Monica: I’ve read about it. This weird thing. It’s just fucking weird. To me. I guess if you’re religious, it can be different. Saving yourself. For marriage. When you can be with your man. Or your woman. Or whatever it is you’re into. Keeping yourself . . . Gah! Don’t even want to say the word. Pure. Virginal. To share this special thing. With the one you love. It seems . . . Fucking alien. To me. Which is damn funny. When you know my story. My whole story.

But that’s not for a while yet.

I fucked him. Put it down. In stark terms. And it was great. No. It was fucking awesome. I haven’t fucked someone. Or been fucked. In too fucking long. I would’ve ended up jumping Jake sooner or later. Is he my type? I don’t even have a type. Woman. Man. Gay. Bi. Trans. Where I’m from those fucking terms don’t even exist. I had to learn about ‘em. Research the fuck out of ‘em. Before I could wrap my mind around the concept. Fucking antiquated. Like something those folks in that ancient cave in South Africa might think. Juvenile. Ignorant.

Just fucking wrong, man.

So. To put it plain. I was pretty fucking horny. It’d been WAY too long. And I’ve mentioned before. A couple of times. I can’t remember how many hints I’ve dropped. But he’s a hot hunk of man. I’m not gonna lie, as he’s fond of saying. And it didn’t take long. To know he was into me. And I’m not surprised. I’m a hot piece of ass. Come-on. These are MY recordings. MY private thoughts. If I can’t be honest with myself here, I might as well just end it all now.

There’d be no fucking point.

But he was going through something. Looked like the beginnings of a mental breakdown. I can’t read his mind. Don’t really know what was going on upstairs. With him. He just looked like he was falling apart. Like I said. Before. I can’t afford that. Need him to keep it together. To keep going. Not give up. Just like I’m never going to. So I figured that was the right time. To make a move. Help him how I could. And have a good time doing it.

And like I said: it was fun for both of us.

~ ~ ~

Jake: I come to, slowly regaining consciousness. It’s that kind of sleep we all crave for: the thorough, deep, satisfying rest that recharges and revitalizes. And when you wake up it’s not sudden or forced. You crawl into the light, like a baby reaching for its mother, and getting there without falling over or hurting itself. There’s light, not too bright and not too dark, but just right. It doesn’t stun you, but slowly filters in, like the warmth of a day floating between the blinds of a hotel room on a beach in Hawaii. You are brought back to consciousness as if on a bed of feathers and down. You want to open your eyes and join the land of the awake, because it feels great; it just feels right.

And then I am awake, because I do feel great and right My head’s a little fuzzy, like it’s been stuffed with cotton candy, but it’s dissipating, like the wispy sugar it is. I can’t remember where I am or who I am at first. Then one by one, like perfectly shaped cogs locking into place, the answers come to me.

I’m Jake Fisher.

I’m in Ostium. The clock tower.

And I’m in bed. My mind flashes back to five days ago. When I had that really weird but really awesome dream about waking up in bed in Ostium . . . In bed with Monica. The memories are coming back fairly quickly now, as those cogs continue locking and the machinery begins winding. I’m not quite remembering last night in vivid detail. There are snippets here and there: skin, thighs, breasts, moans from both of us. I would like to remember it all in intricate detail, but I’ll take whatever I can.

And then I remember back to before all that . . . Fun. Monica coming to me and kissing me. Making the night a whole lot better after . . . After . . I can’t really remember what. I remember feeling down, like really worried, or scared, or overcome by something, but can’t remember what right now. There’s just haziness and fuzziness and blackness where it should be. Blackness. That’s an interesting word for it. Saying it almost makes it possible to see beyond it. To know and comprehend what it is. But it’s still eluding me. Staying away.

I’m . . . I’m not going to worry about it right now. If it was really important I would be able to remember it. Easily. So therefore it’s not. And as the seconds pass in this wonderfully comfortable bed I can recall less and less about it, remembering more about last night and how fucking amazing it was.

And I finally got laid.

I look to my side and see Monica looking at me, her head propped on her arm, with a big smile on her face. Talk about a welcoming beam of sunlight. I could stare at her all day.

“Good morning sleepy head. Hope you had fun last night.”

I start stammering some nonsense words and she lets me off the hook. I guess the look on my face is enough to convince her we . . . Had a good time. A very good time.

She gets up, saying she’s going to throw some breakfast together before we set out for the next door. As she leaves the room, I see she’s wearing a black tank top, and these green booty shorts. For a second it seems like it says OSTIUM on the rear, but I shake my head and instead see HELLA.

I sit up, still pulling myself together, and begin retrieving strewn pieces of my clothing  and putting them on. So I was completely naked in bed. And after what we got up to – and the details are continuing to show themselves in a very fair light – that’s not really surprising, but I usually like to wear something to bed and not go completely commando. Must’ve been really wrapped up in the moment.

Fully dressed, I stand up and before I leave try one last time to remember what was going on with me after going through the door yesterday that took us to Columbia, but still can’t remember anything. I head out of the room and begin helping Monica with breakfast and serving impressive volumes of strong, hot tea.

~ ~ ~

With a clear mind and a full stomach, I guide Monica to the next door. I’m actually hoping we might find Steve behind this door or the next. Yeah, it’s a little weird I’m routing for the woman I just slept with to find the guy she kind of had a thing for and clearly still has feelings for, especially since I’d like to have many more nights like last night. Now that I can remember it in . . . Intimate detail.  But I feel I’ve supported Monica from the beginning with Ostium, since I’ve gotten to know her, because we’re here on the same side. We have our goals – though I’ll admit I’m not perfectly sure what I’m looking for, going through these doors and bringing back the artifacts, I guess it’s to find what the big link is between Ostium and me. I think I’ve talked about it before, but I obviously have all these links with like every door we go through, so I need to find out what the big deal is, and why Ostium wants me for some reason. So really we do have our own specific goals, haven’t really thought about it before in detail. Monica’s got her focus, and I’ve got mine; we’re a team, supporting and working with and for each other.

You might say we’re putting the “tea” – T-E-A – in team. You know . . . because we both like tea . . .

The door this time is 199.

The fact that it feels like an extreme odd number just kinda of gets to me. I prefer them to be nice solid even numbers. Don’t really know why, it’s like minor keys versus major keys in music, they just sound off in some way. But it’s not like I can do anything about it.

This one’s a weird one. Like all of them. Except it’s one of those doors I’ve mentioned before that clearly defy the laws of physics. The door is hovering . . . Well, I suppose hovering isn’t really the right word. That implies it can move around from location to location. This door’s staying put, except that it’s staying put four feet above the ground . . . Horizontally. As in lying flat, like a bed.

How do we even get in to this one?

Monica’s giving me a look something to the effect of: “How the fuck do we . . .”

I give her the old shrug of blame Ostium, it’s not my fault. And then I set about figuring out how we do this.

I guess . . . just go with it.

I reach for the handle and turn, and the door opens inward like a trapdoor, only without a sound. Well that was easy. And now we just . . . Jump in . . . Dive in like we’re diving into a swimming pool . . . A swimming pool full of ambiguous blackness that can take us anywhere in time and space.

Applying some levity, I draw in a deep breath and pretend to hold my nose, get a running start, and jump into the hole.

I sure hope Monica follows me.

~ ~ ~

The landing is painful, as one might expect when being dropped from a four-foot height onto solid ground. Knowing I don’t have long, I roll myself out of the way just in time to avoid Monica landing on me. Oh yeah, I hear you. A gentleman would’ve broken her fall, especially after we had enjoyed such shared pleasures the night before. It would be the least I could do. See, but here’s the thing: with Monica landing on me, something in me might’ve broken, you know, like a bone, so I had to move out of the way. Also Monica was ready for this type of Ostium delivery option and rolled with it like a pro, dealing herself very minimal bruising. If she’d landed on me, we probably both would’ve been hurt. Because of it being my fault. This way I’m only aching (though my ego took more of a bruising), and Monica, as she usually does, looks none the worse for wear.

As I get up I notice I’m covered in a yellowish-ocher dust and proceed to dust myself off pretty much from head to foot. Monica does the same, not in such a dirty state due to the aforementioned skillful roll. Then the heats hit me. A dry, blistering heat. It has to be at least high 90’s out here, possibly over a hundred. I can hear bugs making themselves known, like cicadas. That immediately starts narrowing us down to a certain number of states. Also, it means we haven’t materialized into an ancient time before the evolution of insects, which would be seriously long ago, like when the Earth’s atmosphere was different and we probably wouldn’t be able to breath. Also since it seems like the big deal with the Ostium doors is taking us to places where people have disappeared, sending us back to a point before the evolution of the homo genus doesn’t seem right.

Using my hand as a sun shade, I scan the horizon, making a complete turn. Monica does the same. We’re trying to get our bearings; see if we can possibly recognize where we are. Naturally, I’m more likely to be successful at this, since Ostium and I are like this . . . And since this is an audio recording and not a visual one, let the record show my fingers are crossed, indicating a strong relationship between this mysterious town and myself.

I spot a high cliff face the same time Monica does. From our distance we can make out small holes and caves in the rock face.

I’m not certain, at least not yet, but my brain has an inkling of what these holes might represent; what this cliff face is, and what time we might be in. But I’m not about to make any guesses until I know for sure.

I start walking towards the wall of rock. Monica knows the drill and follows.

It doesn’t take long to reach the cliff face. As I study some of the features presenting themselves to me, I confirm my thoughts about our location.

“I know where we are.”

This time there’s no surprised look from Monica. She knows the drill and what to expect. She waits and listens for information to help us do what needs to be done on this other side of the door of Ostium.

“We’re in one of four states: New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, or Utah. The year is . . . Well it could be a range of centuries, anywhere from the beginning of the tenth century up to 1350. Though it’s probably sometime in the fourteenth century, which will make more sense once you get the full story. This village is home to a group of the Ancestral Puebloan culture.”

Monica raises her eyebrows at the use of the word village. Looking at the cliff face there are a number of holes at various heights, what look to be some narrow ledges, and perhaps some storage structures, but from down here it’s really hard to tell. To call this a people’s village seems more than a stretch.

“A diverse and varied people who lived in various settlements, toward the end of this period they moved in to caves and dwellings in cliff faces. It’s not exactly known why. The evidence doesn’t make it clear. It could’ve been due to limiting resources combined with attacks from enemies. They adapted and learned how to live in caves in the cliff face and created their own homes there to protect themselves. According to some archaeologists, there was a lot of fighting going on, even some instances of cannibalism. Purportedly.”

“How many people lived in a dwelling of this size?”

“No one knows for sure, which is often the problem with archeology; it’s an educated guess. A hundred? A couple hundred? Probably not more than that.”

“And so . . . What . . . they mysteriously got up and walked away?”

Now it’s my turn to look surprised.

“Actually yes, that’s exactly what the evidence shows. These settlements were simply abandoned. Now the contention is how long this took. Some say a settlement like this was just abandoned from one day to the next. And others say it took much longer, over a period of generations. Of course, those who support the former claim like to make it all the more dramatic, talking about how they left their supplies and granaries full, so not quite to the level of the ‘meals still hot while waiting to be eaten’ like on the Mary Celeste, but . . .”

“Anything to get a story. I swear I’ve heard about them before. Something about this just seems fucking familiar.”

I give her a “no shit” look.

“Hey! Fuck you. I know every time you go through a door it’s a trip down fucking memory lane for you. But what you just said. What does ‘Puebloan’ mean?”

“Villager. Though for this particular period and these specific indigenous people located in the northern area, they were known by another name. The ancient ones or ancient enemies . . . Anasazi.”

~ ~ ~

“I knew it sounded familiar.”

“Anasazi is a moniker that contemporary indigenous people aren’t too happy with . . .”

The look on her face is priceless.

“That’s moniker as in M-O-N-I-K-E-R.”

“Ohhhhh. You fucking did that deliberately, didn’t you?”

“Maybe,” I say with a smile on my face. “But it was some archaeologist way back when who chose the term from the original language to make them easily identified, but ‘ancient enemies’ isn’t exactly what you’d like to call your ancestors. Hence, Ancestral Puebloans.”

“So let me ask a dumbass question.”

“There are no dumbass questions in Ostium. Or dumbass answers. Anything goes here.”

“Naturally. And where’s today’s artifact going to take us?” she asks, her eyes looking up.

“Well, that depends. How good are you at climbing?”

“Better than you. That’s for sure.”

The first ledge is about thirty feet high. The rock face is smooth, offering no nooks or crannies to get a grip with. But there’s also a tree a little further along, an important tree. It’s been hypothesized that this was how the villagers were able to reach their high homes: a tree with notches that worked as a ladder. Well, looks like one theory has been proved for this specific group.

I indicate the tree and start climbing, Monica comes up behind me. Because, as we both know, she’s much better at this than I am, and if one of us is going to slip, it’s more likely to be me and she might be able to do something to help, or choose to just let me fall to my death.

So, you know, the ultimate “I’ve got your back, trust fall” situation.

We reach the ledge which can barely be called that. It’s real narrow. I lead the way, taking short steps, leaning towards the rock face. I can feel the pull of the artifact higher up. I don’t think it’s at the very top level. I hope it’s not at the very top level. But we still have a ways to ascend. I make it to the next tree log. I check to make sure it’s not going to move or roll while I start climbing. Seems sturdy. As I look at the wedges cut into the wood and start climbing, I wonder how these logs would’ve been used in regular daily life. Like when there was an enemy approaching. Were the logs somehow drawn up? I don’t see any indications of rope or vine or anything that could be used to hoist them up. Were they just knocked away? Sent crashing hopefully into the attacking enemies below? And how did the people get down after the enemy presumably gave up and went away? Since I’m now reaching a pretty scary height, I’m just not going to think about that right now.

On to the next ledge I go even slower. They say to never look down, but when you’re carefully stepping along a ledge, part of your vision is always looking down, so it can’t be avoided. We reach our first wall. It’s about four feet high with small round holes in it for people to see through. It’s not that hard to climb over, except when there’s a hundred foot drop staring at you, begging you to take a free, one-way gravity ticket to the bottom. We pass through a granary, filled with a plentiful stock of corn.  Almost makes me hungry. There’s a few ears that are on the ground in the middle of the granary where you walk through. It seems a little weird, with how everything has been stacked so neat so far. But it is stacked corn after all, sometimes that stack just crumbles to the ground like a house of cards.

And then we reach the next de-branched tree leading us up higher. I indicate to Monica I think this should be the last one. We’re definitely getting close to the artifact now.

Up we go and as we close in on the top I start debating how much I want to go down these trees to get to the bottom. About a million percent not. But it’s not like I’m seeing an abundance of doors here that I might be able to use to get back to Ostium. And then I’m at the top and want to hone in on this artifact and get done with these dizzying heights. Though the view and scenery are spectacular.

I look right, then left, assessing the artifact’s pull. I turn left and we go through another granary, equally well stocked. Three caves down I stop and enter into the hole. It’s roomy and definitely cooler than outside. I can even feel a bit of a breeze, but just getting out of the hot sun beating down on me is well worth it. We squat for a bit to catch our breath and lower out temperatures. I see markings on the wall, paintings of people and animals, of a life in the past. Well, I guess not that much in the past, since we’ve traveled back in time to pretty close to when these people disappeared. So not that old. The pictographs do look relatively new and fresh. Quite beautiful, with a mixture of blacks, whites and browns. They tell of a normal life for these people, living with each other and enjoying what this world had to offer.

We move further inside and I expect to see more signs of habitation, but there are none. A little strange. And then in the last room of the cave I see on the floor in the dimming light a piece of pottery. A potsherd I believe they call it, though that might be when it’s dug up from the ground and is hundreds or thousands of years old. This looks like it recently came from a vase or jug. But if that’s the case, why isn’t the floor littered with more broken pieces, and not just this one? It fits snugly in the palm of my hand and has a series of black white wavy lines. It’s quite striking.

“This is it.”

I put the piece in my pocket and turn to head back through the long cave. I think about what it’s going to take to go all the way back to the solid ground. A lot. A lot of precarious and careful movement. We’re going to be at risk of hurting ourselves; especially me.

So what other option do we have?

“Wait,” I tell Monica.

I turn around and walk to the back wall of the cave. It’s rock, solid, impenetrable.

I take out the potsherd, looking at it. I flip it over and see a big O painted in white on the reddish clay-colored side. It’s a vague triangular shape with one sharp edge. I hold it so that the pointed edge is sticking out like a weapon . . . Or a writing implement. Something you might use to make markings on a cave wall.

I reach out, starting at the bottom and draw a long vertical line going up, then a shorter horizontal line across, then a line going down all the way to the floor. It’s a rectangular shape, or . . . A door.

I think about drawing some sort of handle but can feel it’s not going to do anything. Also it’s unnecessary.

I look at the piece of pottery again and see there is no wear on the sharp edge; it’s still whole and pointed, as if it wasn’t used to draw anything. Putting it back in my pocket, I reach out and touch the spot on the drawn door where one would expect a doorknob to be.

I look at Monica and see her just watching me in disbelief, but I can also see a spark in her eyes: a spark of hope.

I push and at first nothing happens; I’m just pushing against solid rock, and as I start to feel considerably more foolish, the cave wall begins to crumble and groan as rock is torn asunder. A gap forms along the line I drew, white light emanating from the other side. I push hard and the pictographic door begins to open, just like in those wacky Road Runner cartoons.

The door opens fully, it’s opposite edge somehow remaining attached to the cave wall but also forming one long hinge allowing the door to open properly.

“Ladies first,” I say with a smirk on my face.

“Uh-uh. You made it. You get to test it out.”

“As you wish.”

I step through into the bright white light and Monica follows behind me. We’re surrounded by all this white and can’t see anything of where we are. Once she’s close to me, I hold her hand so we don’t lose each other, but also because I like holding her hand. With my other hand I reach out and close the door.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Monica manages before the door is closed. Almost immediately the bright white light begins to lessen, transforming into normal bright sunlight, except there’s no visible ball of hydrogen gas anywhere in the sky. But that’s because we’re back in Ostium. We let out our breaths simultaneously.

In front of us is the clock tower, just like it was that other time we went through an unknown door.

~ ~ ~

As we head inside, I look back, wondering if we actually came through one of the Ostium doors, or did I just cut a hole in reality with an artifact and pass through back to Ostium like it was nothing?

If that’s the case, that must’ve required an immense amount of energy. It leads me to Newtonian laws, how everything needs to be balanced, and how nothing can truly be destroyed, but simply transformed. Where does all the energy come from? Where does it go? What sort of sacrifice has to be made. Depressingly, this leads me to the cost Ostium seems to have exacted not just on us but perhaps on others?

And then all that death happening on my home planet comes back to me. I’d totally forgotten it, like it was . . . Hidden in my mind. How could I have forgotten that series of horrible tragedies? That devastation and death?

Inside the clock tower as Monica is preparing yet another batch of award-winning tea, I bring this to her attention, voicing my thoughts, feelings, and concerns. She turns to me and for just a second I see a look of . . . Exasperation in her eyes. What the hell? But then it’s gone, replaced by . . . Woah . . . A sultry look. Is that lust?

Then Monica comes hungrily at me and I’m in her arms, falling to the floor, as we tear at each other’s clothing, wanting to feel flesh, get skin to skin, and satisfy those pleasure centers in our brains and, ahem, other parts.

A while later the water in the pot starts boiling for tea, but we don’t care.

We’re already hot enough.

Monica: The ends justify the means. Isn’t that the saying? Whatever it takes. Sacrifices have to be made. You win some, you lose some. It’ll turn out alright in the end. No pain no gain. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.

This language has a ridiculous amount of phrases for vague things that don’t seem to mean shit when you say them. But when you think about them. When you get to the root of it . . . To the heart of the matter . . . The center of storm. See. There I go again. Nothing concrete. Nothing real. But sometimes it’s really hard to describe something. Be exact. Specific. Distinct. Get it right. Convey meaning. Not spouting vague nothing words that don’t actually tell you what the fuck is actually happening.

Ahem. Sometimes, you’ve gotta do what it takes.

Goddammit!

Why can’t I just say what I mean? Because . . . Because I don’t want to mean what I say.

And there I go again. I feel like I’m stuck in the Groundhog Day episode of a bad Syfy show, or is that siff-ee? Every time I see it, that’s the only way I hear it.

It’s hard to talk about. In every sense of the word. I guess. Jake will have his way. His words. His feelings. His emotions. His thoughts. His . . . urges.

I’ll let him tell it his way.

~ ~ ~

Jake: Sleep is starting to happen a little better for me. The nightmares are starting to fade into the hazy blackness like forgotten ghosts . . . Now why did I say that? Why did I say it that way? As a human being who considers himself pretty fluent in the English language, and taking into account its simply vast vocabulary, why did I choose those particular words . . . Paging Dr. Freud. I think I might have some unresolved issues with something called the blackness and/or ghosts.

