The creature was trapped, but close.

"What… what was that?" Liam finally managed, his voice a shaky whisper.

"I told you," Caleb gasped, still holding Finn's hand tightly. "That house doesn't have ghosts. It has... problems."

Finn squeezed Caleb's hand back, not wanting to let go. He could still smell the creature's strange, coppery scent and see the flash of its segmented eyes. "It was like something out of a science fiction

The furious scratching eventually faded, replaced by silence. It seemed the creature had retreated from the immediate opening.

"We have to get out of here," Liam hissed, scrambling to his feet. "Before Eda hears us, or before that thing decides to chew its way out."

They crept out of the attic, down the servants' stairs, and back to their room. They didn't speak a word until they were safely behind the locked door, bathed in the moonlight 

It was nearly dawn. They sat on Finn's bed, the adrenaline slowly draining away, replaced by cold dread.

"We are never going up there again," Liam stated, his face pale in the gloom. "We're going to tell Eda that room is dangerous, and we are staying out of the attic for the rest of the summer."

"You can't," Caleb said quietly, breaking the silence.  "What do you mean, we can't?" Liam snapped.

Caleb shook his head. "When we ran, did you guys notice anything?"

Finn frowned, trying to remember the frantic seconds of their escape. "I saw a… a pillar. Or a pedestal. And something small on it."

"A book," Caleb confirmed. "Small, leather-bound. We were standing right next to it before the thing came."

"So? We ran away from a giant monster, who cares about a book?" Liam demanded.

"The door," Caleb explained, his eyes wide. "When we were running, I glanced back. The large, black door... it didn't just close. It snapped back and then it was gone. It dissolved into the wall."

Liam stared blankly. "So?"  

"So, we only got out through the little wooden door because the large door was still open and we were fast. But what if we didn't escape fast enough? What if we were cornered? The only thing that made sense for that book to be there, in the open, was if it was the key."

Finn felt a chilling realization dawn on him. "You think you can't leave the dimensional space until you find the book?"

Caleb nodded grimly. "I think that book is the exit. We were lucky this time because we ran before the system locked us in. If we had hesitated, we'd be stuck in that jungle."

"No, no, no," Liam whispered, running a hand through his hair. "We are not going back in there to test that theory."

"We have to," Finn insisted, suddenly firm. He looked at the window. The first light of sunrise was tinting the sky orange. "We have to know if it's still the jungle in there. And if that's the only way out, we need to get that book."

Caleb's gaze met Finn's, a mutual understanding forming in their shared fear. "I'll be here before noon," Caleb said. "We go back in, we get the book, and we get out. Fast."

The next morning was excruciating. Eda was oblivious, humming about property liens and architectural styles. The boys were jumpy, exhausted, and barely touched breakfast.

Around eleven, Caleb was waiting by the stone wall. They went straight to the attic.

Liam opened the plank and pulled the iron ring on the small wooden door. He shone the flashlight into the crawl space.

"It's... still there," Liam announced, pointing to the second, full-sized doorway. But the black wood was no longer swirling; it was a plain, pale gray.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Finn crawled in first, Liam and Caleb right behind him. He reached the gray door and pushed it open.

A blast of freezing, howling wind hit them.

The vista was totally different. Gone was the humid, neon jungle. They stood on the edge of a vast, frozen arctic wasteland. Icebergs towered on a flat, snow-covered plain under a dim, sickly yellow sky. The air crackled with cold.

"It changed," Finn whispered, shivering violently. "It's a different world."

"And that means," Caleb said, pulling his jacket up over his ears, "that thing we saw yesterday is gone. Replaced by whatever lives here."

They stepped out onto the ice. Their boots crunched loudly in the deep snow. The environment felt hostile, empty, and terrifyingly vast.

"The book," Liam urged, pulling them forward. "Find the book, now."

They trudged forward through the howling wind, their breath pluming white. They saw strange, furry tracks in the snow, too large to be a wolf, too round to be a bear.

After ten nerve-wracking minutes of searching, Caleb pointed. "There! Near that ice ridge."

There it was: a crumbling pedestal of black ice, and resting on top of it, the small, leather-bound book. It glowed with a faint, internal light, a beacon in the frozen gloom.

Just as Finn reached it, a shadow fell over them. A piercing shriek cut through the wind. They looked up. From behind the ice ridge, a massive, white, winged predator with furry, webbed talons dropped low, hunting by sound.

