When did you realize a family member had completely lost touch with reality?
The Portal Requires Submission
My sister held our little brother underwater so he could meet Harry Potter. When I yanked her back, she screamed, “The portal requires submission”. I just stared at her. That was nine months ago. Yesterday, she sent a letter asking why we stopped her from finding peace.
My sister Emma came home with a black eye last Tuesday. The girls at school had cornered her again, calling her freak and weirdo for reading alone at lunch. At 15, she had no friends, was completely flat, ate in the bathroom stalls, and spent weekends in her room.
I found her crying into her Harry Potter pillow that night, whispering she wished she could just disappear somewhere she belonged. Mom and I held her while she sobbed about feeling trapped in a world where nobody wanted her. We promised things would get better.
We just wanted her to find happiness somewhere. Emma discovered shifting through TikTok. Meditation techniques to transport your consciousness to desired realities. She’d lie still for hours, listening to subliminals, visualizing Hogwarts.
It seemed harmless, even therapeutic. She started smiling again, journaling about adventures with fictional friends who accepted her. Mom bought her crystals and LED lights for her shifting room. Her therapist said fantasy was a healthy coping mechanism. Emma made online friends who shared scripts and methods.
We were thrilled she’d found an escape that didn’t involve self-injury. She even started washing her hair again, saying Draco complimented it. Sure, she spent entire weekends shifting, but she was healing. The bullying didn’t sting when she believed real friends waited in another reality.
But soon, Emma’s shifts grew longer. She’d skipped school, claiming time moved differently. There, she started speaking with a British accent, insisting her Hogwarts memories were more real than ours. When I suggested limits, she screamed that I was blocking her frequencies.
She covered her walls with shifting symbols, spent mom’s credit cards on crystals that enhanced portal energy. Her online community encouraged deeper methods. Hyperventilating, sleep deprivation, special herbs. She believed people who couldn’t shift were low vibrational.
She started trying to help others shift. First, our cousin, then neighborhood kids, guiding them through dangerous breathing exercises. Parents complained after she told their children their real families waited in better realities.
She’d wake me at 3:00 a.m., insisting she’d learned to shift objects between realities, showing me ordinary items she claimed came from Hogwarts.
When her therapist expressed concern, Emma accused her of being a reality gatekeeper and refused further sessions. She stopped eating, saying food weighted her to this dimension.
Mom found her teaching our 10-year-old brother Jake her methods, promising he could meet Harry Potter. When we intervened, she sobbed that we were trapping her in hell. The shifting wasn’t escape anymore. It was her only reality.
I woke to Jake’s scream from the bathroom. Emma had him in the filled tub, holding his head underwater. I yanked her back. Jake gasping, choking, eyes bulging with terror. Emma fought me surprisingly strong, screaming about.
The portal requires submission.
30 more seconds and he’d have shifted.
She wailed, lunging for Jake again. The drowning sensation is the dimensional barrier breaking. Jake vomited water, crying hysterically. His lips were blue.
Emma kept reaching for him, explaining frantically that near-death experiences create the strongest portals. She’d been planning this for weeks, researching how water conducts interdimensional energy. Mom crashed in, saw Jake shivering, and shoved Emma against the wall.
“You almost unalived him.”
Emma laughed, eyes unfocused.
“Death isn’t real when infinite realities exist.” “He’d just wake up at Hogwarts.”
She turned to Jake speaking gently like he was stupid.
“You were so close, buddy.” “You felt the shift starting, didn’t you?” “The burning in your lungs was magic entering.”
I held Jake while mom called 911. He couldn’t stop shaking, kept touching his neck where Emma had held him down.
She’d convinced him they’d meet Ron Weasley if he trusted the process. Emma tried explaining to the police that drowning was a proven shifting method her community recommended. She showed them screenshots, hundreds of posts about using extreme consciousness disconnection.
She’d been practicing on herself in cold baths, building tolerance.
“He consented,” she insisted as they cuffed her. “Tell them, Jake, you wanted to meet Harry.”
Jake just sobbed harder, afraid to look at her. The paramedic said another minute underwater would have caused brain damage.
Emma smiled at that, saying brain damage just meant partial shifting. Even strapped to the gurnie, she coached Jake.
“Remember the water darkness?” “That’s where the portal opens.” “I’ll perfect the method and come back for you.”
I returned home from the hospital to find mom catatonic on the couch, staring at nothing. Jake had locked himself in his room and wouldn’t come out, not even for water.
The house felt hollow, like Emma had taken all the air with her when the ambulance left. I was heading to check on Jake when a notification popped up on Emma’s abandoned laptop on the kitchen counter.