Anyway. For now, they’re just uncomfortable and disconcerting dreams. But the important point to all this is I’m getting more sleep and feeling a little more connected with the real world, even if Ostium physically isn’t. Monica wasn’t by my side shaking me awake from night sweats and somnolent terrors. And while I’m never against her being by my side for just about any occasion, this particular one is less than ideal. I know it’s perfectly natural, or psychological rather, what I’m going through and having never done therapy before (even though there are probably many who say I should’ve after the death of my parents), or experienced a severe trauma event (again, other than the death of my parents) at an older age, I really don’t know what to expect. I’m supposed to get over this in a day? A couple of days? Weeks? Longer? I just don’t know. Seems when it comes to a case of PTSD – again, of which I will fully admit I know nothing about – it’s something that takes time, for whatever scarring needs to heal. And I’m just going to stop talking about what I know nothing about. All I can give voice to are my personal thoughts and feelings in this situation.

I don’t know if I’ve achieved some sort of internal catharsis now, with the passage of time and what I went through on the other side of that door with the infinity symbol; where whatever needs to be resolved within me – in my heart, mind, and soul – is getting there. But I’ve reached some sort of restoration and things are looking better.

As for what happened on the world I used to call home, and what is continuing to happen; I still remain in the dark. No messages or contact from anyone: old coworkers, old friends, and nothing from Dave. For all I know he’s gotten himself completely lost in that new Ostium he found. He went through that first door to Roanoke and messed up in some way. Maybe he tripped and hurt himself. Got stuck there and the door closed forever. Or the blackness came and swallowed him up like a galactic vacuum cleaner that has no qualms about sucking up every iota of matter and life into oblivion. Possibly what might’ve happened to Steve, and maybe those military guys. I just don’t think it’s right I haven’t heard something. I know the Internet’s having its own connectivity issues and I’m getting nothing coming my way, but stuff seems to be okay going out. Dave’s always managed to find a way – somehow – to get in touch with me. Through thick and thin, and hell and high water – especially with him riding those treacherous Atlantic seas in that tanker – he’s always managed. And now . . . there’s just silence.

I think . . . I think I might be getting a mild case of Ostium fever, not knowing what’s going on elsewhere, and how this might be the rest of my life. The rest of our lives. Spending our days traveling through doors, bringing back artifacts, and doing the same thing day after day after day. Ostium threw a monkey wrench into the works with the infinity door to my old place of employment, but since then, after the earthquake repaired itself somehow and put Ostium back together again, just like humpty dumpty, it’s sort of felt like being on autopilot. Doing the same thing. With no end in sight. I still don’t understand why Ostium is doing what it’s doing to me, making us do it. Monica has Steve driving her through every door, hoping and waiting. Me. I’ve got nothing.

Okay. I think I’ve depressed you listeners – if you’re still out there, somewhere – enough. I know I’ve brought myself down in the dumps, so let’s see what’s next for us and Ostium.

~ ~ ~

After a hearty breakfast of the last of our leftovers and remaining supplies from our brief foray into the tiny town of Covelo that made Ostium look kinda big – and if this is news to you, coming out of the blue, it means you missed one of my short recordings from before – we ready ourselves for the next door and what it might have to offer us.

This time we’re headed up into the unusual grasslands of Ostium. We walk for like ten minutes, deeper and deeper into the green, and farther away from the clock tower and those buildings of this town that have become oh so familiar to us. I’m starting to feel like I’m using that Wifinding app again – if this app doesn’t ring any bells, you’ll also find out all about it in one of my previous short recordings – except instead of using my phone, this time it’s somehow in my head, and I’m paying attention to any “brain lean,” any mental tug, any cranial pull that’s bringing us closer to the next door Ostium wants us to go through. We lead in an easterly direction for a little bit, then back to the north, then a little northwesterly, then back to north again, and it’s starting to feel like it’s never going to end. I can see the boundary wall coming closer, and I start to wonder. The direction doesn’t change any more and the stone palisade just continues to grow. Shortly after that we both see the door in the wall, and we both know that’s our next destination.

A bunch more minutes, closing in on the second hour, we reach it.

“This it?” Monica asks.

I nod. Just like we thought. There’s a door built into the stone wall. It looks solid and metal, like the door you’d imagine to a prison or on the deck of a military ship, an aircraft carrier; something that could be well locked and very hard to open, if needed. On the front of this metal door are stenciled – in white – numbers 325.

“Wow,” Monica says.

We’re both shocked. I couldn’t even remember if the numbers went that high. I was pretty sure I’d checked the map table thoroughly for numbers on the wall, also that we’d done a couple tours around the grounds of Ostium and never seen anything like this. It feels different. Like this door wasn’t here yesterday. Or possibly even twenty minutes ago, when we saw it for the first time.

Thank you once again, Ostium.

I turn to Monica. She’s ready. I swing it open and we go through to . . .

~ ~ ~

. . . A city street. A crossroads actually. I can see from the signs we’re on Main Street and State Street. Well that narrows it down, this could be . . . Just about anywhere in the U.S. From the looks of it, it’s definitely not a big city, more in the town range, you know, Ostium sized. And I feel an immediate sense of familiarity. I’ve been here before. Where? There were a few trips I did with my parents, like Catalina, before . . . all that happened, but I’ve never been much of a big vacation guy; don’t like to travel far. However, when I do go on trips, I like to make it something awesome. Worthwhile. And California has never failed in delivering that. We’ve got so much variety to entertain us in this state. There’s a long drive I like to do a couple times a year, where I head north of San Francisco and then west to the coast when I can – usually through San Rafael – and make my way up to Bodega. Enjoy the Pacific Ocean for a bit with a lunch of fish or what I consider to be the world’s best New England Clam Chowder at Lucas Wharf, then I drive through Sonoma County, enjoying a period of majestic Redwoods and then fields of vineyards sweeping across the hills. I’ll usually stop at one of the many, many wineries looking for my well-earned dollars. And then head back to Oakland.

I’ve also been up to Fort Bragg on the Mendocino Coast, and this is for real, not just when I’m lying to my friends about a place called Ostium, though I guess, ultimately, it was about a girl, sort of. Even made a trip all the way up to Eureka, just to see what all the fuss was about . . . Get it?

I’ve been to Southern California a number of times, for both work and fun, or a combination of the two . Saw the artistic explosion known as Hearst Castle that’s real heavy on the eyes. And once with my most recent ex – we were together for two years and things were starting to get pretty serious before she decided I wasn’t the one for her – we made this trip to an old west town which still had a lot of its original buildings that was called . . .

Oh shit. That’s where I am. Where we are.

“We’re in Columbia,” I say.

~ ~ ~

I look to the right down State Street as I begin telling Monica the story of Columbia, its history and relation to me. Down there I can see a sign in the distance that says Columbia Kate’s Teahouse. Yep, we’re here without a doubt. I had coffee there with Anne; we shared a pastry. A month after this vacation, she ended things abruptly.

I started talking and walking down Main Street, Monica following and listening.

“Columbia is a town located around the middle of the state of California and towards the Eastern border, in the substantial county of Tuolomne. It was founded in 1850 – the same year California became a state – as a boomtown for the exploding gold rush that was causing thousands to flock to the state in search of gold and riches. And not just men looking to mine the yellow metal, but women, children and families. We’re now heading down the historic central district.”

On either side of us are parallel rows of buildings all wooden and quaint and dusty and old, with various fronts advertising their wares within. I’m not gonna lie, it definitely has a similar and familiar feel to Ostium. You’ve got your blacksmith’s or your iron mongers, your candle-dipping store, your requisite gold panning store. There are a couple of craft stores that look as if they’re selling pretty similar merchandise, but one assumes on the inside their inventory varies somewhat. There’s of course the very important Candy Store, and the Fallon House Ice Cream Parlor. And no old west town would be complete without your Pioneer Emporium.

At the farther end of town, behind us, is the larger and perhaps more impressive – to some – Fallon Hotel. A regular, impressive-looking hotel for those seeking the niceties when staying at a place that is not your home will likely prefer. After the Columbia museum and Brown’s Coffee House, ahead of us, as we approach it and stop in front, is the Gold Rush town period-authentic Columbia City Hotel. If you’re looking for the real deal with Victorian-style furnishings and decorated rooms, this is where you want to stay.

“The Columbia City Hotel is a restored 19th century country inn with elegant authentic Victorian antiques in each room, custom-crafted wall coverings, featuring beautiful lithographs. While they have attempted to keep this and the Fallon Hotel as faithful to 19th century decor as possible, modern conveniences, such as indoor plumbing, heating, and air conditioning have been added for the comfort of the guests. When I first learned about this place, referenced in a travel book, I knew I had to check it out. Anne and I liked going on the occasional trip, and while this was a bit of a drive and somewhat removed from the lavish style she was used to, I eventually convinced her. She wasn’t a huge fan; I was way more into it than her. We ended up staying for a four-day weekend, leaving early Thursday and arriving in the afternoon. It was kind of weird; should’ve stretched through to Monday instead, but I had to work that day, had an important deadline due.

“Wow, a deadline. Doesn’t that sound like a weird concept to care about now.”

“Yep,” is Monica’s one word response.

“Anyway, since we arrived before the actual weekend did, it was totally dead here. Yeah. Not as dead as it is right now.  Not with a soul here. You know. For Ostium reasons. But still, eerily quiet. Nowhere was really open. I had to get the key – no key card that’s for sure – check, and receive all the details from the Fallon Hotel, then drive down to our hotel. Found some parking in the back. The key let us in through the front door and our room. There wasn’t a person around to be seen.”

I try the front door to the Columbia City Hotel and am not surprised to find it unlocked, unlike the last time I was here. We step inside to a welcoming sitting parlor. There’s artwork along the walls that looks period authentic. A bookcase with some old dusty books, though I don’t know if they’re all authentically 19th century. I see some Twain, Moby-Dick, some Poe. A nice selection. On the bottom shelf are board games: some boxes look old and used, though I’m pretty sure none of them were invented and patented until the twentieth century. There’s an ancient looking version of Scrabble which must be pretty gnarly to play.

“The parlor looks just like it did the last time. Down to the same number of books. Whenever I see a bookcase or a bookshelf just about anywhere, my eyes are automatically drawn to it like a magnet to metal.”

“Gee, I wonder why that is. Not that I blame you. I’m kinda the same.”

“Well, combine that with my photographic memory . . .”

“Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten that you’ve got one. Or at least mentioned it once or twice, or a couple hundred times.”

I snort at this.

“So, it looks pretty much identical now to how it did then. But while I was drawn to the books, Anne was pulling on my hand, and dragging me upstairs to check out the room. We wanted to make sure the bed . . . Was in working order.”

“Ahuh. I see now why you and Anne had so much in common. Must’ve been her personality. Her . . . Magnetism.”

I snort again.

“The room was lavishly decorated. Just gorgeous. Though it only had a half-bathroom. There was a shared shower room. Anne wasn’t . . . A fan of this. Understandably. Still: I swear I told her about it in advance. She remains absolutely certain I didn’t.”

“Sounds like a healthy basis for a strong relationship based on . . . Good fucking.”

“I . . . I’ve got nothing to say to that.”

“Good to know that sometimes that can happen. And that I have the power to do it.”

“Moving on now . . .”

“Nothing to say for not very fucking long, huh?”

“I repeat: moving on. Let’s check out the rooms upstairs. I can feel the artifact is up there some place.”

We started walking up the stairs and at the top I stop and make Monica stop behind me.

“In my defense . . .”

“Oh, this should be real good.”

“There was no one around. No other guests checked into the hotel. If she wanted, she could’ve walked from our room to the shower completely naked, taken her shower, then returned still naked to our room without being seen by a single other person.”

“Except you.”

I pause.

“Except me.”

“Guessing that didn’t make a difference.”

“Nope. Not one fucking bit.”

Monica steps in front of me and heads down the hallway. It’s your standard small hotel hallway, so like one of those at The Overlook or any other hotel that gives you the creeps: lots of firmly closed doors that could lead to empty rooms, or something much worse.

That’s when we hear the first ghostly howl. Just like on the Mary Celeste. Just . . . great.

It stops Monica in her tracks. She looks at me.

“The blackness?” she asks.

“I can feel it now. It’s coming. But we’ve still got time. Not a ton. But . . . Enough.”

“Let’s hope so.”

I’m behind her by the time she reaches the first door on the left. She turns, checks I’m ready, then turns the handle and throws it open. It’s a quaint looking room, with impressive artwork, classy furniture and a double bed with an ornate duvet.

Then there’s a loud moan.

Monica slams the door. We’re both breathing pretty heavy.

“I hope you had enough time to tell whether the artifact was in there or not.”

“I did. It wasn’t.”

“Alright then.”

It’s at this point I should probably tell her I’m betting the artifact is in the room I stayed in at the end of the hall on the right. Basically the absolute last room we’re going to be checking. But I can’t be sure. Not 100%. With the way things have been going in Ostium, it probably will be, but with the blackness coming and these weird sounds, I . . . We can’t afford to take the risk.

I try the door to the right, Monica at my side. Our hearts are still racing. I open the door and see a very similar room, different artwork, and slightly different design of furniture, otherwise the same. This isn’t where the artifact is. Then I hear the growing sound of a growl. I don’t wait for something else to happen; I slam the door shut.

I look at her and see a similar bordering-on-terrified look on her face. Good, it wasn’t just me hearing and reacting in that way to it.

Next door. Same deal. This time there’s some creepy coughing. Monica doesn’t slam the door this time, but closes it slowly, perhaps giving me time to deduce whether the artifact is in there, or perhaps to make sure whatever’s making that sound isn’t disturbed in any way; catch it’s attention. Or maybe a little from column A and a little from column B.

I handle the next door on the right. More of the same. Except for a hissing sound that begins almost immediately and steadily increases in volume. Well, that’s enough of that. Door closed. Moving on.

Third door on the left. Another ghostly moan. Still no artifact.

Third door on the right. A yell this time. Just as creepy. Neither of us wants anything to do with it.

The next door is marked SHOWER. Monica opens it slowly. It’s a small shower room with one shower. The curtain is closed. There’s the sound of water running. I can see the steam billowing up over the top of the shower curtain. Then the water stops. There’s just a dripping sound. Then a dragging something. The shower curtain rings rattle and start to open. Monica yanks the door shut, looking at me.

There’s something weird about it, but it’s definitely not where the artifact is. I shake my head. Next.

The right door is also marked SHOWER. I open it quickly. Same room. There’s no water running in the shower. The curtain is open. There’s no one or no thing in the shower stall. That’s a relief. I feel something pulling me in, mentally, like the artifact might be in there. But it’s different from any feeling I’ve had before. Sort of sharper, almost painful. I take a few steps into the shower room.

“Jake, wait!”

And the door slams in Monica’s face. I just watch it, dumbstruck. It closed on its own with such fury. She immediately begins hammering on the door, yelling for me. Her voice us muffled.

“Jake? Jake! Are you okay? Open the door. Try to get it open from your side. Jake!”

I turn around, my body calm and collected. I’m not sure why. The feeling I’m having doesn’t feel . . . Malicious in any way.

I follow it, feeling it draw me to the window ahead, next to the shower stall. There’s a small curtain covering it, giving whoever’s using the shower a level of privacy. I reach it and draw the curtain aside and can see through the crystal clear glass.

Below is not Columbia, as it should be. It’s . . . Downtown San Francisco. What? I look up and see across from me the office building where I used to work. I can see many windows. On the floor where I used to work, and through those windows . . . Is me, turning to look out at . . . I flail back, getting out of the view of the window. I end up falling into the shower stall. Bruise myself a little, but nothing serious. The floor of the shower is dry. No one’s been using it recently in this alternate version of Columbia as seen through the eyes and doors of Ostium.

Once I know I’m okay, I pull myself up, count to 30, then peak through the bottom right corner of the window, keeping myself as hidden and sheltered as possible.

Without a doubt it’s my office building, well the Ostium version when Monica and I were there. We’re standing looking over the fourth clone of me. And it looks just a creepy from this viewpoint. At this point I’m learning about the tanker that’s run aground along the south coast of Britain. I’m not taking it well, understandably. Then we move on to the fifth simulacrum, where my cubicle used to be, where I’ll learn about Catalina and what happened to all its people.

I duck back down and crawl toward the door of the shower room. Once I’m far enough away to be seen from the window I stand up and reach for the door. The banging from Monica has stopped. Maybe she just gave up, waiting for me to do something about it. Or maybe thinking something serious has happened to me and there’s nothing she can do. Or perhaps worse . . . Something has happened to her.

I pull on the door and it opens with ease. I don’t see Monica on the other side and my heart jumps into my mouth,  but then I see her out of the corner of my eye, sitting on the ground, back to the wall, her head in her hands.

I drop to my knees in front of her and grab her hands, pulling them from her face, then my hands delicately hold her head, tilting her face up to mine; her eyes to my eyes.

“I’m okay,” I say. “I don’t know what happened in there. But I’m okay. I’m safe now.”

She gives me a nod and I decide on a bold move, moving in to kiss her. She tilts her head up further and our lips meet in soft warmth.

Another moment that feels an eternity but isn’t.

Then she’s grabbing my shoulders and pulling herself up to a standing position.

We move down to the next door. We’re holding hands, doing this together now. We stand in front of the next door, and before she reaches to open it, I say:

“Not this one.”

We turn to the right side of the hallway, where the next door is. I shake my head. We move on to the next door on the left. On the front of the door it’s marked NIGHT WATCH. What the hell does that mean? I swear I’ve never seen this door – or any other door for that matter – with these words before. I visited Columbia with Anne before the Game of Thrones TV series started, but I’d read the books in the 90’s when they came out. I would’ve totally noticed these two words on a door and freaked out about them.

I can also feel the pull of the artifact much stronger here. The room I had stayed in with Anne was directly behind me. I can feel a pull from behind also, but the door marked NIGHT WATCH is where it’s all at right now.

Monica opens the door and I wonder what I’m going to see: some sort of barracks-type place for the Night’s Watch guarding the wall from the Wildlings, or maybe something from that crazy fantasy novel of the same name by the Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko. Obviously, it should just be the room where one of the hotel attendants stays should someone need help during the night. Like I said, when I stayed here I wasn’t even aware of this particular room, and if it had been here, it probably would’ve been empty anyway. Now, at this time, I’m sure it’s empty.

It’s the same sized room as all the others, only different. There’s no art on the walls. The room is devoid of furniture, except for a bed in the center of the room that looks to be a single. The duvet covering it is black. There’s no pillow.

“It’s in here . . . Or at least part of it is.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. I feel a strong pull in this room, but also a lesser pull behind me from the room I stayed in with Anne.”

I step into the room and walk to the bed. There’s nothing on it, but I’ve honed my senses to this spot. In a strange fit of impatience, I rip off the duvet, blankets and sheets, then the cover sheet until the mattress is exposed. And there it is. What looks like a golden C in the center of the bed. I reach out and pick it up. I immediately think C for Columbia. Right? Makes sense. Each end of the C is jagged, like there’s another part to this artifact that’s missing, that should connect to these jagged edges.

I turn and look across the hallway at the final door. Monica has been following everything and knows what’s next. The number on that door is . . . Somehow . . . 325. I swear, truly swear it wasn’t like that just minutes ago. Our room number when we stayed here was ten. Again, I swear I saw a ten on the door as I turned to the NIGHT WATCH door and saw an 8.

And now it’s changed.

I can’t help but snort, as I imagine an image and then proceed to explain it to Monica who’s looking at me in confusion.

In my head I’m raising my shaking fist at the ceiling of the hotel, and essentially at the sky, yelling a long drawn-out: “Ossssstiuuuuummmm!”

We have a little laugh about it and that’s when there’s a long drawn-out howl. We haven’t heard one in a while. Forgotten how goddamn scary it sounds.

It came from across the hallway. From Room 325, the room formerly known as 10.

~ ~ ~

Monica looks at me.

“You can’t . . .”

“I don’t have a choice. The blackness is coming. We’re quickly running out of time. If I don’t find the other part of the artifact, it’s all pointless.”

I can see her working things over in her mind. She’s wondering what if we just used part of the artifact. Would it work the same way? But she doesn’t want to find out. Doesn’t want to have to try to come back here. And knows if the partial artifact doesn’t work right it might sever the connection, and end everything, including her chances of ever finding Steve. Alive or dead.

I walk across the hallway, feeling myself suddenly covered in a sheen of sweat. The moan comes again, and I look for what bravery I have left to confront whatever is on the other side of the door. I grasp the handle, turn and push. The door swings open.

I’m not sure how far Monica is behind me. I want her real close for support, possibly for protection and defense, because I’m pretty sure she can kick anyone’s and anything’s ass. But I also want her far away for her protection, because, you know . . . That’s manly, and if I haven’t made it perfectly clear before: I’m pretty sure I’m in love with Monica.

With the door now open I can see into the room and it looks . . . Like the other rooms. Like the room we stayed in looked. I step inside and see a queen-sized bed along one wall with a familiar duvet. The artwork and the furniture are the same. It feels eerily unchanged, almost as if we’d either never visited or this is the moment just before we stepped into our hotel room.