They snatched the book and ran.

They scrambled back into the doorway, Liam shoving Finn and Caleb ahead of him. As they tumbled out of the small attic opening and into the dust, Finn clutched the book to his chest.

Behind them, the large gray door dissolved into the wall. The small wooden door was now just a plank in the wall.

They collapsed, gasping. They had done it.

The book in Finn’s hands was cold. He flipped it open. The pages were yellowed and brittle, covered in neat, slanted handwriting.

“—the price of Greed is the loss of all shelter. Let this serve as a warning to the desperate and the grasping. They will find nothing here but cold and hunger.”

"Greed?" Liam muttered. "What does that mean?"

Finn shook his head, looking down at the strange little book. This wasn't just a house. This was a library of terror, and they were the unwilling readers.

The three boys huddled on Finn’s bed, the small leather book of Greed lying between them. Liam kept glancing at it as if it might bite.

“Look, we established this house is a monster-spawning, inter-dimensional travel machine,” Liam summarized, running a hand over his tired face. “That book doesn’t make sense, though. ‘The price of Greed is the loss of all shelter’? We’re not greedy. We’re just trying to survive our summer.”

“It’s not talking about us,” Finn realized, tapping the book. “It’s talking about the house’s original owner, or maybe the person who took it over. The book is a warning, Liam. The house is trying to tell us something about the people involved with it.”

Caleb nodded, his eyes bright with a focused intensity. “And since the whole place is a security system, every new world is the next level of the lock. And the book is the next piece of the key.” He looked at Finn. "You're the one who reads all the time. What do you think the next book will be about?"

"If the first one was Greed," Finn mused, "maybe the next one is about how the greedy person got the house. Deception? Maybe something about Trapping."

Liam shook his head. "I hate that we have to keep going back. But if that door changes every day, and if we're meant to read these books... we don't have a choice."

The next day, they were back in the attic, the air still heavy and cold. Liam pulled the small wooden door open, and Finn peered into the crawl space. The second door was no longer pale gray; it was now a deep, rusty orange-red, pulsing faintly.

They crawled through. Finn’s hands were clammy, but the anxiety was mixed with a burning curiosity. He glanced back at Caleb before pushing the door open, receiving a quick, reassuring squeeze on his shoulder in return.

The orange-red door swung open onto a strange, terrifying landscape: a crumbling, endless city of shimmering glass.

The ground beneath them was a mosaic of fractured, polished panes. Everywhere they looked, towering skyscrapers of obsidian and clear glass stood precariously, reflecting the sickly orange light of the sky countless times. The air was unnaturally still and silent.

"Careful where you step," Liam warned, his voice sounding brittle in the silence.

They proceeded slowly, picking their way through the glass maze. The reflections multiplied their figures, making it impossible to tell which shape was real and which was merely light. It was disorienting, designed to make them lose their minds.

"The book," Finn whispered. "We need to find it fast. Before anything sees us."

"Or hears us," Caleb added, his eyes scanning the fractured reflections.

They reached an open plaza where a massive, crystalline tower lay shattered on the ground. In the center of the debris, perched atop a piece of unbroken, polished black glass, was the second small, leather-bound book. It glowed a faint blue.

Just as Finn started toward it, the shadows began to move.

It wasn't a creature that emerged, but a figure—tall, elongated, and utterly black. It had no discernible features, just the absolute absence of light. It appeared suddenly, three blocks away, standing perfectly still.

"Don't run," Liam hissed. "It didn't see us."

Then, the shadow figure did something far worse than move. It spoke.

“Don’t run. It didn’t see us,” the voice echoed from the shadow, a perfect, mocking mimicry of Liam’s hushed tone, amplified and distorted.

The boys froze. The shadow figure could mimic sound, trapping its prey by revealing their position.

"We have to go silent," Caleb mouthed, pointing to the book.

The silence was deafening. They moved slowly, their footsteps whispering across the fractured glass. The shadow figure mirrored their speed, gliding toward them, its dark form sucking up all light.

When they were within ten feet of the book, another shadow figure materialized to their left. Then a third to their right. They were surrounded.

Finn, heart hammering, made a desperate gesture toward the book, and Caleb understood instantly.

"Distraction!" Caleb mouthed, and then, he deliberately dropped his empty flashlight onto a large sheet of glass. The sound was deafening—a brilliant, shattering CRASH.

