Word Count: 1337 words.

A portal appeared inside Nick's bedroom cupboard one winter night. It was a magical portal, he was quite sure of it. 

Nick didn't know when, or how, it appeared. He only noticed it when a hiss woke him up. 

"Psst! Psst!" said the hiss.

When Nick awoke and saw that his cupboard was open, and that there was a doorway with a sparkling orange boundary inside said cupboard, he was flabbergasted. He rubbed his eyes. But the doorway stood where it was.

"Psst!"

Nick was in that disposition of mind where one is neither fully conscious or unconscious. Children below the age of 13 in particular are found in this state a lot more often than adults and teenagers. Nick was twelve years of age.

He shoved a little finger into his left ear and wiggled it to and fro. Then he waited tenaciously. He did not have to wait for long.

"Psst! Psst!" came the hiss.

Comfortable in his semiconscious state of mind, Nick discerned two fascinating details. 

1.) The hiss was a human hiss and not the hiss of an animal. 

2.) The hiss was coming from beyond the magic portal.

As Nick observed this, a finger emerged from the doorway in his cupboard. It was followed by two more fingers, followed by a palm, and finally pursued by a full hand. The forefinger digit on the hand curled, gesturing Nick to move closer. 

Then the hand retreated and the sparkling boundary of the portal began to get dim. It was vanishing!

Without a thought Nick hurled himself off the bed and launched himself into the doorway inside his cupboard.

For a moment he felt like kneaded dough. Then, inexplicably, he found his bottom attached firmly to a chair. In his hand he now held a quill of the old-fashioned sort, with a peacock feather sticking out as its tail. 

On either side of him were identical frayed yellow walls, congestingly close. 

In front of him was a desk. In front of his desk was another desk, in front of which was yet another desk, and so on. All desks were occupied by kids approximately his age.

Nick was trying unsuccessfully to process all this when the walls around him started undulating. And a voice erupted from them: 

"Congratulations, children, on having made the shortlist of Succubus Academy! We divulge to only a select few the secret workings of Magic. Therefore, each student at our esteemed institution has to qualify numerous rounds of examination. 

"If you are here you have already passed the first round by stepping through a mysterious inter-dimensional portal in your place of residence.

"Should you fail any test or task presented to you, you will find yourself returned to your respective houses, so that you may go on living your ordinary, mundane lives.

"However, should you make it through them all, you will stay here at our Academy for an indeterminate period of time to be tutored in the Magical Crafts by the most renowned warlocks in the cosmos. Your parents will not notice your absence, for we will plant in their houses an exact clone of their child — of you, that is. Any discrepancies in the clone's behaviour will simply be dismissed as 'teenage behaviour.' That is how it has always been.

"Goodluck with the written exam. Your time starts . . . now!"  

The walls silenced and stopped rippling.

A single sheet of paper appeared on Nick's desk. 

On top of the sheet was a symbol depicting an exceptionally fat panda balancing on a bamboo stick.

On the centre of the sheet was a question in black ink. It asked Nick his name.

"Nick Holt," he wrote with the quill in neat handwriting. 

Both the question and his answer evaporated. In their place a new question materialized on the page: "On a scale of leprechauns to unicorns, how much would you rate necromantic magic?" 

Unfamiliar with this unit system, Nick answered "dragons". The sheet seemed to be satisfied with his answer and replaced the question with a new one. 

So went on the test.

Kids in front of (and behind) Nick were vanishing, presumably teleported back to their homes. Nick was determined to not get any answer wrong, odd as the questions were. If there was such a thing as a school of magic, he wanted badly to be a part of it. 

After what felt like centuries, a line in bold font settled on Nick's sheet. It read: "BRAVO! YOU HAVE PASSED THE WRITTEN ROUND!" 

And the bamboo from the symbol on top of the sheet snapped, and the fat panda tumbled down. Nick's eyes followed its tumble, down, down, down . . .

He was in a tunnel. 

He was not alone; he could hear others muttering in hushed voices around him. This had to be the next round, for those who had qualified. 

Something glimmered far ahead in the dark tunnel. Ten little somethings, to be exact.

Nick furled his brow. Was their task to grab the gems before—

The children charged like a storm. Nick streamed across the tunnel, pushing, squeezing, getting pushed, getting squeezed. 

He was this close to the gem. This close to qualifying. He reached out and—

(—somebody trampled over him, beating his head into the ground.)

—Nick woke up. Truly woke up. In his bed, at his home. 

He bounced off the bed. Opened the cupboard. No portal in there. Obviously not.

That was one vivid dream, he thought. I'll never forget it.

Nick forgot about it by next afternoon. He grew up to be a writer and wrote a story about a secret magical school for pandas with an oddly specific admission criteria.  

Nick Holt forgot about the portal, about the tunnel, about Succubus Academy . . . That is, until he found a piece of parchment in his son's bedroom a great many years later. A piece of parchment with the symbol of a fat panda balancing on a bamboo stick stamped on it.

Then all the memories came rushing back. And Nick remembered the entrance process of Succubus Academy, and he became sure that that hadn't been a dream. 

Nick confronted his son. "Barney," said he to his son, "do you study magic?" 

Before Barney could cook up a lie, Nick held up the parchment. "I know about Succubus Academy, son. You go there?"

Barney Holt gulped. "Well, technically, I don't go there. The real Barney does. I'm just a clone." 

"How do I get in?" shouted Nick. "I want another chance to learn magic! To be with my real son!" 

Barney blinked. Breathed. Deeply. "Why don't you have a sit down?" 

"I'm the father, not you," grumbled Nick. "Tell me how to get in. Create a portal or whatever." 

"It doesn't work like that," his clone-son said. "You see, you already are in Succubus Academy. In fact, you're something of a legend there." 

"I . . . am?" 

"Oh yes," said Clone Barney. "Nick Holt, greatest warlock of all!" 

"But I'm not!" said Nick angrily. 

"Not you, maybe," said Clone Barney. "But the real you, yes." 

"What do you mean?" asked Nick.

"You're a clone, Dad," said Clone Barney. "Just like me."

"How's . . . how's that possible?" Nick muttered. "I went to give the exam, I remember clearly—"

"Part of the reason you're so famous at the Academy," explained Clone Barney, "is because the Academy messed up. And the Academy rarely messes up. They sent you an entrance invitation — you, a planted clone — even though the real you was already a student there. Thank heavens you failed. Two Nicks at the Academy would have caused a ruckus." 

Nick felt himself slipping into that semiconscious state of mind he'd not visited since childhood. "I'm a clone," he whispered.

"You're a clone," Clone Barney confirmed. "And so am I. It's not a bad life, being a clone, once you get the hang of it." 

"My whole life has been a sham," said Nick.

"Life is a sham, Dad," said Clone Barney. "The bamboo can't take your weight forever. Get over it." 

*

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