A ghostly moan begins then, changes to really quiet voices. I can’t quite hear what they’re saying, but it sounds like there are two of them. I recognize a particular phrase, one that hits deep, because it’s something I always say. I realize those voices are us. Anne and I. The sound of our arrival, in mild argument over the place.

What the hell? Is time folding over itself? Are Anne and my other self going to start materializing before my eyes? Does that mean Monica and I are going to start . . . De-materializing?

I look out the window and can now see the blackness making its way down Main Street, consuming all within its path, swallowing everything.

The voices haven’t stopped, and if I stand perfectly still I can just make out a few words. My own are a little easier with my deeper voice. Feels really weird to hear Anne’s voice again.

But I don’t have time. Working on my gut feeling alone again, I go for the bed, ripping duvet and blankets up. Next it’s the sheets and there on the mattress is the other gold C. As this is revealed the voices of Anne and me disappear and the ghostly wails begin again. Great. Ostium, or whatever’s running the show here isn’t happy. Maybe it’s a personification of the blackness? Giving it a voice.

I don’t waste time, grabbing the gold semicircle and heading out into the hallway. Monica is there and ready.

“We don’t have time to get to the door again, do we?”

I shake my head, then grab her hand.

We charge down the hall, the sound of the blackness outside clear now and getting louder.

What door will lead us back to Ostium? It’s not like I ever know, I just get this feeling. Like I do with the artifact, and the blackness, and everything else Ostium likes to keep me informed about.

I stop at the doors marked SHOWER on either side of us. I go through the one where there was something taking a shower not too long ago. I’m pulling Monica in with me, whether she wants to come or not.

The water is off and the shower curtain is still closed.

We run to the window and I immediately notice it’s not your usual window. Instead of sliding up or down or swinging open, while it’s still made of glass, there’s a little glass doorknob on the side. Without hesitation, I turn and push it  .

In that same magical way, Ostium appears before us on the other side.

“You first!” I yell at her.

Monica doesn’t question, and knowing it’s not a ton of room, gets running start and dives through.

Damn she’s brave. I’m going to have to really brace myself for impact on the other side.

I get ready and see movement out of the corner of my eye.

There’s a hand coming out from behind the shower curtain, reaching for me.

“Fuck!” I yell and then pretty much tumble through the open window.

~ ~ ~

The ground is hard and brings me back to earth and reality in a nanosecond.

Monica helps me to me my feet.

“That was a wild ride,” she says.

“I don’t know; I’m really starting to feel my age.”

Back at the clock tower and the map table, I take out the two golden Cs – one from each pocket. Together, it seems painfully obvious. I almost see a Well, duh! Sign  bubble over my head.

I stick the two pieces together and they fuse before my eyes. Now the two Cs have become a perfect O.

Nice twist there, Ostium.

The light this time is a shimmering fuchsia, just as bright and blinding.

We make some dinner and choose non-verbally to enjoy it on our own. We each need some solo time we’ve somehow decided. Probably after everything that’s happened today, and over the last few days.

I sit there eating a can of warmed up sphaghettios with franks, not ideal dinner eating, I know, but I’m starving and it sounded good. It’s palatable.

And that’s when my brain starts doing some deep thinking, and it doesn’t go so well . . .

~ ~ ~

I’m thinking about how we’ve gone through the same cycle again and it’s actually really freaking me out. First there was Roanoke, then the Mary Celeste. That’s two places in the past. Then Mars. The future. Then Avalon. A place from my past, my life. Then a bunch of weird shit happened and it started all over again. The ancient cave in south Africa. The Anjikuni village. Both from the past. The spaceship and Voyager probes. The future. And now Columbia, from my life, my memories.

Does that mean we’re going to get a whole load of weird shit again?

Is another earthquake going to happen? Another mighty crack in the world that will reveal another hidden door. And on the other side of that my place of work again? Or somewhere else from my life where I’ll find clones of myself or something else to really fuck with my head? And what will they reveal?

Perhaps what I’ve been dreading over the last four days. That with each door I go through, each time I bring back a trinket, a piece of my world – the one Ostium is no longer connected to – is destroyed. Another catastrophic event, another devastating virus, another accident that wreaks untold havoc. It’s what I’ve felt each time I brought back an artifact and put it on the map table.

And what about that hand reaching for me? Was it trying to get me? Was it trying to get the artifact? Was it related to the blackness somehow? A part of it? Is the blackness coming after me? Not to destroy this pocket in time that’s been created by Ostium, but to help me. Perhaps save me? From what I was doing. From the death and destruction I’ve been causing.

It’s a possibility, inasmuch as it isn’t.

You notice the particular pronoun I’ve been using? I’ve been very specific and clear about using me. I. Because I’m holding myself to blame here.

All those deaths are now on me.

The more I think about it, the more real it seems.

I’m killing all those people.

I’m causing all that suffering . . .

[Breaks down, crying for some time.]

 [Sound of a door opening. Footsteps.]

[Softly, slowly] “Jake . . . Jake. Look at me . . . Look at me, please.”

[Sound of Jake getting to his feet.]

[Sound of rustling clothing. Then kissing. This goes on for some time.]

[A sigh from Jake.]

[Footsteps going to the bedroom.]

[Sound of the door closing.]

The initial goal of the Voyager program was to study the outer planets of the solar system. Originally conceived in the late 1960s as part of the Mariner program, the two robot probes were moved into their own separate program, “Mariner Jupiter-Saturn,” which was later renamed Voyager. Due to an ideal planetary alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, Voyager 1 launched on September 5, 1977. Voyager 2 launched on August 20 of the same year. Yeah, you heard that right. Voyager 2 launched before Voyager 1. And before you ask why they did that or didn’t just switch the names around, I have an answer for you: Voyager 2 had a longer, more circular planned trajectory to Voyager 1 and was going to take longer to get to Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 1 would reach these Jovian giants first, therefore received the honorary title of number one.

Originally both probes were planned to explore the two largest planets in our solar system in detail. Voyager 1 reached and began photographing Jupiter in January of 1979. It encountered Saturn in November 1980. After a brief flyby with the moon of Titan, Voyager 1 continued on its way to the distant edge of the heliosphere. Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Saturn on August 26, 1981. Because of its particular trajectory, Voyager 2 was also able to make flybys of Uranus in January 1986, and Neptune in August of 1989. Voyager 2 then began its own journey headed beyond the heliosphere.

In 2013, Voyager 1 passed beyond the boundaries of our solar system. In 300 years it will reach the Oort cloud, taking 30,000 years to pass through it. In roughly 40,000 years it will pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445.

In 2020, Voyager 2 passed beyond the boundaries of our solar system. In about 40,000 years it will pass within 1.7 light-years of the star Ross 248. If undisturbed for 296,000 years, it will pass within 4.3 light-years of the star Sirius.

On each of these space probes is a gold-plated audio-visual disc containing information about Earth, its people, cultures and history, in case either of these probes should one day encounter an advanced, intelligent alien life form.

~ ~ ~

I stand before door 42 with some trepidation, but then on the other side of this door should be the answer to life, the universe, and everything, right? Monica is by my side and we’re ready to go in; through another door and into another world. I’m somewhat anxious because without the internet I feel completely disconnected from my own  world, a planet I used to call home. It sounds insane to say it like that, but from where I’m standing I can see that swirling blackness encompassing Ostium and know confidently that there’s nothing Earthly about it. And I very much haven’t forgotten about those devastating catastrophes wreaking death and havoc on the planet. I’ve also done my best to ignore and disbelieve in the minute possibility that Ostium caused each of those catastrophes, and the logical extrapolation from that would be, if – a big if, the biggest of ifs – if opening doors in time and space caused those terrible things to happen on my world . . . I would be more than responsible. And if that was, somehow, horrifically, the case, what has opening more doors done?

I’m not going to talk to Monica about this, at least not yet anyway. It all feels too fragmented and random and she’d probably just call me a conspiracy nut against Ostium, or just making a big deal out of nothing.

But Ebola, earthquakes, tsunamis, and giant radioactive clouds of death are far from nothing.

“Are we going to wait here all day? Or are you gonna open the damn thing?”

I suck in a breath and we step through.

~ ~ ~

My eyes are closed.

There is a humming sound and an airy sound, like air conditioning doing it’s job. Everything feels mechanical. Artificial.

I open my eyes.

My first thought is we’re in another space station. But it couldn’t be Mars again, could it? A different time maybe? But as my eyes take in more details I realize this is different. No. This is much cooler.

We’re on a spaceship.

Cue the . . . 2001 theme?

~ ~ ~

Monica walks ahead and over to the large window in the side of the ship, looking out at deep space. It’s wide enough for both of us to stand side by side, and I join her. Touching my hand to the glass or Perspex or whatever material it is – future plastic for all I know – I cup my hands around the outside of my face to block out the lighting in the hallway. Outside it’s all black, but one by one, and then by the hundreds and thousands and beyond, the stars make themselves known in the verse. My eyes start telescoping around, trying to take in as much detail from this view as possible. I make a big circumference with my optical receptors and when I get to the six o’clock position I see something that causes my jaw to fall open.

It’s a massive planet – of course from my context a small moon would seem massive – with a vertical and horizontal set of rings rotating around it, so sort of like Saturn times two. I can physically see those rings made of who knows what: rock, ice, and space dust? Satellites and orbiting mechanical parts? Alien pods? It could be anything, but it’s magnificent and mesmerizing. The planet below is a swirling miasma of purples and blues and oranges mixing together like planet-encompassing taffy. Does that indicate it’s a gaseous planet? Could there be anything living on it? An alien civilization? Do they have some rocky terra firma to exist on? Or do they reside in incredible floating fortresses and cities? Cloud City anyone? Perhaps beneath these mixing colors is a habitable atmosphere for these alien beings? The possibilities and complexities are endless. I want to take a scout ship or a survey vessel – if this spaceship has such a thing – but know I don’t have the time.

The blackness is next to invisible, even looking through the window, with all this space around us. But I can feel it. There. Far away and distant. But waiting. Waiting for me to weaken, to succumb, and let it overpower. To begin its inevitable approach and onslaught. It’s why I will always have a limited time when I pass through a door in Ostium. Why I will never be able to fully explore the world on the other side as much as I want to. There’s a literal ticking clock . . . Actually, no, sorry, that’s not true. There’s a metaphorical ticking clock when I pass through a door in Ostium and only have so much time to enjoy the view and do what needs to be done.

And if the blackness gets you? What then? Do you wink out of existence like one of these millions of stars? Are you disassembled one molecule, one atom at a time, flinging off electrons into the deep dark cosmos . . . who knows. Monica doesn’t have a clue. I certainly don’t. It’s a zero sum game, or is that a fait accompli, or neither . . . Or both? But the point is: the only way I will ever know what the blackness will truly do to me is by letting it envelop me.

Yeah, I’m not going to do that. Don’t worry.

I’ve got to get moving. Find out what I can about the ship. Find the artifact. And move on. The more I meditate on everything we’re doing here: this passing through doors and creating a bloated rift in time that probably shouldn’t exist . . . No wonder there’s never anybody here when we come through. The sheer energy dissipation to create this tear in space time be equivalent to . . . A gravitational wave, which is only created when two black holes collide. Yeah, we’re talking about a grande-burrito-butt-load of energy.  Trust me. It makes sense.

I guess being on a spaceship millennia or perhaps tens of millennia in the future has delivered an Ostium-level existential crisis upon my frail mortal coil . .  God, what am I even saying.

Find the artifact.

Got it.

Monica is still glued to the window, and I can totally relate, but I grab her hand and drag her away, heading down the corridor toward  I don’t know what.

The humming, with occasional beeps and squeaks from future-spaceship tech, is the only noise that accompanies us. We reach the end and approach a metal door that whooshes open with that patented Star Trek sound. There’s a small box-like room on the other side. Can it be what I think it is? Dare I dream?

I drag Monica inside and turn around. The door whooshes closed. The look on her face isn’t a happy one.

“Watch this,” I say: “Computer, Deck 1: Bridge.”

I wait for a friendly voice to reply: hopefully female, possibly male, perchance in English? Instead, there are a series of squawks. Then the turbolift, or whatever distant future spaceship elevator this is, starts moving first sideways for some time, and then ascending. The speed feels impressively fast, but the g-forces are under control and we don’t lose our footing. We reach our destination and with a whoosh the doors open.

I can barely contain my excitement as I step out onto the bridge of this possible galaxy-class starship. Does the outside look like the Enterprise NCC-1701-D . . . almost certainly and undeniably not. But there’s always a chance. And regardless, here I am, standing on the main command center of a ship of the future that can travel through space.

The beeps and squeaks and humming continue here. Before us is a giant oval window or screen showing us what’s  in front of the ship. I can’t see any of the ship on the outside to give an idea of what it looks like, so either this is a camera view at the front of the ship, or the bridge is located at the very bow. So many questions and there’s no way to get outside and check. In space, no one can hear you . . . Wonder. What I can see from this oval view are stars and some distant planets, each with their own individuality, their own uniqueness and colors. It’s . . . gorgeous and mesmerizing. And I think I see a comet there, shooting by with its tail of ice and rock stretching out behind it like a giant arrowhead. Incredible.

There are around 20 to 30 stations each with their own individual raised platforms, making their individual space clear. From each of these platforms extends a sleek white metal-looking tube-slash-stand curving around and opening out into an oval shape that looks about the size of a 40-inch TV. It’s all completely white, even the face of what I’m assuming to be a computer screen. Looks like a cross between stuff from the Wall-E movie and a product developed by Apple. It’s really sleek and cool looking. And that’s it. No apparent buttons or toggles or switches. Looks like everything’s touch-screen here, I assume. Of course, it could also be some cool telepathic mind-meld thing between the spaceship computer and the crew. Your mind to my harddrive. But without a member of said crew we can’t know . . . And then I see something slumped over one of the stations, kind of hanging over it, like a tossed piece of clothing or a blanket.

Monica’s eyes have been roving the bridge like mine, and then she sees the unidentified form and starts running. I quickly follow. It’s a big bridge, even by Trekkie standards, so it takes us a few seconds to reach it. Once there it’s obviously a body slung over the workstation console. We slowly walk around it, trying to recognize who it is, not wanting to touch or disturb it. Eventually Monica crouches down and then curves herself to bend underneath the console and see the man’s face.

“Private Tanaka,” she says. “I don’t see any blood. Any obvious cause of death.”

I take a breath. “Monica. We need to get going.”

She looks at me.

“The blackness is getting stronger, starting to overpower me. We don’t have a ton of time.”

“The artifact?”

“Not here. Not on . . . him. We need to take the turbolift again.”

“Well, thank fucking god for small favors.”

She leads the way to the turbolift. The doors whoosh open and we step inside, letting them close behind us.

I think about what to say, what to ask for? Where do we need to go on the ship?

I close my eyes and try to spread my thoughts to encompass the entire ship . . . Somehow. I don’t really know how to describe it; it’s weird, but it works. I feel it in one small spot on the ship. Sort of like our Ostium infrared maps, but with . . . Er . . . Touch-thoughts, you know?

“Cargo bay 42,” I finally say.

The galactic space-elevator or whatever you want to call it – if I keep saying turbolift, I might get Gene Roddenberry’s foundation or trust coming after me, and when it comes to a bunch of high-paid lawyers, I’m sure they’d be able to find me in Ostium, even if Ostium isn’t attached to a specific point in space and time anymore – begins moving down first at an impressive speed, then zipping to the left for some time, finally to the right for a few seconds and stopping. Again, even though we had to be moving at an incredible speed, neither Monica or I are on the floor or even slightly shaken up; both perfectly still like we’re on one of those horizontal escalators that seem to move you just that little bit faster at airports, though I’m not sure if the physics actually proves it. I swear I’ve had slow walkers not just match my pace, but actually pass me when I’m on those things. Still, beats walking.

The doors open to a large hanger, as kind of expected.

“Is it in here?”

I give Monica a nod and step out. It’s dimly lit. I ask the computer for lights, and suddenly the entire hangar is bathed in bright floodlights that are quite blinding at first. After some time for retinal recovery, I’m able to see what’s in this cargo bay: two strange-looking contraptions about twenty feet away looking like a binary pile of scrap metal. There are pieces of metal sticking out at old angles, some thick and short, others thin and long. Along the arms of metal are chunks of more metal that could be anything: instrumentation, sensors, weapons. At the heart of each contraption is a big white-looking dish with a central node pointing out from it. Huh, it kind of looks like an old school satellite dish, from the eighties or something. I remember watching this cheesy horror movie as a kid called Terrorvision about some alien monster that was somehow summoned from space and was able to pass through the television screen and attack and kill people. I remember it mostly being a big brown, slimy thing with tentacles, like a giant octopus. Anyway, the thing I remember most about it was outside the house of the family that was getting “visited” and murdered by this alien creature, there was this hella big-ass satellite dish on a swiveling box, and they could control it with this cheap-looking giant remote control. Looked more like a giant remote for a radio-controlled car. And I think the idea was you could turn the satellite dish in any direction and get like a hundred or more channels from Russia and China and wherever. Turn it another, and get channels from Europe and the UK. Not exactly how it works, but it was a crappy eighties horror movie after all.

But the important detail from this random memory is the satellite dish. These look the same. About the same size in face. Oh, and there’s that giant radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Again, but these are much, much smaller.

These are the thoughts running through my brain as study these things.

I can see from the look on Monica’s face, she’s wondering what the hell exactly I’m doing. Why am I taking so long? Just find the damn artifact and lets get the heck out of here. And I get that. Really I do, but there’s something else going on here. Something that I’m not catching, and I don’t have time to explain it to Monica.

“Hang on a sec. There’s something . . . holy shit!”

And then I have it.

“This is Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.”

This stops Monica. She knows about the Voyager exploration program, or at least she’s heard about it in some shape or form.

And then I launch into my spiel. You got the intro at the beginning of this recording. And here I am somehow standing before these two seemingly simple contraptions launched about 50 years ago that are the only inventions by humankind to have left the solar system and pass into interstellar space. At least in my lifetime. I know it’s not over yet, but it doesn’t seem too likely there’ll be a whole armada of either manned or unmanned probes shooting beyond the heliosphere and deep into outer space within the next sixty or seventy years.

And that’s when I realize the monumental precedent that is being set here: these two robotic probes have been found by someone, or something; an alien being, an alien race. They’ve been traveling through the cosmos for who knows how long and an intelligent extraterrestrial being found them and took them in to study. To learn about them, and in so doing, learn about the human race and Planet Earth.

On both of these probes is a golden disc containing a wealth of information about who we are. A committee was convened to decide what to put on the record, headed by one Carl Sagan. It contains a variety of pieces of music, 115 images, and a collection of sounds from nature and our world. Greetings spoken in 55 ancient and modern languages, as well as some other humans sounds like laughter and footsteps. There’s also a message from then President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

These golden discs were placed  just in case an intelligent alien race found them and wanted to know where these probes came from. And here’s the actual proof that they’ve been found. To call it a historic – yes, a historic, never “an historic” – moment doesn’t do it justice. It’s one of those moments you imagine and dream about, and here it is, in the flesh so to speak.

Simply incredible.

~ ~ ~

And that’s when alarm bells, air raid sirens and klaxons start going off. Or whatever this spaceship uses for an emergency sound is now making itself known. From somewhere deep in the ship is the sound of wrenching and destruction. Something has gone terribly wrong. What?!

“It’s the blackness. We need to get the fuck outta here, right now!”

I give Monica my combined no-shit-sherlock-and-now-I’m-fucking-terrified look.

I drop to my knees, looking beneath one probe, then switching to the next. I find a tiny golden disc about the size of a silver dollar. Bingo!

Then we charge for the turbolift.

Inside the door closes and the computer awaits direction and instruction, and I have no idea what to say. What hallway was it that had the Ostium door? It didn’t seem like any particularly important one, so . . .?

Monica is panicking right along with me now and just yells at the ceiling:

“Take us to the fucking Ostium door.”

The space elevator (or is that spacevator) starts moving. Where will it take us?

We go a number of directions and then stop. The door whooshes open and there’s the Ostium door staring at us, patiently awaiting our return.

We start running and about ten feet down the hallway the artificial gravity on the spaceship fails. The blackness got to whatever part of the ship controlled it; I’m guessing the bridge is long gone.

I’m as helpless as a toddler in water for the first time. I watch Monica and soon copy her, as she looks for handholds on the ceiling, the walls, the floors, whatever piece of surface she can find to grab on to, and pulls herself along. It’s not as fast as running, but she makes it look pretty close, like some skilled marine animal flitting along through the water with ease. She makes it look like no big deal, and I’m instantly both impressed and envious. I flail my way along behind her and we make it through the Ostium door.

I don’t bother looking back, not wanting to know how close the blackness actually is.

It feels great to be on solid ground and submitting to the awesome powers of gravity once again.

We go through the motions, offering up our tiny golden sacrifice to the map table god, which it takes and consumes heartily and without question.

After some food, it’s time to crash.

