waiting on the other side.
Sometimes, just for a second, Luke hoped to smell horses and woodsmoke again—and hear a Gascon voice somewhere beyond the doors shouting:
"Well? Are you coming?" 🏰⚔📖✨
