He wasn’t the type to sleep early but his eyelids were getting heavier by the minute and soon he could see the bright moon from his window. He then prepared himself to go to sleep, removing the outer layers to lay in his underclothes, in case the night got chilly. Picking up his phone, he noticed that it was turned off. Perhaps did the battery die when it got soaked or it...simply couldn’t take whatever physics were involved in time travel.

However, to his surprise, his phone could be turned back on making Arthur jump up. “It works...it works!!”, he exclaimed in a quiet yet excited voice. The device seemed to be much slower than it usually was but the screen was clearly lit up and displayed the usual logo and buzzed all the same. Then the logging screen finally appeared. Arthur hurriedly entered his PIN number as well as password and waited some more. At some point, he almost thought it had frozen but the home screen picture popped up. Obviously, everything went well, a bit too well...it was time for problems to arise. First of all, except for his passwords and wallpaper choices apparently, everything had been reset. The phone asked Arthur to input the day and hour, which he had no idea about. He tried to select the automatic timezone detection but it failed. He ended up inputting a random date and time, roughly estimating it to be August 15th (the day after he had fallen into the well), 10:00 PM.

He then went through his home screen. Except for the main applications and functions, the other applications (including the games! Not the games!!) seemed to have been uninstalled. A few things, to Arthur’s relief and joy, had remained however. First were most of the medias: his folders were still intact but weirdly enough, he couldn’t open any of the pictures or videos. The images either showed up corrupted, immediately closed or didn’t show up at all, as if it was impossible to open the files. The second preserved information were his contacts. Arthur didn’t have a habit of saving other people’s phone number so it was quite easy for him to tell when anyone was missing and that wasn’t the case.

Arthur tried to open most applications but they didn’t work. Recording audio ended up with blank files, the camera simply didn’t show anything and browsers didn’t work because there just wasn’t any internet signal! By the time he had tried everything, Arthur switched his phone to economy mode as the battery was rapidly lowering. It already wasn’t that high to begin with but now it probably had been halved.

For his last attempt of the night, Arthur opened his messages. All of his chat and message history seemed to have been deleted; it was probably reset as well. He quickly scrolled through his contacts and selected a random number, sending a test message. This time as well, it didn’t go through. The message seemed to be stuck in the “sending” state, in a way that couldn’t be canceled nor resent. He couldn’t even type another message while it was being sent! At that moment, Arthur gave up and thought he probably had messed with it too much—and now it was broken.

Setting his phone back on his night stand, he blew the candle out and drifted to sleep.

Arthur opened his eyes and got up, bothered by the cold and wet sensation creeping from his back. It was still dark, too dark to see anything. He turned his head, looking for the window—but there was none. How could it be so dark? Trying to go back to sleep, he laid back down.

That’s when he saw some light. The moon, right above him. It was a very thin crescent moon but it was still visible despite the clouds blurring its shape. Its light reflected on the edge of a circle-like structure. A sudden chill.

Arthur froze. He was back into the well.

How come?! He was sure that he didn’t have any sleepwalking habit! Unless...unless he somehow got stuck there against his own will, like the first time. Perhaps this place was the gate between present time and the past.

The events repeated themselves. The wind blew like high-pitched whistles before turning into a hollow, inhumane voice. But this time, Arthur couldn’t understand what was said. What was it? What was he told the first time? “Why?” He couldn’t remember, so he focused. Maybe, maybe this could help him find a way to come back home. If he figured out what was said and what he had to do…

Then the gleam appeared. The same pale green shine, coming from this gem stuck in the mud. At first, Arthur only looked at it, trying to engrave its shape and color into his memory, in case it might turn out to be useful.

If everything had to repeat (which Arthur had a feeling it would), then the skeleton should appear soon. That was when he heard it. The voice asking him why. It had appeared when...when he had tried to reach out to the mysterious item, right!

Gulping down his saliva and trying to ignore his goosebumps, Arthur shakily reached out to the buried object. It’s going to be alright, it will be fine! It actually went much better than he had expected. Arthur first only grazed its surface but then could retrieve it from the mud without and issue.

Nothing appeared.

The wind was still blowing and no questions were asked. Arthur didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed but it wasn’t what he had expected.

Slowly opening his hand to reveal the broken gem-like item, Arthur gasped as another chill ran down his spine and a breeze passed by his nape. With his eyes fixed on his opened hand, he felt his body slowly freeze and grow cold. He couldn’t move anymore.

“Stop.”

An icy cold hand had covered his, slowly curling up to grab the item he was holding onto. The arm came from behind him but the terror froze him in place, he couldn’t move an inch without feeling like he would be eaten alive. It wasn’t the breeze on his neck, it was someone else’s breath.

“Don’t do it”, the person behind him whispered. “I just want to know why.”

Here it was, the question. The dreaded question. Arthur didn’t even know what it referred to but it surely couldn’t be about a good thing.

“Please...tell me why…”

The voice faded away, as if it had mended itself with the whistles of the wind. Arthur relaxed and could breathe again. The gem he was holding onto disappeared but by the feeling he had while it was still in his hand, this wasn’t colored glass. It wasn’t nearly as sharp and its cracks didn’t seem as clean. Arthur was pretty sure it was some kind of gem or polished rock.

Without the gem’s gleam, everything became dark again and soon enough, Arthur closed his eyes again and let his consciousness drift away.

The soft sound of droplets hitting against the wood took Arthur out of his slumber. Light rain was falling down, filling the air of the earthy, sour smell of freshly wet soil and grass.

Realizing that his time in the well was a nightmare, Arthur turned to lay on his side, looking at the faint light coming from outside. It was hard to tell what time it was but it still seemed fairly early—it was still dark out and the sky had barely been washed by the peachy orange hue of the rising sun.

Arthur scrambled around to grab his phone, checking what time it currently was or—at least—if it was even still working.

What lit up the screen however came as a surprise: a new message had been received.