~ ~ ~

Monica’s Recording

Another day. Another door. Another fucking body. One of these days it’s going to be Steve, I can almost feel it. I’ll see his corpse displayed in some lavish way for my eyes only, I’m sure. Thanks to Ostium. And I’ll have one of two reactions: either I’ll just completely lose my shit and collapse into a pile of leftover nothingness that doesn’t want to live, or I won’t give a damn. As the corpses keep piling up, I know it’s pretty sick to admit, but I’m becoming . . . Not just numb, but acclimatized. It’s becoming no biggie. And that’s pretty fucked up. But I see it in Jake too, in his eyes. Inured.

Eventually, the body count’s going to reach saturation. The squad will be extinguished. Rendered fucking extinct. And if bodies keep turning up . . . It’s going to really fuck with me. Where the hell will they be coming from? Fuck knows. And if it’s just one more. Well, we’ll know exactly who that is, won’t we. And it’ll all be for nothing. One big fucking waste of time and space.

It was trippy seeing the Voyager probes. Both of them. I know a little about them. Did some recon on them . . . For fun. I know Jake was losing his fucking mind over seeing them. There. On that spaceship. But he loses his fucking mind pretty easily in Ostium. With the crazy shit that’s on offer here. Still. It was pretty trippy. Knowing what the universe can actually do. Getting those itty bitty pieces of metal and electronics way out there. Finding them a home with an alien race.

Kinda tells you anything can happen.

Sky’s the fucking limit.

And there’s you’re tagline for the great town of Ostium. Put it on a bumper sticker. Slap it on a T-shirt. Hell, if we were still connected with the real world, I’d mosey on down to the road to that old Ostium sign. Paint the fucking endearment on it myself.

Sky’s the fucking limit.

It was another rough night. Monica woke me up again, said this time my crying out was getting pretty loud, verging on screaming.

“Okay, I’ll try and control it. Keep it down in some way.”

“No, Jake. That’s not what I meant. You’re obviously still going through some heavy shit. So you probably need to do some introspection. You know. Get in touch with your inner self, or whatever. See what’s going on inside and find out what needs to be resolved. See what’s eating you up inside. Okay?”

“Yeah . . . thanks Monica. That definitely helps.”

It’s good to know she’s earnest and cares. I mean, I kind of thought this already, and  I know she’s on my side and everything, but it’s good to hear her coming out and saying it and making me feel less like some crybaby who can’t deal with it all. And I know I’ve kind of addressed this already, but this also the second straight day of not enough sleep and clearly having some deep-seated issues. I’m not ready to fully talk with Monica about it. Yet. I know we weren’t supposed to be keeping secrets, but this isn’t a secret, so much as a . . . personal existential crisis, sort of.

Hey, can you tell I haven’t had much sleep?

I know it all ties in with the infinity door, as I’m calling it. Seeing those clones of me and the series of catastrophes happening in the world. The fact that we don’t seem to have a working Internet right now and I can’t see what’s happening on Planet Earth is definitely not helping. I think I might’ve worked it out, too. The Internet is sort of working, but only one way. I can’t look anything up; can’t receive any emails; can’t check anything that requires access to the Internet. However, the recordings have been uploading just fine, like there’s nothing wrong at all. I think I can’t send things out, and can’t get anything back either. I was able to send Dave an email today which went out and appeared in my “Sent” folder. Of course, I don’t know if I’ll ever know if he received it because it would require him communicating with me.

I guess maybe he could call me?

The two problems with this are: 1) I think it works the same for the phones as for the Internet, I can’t call out and can’t receive calls, plus I don’t have his number and am not ready to just randomly try a phone number or call someone I know; and 2) He doesn’t have my number.

Anyway, here’s what I said:

Hey Dave,

I hope you’re receiving this. I don’t know because our Internet isn’t working properly. I think that might have something to do with what’s happened; it also possibly explains why you found a different Ostium to mine. We’ve become untethered. I assume you’re still keeping up with the recordings, and from my end they’re uploading like usual, so you should be getting them. In which case, you know what I mean about untethered. But I don’t get how the internet is sort of working. Doesn’t really make sense, but whatever does in Ostium? Am I right?

For now we’re going to keep going with the usual plan: going through more doors and seeing what we can find. Monica hopes we might find Steve, hopefully alive, on the other side of one of these doors. I don’t know. After finding that other guy . . . Dead due to very mysterious and unresolved circumstances . . . Let’s just say I don’ t have high hopes. But other than keeping on keeping on, I don’t know what I personally expect to find with these doors and Ostium. I know I’m connected, but I don’t know why or how. So we’ll just go about it and see what happens.

I’ve not been sleeping well. Having some really bad nightmares. Apparently. I don’t know. When I wake up, or more accurately, get woken up by Monica, I’m sweaty, my heart’s pounding, my throat is raw and sore from yelling and apparently screaming. But I don’t remember anything about what I was dreaming about. It was probably bad, but I can’t recall a single detail. Which is pretty disturbing. I’d at least like to have something to go on, so I can try to help myself through this. You know?

Part of me is also wondering and . . . Really concerned. I mean really concerned. I haven’t told Monica about it, and I probably should. I don’t know. There just seems to be something inside me saying don’t do it. It’s weird. But anyway, what I was trying to say was I’m concerned with all the terrible stuff happening around the world, that it might be related to Ostium. To going through those doors. That us doing that and bringing back artifacts and putting them in the map table is somehow causing those catastrophic events. I know, it sounds crazy writing it down and reading it, but what if? If all these lives being lost and . . . Destroyed . . . was because of me . . . Man, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I’d just walk through that gate and drop off the edge. Not caring what would happen to me. Because it would be all my fault.

And what if our continuing to go through the doors is causing more devastation? What if Mount Etna is now erupting? Or the Bubonic Plague is making a big comeback with a new and incurable strain? It’s got me very worried, and I have no way of knowing. I think I really need to talk to Monica about this. Get her P.O.V. on it and see what she thinks.

Now, as for you, I’m honestly not sure what you’re going to do, or what you can do, for that matter. I guess you could start going through all the doors in order, just like we did, bringing back artifacts, but that seems like it’s just going to start you on your own trajectory and you’re goal is to somehow find us – I hope that’s your goal, that’s what I’d like you to try to do – that doesn’t seem the right way to go about it. As for an alternate idea? I’ll be honest: I’ve got nothing.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news followed by more bad news, but I wanted to keep you informed and up to date however I can from my end. And hey, I’m hoping you’re going to come up with a great idea and start doing it and before I know you’ll be walking through that front gate, or opening one of the doors here and surprising us, or maybe revealing yourself when we go through one of those doors.

So . . . Fingers crossed man.

Talk soon,

Jake.

~ ~ ~

There’s no point in referencing with the map table anymore to see what our next door is. You’d be better off covering your eyes and stabbing your finger in any old direction and seeing which number you end up with. And yes, if you’ve ever been (or might still be) a fan of a certain game I once had an affection for called GeoGuessr, a definite possible strategy is to zoom out and just blindly stick the digital push-pin wherever.

But I can’t. Because I have no internet. Sad face.

Anyway, we’re soon ready and out the door and I do my newagey calling on of the spirits of Ostium to tell me where to go next . . . But I don’t hear anything. How strange? I do, however, feel the psychic tugging and follow its magnetic pull, Monica coming up behind me. We’re eventually taken to door 90, still in the vicinity of Ostium’s CBD (that’s Central Business District for you non-geography people), you know, downtown as everyone else calls it.

“You wanna go first this time?” I offer

“After you going to open it for me?”

“Sure,” I said.

“You know, I’ll let you take this one. But I’ll be right behind you.”

We step through and what immediately hits me is the cold. Damn cold. Like freeze your ass off cold. We’ve been pretty lucky so far, in hindsight, having faced favorable conditions and a decent climate each time we walked through a door. I can only assume Ostium isn’t going to dump us in an environment that isn’t hospitable for human beings. Like sticking us on the surface of the planet Venus which would kills us in a few minutes doesn’t seem in the best interests of Ostium (if it has interests), nor is it ours. Temperature and climate however . . . Humans are a very versatile and resilient species that can eke out a living in almost any environment on Earth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be fun or comfortable.

Wherever we’ve been taken, it has to be a really far north latitude, or really far south . . . Or Hoth, but I’m not seeing any Tauntauns. But while we’re clearly in some sort of blizzard – the snow swirling around but visibility is still decent – it could be a lot worse. A lot more severe. There’s a light covering of snow on the ground that crunches underfoot.

We’re both in pants. Monica at least has a sweater on. And wise old me is standing there in a t-shirt.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

“Follow me!” I say.

And I charge off into the snow looking for some sort of cover, ideally a nice house or hut with a roaring fire and lots of blankets and maybe some hot chocolate with marshmallows, but that’s some really wishful thinking. Hey, if I’m truly connected to Ostium, shouldn’t I be able to make stuff like that happen?

In hindsight, recording this for the most part after it all happens, why I don’t just say: “Hang on Ostium, b.r.b.,” and head back to the clock tower for some warmer clothes, I’ll never know. Maybe I’m worried if I leave and try to come back it won’t work, but I think that’s also just me reading too much into it.

So now I’m plowing through falling snow which – as a Californian who doesn’t spend winter holidays in Tahoe or the Sierras – is a refreshingly new and un-fun environment to be in, and did I mention cold?

The blizzard seems to be getting thicker, which is obviously not good, but I think I see something up ahead. A dark shadow in the swirling white. It’s the only physical thing I’ve seen so far that isn’t white. I take it as a good sign and head straight for it.

It turns out to be a hut.  A little hut, only it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It looks like a square box on wooden stilts. I immediately have an image of Baba Yaga’s house from Slavic folklore that walked around on giant chicken legs. But right now it’s the only thing around that might provide shelter.

When I reach it I see a ladder on the other side, run around, begin climbing and dive through the opening. Monica doesn’t waste any time joining me. Inside it’s . . . Cozy, I guess. I wouldn’t call it roomy exactly, and would hope the nightly rate at this motel is at least reasonable. There are animal skins everywhere. Piled up. Hanging from the wooden frame. And animals furs. As opposed to the other kind of furs. It makes the inside of the hut feel very insulated, warm and dry, which is exactly what we need right now. It’s kind of like being in a closet full of clothing for the Arctic, and then it clicks in our heads at the same time.

We grab furs and blankets and wrap them around ourselves and just huddle there for a good five minutes. Monica isn’t as bad off as me, and I have at least three layers on. At first it does nothing, and then I start to . . . thaw and warm up. In my head I’m focusing on the blackness, it’s a distant almost non-existent thing, which is great. I give Monica the update and am wondering if maybe my ability to control the blackness is getting better, stronger.

Eventually I feel ready to brave the outside world again. Well, not really, but we can’t just stay here the whole time. I find some fur boots that actually fit me pretty well. I have a couple of fur cloaks or coats or whatever they are and a fur blanket over everything.

“You ready?” I ask.

“Actually . . . I’m going to sit this one out?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m . . . really fucking cold. If there’s something so goddamn important you can let me know and drag me out. Sound good?”

“Ten four.”

“And please never fucking say that again.”

With a smile on my face I duck under the skin that has been pulled down over the opening and jump down into the snow. It makes a satisfying crunch. I’m really going to have to have to kick this into high gear. The snow is falling fast now. Visibility is becoming pretty minimal.

I’m trying to hone in on my “artifact sense” and see where it leads me, but the blizzard is definitely affecting my mental vibes. I’m not cold like before, but even with the furs, I’d still rather be in a lot of other places. So I continue walking kind of aimlessly, hoping for another one of those hut shadows to form in the white, but my eyes keep watering with the cold and the snowflakes, and for like a millisecond after I blink I can see and then everything gets blurry again.

I stop. Pull the fur blanket over my mouth and take a deep breath, so the cold won’t freeze the moisture in my lungs. I close my eyes, trying to shut out the white and welcome the black. It helps. A little.

I start walking, still with my eyes closed. Kind of crazy, I know. But what’s going to happen? Will I get knocked down by a snowflake? Now a strong gust probably would have an effect, but I’m ready for that. I try changing directions, veering to the left, then to the right, then back to the left again, waiting for . . . Anything. Any sort of sign.

And then I get it. Though it’s not that playful, mental tug, or a mental red laser drawing me to it.

It’s a fucking ghost howl.

Yeah. Just like on the Mary Celeste. And no, it hasn’t been long enough for me to get over it yet.

The sound actually forces me to take a step back, but I stop myself.

No. Not this time.

This time I’m in control.

I walk towards it and then stop, waiting for that sound. Then I move again. My eyes are still closed and I’m just working off of my other senses. Then I have another sense. A sense of mass, of physicality.

I open my eyes. There’s one of the huts in front of me.

The sound makes me shudder this time, but I keep going.

~ ~ ~

I’m inside, using my cell phone for light again.

It looks like the other hut and without Monica’s flashlight it’s not as well-lit, so I don’t see it at first. I wave the flashlight around, thinking I’m going to see the next artifact, maybe a little walrus carving or a Nanook.

Instead there’s a body.

Great, another dead guy. Just not what I needed.

I move closer and study him. He’s in military camo, so no doubt one of Monica’s buddies, and she’d totally slap me upside the head if she heard me say that. But it’s pretty fucking cold what she did. Sending them through the door with no clue what to expect. And it looks like they’re ending up getting knocked off, one by one. I feel like she needs to talk some more about that, what with the whole revenge thing.

Like the body found inside the casino building, this one bears no obvious physical injuries. I check his pulse at his neck. Nothing. He looks to be Latino. On his left breast is the embroidered name: RAMIREZ.

I sit back in the corner and think.

Something’s sticking in my ass. Ow. What the hell?

I lean to the left and pull out the small object, shining my flashlight on it.

No fucking way. It is a little polar bear carving. A regular old Nanook of the north.

Go figure.

That’s when I brave the cold and go to get Monica.

~ ~ ~

It’s during the round trip to get Monica and bring her back that I realize where we are.

Lake Anjikuni is a lake in the far northern reaches of Canada, in the territory known as Nunavut. On a cold night – even colder than it is right now, no doubt – during November of the year 1930, Joe Labelle, a Canadian fur trapper stumbled into the tiny Inuit village, exhausted and looking for shelter. Supposedly he found the village completely empty, not a single human in sight. What was strange was that the huts were all set up like there were people in them just moments ago. Pots of steaming stew and plates of cooling food laid out all around for consumption. Lots of bedding and clothing just abandoned. And if you’re living in these conditions, then you won’t go anywhere without food and warmth to bring with you.

It’s another mystery without a solution. They did searches around the area, trying to find any sign of anyone. The Canadian Mounted Police got involved, but nothing more was ever found out about it.

It’s just a mystery. One that’s supposed a little more shrouded in urban legend and folklore than say . . . Roanoke, but still.

Where did the people go?

Where everyone else went from the likes of Roanoke and the Mary Celeste and possibly a Martian base.

~ ~ ~

Monica has a lackluster reaction to this story, and after talking it over with her for a bit, as we try to keep warm and close in the hut, I kind of get it. It’s a pretty sure bet now that when we go through a door in Ostium, we’re going to find an empty place on the other side, with all the people enigmatically gone. And I’m going to know something about it.

Check and check.

She’s more interested and perhaps concerned about the dead guy. When I first told her about him, her eyes widened and weren’t going to stop unless I told her something else. I quickly said, “I’m pretty sure it’s not Steve.” This helped. I told her about the name on the uniform. This helped a lot, but she still needs to make sure.

I decide to sit this one out. I’ve seen the body already, checked it out, don’t really need to see it again. I’ll wait outside.

And now I can feel the blackness coming. Oh great. Not too fast, but it’s definitely making its way here at a decent clip.

I wait what feels like five or ten minutes, but is probably only a couple; feels like an eternity.

“Monica, we need get going, the blackness is closing in.”

“Be right there”

And just when I’m about to go in there and see what the hell’s taken her so long, she appears and drops down to ground.

“Bout time,” I say and lead the way to . . . Where exactly?

It’s all white like before. And a colder, deeper chill flows into my chest like liquid nitrogen.

We’ve made a big screwup. We’ve fucked up royally.

The snowfall was lighter when we first arrived, and now it’s heavier, but we still should’ve done better. Should’ve known better.

I have no fucking clue where the door back to Ostium is.

Well . . . Shit.

~ ~ ~

It’s still snowing. Cold and getting colder, just as we are.

I turn to Monica and the look on her face is . . . fear. Not something I think I’ve seen before. The blackness is coming closer, getting louder, and we don’t know the way back to the Ostium door. We could be looking for hours and still never find it. Okay, I get why she’s scared now, just not used to seeing that expression.

Therefore, it’s time to get that look off her face and deal with the situation. I quickly recall a similar situation in Avalon, where a different door took us back to Ostium. That’s good. That means there’s a chance. Hope. So it’s just a case of finding that alternate door and getting back to where we live. No biggie.

I grab Monica’s hand, which feels just as cold as mine, twining my fingers through hers. Maybe we’ll share some warmth and help each other out. I can’t even see the hut we were just in anymore. I don’t have time to focus and mentally divine where one of the huts is.

Just gotta go with my gut here.

Direction doesn’t really matter. I’m doing ten paces, then changing direction, another ten paces, then changing again, but keeping a mental compass so I don’t just go in a complete circle and end up where I started. Hopefully. Then I see a dark shadow and charge towards it.

It’s a hut! We’re saved . . . Maybe. Hopefully.

We get close to it and that’s when I form a picture of the doorway in my mind, only instead of it leading to the inside of the hut with furs and possibly steaming food waiting to be eaten, I’m imagining a black hole and on the other side of that is a street in Ostium, wait, not just any street, the street right in front of the clock tower.

We jog around the side of the hut until we see the doorway into the hut, about four feet off the ground, with an angled ladder leading to it. It’s all black. Different from the other two doorways to huts we’ve seen so far.

“What do you think?”

Monica looks at the doorway, noticing a difference. She looks at me, eyebrows raised, then back to the door again in amazement, then back at me one last time in wonder. Then she grabs me and kisses me.

I’m not gonna lie. I was sorta ready for it this time, in that I was hoping she might do it, in that adolescent teenage boy on a first date with girl way.

Then she draws away and everything is cold and freezing again. She makes sure she has a strong grip on my hand and pulls me up the ladder with her and through the door.

~ ~ ~

The first thing I notice is warmth . . . or more accurately, the lack of extreme cold. I open my eyes and see there’s no snow. I can’t help but let out a really contented sigh.

Monica bursts into laughter.

We’re sitting on the ground and I can see the clock tower from where we are. We just came through a random door in Ostium and ended up exactly where I’d planned to be.

Okay, I think it’s officially time to start calling this a super power, because I’m totally nailing it!

When I place the little carved polar bear on top of the number 90 on the map table, the blinding color this time is an iridescent green, and I feel like I’m being blasted with a beam of kryptonite.

And then it’s all over and for the first time this day I feel the weight come off my shoulders and I’m able to relax.

We soon have giant mugs of strong tea. I tell Monica I want to start working on putting the recording together. She says she wants to take a nice hot shower. I watch her go into the bedroom and softly close the door behind her.

I didn’t want to say anything about the kiss, in case it jeopardized it in some way. Made it less valid and important, like it was just a little thing, and not the beginning of something that I truly hope will become more.

I suppose only time will tell. I’m going to stand back and let her call the shots, and the play . . . and probably the whole game.

~ ~ ~

[MONICA:] It’s late. Or early. Depending on your perspective. I can hear Jake snoring away in there. And that’s with the bedroom door AND the bathroom door closed. The guy’s got a real set of lungs on him. But at least I know he can’t hear me.

He’s still having the nightmares. I know it’s about what he saw in the place where he used to work. The clones. What was on those screens. But I also think it’s his subconscious processing what he saw. What he knows happened to the world. It’s had a big effect on him. Hit him deep. As was expected. But he can’t check anymore. Can’t see what’s really going on with the outside. He doesn’t know. And that’s a good thing. An intentional thing. The less he knows what’s really happening the better. He needs to stay focused. To keep on track. If that means a kiss every once in a while. I can deal. If it means more? We’ll have to see.

Seeing the Ramirez guy was . . . tough. Not that it was him. I didn’t really give a shit. I don’t give a shit. But he was dead. Like the other one. And that’s . . . Not good news. Is it? Not looking real positive for Steve. But a girl’s gotta have hope. Steve’s different. Steve’s stronger. Steve’s better. Steve’s . .  . Steve. Huh, I should fucking know. That guy can get through anything.

So now. THEY may be turning up dead. But I know Steve’s still out there. Somewhere. And he’s okay.

And I’m going to find him.

No matter what it takes.

I can’t fucking believe him. Goddamn Jake. Goddammit Jake! He told that guy. About Ostium. Everything. What the fuck? Then he told him where the hell it is. And he fucking found it. He even talked about how there’s fucking music written to his recordings now, and even goddamn merchandise. Un-fucking-believable. Fortunately. Because of the whole untethering thing, it’s a different Ostium. Somehow. Don’t really get that. Least not now. Not at the moment. But it works in this case. For now.

