I only feel a bit relieved after my encounter with Ben, I probably only got him off my back for now. We will most likely come back to extort me again. Hopefully, I’ll be readier for him next time. As for what he did with Heather’s number, I wait to hear from Heather herself. Ben probably immediately texted her after I gave him the number as to not lose any time trying to get her to fall for him.

School ends on a dull note as my dual credit science teacher is already talking about the county science fair. I swear, the teacher starts talking about it earlier than the year before. I don’t really know what I want to do yet, but I know that I’m going to need to do well on it if I am going to get a good grade in the class. Pushing it aside for the time being, I leave school and make my way to the stone house.

As I bike there, a random thought pops in my head. I can’t just keep calling it ‘the stone house’, I’ll need to create a name for it. It’s kind of hard to create a name for it, since the house defies all logic and reason. The house has been dead for years untold. Maybe, how about ‘Domus Magicae’? Yeah, that sounds good, it fits the house’s nature! Satisfied with the house’s name, I continue my ride to it.

Arriving, I see that Heather is already there. I get off my bike and head inside to find out where she is. I enter the house and see that she is not in the entrance hall. I call out to see where she is.

“Heather, I know you’re here, where are you right now?”

“I’m on the second floor, come up here! I want to explore the other side some more!”

This is great! I didn’t know that she wanted to explore the other side as well! We can finally find out what that bird from two days ago actually is as well! I go up the stairs to see Heather holding candle. She has clearly been waiting for me, so we can explore the other side.

She looks at me as if she is looking for my approval to start the process of opening the rift. I give her slight nod, hinting that she can start. Seeing me nod, she moves over to the archway and lights the two candles. The process starts, the air warps then tears and in 30 seconds the process is finished. With the process finished, we head over to the other side.

When we get to the other side we notice that something is different.

“Uh, Heather, that wasn’t there before… right?”

In front of us, there is a straight clearing, seemingly leading out of the forest. This new clearing is laid with random stones, seemingly beckoning us to follow it. This was definitely not here two days ago, so what the hell happened in the days that we didn’t go through? Not even a whole team of professional loggers could have cut down all the trees and put all the stones in it.

“Yeah… that… that wasn’t there.”

This is creeping me out, like how? First, a barrier keeping stuff out and now a pathway leading us out. So, whoever did this clearly didn’t want things coming to our world but stuff from our world coming to this one. Was the creator an explorer or something? What did this person want to do with this world? A plethora of new questions and no answers for them.

“Cameron, should… should we see where the pathway leads to? I mean, I wanted to explore some more, but I didn’t expect to find a pathway just laid out in front of us.”

“I… I guess we should follow it, we didn’t really know where we were going two days ago. This path gives us some idea on where to go.”

“So we’ll follow it… let’s go then.”

With our minds searching for answers and pathway to follow, we start our trip. A trip into the abyss that is the forest’s exit.