“CRASH!” the three shadows yelled in distorted unison, lunging toward the noise.

In that split second, Finn lunged, snatching the blue-glowing book from the pedestal. Liam grabbed Caleb, yanking him backward, and they scrambled for the orange-red doorway.

They dove back into the small chamber, slamming the dimensional door shut just as the shadows reached the opening. They heard a frustrated, amplified shriek—"SHRIIIIEEEK!"—right on the threshold.

Back in the quiet, dusty safety of the attic, the three boys were hyperventilating.

Finn opened the new book. The pages felt cold and brittle, and the handwriting was different—a sprawling, confident script.

“The means of Trapping the prize must be meticulous. Deception is the sharpest tool, and innocence the softest snare. Once the bait is taken, the grip must never be released.”

Finn looked at the words: Trapping. Deception. Snare. Bait.

He looked at Liam, then at Caleb, who was still looking at Finn with a mixture of terror and proud relief.

"This is worse," Liam whispered, running a hand over the words. "These books aren't just warnings. They're describing a plot. Who is the trapper? And who is the bait?"

Finn clutched the two books to his chest. The books were indeed the puzzle, and with two pieces in hand, the picture was starting to look sinister—and it pointed right back at their summer guardian.

"We have two pieces," Finn said, his voice hard with resolve. "Greed and Trapping. There are three more to go. We need to find the full answer before we're forced into one of these worlds for good."

The day after their narrow escape from the City of Glass, the mood among the three boys was one of grim determination. They were becoming a team, bonded by shared nightmares and a growing suspicion of Aunt Eda. They kept the two books—Greed and Trapping—hidden beneath Finn's mattress.

Liam was the organizer, focusing on escape routes and timing. Caleb was the observer, his quiet vigilance now intensely focused on Finn. Finn, usually the most nervous, was now the driving force, propelled by the need to understand the puzzle that was saving, and potentially killing, them.

"If the books are telling a story," Finn explained, tracing the words in the Trapping book, "we've got Greed (the motive) and Trapping (the method). The next piece has to be the mechanism. How does this house work?"

Caleb, sitting beside Finn, nudged his shoulder lightly. "Then we're looking for the Foundation."

They made the familiar, dread-filled trek to the attic. Liam opened the small wooden door, and they peered into the space. The second, full-sized door was now a sickening, metallic bronze, radiating a low, deep thrumming sound.

They crawled through. The thrumming grew louder, vibrating in their teeth. Finn shoved the bronze door open.

They stood on a narrow ledge overlooking an endless, shifting sea of purple slime. The air was thick, heavy, and smelled like burnt sugar. The sky above was a swirling, sickly green, and the slime below churned constantly, occasionally spitting up plumes of noxious vapor. It looked utterly toxic.

Peril was everywhere. Scattered across the surface of the slime were floating platforms, like discarded chunks of rock, connected by thin, slippery strands of what looked like hardened mucus. And watching them, bobbing just below the surface of the slime, were hundreds of large, unblinking floating eyes.

"Oh, come on," Liam muttered, his voice shaking. "We had an arctic tundra, a glass city, and now... purple goo. This house is just showing off."

"Stay on the rocks," Caleb warned, pointing to the slime. "Don't touch the water, and don't make a sound. Those eyes are definitely watching."

The book was visible about forty feet away, sitting on the largest, most stable-looking platform. It glowed a faint lime green.

The journey was excruciating. They had to leap across unstable platforms, using the slippery strands like tightropes. Caleb, with his local knowledge and natural agility, was their anchor. When Finn hesitated before a particularly long leap, Caleb held out his hand across the gap.

"Trust me," Caleb said, his voice barely a breath.

Finn didn't hesitate this time. He took a running jump, his foot slipping on the slick surface of his platform. He would have plunged into the purple slime, but Caleb’s grip was like iron. He hauled Finn across, pulling him close for a second before they both had to focus on the next step. The brief, intense contact sent a dizzying rush through Finn—part fear, part relief, part something warmer.

They reached the final platform and snatched the lime-green book.

But as they grabbed it, the slime around the platform began to churn violently. The water level rose, and the floating eyes turned red, focusing their collective gaze on the intruders.

"The book was the trigger!" Liam yelled.

They turned to run, but the slime had already risen to cover the narrow strands, making them impossible to cross. Their platform began to sink.

"We have to jump!" Caleb shouted. "Towards the door! Now!"