I just . . . I just don’t get what possessed his tiny little mind . . . okay Monica, let’s keep it together here. Let’s get something out of this. Make some fucking catharsis happen. I need it after today.

Okay, so . . . Dear Diary, I’m talking to you and recording because I need a . . . saner voice to talk to and listen to. So Jake’s probably gonna spin it as something we discussed and came to a consensus on, but I pretty much just told his ass how it’s gonna be. What with Ostium being somehow linked with Jake. Which I still totally don’t get. But every door we go through, there’s just more proof. It can’t be denied. So from now on, I said, Jake can do what the fuck he wants with his recordings going over our daily trips through the doors. It’s all tied to him, and he’s the one who always seems to know way too much about what’s going on. While little old me is left in the dark.

Yeah right.

I don’t know everything. Not at all. But I know some things. Some very important things.

So I told Jake he can just go ahead and do his thing. We don’t need to take turns like he suggested, even though it was kinda nice of him to offer. He can use his big fancy vocab and go wild. I said I wouldn’t be doing any recordings.

And here I am doing a recording. But that’s cos I gotta reason. That catharsis thing. In Ostium I’ve only got one other guy to talk to and I can’t really trust him anymore. Not with what I know. But I still gotta bounce ideas off of someone or something. Somehow. So I’ll do these recordings when Jake’s not around, or sleeping, like he is now.

I need to do these recordings because I can’t lose my shit. Not over Jake. And not in front of Jake. Because he’s the fucking key to all of this. It’s why I made up that whole recording originally.

I . . . I need to show I’m together in front of him. Because without him I can’t get through those doors. Not on my own. And I need to. I need to.

To find Steve.

I know he’s alive.

I know he’s still out there. Somewhere. On the other side of one of those doors. I heard him. His voice. He said my name. He knows I’m here, looking for him. So he knows he’s gotta do whatever he needs to, to keep going. To stay alive. So I can find him. And get him back. I know I can do it. And I know he knows I can do it.

I gotta believe in myself. Another reason I need these recordings. For me. Jake’s never gonna hear them. No one else is. Well . . . Maybe Steve. One day. When I eventually find him. I might let him hear what I went through. How I never gave up.

It’s important . . . For me . . . To . . .

What is that?

Is that Jake?

Is he still asleep?

I think he’s having a nightmare.

Guess I better go rescue his ass yet again.

So he still thinks I’m on his side.

~ ~ ~

No . . . No, no, no . . . Please stop . . .

I open my eyes and immediately feel Monica’s hands on my shoulders. She’s shaking me. Normally having Monica be this close, touching me, would make my day, but these aren’t normal times. She explains I was having a nightmare. Crying out in my sleep, like some little kid. She doesn’t say this, she’s not that cruel, but my brain is automatically completing the sentence, filling in my inadequacies.

It makes me feel . . . Less than awesome.

I let her know I appreciate the attention and help, looking directly into her eyes.

I haven’t forgotten that kiss and won’t be anytime soon.

She goes into the kitchen to make some tea and prepare some breakfast, telling me from afar that I’d been mumbling about tsunamis and Ebola . . . Seeing those clones and what was on those screens has done a number on me. It’s done a number on her too. She’s actually surprised it’s not me waking her up in the middle of a nightmare. It makes me smile, but inside I know this is just something said to placate my nerves. And it’s working. A little bit. But those weren’t clones of Monica. I was the intended viewer of those screens. I was the focus of that whole door . . . That Ostium had created . . . For me.

~ ~ ~

After a wholesome breakfast, we’re in the map room, staring at that wood-work of art. I still can’t really believe there was a crack in it just yesterday right down the middle as if someone had taken a giant, serrated ax to it a few times, and now it’s miraculously . . . Repaired. Healed.

Like a wound. A wound that won’t hurt anymore.

I guess in time we will see.

But getting back to the map table. It’s different . . . Again.

As we noticed before, the numbers have changed. It’s . . . Even more random now, if that’s possible. The lowest number is 12. The highest is . . . What the fuck? 401? It just doesn’t make any sense. And from the look on Monica’s face, she’s of the same sentiment.

Not that it really did before, but we were on a roll, sort of. A numerical roll, if you will, until the whole earthquake thing, and then the infinity symbol.

And now it gives a whole new meaning to the term . . . random.

So what the hell are we going to do now? I ask Monica this question, but her looks are continuing to mirror mine and it would just be redundant. Or she’d make a snide comment . . . That would make me laugh.

Okay. Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda.

What the hell were we going to do now?

Follow me.

That’s what I tell Monica. And the look she gives me is something to the effect of: What the fuck did you just tell me to do?

I immediately apologize, and follow it up with: “Please. I have an idea.”

That’s enough to convince us and we’re on our way.

~ ~ ~

Outside the clock tower, it’s another beautiful sunny day in the quaint town of Ostium. Well, at least to the extent of a town that’s untethered and aimlessly drifting through space and time. So darkness all around pretty much. And it’s then that I realize the conundrum . . . Or is that the new paradox of Ostium? There’s no big shining ball in the sky to give Ostium light; nor is there some lunar orb having sunlight reflecting off of it and casting a cold whiteness over everything. But somehow there’s still light in Ostium. Somehow. There are no streetlights or anything of that sort. And yet I’m standing outside and it’s bright and clear as day, and I can still see the blackness out there.

But that’s not helping me focus, which is what I need right now.

I ask Monica to bear with me.

I close my eyes and put fingers on my temples, applying a little pressure.

Yep, part of me goes way back when to that Starbucks parking lot when I was first trying to to find Ostium. It was sense, that strange ability that suddenly possessed me, which I’m attempting to channel now. I’ve already tried the mental infrared Ostium map, but no numbers, no doors are lighting up, telling me where to go. I’m on my own. But then Ostium never liked making things easy, did it?

And there it is. A slight mental tugging. Like someone has just flicked my pineal gland.

Okay, granted, that’s a little weird, but you get the idea.

Like before, I open my eyes and see a building before me with a door, and  that door is the number 24, but it’s not our next door.

I start walking down a street and Monica follows. She can tell the quasi-trance state I’m in. She probably doesn’t understand it, just like I don’t, but she’s going along with it.

~ ~ ~

A quick tangent here. You may have noticed me pretty much doing this recording solo, telling you what Monica said rather than actually hearing her. Monica and I talked about it and we decided that I’d be doing the recordings from now on due to my mysterious and – GULP  – undeniable connection to Ostium. I’m starting to feel like there’s this invisible umbilical between me and this town. Whether it’s attached to my belly button or head or heart, I don’t know.

But long, winding, directionless story short, I’m going to be the lead and main and pretty much only reporter on the Ostium scene. Monica wants to take a step back, remove herself from the recordings. She feels she has little to offer, which I disagree with, but I’ll respect her wishes.

I think she might just need some space. This is her way of creating some distance between herself and Ostium and possibly me too. Maybe she’ll do her own private recordings as a sort of ongoing diary thing, I don’t know. She said she’s not going to, but doing this might also help me, or us, to understand what is going on with Ostium and why I am particularly connected with it. Since it’s just me running the show now, so to speak.

Basically, Jake’s special, he doesn’t know why, and maybe having Jake being the main reporter, recorder, and chronicler will help solve this. Somehow.

I don’t know. We’ll see.

Now, on with our regularly televised episode of the Ostium show . . .

~ ~ ~

The door I stop at on one of the streets of Ostium is number 45. Nothing apparently significant about this door and this number, except that my Ostium sense is telling me that this is where the next part of our journey through the doors of Ostium begins.

I tell Monica this. She nods.

I then say “Ladies first.”

“No fucking way.”

I laugh, turn the handle and push open the door and step into darkness. Like always.

~ ~ ~

It stays dark for a while and just when I start to wonder if I’ve gone blind, light starts to filter in, as my eyes acclimate to . . . The enclosed space. We’re surrounded by rock. On all sides it seems.

I turn around slowly to find Monica doing the same thing and we both see the source of the light at the same time. We’re in a long cave made of rock.

Monica starts heading toward the light and I follow, wondering if we’re going to find some version of an afterlife on the other side . . .

Well, if this is the afterlife, then sign me up. It’s a big beautiful landscape. Trees and rock formations and grassland and a giant open blue sky with a big shining sun casting a comforting heat. It feels . . . Glorious. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the sun until I saw it again. My brain starts considering if I’m going to be getting my recommended daily dose of vitamin D via solar exposure in Ostium now that it lacks a star, but I ignore it. It’s a very minor concern at this point. Thanks once again, brain.

“It’s absolutely gorgeous here. Paradise.”

I’m in total agreement, but I follow up with how this isn’t what we’re here for. As beautiful as it all is, I can sense where the artifact for this door is located and it’s not anywhere outside. It’s back in the cave I tell her.

She’s not too happy. I’m not either. I’d much rather soak up the sun and enjoy the outside, but Ostium has other ideas. She asks about the blackness, I tell her I’m keeping it at bay. For the moment.

I lead the the way back into the cave, and we’ve soon passed the open door leading back to Ostium. On this side the door is more like a fake piece of rock that has detached and swung open from the wall. No visible hinges or attachments, just kind of hanging there, open. It’s pretty cool.

As we continue into the cave, the light dims a little, but not too much, so we can still see just fine. That initial darkness was more about our eyes getting using to this lower-light environment.

I look around, searching for any items, any artifacts, trying to get a sense of what this place is. Why we’re here. And what significance it has with me. I’m coming through this door and into this place with a whole new paradigm this time, if you will. I know it’s going to have something to do with Ostium and with me. I know there’s going to be a connection, and it changes my whole approach.

It’s kind of like when archaeologists and paleontologists and anthropologists are doing their thing. Digging up old bones and whatnot. Of course, if you’re digging up a bone, chances are it’s pretty old, unless it’s something your dog buried a few hours ago . . . But anyway! When scientists start digging in the ground, everything’s striated, meaning it’s all about layers and the deeper you dig the older stuff gets, so at certain levels, archaeologists expect to find fossils and artifacts from a specific period or a range of time. Where was I going with this . . . Oh yeah, but a year or two ago, scientists tried a whole new approach when starting a dig, basically being more open-minded to what they were looking for. So instead of thinking they were going to find, say, fossils of homo erectus and only that, they were looking for anything that might have something to do with fossils, and in so doing, discovered more artifacts and bits of fossils and pieces of whatever they wouldn’t have necessarily noticed if their focus had just been on finding homo erectus bones. I’m sure there’s some mathematical statistics and probability that can be used and applied to reveal how you’re going to find more useful stuff (even if it’s not the useful stuff you were originally planning to find) if you apply this method.

Bringing this very long off-topic monologue back to Ostium. Sorry, didn’t mean to go on for that long, but there is a point. Trust me. So just as these scientists applied a new paradigm to their archaeological dig, I’m applying a new approach to going through a door in Ostium and its inevitable connection to me. And now that I’ve talked for way too long about archeology and bones I’m thinking there’s a significance to my brain dredging it up and being in this place. Excavating the resonance, if you will. This is a cave after all, and what do you sometimes find in caves?

Bones.

Yep, now that I’m thinking about it, this definitely has a fossil feel to
it . . .

Oh come on, I haven’t made with the wise cracks in . . . At least five minutes.

And that’s when I see the first skull.

~ ~ ~

It like it’s staring right at me. I guess technically it is. And if it still had eyes and muscles and skin and a face, the person would probably be looking at me and have some sort of reaction. But it’s bone white – obviously – and long dead.

I hold out my arm to stop Monica and she soon sees what my gaze is fixed upon.

The cave tunnel has opened up into a sort of alcove. It’s hard to see anything, but I just get the sense of more space now. Our breathing is more . . . echoey.

The skull appears to be sitting on some sort of pedestal. It’s seems big, almost abnormally large. I think Neanderthal, but it seems almost bigger than that, also I’m not exactly able to recognize a Neanderthal skull as soon as I see one. Below it looks to be a dark hole.

Monica shoots me a What the fuck? look in a way that only Monica can. I shrug my shoulders. I don’t know exactly what it is and what the deal is with this setup.

And then in the far back of my mind I feel a twinge of something. Just like I felt when I was on Roanoke . . . and the Mary Celeste . . . And this time I’m not gonna ignore it. Something is pinging with me. I’ve picked up on something and it’s connected with a memory of mine in some way. So what is it? What’s special about this place?

There’s not a lot of light in here, so I take out my phone and turn on the flashlight.

“Good idea,” Monica says, quickly doing the same with her phone and soon this end of the cave is basked in an impressive amount of light.

“Holy shit!”

Monica just covers her mouth.

The skull in front of us wasn’t the only one. There are rows of them along the walls. Each with their own intricately carved pedestal. The skulls are all different too, minute variations in shape and size, but all clearly human. All of a sudden it feels like a crowded room.

A crowded room of the dead.

And I know what this place is. Where we are.

Monica recognizes the look on my face: understanding.

“Fucking enlighten me, Mr. Fisher.”

And I tell her that we are in the cave of a skull cult. The cave was discovered five years ago in South Africa, about three hours northwest of Johannesburg by prospectors looking for potential places to mine raw materials. They started digging and then found this opening to a long cave. It was pretty much all filled in, so they notified the authorities who notified a bunch of different people. Less than a year later an archeology group from Germany arrived and began excavating.

The first six months were spent getting rid of dirt and sand and rock to clear out the cave. Some of it was attributed to the passage of time with weather, rock slides, animals, but not all of it. The archaeologists worked out for that amount of material to be inside the cave, at some point someone, or more than likely, a significant group of someones, chose to fill it in and hide the cave from the rest of the world. And this was before they found any bones; before they got to the skulls.

After a year, they made it to the alcove that they eventually dubbed the anteroom – “And you’ll find out why when I get to that part” – That’s when they found the first skull. Then the next one. And the next one. And they kept going. Eventually the anteroom was completely excavated and they found . . . 45 of them.

“You’re shitting me.”

“No. I shit you not.”

There are 22 skulls on each wall. Each skull bears a unique identifying mark: a perfect hole about the size of a quarter carved into the top of the skull. Perfectly round. The skulls were eventually dated to between 28,000 and 30,000 years old. They don’t know how those holes were drilled into the skulls and made to look so perfect. As for the layout of the skulls, there are four rows on each side: the top two rows with five skulls; the bottom two rows with six skulls done in a sort of wide pyramidal shape.

“Number 45 is . . .”

“The one sitting above that hole.

“Bingo.”

“Where does the hole lead?”

“Let me tell you the rest of the story.”

The hole . . . isn’t very big, which is pretty clear. The hole obviously leads somewhere, but it took a while first for the archaeologists to decide what they were going to do, and then to get volunteers who were small enough to crawl through the hole. They sent out this hilarious request for grad students with a specific height restriction and what would be required. They had a bunch of applications, and then about two thirds dropped out once they talked with the archaeologists and what they were going to do. A group of 15 grad students made it to the dig. Once they saw the hole, ten of them refused to go and headed back to Johannesburg.

What it must’ve been like for those five people, to venture into the unknown and enclosed like that. Talk about your Indiana Jones adventure.

The hole is actually a small tunnel that leads for over 30 feet. It took two years of digging and excavating, but eventually they made it to the other side. It led to a small room. Just five feet high. You couldn’t stand up in it, but had to crawl. Another year of painstaking excavation. Grad students left, others came from all over the world. Eventually they had the room clear. There was a stone pedestal in the center of the tiny room with strange cuts and hatchings that might’ve be some primitive language or writing or pictography. No one really knows. No one’s ever seen anything like this.

On the pedestal there was a single skull.

It was twice the size of a normal skull.

And it was human.

~ ~ ~

They had no clue what the hell it was.

At some point in your life – whether you wanted to or not – you’ve probably seen a horse’s skull or a cow’s skull, especially when you went through that hipster phase and wanted to do some interior decorating. That’s about the size of this skull, but it had all the expected features of the homo genus.

No one of course believed it at first. Who would? There was just the handful of grad students squeezing through that very small tunnel. They took photos, which were astounding and still disbelieved. More photos were taken. Eventually a camera was set up, as well as lighting for absolute proof. Bone samples were taken and tested. It matched the rest of the skulls. It was human.

And on the top of it was another perfectly carved hole.

More time passed. The bones, the cave, the dig was scrutinized and studied by many, but nothing equatable had even been found. The reason the Rosetta Stone is so important is because it has the same message in three languages; it’s like a three-language dictionary. This cave and its skulls were unique. They are unique.

The carved holes are also unique, and mysterious. What do they mean? At the very least, they seem to imply some sort of ritualistic intent. And thus the dig and its skull inhabitants have been dubbed the skull cult. Not officially. More colloquially. But it caught on. Sort of. With those in the science who believed. There were plenty of naysayers, who called it an aberration, an outlier; something they really didn’t want to become a big deal, because it didn’t really cast the well-respected and longstanding field of archeology in a favorable light. That’s why it’s not so widely known.

But I know about it. Because I have . . . an interest in it and all things anthropological and archaeological. Well, not all things, but many things. I know more than most about Australopithecines, Denisovans, Naledi, and a number of other hominids.

You know, just one of my hobbies . . . that became an obsession. As it does.

~ ~ ~

The look on Monica’s face is not one I expected, but once I consider it, it makes sense.

I came through this door more open-minded about Ostium than I’ve ever been before, more willing to accept my connection to it, and it helped. I didn’t tell Monica anything about this but perhaps she’s just picked up on it in some way, maybe from my body language, or my facial expressions. Either way she’s not shocked – well, she was when I told her about the giant skull; really shocked in fact, but that’s to be expected: that I’m able to give her a ten-minute lecture on this place.

She’s . . . accepting. As am I. This is a good thing. I think it’s a move in a healthy direction for Ostium. And for me. And for Monica.

“And because Ostium’s a bitch, the artifact is through that tiny hole that you can just barely fit through. Right?”

I don’t bother answering. She knows. I just give her one of my  award-winning shit-eating grins.

I don’t actually know if I can fit through it, and my heart’s started doing a little dance as I prepare myself to climb through. I don’t remember exactly what the height requirements were for the grad students to be able to climb through the tunnel, but I’m pretty sure I’m too big.

But a part of me also knows this isn’t really a special archaeological site from who knows when about a skull cult. It’s something Ostium made.

It’s something Ostium made . . . For me.

When I start crawling in to the narrow tunnel, I see it’s going to be a real tight fit, but I also know I can make it. I slowly start inching my way along with Monica giving me encouragement.

It takes a while, but I eventually make it out the other side, like a Nerf bullet from the Nerf barrel of a Nerf gun.

And there’s the skull sitting on that pedestal. I can’t help but think of that scene from Conan the Barbarian, when he finds that skeleton with the sword . . . you know, I’m just gonna stop there. If you’re really curious, you can rent the movie from Blockbuster . . . I mean watch it on Netflix . . . dated myself a little there.

It’s huge and . . . So unnatural looking. Like something from a movie about aliens. It’s downright creepy.

I walk up to it and in the top I can see the perfectly round hole.

Now, because the skull’s twice as big as a normal human skull, the hole is twice as large, but this particular hole still seems too large. Maybe it’s more . . . Ostium sized?

I’m not surprised when I reach out with my hand and am just barely able to fit it into the hole. I reach down and feel for something. I find it. It’s hard. I pull it out and open my hand.

It’s a tiny skull, like something for El Dia de los Muertos, or one of those knickknack key-chain skulls.  And of course, in the top of it is a tiny hole.

Does this little skull have an even tinier skull within it?

Does Ostium have an actual sense of humor?

I shake it. There’s something minuscule rattling inside. Make that many somethings, because those skulls go all the way down, baby.

That’s just fucking hilarious.

~ ~ ~

It takes me less time to make it back through the tiny hole. I show Monica the latest addition for the map table. She’s just as amused as I am. When I make it rattle, she bursts out laughing, making me laugh too. It’s been a while since we both did that. Feels good.

We make our way back to the door. She steps through first.

I follow and stop just before passing through. I take a look back at the humble abode of the skull cult.

It’s still really gnarly that we came through the door and ended up here.

And I’ll probably never see it again. Ever. Too bad.

I step through closing the door behind me.

~ ~ ~

Back at the clock tower, standing before the map table, we’re ready. Four of the golden numbers are gone. One is still there, two  through five are gone.

I hold the skull in my hand, feeling it warming up. I shake it, hear the rattling, like I’m getting ready to toss a die. I look underneath the skull suddenly and see the number 45. Go figure. Then I place it on the corresponding number.

This time a vibrant blue light engulfs the artifact, just as blinding as the white light was. It’s over in seconds, the afterimages singed on our retinas.

The number 45 is now a rich, ruby red color. Not gold.

Okay then.

The map table has moved on from gold to . . . Technicolor?

I said before everything is different now, and I wasn’t kidding. I slowly open my eyes and everything is blurry at first. I blink a few times, trying to get the sleep out of my eyes, the fuzziness out of my head. It eventually works and I’m staring at a ceiling. It takes me a second to recognize: it’s the ceiling in the clock tower. Yeah, not that weird, except I’m staring at it, which means I’m lying down in the room in a comfortable bed. I can feel some sort of covering over me which I’m assuming is a sleeping bag. But if I’m in the bedroom staring at the bedroom ceiling, it means I’m inside Monica’s sleeping bag. And if I’m in Monica’s sleeping bag, does that mean . . .

~ ~ ~

I slowly look to my right and there’s Monica, lying next to me, sharing the sleeping bag. She’s on her side, facing me, her left arm under her head, still asleep. Her arm is probably going to be seriously numb when she wakes up, but I don’t care, because she looks absolutely beautiful. Just perfect lying there.

I can tell from her arm and bare shoulder that she’s . . . naked. I take a quick look into the sleeping bag by my chest and can see my pale thighs. Okay. I’m naked too. Cool. I wonder if this means . . .

I start to cast my eyes lower on Monica to see if I can see . . . ahem . . . anything, and that’s when I see her eyes have opened.

“Hi Jake, did you sleep well?”

Her voice is like a warm blanket that fits perfectly around your body, and speaking of body . . .

And that’s when I start to feel something hitting me in the head. It hurts right away. Ow. Really ow . . .

~ ~ ~

I open my eyes and see a super close-up view of dirt. Because my face is on said dirt. Because I’m on the ground. It feels hard but so supportive. Feels like I could stay lying down forever. But then there’s the thing thunking me in the head. And then I hear Monica’s voice . . .

“Jake. Jake, are you okay? You need to get up. I need to know you’re okay.”

I try to speak, but my throat is desert dry, a vacuum. I clear my throat and try to work up a little saliva to bring my vocal chords back to life. I sound croaky, but eventually can speak.

“I’m . . . okay . . . fine. Well, not really fine, but alive, I guess. What the hell happened?”

I gingerly pick myself up. I sway a little, unsure on my feet. Monica is there in a second, supporting me. It helps, in a lot of ways.

I look up and around and feel lost, which hasn’t happened to me for a while in Ostium.

“Where the hell are we?” I ask.

“Oh honey, you must’ve hit your head pretty bad. We’re in Ostium, dear,” Monica says in a sarcastic tone.

I feel an angry frown start forming and look at Monica. Her expression explains it all.

“Fucking hilarious . . . ‘dear,’” is my response.

“Well, the story is I regained consciousness about ten minutes ago. Got my bearings. And then started working on bringing you back into the land of the living. What exactly were you dreaming about?”

“Er . . . so that’s the story and you’re sticking to it?” I say, trying to hide my growing blush.

“Yep, I’m sticking to it.”

“Okay,” I say, looking around and still trying to get my bearings. Then I spot the water tower, which works as a great mental sea anchor, steering me straight. I look southwest and can see the reaching clock steeple in the distance. I add it to my mental map. Then I remember I’ve got another kind of mental map, and bring up the infrared display.

Yep, just as I thought. And a chill slithers down my spine, making me visibly shiver.

“What’s wrong?” Monica asks.

“The . . . the crack is gone.”

Monica’s eyes widen, and then widen some more, seeming to defy the contours of her face.

“Holy . . . fucking . . . shit,” is her three-word response.

She just stares at the ground, and I along with her. Minutes pass.

“What does this mean?” she asks.

I take my time, thinking, then thinking some more.

“I don’t know. I guess it means . . . Ostium has changed again. For the good or bad? Who knows? That giant crack opening up like a hell-mouth wasn’t exactly good news, but it led us to the door with that infinity symbol.”

Monica is looking at me, her eyes no longer wide, but more . . . is that amused?

“Was that a Buffy reference?”

I’m silent for the moment, not expecting that.

“You damn well bet it was,” I say, a smile lighting up my face.

It’s infectious and soon we’re both smiling at each other.

“Come on, let’s go take yet another gander at that map table and see if it has any new info for us,” I suggest.

Monica nods and we start walking towards the clock tower side by side, enjoying a comfortable silence between us.

~ ~ ~

Back at HQ it’s just as I feared, or predicted . . . I’m not sure if a giant crack opening up in the town where you currently live suddenly disappears, as the ground is reknit anew, is something to be necessarily scared of . . . A place where weird shit happens would be the motto on the Welcome to Ostium sign if there was one. But I’m definitely not indifferent about it; it’s just more proof that Ostium can do whatever the hell it wants.

The map table is a new piece of wood, cleanly carved and varnished once more, no sign of the jagged crack anywhere. There’s also no sign of the hidden door with the infinity symbol, which I’m . . . totally fine with. A lot of heavy shit happened on the other side of that door; shit I’d just as soon rather forget . . . but know I won’t. There’s also a couple of good memories from that place: Monica being a veritable pillar of physical support is definitely one of them. Inadvertently I look at her; she’s looking back at me. Are we sharing the same thought? The same memory? I sure hope so. There’s a hint of a smile on her face.

She breaks the connection, looking back down at the map table. A frown forms on her forehead. Something isn’t right.

“Something’s wrong with the edge,” she says.

I look down, wondering what she’s talking about and see it right away. How did I not catch that? Did it just happen?

The border of the map table has changed. Instead of four straight even sides, they’re jagged; uneven; and not uniform, as if the wood was ripped apart, torn off. Something random.

“That’s not all. Take a look at the numbers.”

I feel a heavy dread take root in my chest before I even start looking.

The numbers are . . . changed.

My eyes automatically go to the number one, that’s always my starting point. The clock tower is still numero uno, no change there. But that’s where things get weird. I’m searching all over the map table and I can’t find a two or three or four. I see a 12. A 13. 56. 89. 145. 268. 301!

“What the fuck?” I say.

“What the fuck indeed. What are we gonna do?”

“What does it mean?”

We’ve just asked each other impossible questions. They might as well be rhetorical. We both realize that right away.

“I want to go to the gate.”

“Why . . . ,” I say, and then I realize.

Monica nods her head in the direction of the gate, my cue.

What are we going to find when we reach it?

When we reach the border to Ostium?

~ ~ ~

I prepare myself on the way. I don’t know what I’m going to find, maybe no change at all, but I’m open for the possibility of something. Something different. Possibly something very different.

When we get there it’s . . . beyond words . . . but I need to tell you. In case we never make it out of here, especially since where I’m standing I can see my car is long gone and I no longer have any idea how we’re ever going to get home.

Everything beyond the gate is . . . gone. We’re about twenty feet away and for the moment we’re not going a single step further.

From what I can see, there’s the gate and maybe a generous foot of earth or terrain or . . . reality extending beyond it. And then it just ends. It’s dark, but not the blackness. Oh god, I hope it’s not the blackness . . . no. It’s lighter than that . . . isn’t it?

We’re looking between the bars of the gate and there’s not exactly a ton of width and space between each rung. It looks black with hints of other colors, streaks, and flashes. But I’ve got to know.

I take two steps forward and I feel a hand clamp around my bicep so hard it hurts. I turn to her. She’s just shaking her head side to side.

“I’ve got to know,” I say.

“Why?”

“I’ve got to know if it’s the blackness. I’ve got to know . . . for myself.”

She opens her mouth as if to respond, to demand I stop fucking moving this instant, that I stay exactly where I am, but nothing comes out. I see the resignation in her eyes as she slowly lets me go.

“You stay,” I tell her.

“Don’t worry. I’m not fucking moving.”

I walk slowly, ever so slowly. Once Monica’s out of the corner of my eyesight I feel alone, like that first time in Roanoke, that first time on the Mary Celeste, and the first time on Mars. Like there’s only me, Ostium, and the big bad universe, and at the moment the universe is looking pretty fucking black and doom and gloomy. I’m taking deep breaths, trying to keep my heart-rate under some sort of control. All this Ostium-related stress can’t be good for the old ticker. When I close within the five-foot range, my auditory nerves pick up the barest hint of sound. And yes, it starts with a “cra” and ends in “ackle.” My eyes and mind continue to hope, while my hearing and heart have already assumed the worst, but not accepted it by any means.

I reach the bars, looking between two and can see oh so much clearer now. It is all black, a consuming night that will never end and keeps on coming. A night terror you can never escape. The crackling is easier to hear now, but the sound is still dampened. Whatever the magic-slash-science ways and laws of Ostium are, this iron gate is apparently much greater than just a form of ingress-slash-egress. This isn’t your regular ostium, with a lower case “o,” if you catch my meaning.

It is the blackness. Undoubtedly. But it’s also a little bit different. This blackness isn’t moving, at least not towards Ostium. It encompasses everything I can see beyond the borders of Ostium, and while I pick up hints and inclinations of the swirling movement in that darkness, it never encroaches further than that very edge of the boundary with Ostium. I do still see streaks, pinpricks, and minute flashes of color all over, but I’m not certain if this is something physically happening, or just a result of my staring at the blackness constantly and my retinas sending fake signals to my optic nerves like burning afterimages.

This particular blackness is not as seemingly malevolent as the blackness we’ve seen on the other side of the doors in Ostium, but it is by no means tame or innocuous. I get the sense that if I were able to get the gate open and step beyond the bounds of Ostium, that blackness would send out tentacles, ensnaring me, and suck me into its maw in an instant.

I look down at the center of the gate and see a shiny, solid hexagonal padlock on the outside. It’s locked tight, so if for some insane reason I had wanted to try to open the gate, it wouldn’t be likely to happen.

I feel I’ve gotten all I can from this viewpoint and am happy to put distance between me and the blackness.

I walk back to Monica quickly. Her eyes haven’t left me the entire time, and I can see a minor shaking in her form.

Unsurprisingly, she’s just as fucking terrified of all this as I am.

I reach her and I’m not sure if it’s something I pick up on in her eyes or body language, or just something I need right now, but I reach out and then we’re in each other’s arms, holding on tight. For dear life.

“Is it . . .”

I answer instantly: “Yes, but we’re safe as long as we stay in Ostium.”

We break apart and our arms drop to our sides.

“So any ideas on what we do now?”

Monica runs her hand through her curly hair, getting herself together, then responds.

“I need to know . . . You probably do to. We need to know if this blackness is everywhere. If it’s around all of Ostium. Once we have that answer, we’ll know some definite things.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t want to say yet. Not until we know for sure.”

“So how do we know for sure?”

A smile forms on Monica’s face, a small, warm light in all these bleakness.

“We go on a field trip. An adventure. You’d probably call it a mission.”

“Oh really. What did you have in mind?”

“Let’s just call it . . . Operation Water Tower.”

~ ~ ~

We’re at the water tower and it feels awesome, in multiple senses of the word. Awesome as in great in size and overpowering and looming, but also awesome as in fucking kick-ass. I guess the only kind of sad thing about it is that there’s just really Monica and me to appreciate it. But we certainly do.

I hadn’t been this close to it before and from the looks on Monica’s face, she hasn’t either. I’m sure it was in our minds to come on over and check it out, but it is quite a trek from the clock tower, plus we’ve had a few . . . hundred things going on since we set foot in Ostium that have been distracting us. It’s got the presence of some mechanical giant from the future, with its four sturdy legs supporting it. You know, War of the Worlds style. In the middle is a smaller, thinner leg with a ladder going up leading all the way to the small hatch-like door in the underside of the water tower. The number 69 is clearly visible on the door.

I wonder again if and when we get to opening this particular door, whether on the other side will be the familiar blackness, or a torrent of water pouring in my face. That makes me think about the other big “issue” Monica spotted with the map table and how all the numbers are messed up now.

But . . . one Ostium-sized problem at a time.

Monica gets whatever signal she’s apparently been waiting for and starts climbing up the ladder. I look up to the top and wonder what exactly the plan’s going to be once we get up there, but Monica’s already pulling pretty far ahead and I don’t want to get left behind.

I’m soon climbing up the ladder like I’ve been doing this all my life, but giving Monica enough space to not feel cramped.

It doesn’t take us long to run out of ladder and while I wait for Monica to figure out what to do next, I take a look around; a gander at Ostium from this higher view. Man, this place is really big. And seeing all those doors out there on the open grassland is . . . pretty fucking weird, like some crazy graveyard for doors, or like a wacko cemetery where instead of tombstones, you get buried in your coffin in a hole and a door put on top of your grave, like you could be welcomed back to the world of the living at any moment.

Man, that’s . . . downright weird, even for me. Sounds like a Monty Python sketch.

Okay, time to focus, Jake.

I look and watch Monica, because she’s started doing something.

Holding onto a rung with one hand, Monica’s reaches out with her other around the door, running her hand over the surface of the underside of the water tower, like she’s looking for something. What? I don’t know. It’s white and smooth, unblemished, there’s nothing to be found from what I can see.

Then her hand sort of disappears for a moment.

No, it . . . it sinks into the surface of the water tower.

What the hell?

Monica’s not that shocked. Almost like she’s done this before.

I question her about this.

“Didn’t I tell you about my early times in Ostium? When I was looking around? When I got into the clock tower?”

“Er . . . no.”

“Sorry, hun. I thought I had. Weird. I did a damn recording about it.”

“Guess I should check all your recordings,” I say sheepishly.

“Well, duh. Of course! Because they’re awesome and will help you learn stuff. In that case, you’re gonna be pretty fucking impressed with what I do next. Just watch and learn!”

Monica folds her legs over the top rung of the ladder to get a better angle, and then lets go of the ladder with her other hand. She reaches out to a spot a couple feet away from the hand that’s semi-submerged into the water tower. She finds what she’s looking for and this hand now submerges; it becomes hazy . . . sorta like Marty McFly’s hand in Back to the Future.

I really hope it’s not for the same reasons. Or we’re really fucked.

Then I realize what they are. Hand holds. Invisible hand holds, in the side of the water tower.

Monica pulls herself up until she’s supporting her body with the two handholds, while her feet stand on the top rung of the ladder. Then the right hand detaches and searches for another secret handhold. There it is. Then the left hand does the same for its side and finds the next handhold.

Now the real impressive move happens: Monica steps off the ladder, putting one foot at a time into the handholds that also work as footholds. Like her hands, her feet disappear a little. She’s now basically hanging upside down, her back to the ground of Ostium far, far below. She’s straining a little but seems fine.

Monica starts moving up the side of the water tower. The longer she’s at it, the faster she gets and soon she’s crawling up the side and disappearing from view.

That’s my cue to follow in her footsteps . . . and hand-steps, or handholds, or whatever.

Great. This should be real fun.

I ignore my growing fear and just focus on getting this done. Gotta show Monica I’m made of the same stuff she is, even though I’m not.

My hands find the handholds and it feels like a kind of magic. Yeah, cue the Queen song. I actually start playing it in my head and singing along. It even helps a little.

It definitely gets a lot more scary when I’m just hanging there by my hands and feet, feeling gravity trying to conduct it’s equation of force equal to my mass times the acceleration due to itself, and pull me to the ground real fast. I make myself not look down, just focusing on finding the next handhold, and I get through it.

I climb up the side of the water tower feeling like motherfucking Spiderman! But I don’t give myself time to enjoy it, because I’ll just screw it up and end up killing myself.

At the top of the water tower, in addition to a beaming Monica, is a little platform and railing with just enough room for the both of us to stand up there and not be quite touching.

“What do you think?” Monica asks once I’ve caught my breath and made myself stop shaking.

“Holy shit.”

I look around and take in the great expanse that is Ostium. I can see wall to wall in all four cardinal directions. All the buildings, the reaching superiority of the clock tower, and the wide open space of greenery with its many doors at all angles and directions.

And then I look beyond the walls of Ostium.

“Holy shit,” I say in utter terror.

The blackness is there. The blackness is . . . fucking everywhere. What I saw through the gate wasn’t a small contained portion of the blackness – not that I ever really thought it was – but from this height and vista I can see it . . . all encompassing, omnipresent. I turn a slow circle, making sure I keep a solid grip on the railing. Losing my balance up here would be a sure recipe for disaster. My statement remains true and holds to its belief. The black really is everywhere except Ostium.

I turn to Monica.

“Is this what you didn’t want to tell me?” I ask, almost scared.

Just a nod from her.

“You wanted . . . you needed to make sure first. To be absolutely certain.”

Another nod.

I look at the blackness again and feel myself start to tremble. I wonder how I’m going to take to get back down, onto the solid ground of Ostium, shaking like this. I don’t know if I can do it.

“So . . . what does this mean for Ostium? For us?”

Monica takes her time. Whatever she’s about to tell me is going to be big, but I don’t really know what else she can tell me that I can’t process and comprehend with my own two eyes.

But then she speaks and I find myself collapsing to the floor of the platform.

“Ostium has become untethered. It’s no longer connected to the real world.”

I understand the words, but it’s going to take my brain, and my heart, and my soul a long moment to process and comprehend them. Then I do.

“So that’s it then? The earthquake happened. Then it unhappened. Somehow. In the process Ostium was severed from our world, and now it’s adrift in the blackness. In time and space. In nowhere.”

“That’s about the gist of it,” is her response.

“Which means it’s the end of Ostium. And therefore the end of us.”

Monica looks at me in surprise, then laughs.

“Oh contraire, mon frère. Ostium is not over by any means, and neither are we. This is just the beginning.”

I look up at her and feel now that my cheeks are wet. I’ve been crying. Again. Crying a lot today, apparently. But in her eyes I see something new. A spark. I believe it’s hope.

She holds out a beckoning hand. I grasp it and she pulls me up. I make sure to hold the railing with my other hand; don’t want us both going over the side.

“Ostium may be untethered. The town – along with us – may be disconnected from the world, but I know something. Actually, a lot of somethings. Hundreds of somethings that aren’t.”

“What would that . . . oh, the doors!”

“Yes. Those doors of Ostium, connecting this town to other worlds, other places in time. And more importantly to our world. And maybe on the other side of one of those doors is Steve.”

I don’t expect this and find myself shocked to hear it. Probably a bit of jealousy slipping in.

“You still think he’s alive behind one of those doors? I thought, after . . . Richard . . . And the datapad and all that, you kind of accepted that it was all over.”

“Nope. With what’s happened to us. Fuck. With what’s just happened today. And the way things are. Now. The state of things. Yet we’re still alive and kicking. I dunno. He could be dead. They could be all dead and gone. But there’s only one way to find out.”

“We keep going through the doors of Ostium.”

~ ~ ~

With Monica’s help, getting back down onto solid ground turns out to not be too hard. I stay close and watch her every step and hand movement and copy it to a T. That last step onto the grass of Ostium feels like stepping onto a little piece of heaven. Then we make the longish walk back to the clock tower, not really talking about anything, just thinking over everything that’s happened so far just since we got back through that strange door with the infinity symbol which is now buried under more than a hundred feet of Ostium earth.

When we’re about a minute from reaching our destination, and I’m sure Monica’s got her mind fixated on a giant mug of strong tea, I have a bad thought. A terrible, awful, horrible thought. I turn to Monica.

“What about the internet?”

“What about the internet?”

“If Ostium’s become . . . untethered, does that mean the internet’s gone?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

The look on her face is nothing like the masque of the red death I’m wearing on mine.

I start running.

I know . . . I know. It’s not like we might be cut off from water, or food, or air. But the internet is a big deal. You know that. And right now it’s one of our lifelines to the world. Technically it’s the only line of communication we’ve got. And if that’s gone, then it might be the end of everything . . .

Yeah, for you quick thinkers, if you’re listening to this you know the internet must still been alive and well when I make it to the clock tower. I also have a new email, from Dave. My online friend I’ve been chatting with from London. He’s been doing his bit to spread the word about Ostium and come up with ideas about what could possibly be going on here. I’m not too worried with what he’s doing, it’s not like I gave him the exact location of the town of no population to broadcast online. And the conversation he’s been having with his listeners has been pretty interesting.

The last time I was in contact with him, he was dealing with the literal fallout of the radiation cloud sweeping over Europe. I invited him – if he could somehow swing it – to come to the US, to California, and to Ostium, if he could find it. I gave him specific directions and made it clear only he was to know and use them and not to tell anyone else about then. I know, it was taking a bit of a risk there, but I felt it was worth it.

He ends the email saying he made it. He found Ostium. But there was one of those strange hexagonal padlocks on the gate. Fortunately, it pops open and he goes inside . . . and doesn’t find us. Which isn’t really that surprising, given the whole untethering thing and our current predicament. Nevertheless, he still found Ostium. Or an Ostium in this case. Just not this Ostium.

“I can’t believe he found Ostium,” I say aloud.

“Can’t believe who found Ostium?”

“Errrrr.”

I make it a long word, something almost alive, as I’m stalling for what to say. I haven’t told Monica a thing about Dave and his Enigmatic Mysteries of the Unknown. Partly because it never really occurred to me to talk to her about him, I mean, I never thought in my wildest dreams he’d be coming to Ostium, you know, until like a day or two ago. And partly because I kind of know I should’ve told her a whole long time ago and didn’t and now I feel bad about it.

And now I don’t have a choice.

I can feel her eyes on me. She not going to let me just stall indefinitely. We’ve been on this merry-go-round before and Monica isn’t exactly the sort of person who takes any shit . . . from anyone, even me.

“Who the hell are you talking about, Jake?”

I turn to face her and it feels like I did something bad – because I did – and I’m about to be punished and scolded by a parent or teacher – because I deserve to. I breathe deep and start talking.

“I’m talking about Dave. He’s a British guy who runs a podcast called Enigmatic Mysteries of the Unknown.”

“And how does he know about Ostium?”

“Because he found my recordings. About Ostium. And he made his own podcast about it.”

“And . . .”

“Well, he’s been talking with his listeners about what’s been going on here. With me. And you. And all the doors and everything. He came up with his theories, and got some ideas from listeners as well.”

“And how many listeners are we talking about?”

“I . . . I don’t know. He never told me. Lots I think.”

“He never told you?”

“Erm . . . yeah. He emailed me. And I emailed him back. And we’ve been kind of having this back of forth conversation going on.”

“About Ostium?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a cold silence now and I feel like if either of us moves, there’s going to be the sound of ice cracking and breaking. I don’t know what the hell to say next, so I just wait. Probably not the best move on my part, but I’m not known for strategic tact with people and especially not with the opposite sex.

“I don’t know Jake . . . I just feel there’s something you’re not fucking telling me.”

I take another breath. It feels like I’m not breathing right. Am I breathing right? And let’s not get started on my heart rate which is suddenly through the roof. And I’m seriously being avoiding right now.

“He was scared. Dave was . . . Terrified, of the radiation cloud. He needed a way out. An escape. And I told him he could come to Ostium . . .”

“You what?”

“I told him he could come here. Just him. No one else.”

“You told him how to get here?”

“Of course I did. I gave him exact directions. Because he knows stuff. Important stuff about Ostium.”

“So fucking what?”

“He’s like us.”

“How the fuck can you possibly know that. You barely know the fucking guy. A couple emails and you’re long-lost fucking Ostium soul-mates. Is that it?”

“Yes. Yes. That fucking is it. He’s another person. Out there. Who knows and understands Ostium. This was before I even knew you existed.”

“So what does that make me. Chopped fucking liver?”

That stops me. She’s right. That was too far.

“No. Of course not. You’re much more than that. But he needed a way out, and I gave him one. And now he’s found Ostium.”

“So where the fuck is he then?”

“He said he’s at another Ostium. Because this one is fucking untethered.”

“What the fuck does that mean!”

“I don’t fucking know. Why are you yelling at me?”

“Because you lied to me. You said we weren’t going to keep secrets and you did. Why are you yelling at me?”

“Because you didn’t tell about those men you sent through the door to die.”

Silence. Longer this time, but perhaps not as cold. It’s different.

“I’m sorry. Monica. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Dave.”

“Apology accepted Jake. And I’m sorry. Again. For not telling you sooner about what I did. To those men.”

“Thank you. Apology also accepted.”

“He said he’s in a different Ostium?”

“Yeah. Those were his words. He said when he found Ostium, there was a hexagonal padlock on the gate but it popped open when he pulled on it. Then he went inside, looked around. He found the clock tower and was all ready to meet us inside with open arms . . .”

“. . . And we weren’t there.”

“Right. And that’s all I’ve heard from him so far.”

“Have you checked to see if the Internet’s working properly?”

“Oh, no. Shit. I totally forgot.”

I grab my iPad again and open up the browser, plugging in Google and wait . . . Nothing loads. Oh shit. I try Twitter, Facebook, even Yahoo. Nothing. And it’s not like there’s a 404 message or anything, it’s just a blank page. I check my wifi connection and see it’s connected and working fine. I even pull out my phone and check the Wifinding app which also shows a strong signal strength. So it looks like the wifi is working and we’re connected to the Internet at our end, but it doesn’t lead to any worldwide web.

Great.

Monica has been looking over my shoulder and seen all this.

“So we’re pretty much fucked as far the Internet goes,” she says.

“This really isn’t good. What about all those catastrophic events we saw on those screens. Did they all really happen?”

“We checked didn’t we?”

“Yes, but that was in there. How do I know my phone works fine on the other side of a door in Ostium?”

“You don’t.”

“Exactly. I know the power plant meltdown was real because I read about it here. Or not really here, because here isn’t really here anymore. It’s somewhere else. But back at my old place. Which isn’t really my place anymore. Back on fucking planet Earth. But the other stories. The Ebola outbreak. The earthquakes and tsunamis. The oil spill. Did they all really happen?”

Monica rubs her face and takes a deep breath at the same time.

“I don’t know Jake. I just don’t know. What do you want me to tell you?”

“That everything is fine.”

“Everything is fine. Here. In Ostium. Right now. There’s you and there’s me. We’re alive and well. We have a roof over our heads. We have a place to sleep. We have food to eat and water to drink. We’re fine right now.”

“Okay.”

I must’ve not put much meaning into it or had some crazy look in my eyes because Monica keeps watching me, like she’s trying to see into my soul.

“Okay. Come here. I know what you need.”

She’s holding out her arms, welcoming me. I’m not sure what she’s doing, but I step closer to her and then she wraps her arms around me, laying her head on my chest. My arms automatically go around her shoulders.

We hug each other tight, and stay that way for a good thirty seconds. It feels really great.

Then we finally separate.

“Okay, time for strong fucking cup of tea. You want one?”

I give her one of my beaming smiles. “What do you think?”

She nods and heads into the kitchen.

I go back to the iPad, closing the browser window. I pull up my email inbox again and have an idea. I look at when Dave sent that email. According the app, the email was sent thirty-five minutes ago.

That was after we came back through the door with the infinity symbol on it.

That was after the big crack across the town closed up and disappeared.

That was after Ostium became untethered from the third rock from the sun and began spinning indeterminately across space and time.

Which means something really important: while there isn’t any worldwide web access, there is apparently some form of email. At least with Dave. He can email me, and perhaps I can email him.

I also have this very strong feeling not to tell Monica this. I don’t know why. I don’t know where it comes from. But something deep inside my chest tells me and I’m going to listen to it.

Great Jake, another wonderful start to not keeping any secrets from possibly the only other person in the universe.

Everything is different now.

Everything has changed.

The first time I opened one of those doors of Ostium to another world; I guess it was the second door technically, I talked about how I stood on a metaphorical precipice brimming with uncertainty for what was on the other side. Well, now I can safely say I have crossed that precipice and made it to the other side.

Safely? I don’t think I would say that.

For the better or the worse? I guess that’s still to be decided.

I’ve learned a lot.

I’ve discovered much.

I’ve met someone. Someone I now care greatly for. Deeply for.  Jesus . . . I think I might be falling in love with her . . . In a way.

But I’ve also lost. Lost a lot. One might say everything.

But I’m recording this from the other side. The other side of everything. The other side of that precipice. So I’m alive. I have my health, I think. And I have someone.

I’m changed now.

I’m different . . . Now.

[Music Break]

If you were born in California and are not under the age of ten, or have lived here at least a decade or more, chances are you’ve experienced an earthquake in some form. When people hear the word earthquake, their mind automatically jumps to the kind that causes extreme devastation: buildings toppling like ninepins; your house breaking in half; everything hanging on the walls and sitting on shelves coming down and pelting you to death. But earthquakes vary greatly by where they occur and it’s all about where the epicenter is located. If it’s pretty far away, people in town may feel the rumbling and some things may fall over. If that epicenter is under a city then watch the fuck out. I went through that. It was the worst moment of my life. Actually, that’s not true. It was the scariest moment of my life. I was at school. They told us to get under our desks. The worst moment was later. When I found out about my parents.

But while my family and I were down in LA – this was a few days before we went Catalina – we also spent a day at Disneyland, because when you’re down there, in the area, you’ve got to go. That night we had a light earthquake. A temblor I think they call it. We were staying at a hotel in Long Beach. It was actually kind of nice. Relaxing in a way. My mom gently woke me to let me know what was going on and that everything was okay. We were on the second floor and the building was just softly moving from side to side. Just a few inches. I think I might’ve fallen asleep before it was even over.

The earthquake happening in Ostium right now is kind of in between the two I’ve personally experienced.

The rumbling comes and stays, then there’s shaking. I jog over to a wall, trying to stay stable on my feet and Monica soon joins me. She’s watching my every move. Her eyes seem a little startled, telling me she isn’t quite used to earthquakes. But then whoever is?

“I wonder if this is the ‘Big One’” I yell at her. She just looks at me, clearly with no clue what I’m talking about. Since the rumbling and shaking is still going on she’s getting more and more agitated, like when you’re on a flight in turbulence and you hate being thirty thousand feet up and you’re just willing and praying for the natural elements to stop shaking this fragile tin can in the sky, and it just keeps getting worse.

Going back to the people who’ve been in California awhile: you know about the San Andreas Fault – that’s the one running pretty much straight down the middle of the state – has been overdue for a considerable earthquake for decades. And I’m starting to think this might just be it.

And with that thought it all starts to lighten up. The shaking lessons until it’s all but gone, and the rumbling steadily subsides until there’s nothing but silence after. You could call it deafening, but I think that’s kind of a stupid saying. However, my ears are ringing.

Monica starts to move and I tell her to give it five minutes, in case of any aftershocks. I proceed to give her a mini-spiel on the “Big One” and the San Andreas Fault, and how that was a much lesser earthquake, but still a decent one. She seems a little shocked by my reference to it being decent, but I just act nonchalant and go with it.

The good news is we’re unscathed. The former residents of Ostium weren’t big on any sort of wall hanging decoration, so there’s nothing that could’ve fallen and hit us. But I know the big question is how does it look outside?

“Follow me,” I tell Monica, aware she’s still getting herself together.

The door creaks a little, but otherwise opens fine. I step outside and my first impression is everything pretty much looks the same. The roads aren’t paved, just a light gravel covering them, and they look fine. All the buildings appear straight and standing that I can see. I make a slow turn, looking for anything out of place. As I face north I see a slowly settling considerable cloud of dirt and dust.

My brain starts thinking, and then all the blood, fluid and calm drains from my face and I start to get dizzy.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” I start saying over and over, as I spin around, then off to the side to avoid running smack into Monica. I’m back in the clock tower looking at the map table, at where that new and menacing looking crack is.

If my calculations are correct . . .

I bring up that mental infrared map of Ostium and I see a red line running across Ostium matching what I saw on the map table.

I’m back out the door again and Monica is looking at me like I’ve totally lost my fucking mind.

I might well have. We’ll just have to see.

“Just follow me!” I yell at her and start running towards that cloud that is getting clearer and more transparent.

It doesn’t take me too long to get there. Monica is a few seconds behind. I think on the way over she might’ve cottoned on to what was going through my head. The dust cloud is all but gone by this point.

I’ve stopped not because I’m at the edge of the cloud, but because if I were to take another step I would plunge to my death. Before us is a big crack running through Ostium, just like on the map table. That thing really is literal.

I look to the east and in the hazy distance can see the wall running south, marking the edge of Ostium. The crack goes straight up to it and just seems to stop. There’s no apparent crack or damage to the wall that I can see from here. I look west and discover the same thing.

The yawning crack is about ten feet across. We could probably jump it, but it would be risky. You’d need a good running start. I look down, the dust cloud now gone, and see it goes down far. Twenty feet at least. You could jump it, if you felt like breaking a leg or two wasn’t that big of a deal. I realize we’re going to have to come up with some way to get down there, because somewhere below is our next door with the sideways eight on it. Infinity. Whatever that might mean.

Monica is by my side now, looking just as daunted at the prospect of what we need to do.

I turn to her and feel a smile form on my face.

“Got any rope?”

[Music Break]

We’re back at the clock tower, having some chow and making sure our thinking caps are on straight. Getting down to the bottom of that crack is not going to be easy. We need a decent length of rope or something that can be used to let us get to the bottom without cracking our skulls open. It has occurred to me that there was nothing nearby to which said special rope could be attached to, but that’s a big step two. Right now, all our focus is on step one: find a long, thin, strong thing.

I know I’ve looked around inside the clock tower already, and Monica tells me she’s checked it out too, but we’re going to check again, because we can’t really do anything without a safe way of getting down there. We do have a brief discussion going over the possibilities and merits of going through some previous Ostium doors to see if we can locate some rope, and yes we did both go back to Mars without any real problems, but it just doesn’t seem like Ostium would let us do it that way. If you catch my drift. Of course, some time from now when we’re all out of options, this might change. But for now, my gut’s on finding something in here.

I don’t know why. I just do. Sort of.

Life finds a way . . .

Okay, I’m really sorry about that. That was terrible.

There aren’t that many rooms in the clock tower, not many options. So it doesn’t take us long to find the secret door. After going from top to bottom in the kitchen and then the bathroom, as those are the two rooms with cabinets and actual space to hide a useful rope, we start on the bedroom, going through our own personal belongings, then just looking around the small room.

That’s when Monica says: “Holy shit! How did I never think of this before? How did you never think of this before?”

“What?” I say.

She grabs the bed and roughly drags it out of the way. It makes a nice squealing/grating sound. I step back quickly to give her room.

Beneath the bed is a door in the floor. On the door is the infinity symbol.

“No. Fucking. Way. Has that been here all along?”

“How the fuck would I know. I’m pretty sure if Steve had seen a door in the floor he would’ve mentioned it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. So when did it show up?”

“It could’ve been whenever. When Steve was here. When I was here. When you arrived. Who knows?”

“Maybe when the crack appeared on the map table? Maybe when the earthquake happened?”

“Does it really matter?”

“No . . . it doesn’t. So where does it go?”

“When did you vote me the Encyclopedia Britannica of Ostium?”

“That was good.”

I move to the side of the door, reach out for the handle, turn it, and pull the door toward me. It’s a little heavy and for one second I almost lose my balance and fall flat on my face on top of it – I would’ve broke my nose no doubt – but Monica’s strong hand is instantly there, gripping over mine, and giving me the added necessary strength to pull the door open.

That’s fucking teamwork.

I think Monica’s extensive vocabulary might be rubbing off on me.

If you’re offended or incensed, or both, sorry.

“So how do you want to do this? Climb down on our knees like going down a ladder? Sit down and push ourselves off like on a boat?”

“Like this.”

She grabs my hand again.

Her hand is soft and warm and I’m certainly enjoying feeling her touch. She weaves her fingers through mine and then takes a step into the blackness, gravity pulling her down and bringing me along for the ride.

If this is the end, at least I’m going out with someone I care about.

I mean, we’re ending it together . . . Thelma & Louise style.

Okay, I’m just going to stop there.

We plunge into darkness and land somewhere that makes kind of a crunching sound, but it’s not too hard. We didn’t fall far and I bend my knees as I land, and assume Monica does the same. After all, she’s trained for blindly jumping into strange and new places. But the problem is we’re still in darkness. I don’t know if we’re surrounded by walls, or doors, or just endless space. We both neglected to bring a flashlight; guess we were too excited about going through this new door. I know Monica is still there, because she’s still holding my hand. Tight. Just what I need. Being alone in a place like this would normally scare the crap out of me, but with a strong person like Monica it makes it a little more manageable. At least my fear is easier to hold at bay.

“So what do we do now?”

My voice has a bit of an echo to it. This answers a few questions right away: we’re in a decent sized room, not an open space, meaning there are walls nearby and hopefully doors.

Monica starts to say something and then a glow begins to form in front of us. It’s small, at eye level and blurry. As it brightens, it becomes more defined and I soon realize it’s another infinity symbol. It sharpens and Monica doesn’t need any more encouragement. Still holding on to me, she steps forward and reaches around – I hear her hand scratching against what sounds like a wooden surface – finds what she’s looking for, turns and pulls. The door with the glowing infinity symbol starts to open. Daylight immediately floods into our little room. She opens it wide and steps through, pulling me behind her. As I step through I look back to see if I can see anything about the room or the door we came through from the ceiling, but there’s just darkness, as if the light doesn’t penetrate that far into the room.

Outside, Monica closes the door and, in doing so, let’s go of my hand.

We both recognize immediately where we are: the rising walls on either side tell us we’re at the bottom of the crack. I can see twenty feet ahead on the right side another door with the infinity symbol. We both automatically start walking to it.

We’re soon staring right at it.

“Guess we forgot to bring any supplies.”

“Like what? Do we usually?”

“Well, I like to bring a sandwich or snack or something. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Do you wanna go back and somehow get through the door in the ceiling and make yourself a PB&J?”

“No. I’m good. Let’s do this.”

“Wait! There’s . . . Something I haven’t told you. Something you need to know.”

I stop and stare right into her eyes. The seriousness of her voice has chilled me.

“When you went back home to pick up the last of your things, the squad came back. I was able to sense them with that mental map thing we’ve got now. I was ready for them. I . . . led them to door number two. To Roanoke. I was ahead and opened the door, hid around the corner and waited. They all went in and I slammed the door behind them.”

I just keep staring at her. I have no clue what to say; my mind’s an empty hole. Then I find some words.

“Why . . . Why didn’t you tell me?”

Now it’s her turn to be silent. We’re both staring at each other a hell of a lot, but my feelings and her looks have gone by the wayside for now.

“I . . . I regret what I did. I know I sent those men in there knowing they’d never make it out. But what they did to Steve . . . it really fucking pissed me off. They treated him like a piece of shit. They didn’t care. I . . . I wanted to get back at them. Perhaps it was petty, but . . .”

Seconds ticked by.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“No. You’re right. I didn’t tell you cos I didn’t know how you’d take it. And I felt ashamed for what I did. That’s why when I saw Richard I kinda lost my shit for a bit there.”

“They weren’t ever going to go away, were they? When they left the first time?”

“Nope. They were gonna keep coming back until they found someone or got some answers.”

I let out a breath.

“I’m glad you told me. It’s going to take time to process. To comprehend. To understand. For now, let’s move on.”

I get a nod from her.

This time I reach for her hand and she takes it without question.

I throw open the door in a now very familiar way and lead us into darkness.

[Music Break]

Anti-climatically we’re in a stairwell. The stairs go up, but there’s also stairs going down. Behind us the ordinary, plain door closes and above is a sign in green florescent lighting proclaiming OSTIUM. It’s not the first time I’ve been at an impasse in Ostium with two options to choose from. To some this might seem like your ordinary, everywhere stairwell, but to me: I recognize it in less than thirty seconds. I used to take the elevator twice a day, but on Friday’s when I was done at the strike of five, I’d skip the elevator and head straight for the stairs, charging down those eight floors and getting to my car as fast as I could before the rush hour line of traffic began in the extensive parking lot beneath my work. I’ve bolted down these very stairs hundreds of times.

And now a door in Ostium has taken us right here.

“Follow me, I know this place very well.”

I lead the way upstairs.

Monica tries the second and third floor doors as I’m heading up the next flight and finds them locked solid; she doesn’t bother with the rest.

When we reach the eighth floor we’re both breathing heavily; I noticeably more than Monica.

“I worked here for almost three years. Until they fired me last week for attendance issues.”

She just nods. There’s nothing more really to add.

I put my hand on the door to the floor where I work. It definitely feels pretty weird to be going up the stairs and through the door this way.

It’s also really damn weird that I’m my work via Ostium. That one of the doors – albeit not with a number but an enigmatic symbol – has led us here. With where the other doors have led us so far, my heart rate is definitely up, and it’s not just because of all the stairs I just ascended. We haven’t had a chance to see any people really so far, but I’m assuming once we go through this door I’m going to be looking at a big empty cubicle forest and it won’t be because it’s a Saturday or Sunday.

I meant to check up on Catalina once we were back at the clock tower. To look it up on the news and see if anything had happened, if anything were somehow related to what we’d experienced on our trip there. But the whole earthquake thing kind of distracted everything and everyone.

When I get back today or after all of this is over, I’m going to check on that.

Need to be sure.

Monica has been looking at me for a while. Giving me the space and time I need.

“When you’re ready.”

“Thank you.”

I turn the handle and walk into an office environment I never expected to see again.

We step inside and it feels completely wrong right away. There’s a strange haziness to the air, like it’s sort of a dream. It’s definitely different from any of the other doors we’ve been through before.

But it’s also my work place. The video game company I used to work for occupies the entire floor here, but my specific software division – my domain or former domain, if you will – is the group of cubicles in one of the back corners. I don’t know how it works with other game companies, but while we all get along just fine, since there’s quite a few of us spread across the floor in our many cubicles, we tend to stick to our own kind: the writers, the software guys, the sound guys, the PR people. We all interact plenty during the week, but cliques inevitably form since each division has it owns jargon for how it talks about their aspect of the game making process. And when we have big conference meetings that involve most or all of the staff, it’s pretty funny to watch us all go into the conference room and then split off into our separate groups.

Yep, totally like high school.

Huh, I’m talking a lot about my work. Guess I do miss it. A bit. Hadn’t really thought about it, but I did spend quite some time working in this place and got to know some people pretty well. And I did enjoy the work.

And then came Ostium . . .

I lead the way over to my division of the floor, where my little old cubicle used to be. As soon as we stepped through the door there were desks and work stations in immediate view that revealed more of the expected: not a single person in sight. As we travel across the floor, it’s just more of the same.

I haven’t really talked to Monica at all since we stepped through the last door with the infinity symbol on it, because I’ve been kind of in my own world. But I also know Monica is the sort of person that if she wants to talk about something or needs me to say something, she’ll just call me on it. She’s not exactly someone who holds back. It’s definitely something I like about her. Probably because it’s a personality trait that is very different from me. And as we’re heading towards one side of the floor, she could be asking me questions, making me stop, making me talk about what might be going on here. She isn’t. Because she knows what it is. She knows about me, who I am, what I used to do. She knows where she is right now, and she knows I need the space. The quiet. To get through all this that’s coming at me.

She’s one tough cookie too.

Also I’m pretty sure I’ll never say that to her face.

We arrive at my division. The first cubicle is Robert’s. On the outside wall of his cubicle is this sign he made about a year ago and we were all for it, as he pinned it to the matting wall: WARE THE SOFTWARE GEEKS, THERE’S NOTHING SOFT ABOUT ‘EM.

A smile forms on my lips as the memories behind that sign come back to me. I step over the divisional threshold and am stopped in my tracks.

The corner is laid out with eight cubicles, three of those cubicles are against the window, allowing that trio of cubicle owners the advantage of being able to see the sun and sky out the window, as well as the next high-rise office building a street-width away. Except as I’m looking now I can see three cubicles are missing. There are only five: two against the window, somehow. From where I’m standing, with a little leaning to the left or the right I can see into each of those five cubicles.

What stops me cold is that each of those cubicles is occupied.

And they’re all occupied by Jake Fisher.

Me.

[Music Break]

I think this is the point when my mind begins to unravel a little bit. The second I realized I was in my office building, my heartbeat started increasing on a logarithmic level. Then I set foot in my office environment, I started to sweat in many areas around my body. I didn’t know what I was going to find here; what Ostium wanted to reveal to me, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good, or understandable, or logical, or make my life in any way better. It was going to be the opposite of all those.

But I never in a million thoughts and imaginings expect anything like this.

They’re all me: sitting in their chairs, staring at their screens; their hands palm down on their thighs. They’re dressed in suits – something I’ve never owned – their hair combed over at the parting in a way my mother always liked, but I’ve never been a fan of. Though I did wear it like that to her and my dad’s funeral. They all look exactly like me: neither older nor younger.

I feel myself slowly sink down to my knees, then Monica is there, helping me, pulling me back up.

This is where I am the ship and she becomes my captain and rudder and sails, pulling me to the first cubicle on the right.

She’s seen something I haven’t, the reason for all this. It’s not until I reach the cubicle and force myself to rip my eyes away from my doppelganger, my clone, that I see what the body double is looking at on the screen.

It’s a news page with today’s date. It’s about the nuclear power plant meltdown in Ukraine. A vague memory from days ago comes to me of checking late at night online and seeing this breaking, devastating news story and how the radioactive cloud was headed southwest into central and southern Europe. Things have gone from terrible to catastrophic: the cloud helped by all the wind has spread further apart, encompassing a larger area. All of Germany is now affected, as is Austria and Switzerland. The radioactivity is now passing into the Netherlands, approaching the eastern border of France, and has crossed the alps into northern Italy.

This is all covered in the first paragraph of the article on the New York Times website.

I know this is a real story. That it actually happened, even though I’m seeing this news page in a world created by Ostium. I whip out my phone and am not surprised to see I have full 6G coverage here and I’m also connected to the wifi where I used to work, even though all the employees here never knew the extremely complicated 50-character password to prevent the employees and anyone in the vicinity from mooching off the superior Internet speed, because if there’s one thing a video game company needs, it’s fucking good Internet service.

I type in New York Times in my search bar, then I start to type the word nuclear and it auto-fills the article title and I’m looking at the same page as what’s on the monitor in front of me . . . In front of both of me. It’s the mobile version but the text is the same and soon I’m reading through the article, Monica reading over my shoulder. I can feel her hair tickling my ear; it’s a little distracting, but then so is the simulacrum sitting just a few feet away from me.

The death toll in Europe is now in the tens . . . Tens of millions. Five teams have attempted to reach the reactor to try to alleviate the radioactive gas issuing from it, but each time the five teams have succumbed to the elements. Fancy language for they all died of radioactive burns and poisoning, their skin melting off their bones.

I can’t read anymore.

I put my phone away and look at Monica. Our faces are very close. My sight becomes blurry as tears fill my eyes. She pulls me into an embrace. I count to ten, heave in a deep breath and reluctantly pull away.

“Can you . . . Look at me.”

She looks into my eyes, “I am looking . . .” And then understands what I mean.

I watch her as she steps past me and in front of one of the other me’s, squatting down to study the features. Her bravery is admirable. She reaches out and touches its arm and pulls back. No movement or reaction. She touches its hand.

“The skin is cold, stiff.”

She touches its cheek.

“Same. Too cold. Definitely not alive. Feels like I’m touching a fucking corpse. Or a robotic clone.”

This brings on a shiver that starts at the top of my head and runs all the way down my spine and legs to my heels. I almost fall to the floor.

“Okay. That’s enough.”

She gets up and we walk over to another me, this one sitting in a cubicle by the window. I can’t help looking out. I look down at the street and sidewalks below. There’s no one down there. No cars either. Something that’s never been seen on a San Francisco street during daylight hours. It’s beyond eerie and terrifying combined.

On the screen is another news page. This one from the Huffington Post. In the Democratic Republic of Congo a new strain of Ebola has broken out; the most virulent one yet. People are dying in the thousands on a daily basis. Meanwhile rebel groups and warlords are preventing doctors and health officials from entering the country to try to help. While it has yet to be confirmed, doctors are pretty certain the Ebola strain has already spread to the neighboring countries of Angola, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda and South Sudan.

This time I just bring it up on my phone to make sure it’s legitimate. It, of course, is. I give Monica a nod and don’t bother reading any more of it.

The feeling in my heart, in my goddamn soul, is getting heavier by the second.

Terrible things are happening out there in the big wide world. Meanwhile, we’re just having fun and playing games here in Ostium.

Are we?

Aren’t we?

What are we doing here?

What is Ostium doing for us?

I know I’ve asked myself these questions before and I still don’t feel I have any real answers.

We move on to the next cubicle.

I manage to section off the part of my mind that started losing it with all these copies of myself, pushing it down and away and just focusing on the here and now, while trying to ignore each of the things sitting in the seats.

Monica has been my rock here. Without her I would have devolved into a helpless puddle on the floor long ago.

On the next screen is yet another breaking news story, this time from Reuters: there’s been two devastating earthquakes back to back in Asia. One with an epicenter in the Henan province of China, measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale. It’s estimated that close to a hundred thousand people have died, though at the moment this is just an early estimate. The second earthquake, which took place just six hours later, before the aftershocks of the previous earthquake were done with, has an epicenter in the Pacific near Guam, measuring a terrifying 9.5. While the area the earthquake hit is just water, the tidal wave that developed has swept along Japan’s eastern seaboard, as well as China’s and Taiwan’s. The number of dead at this point is impossible to predict, though numbers are being thrown around in the vicinity of a quarter of a million people.

I think I let out a sort of moan, while Monica lets out her own guttural sound beside me.

I make my way slowly over to the penultimate cubicle, the last one with a window view. I start taking some deep breaths, trying to keep control. I look out the window, this time focusing on the neighboring building.

Rows of empty windows. Then I think I see movement. I react, focusing on the specific window.

“Did you see that?”

Monica is immediately next to me. She wasn’t there, so she obviously didn’t see.

“I thought I saw something move, same floor as this one, five windows in from the left.”

We stare at that window and the surrounding ones for a full minute. There’s no sign of further movement. And I’m definitely doubting myself as to whether I saw anything to begin with.

I will freely admit I’m very fragile right now.

This headline from The Guardian isn’t as bad as the previous three, but it’s still nowhere in the neighborhood of good news. An oil tanker has run aground along the south coast of England near Brighton. It was carrying a full load and because the severity of the damage almost 90% of its crude oil is now floating on the Atlantic and swiftly being carried into the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. England’s southern coast is already awash in the toxic spill. It’s expected to reach the west coast of France in a day; the north coast of Spain in two. The name of the tanker is the Mary Celeste.

I don’t know how, but I’m down on the ground again. I’ve fallen over. I’ve fainted. I’ve collapsed. I don’t know. My head kind of hurts but the solid ground is . . . Reassuring. Monica is beside me, her legs folded under her. She picks up my head and gently cradles me in her lap.

“Why the fuck would they name a ship that.”

She’s just shaking her head at me. There are tears in her eyes as well now. One drops on my cheek, still warm.

I dig out my phone and hand it to her.

“Can you just check to be sure.”

She does and just hands the phone back to me. Her eyes confirm the validity of it all.

“One more to go. Your cubicle.”

As she helps me to my feet – again – I wonder for a second how she knows it’s my cubicle. But then I remember she’s very clever and of course I’d leave my workspace last. Whether consciously or subconsciously, it was serendipity.

As we walk over I see all the bits and bobs pinned to the inside walls of my cubicle. My ephemera. They’re all familiar except for one photo. I grab it and rip it off the wall, shoving it in my pocket before Monica can see it. I only saw it for a second, but I don’t know how it could be. How it could exist.

She looks at me questioning; I just give her a little shake. Not now. Maybe later.

We read what’s on the monitor over the copy of me together. It’s from the Los Angeles Times.

CATALINA FOUND EMPTY. ABANDONED? Screams the headline.

In shocking news today, it was learned that the entire population of the island of Catalina is missing. All forms of rescue and law enforcement have been brought in to investigate. There are teams going over the island in search of evidence, while other groups investigate up and down the California coast for some sign of what happened to these 4,105 souls. A disappearance on a scale such as this has never been seen before. There is only one recorded instance of a similar nature, and that is the lost colony of Roanoke.

The next paragraph is cut off by the edge of the screen.

And there it is. The news that I was hoping in some way would come to not be true, but I always knew on some level was.

I put my hands in front of my face and start sobbing.

Monica enfolds me in her arms again and I feel like a weak, pathetic thing that should be stronger than this, that should be able to hold it together better.

But I can’t.

Because this is all about me. Ostium is me and I am it. I’m tied to it through some invisible umbilical, and it scares the living shit out of me, because I have no fucking idea why.

Why are you doing this to me? I want to yell at the windows and walls; at Ostium. But I don’t want to risk losing Monica. I can’t. And I also know I’m not going to get a response.

“Jake. We need to go.”

It skillfully breaks the spell. I wipe my snot and saliva on my sleeve, take a few dry sobbing breaths, and stand up with her.

She’s gripping my hand again, holding on tight, and drags me toward the door and away from all this. I take one last look back at my five doppelgangers and want to start crying again. I bite my lip hard, drawing blood. I can taste it. It’s salty and bitter. It helps.

We go through the door and down the stairs. It seems to take eons and we finally reach the bottom, to the door with the lit fluorescent OSTIUM sign above it. This place also feels like something from eons ago. I find my legs stuck, my feet not moving.

I start shaking my head, not knowing what I really want.

Monica pulls on my arm, throwing open the door.

There’s just blackness on the other side.

“I . . . Don’t want this anymore. I just want this to end.”

“Shut-up. Ostium is telling you something with this door and this place. You don’t know what it is yet, and I don’t either. But it’s something. Ostium exists for a reason. You’re tied to Ostium for a reason. And now we need to know why. And we’ll do it together. Okay?”

I just stare at her, slowly taking in her words.

Then she takes my face in her hands and kisses me. Hard. Her lips are full and warm and I’m suddenly lost in a special place I never want to leave.

She breaks it after . . . An eternity . . . After a few seconds, looking at me.

I should be smiling or laughing. Inside I am, but outside I’m deadly serious.

I pull the crumpled photo from my pocket and hand it to her.

She opens it between us, so we can both see.

It’s a color photo of two people kissing. Of Monica and me kissing. Exactly as she just kissed me. I didn’t recognize it when I first saw it, but as I look it now I can see the walls match where we’re standing. There’s also a green glow in one corner of the photo, a glow from a light proclaiming Ostium is on the other side of the door.

She looks up at me and there’s fear in her eyes now.

Join the club.

“There’s something else.”

I wait.

“There’s been no creepy crackling or blackness coming at us while we’ve been here. And we’ve been here a long time. If it was coming it would’ve got us by now. Have you been holding it back?”

I shake my head. Right now is the first time I’ve thought about the blackness since we came through.

We both turn to the open doorway.

“It’s going to be different on the other side, back in Ostium.”

We’re holding hands again.

“How do you know?”

I look at her and force a small smile.

“Let’s just say Ostium and I go way back.”

Before she can smack me upside the head, I drag her through the door and back to Ostium.

[End Credit Music]

It’s the morning and Monica and I are partaking in a most interesting and unusual breakfast. I don’t know how, but Monica manages to dig out a loaf of bread way back in what I’m calling the pantry cabinet. It’s the gift that keeps on giving: it seems new delights and delicacies are discovered every day from within its wooden walls; I’m starting to wonder if it might be magically enchanted in some way. Yet another special place in Ostium that seems to bend the rules of physics and reality. Or perhaps Steve did a really great job of stocking up. The bread is the whitest of the white, a blanched cardboard essentially, but it fills a hole . . . sort of. I’m impressed it hasn’t gone moldy yet. That cabinet has to be moisture free and practically airtight. Using a little propane, we also cook up a can of corned beef hash. For some tasty fruit, we enjoy a can of pineapple and one of peaches.

I feel . . . closer to Monica now. My sole intention yesterday in taking her into my arms when she was distraught and tearful was purely consolation. But after everything that happened, when she was pushed over the edge, I was also brought close to it. I felt for the man named Steve who I’ve never met. It was . . . wrenching. So it felt good to be some help to Monica.

After breakfast I clear things away, and then prepare for our next trip to door number 5. Monica gets ready in her own way, getting together a few things, and I realize with a thrill of excitement that it’s our first time going into action together. Indulge me to be a geek for a little bit, but here we are in a secret town that no one else really knows about that leads you to different places in time, and here we are ‘suiting up’ so to speak and getting ready to pass through another one of these special doors.

Okay, done geeking out . . . For now!

Monica has the door open and I’m out in the fresh morning air before she can say Ostium and after about five steps I stop dead in my tracks with an elongated “Errrrrrrrr.” My caped crusader walks by and says “follow me.”

I dutifully follow behind. Someone forgot to check the location of door number five. And that’s why there’s two of us.

And that’s why there’s no “I” in team!

And that’s why I’m really happy to have Monica here with me.

Because . . . she’s a lot smarter than me.

[Music break]

We turn down streets right and left and I get quickly turned around. Was Monica doing it deliberately just to confuse me? To make me feel stupid? Because it’s working. Just as I’m starting to wonder if we’re heading towards the front gate she takes a hard left, goes four doors down and stops.

There’s the door with the five on it.

We stand before it, all ready to go.

I reach out for the handle and Monica stops me. She turns to me and put her hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes.

I wonder what’s going on, but I’m certainly enjoying the physical contact.

“Before we go in, I want you to acknowledge real quick your connections with the doors we’ve gone through.”

“Connections?” I haven’t forgotten what she told me yesterday. Not by a long shot. But at the same time, I’ve forced myself not to think about it. Because it’s intimidating. And scary.

“Look, it’s okay to be scared.”

Dammit, she’s sees right through me.

“I’m a little scared too. We both are because we don’t understand this. But if we’re going to start understanding it at all, we need to talk about it. You need to admit it.”

“Okay,”

“Roanoke?”

“In a college history class I got kind of obsessed with it when I wrote a paper about it.”

“The Mary Celeste?”

“Similar story. It’s another event with a mysterious disappearance of people. I first heard about it researching Roanoke. It was one of those Wiki black hole things.”

“What?”

“When you’re looking something up on Wikipedia? And then you link to another thing and to another and to another. And then like two hours go by and your fifty Wiki pages down the hole from where you started.”

“Oh, okay. Mars?”

“I’m a scifi geek. Love the literature. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars trilogy is my favorite. And I luuurrvve Total Recall.”

“Good. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“No. So why is it all connected to me?”

“Fuck knows. Okay, let’s go.”

She opens the door and walks through and I quickly follow behind.

Stepping through the doorway and across the blackness that could be a quick step across time or a mighty leap across a chasm where one could easily be lost forever, I look out at another clear and beautiful day. Breathtaking blue skies, bright sunshine and at first I see a lot of water and think we’re on a boat again, but the ground is solid and stable. There’s no tilting motion.

We’re . . . At the beach. Sort of. It’s actually a small harbor and we’re on a promenade looking over a body of water.

“Wow, it’s beautiful here. I wonder where and when it is?”

“Yeah,” I say making a slow panoramic pan of the landscape. Halfway through I see a structure. A building. It’s distinct. A big round shape that angles up to a point. It looks like the top half of a cupcake. The rest of the building is cylindrical and sculptured. The general shape is the bottom half of a cupcake but beautifully ornate with a viewing terrace wrapping around it like a layer of frosting.

“I know where we are.”

“What?”

“We’re on Catalina.”

“What?”

“It’s an island off the coast of Los Angeles . . .”

“I know what Catalina is. How do you know?”

“That,” I say, pointing at the distinctive building, “is the casino building. We’re in the town of Avalon. I know this because when I was five I came here with my parents for a vacation trip. We spent three days here and I loved every second of it. The following week I to school and the Loma Prieta earthquake happened. They couldn’t find the bodies, either of them. I thought it was . . . Fucking stupid, but we had a funeral and buried two empty coffins.”

“That . . . Really fucking sucks. I’m really sorry, Jake.”

“Thanks, Monica. It’s been a long time and I’ve managed to get over it to the best of my ability.”

“My folks are dead too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Same deal. Long time ago. Just a sad memory now. So what are we standing on?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s solid. This is the Avalon Pier. A nice promenading spot for tourists. Over there,” I say, pointing east. “Is the ferry terminal which goes to and from Long Beach.”

“I notice it is visibly absent of ferries.”

“Yeah. Noted. Downtown is along there.” I make a sweeping gesture along the south to the south west. “And that is the Catalina casino building, though it has a movie theater in it now. Built in 1929. Though I’ll wait until we get inside before I give you the full history lesson.”

“Did you take a sociology class on Catalina or something?”

“Avalon, Catalina and the casino building is technically another one of my obsessions. While I was here I learned everything I could. I was a sponge for information and history.”

“Why technically?”

“Because I was five and I didn’t realize it was an obsession at the time. I figured I was more obsessed with . . . Normal five-year-old boy obsessions. Also over the years I’ve kept up on my research.”

“Well, it sure fits the Ostium modus operandi.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. I find it . . . Unsettling.”

“You and me both. Now, this being a tourist town, do you happen to see any tourists?”

I feel it pretty redundant, but I make a scan of every part of Avalon I can see. There’s a light breeze. The lapping water sounds right. I think that was a seagull. But there’s absolutely no sign of movement.

“Nope. No hide nor hair.”

“I guess that’s one way of putting it. Okay, so we’ve got a place you know well, a historical building you’re obsessed with, no sign of people. Just running down the old Ostium checklist here. Which leads us to the blackness.”

I turn and look out to sea, finding Monica doing the same thing.

A silence passes between us.

“Okay. I don’t see no blackness. It’s clear open sea out here.”

“I think that’s because . . . I’ve been . . . Concentrating. As soon as I stepped through I made part of my mind focus on the blackness. Focus on keeping it at bay. Away from here. And I think it’s working. Somehow.”

“You are just full of surprises, aren’t ya?”

“Yeah,” I say with an impressed smile on my face. “I don’t know long it’s going to work or hold or whatever. But we’ve got some time. More than usual.”

“Okay. Good. So where do we go from here? Do we partake of some sightseeing?”

“In a way. We’re going to head down through town just to be sure we’re all alone, and then we’re going to the casino building.”

“Because you haven’t seen it since you were a kid and you wanna get your kicks?”

“No,” I say, sounding a little peeved. “Because I can feel that’s where the artifact is.”

[Music break]

We make the quarter-mile walk along the promenade, following the curve of the bay. On the right is an inviting beach and cool blue waters, on the left store fronts, restaurants and streets. It’s downright eerie with not a single person around. That’s when my brain starts cogitating. Analyzing the situation. What’s different here? We’ve established my connection to this place. It was glaringly obvious, really. And there’s no people, no one in sight anywhere. Still following the pattern. The blackness hasn’t started yet, but I can feel it. Like the build-up of an oncoming storm. As it gets stronger, I dedicate more of my focus, my concentration to it. I know it’s going to hit a breaking point, not too long from now, and then will start doing its thing. I’m quite amazed I’m able to do it. It really isn’t that hard to necessarily do, but the pressure’s building and it’ll start coming for me soon.

And yet . . . Something’s not right. I can’t quite put my mental finger on it. The fact that my brain is churning over what I’m seeing, what things look like, tells me something’s amiss. Off kilter. But what the hell is it? And then my brain reaches its thinking destination and I get it.

I stop in my tracks. Monica keeps going for a few steps – she’s been focused on the beautiful casino building – and then realizes I’m not with her, stops and looks, and comes back.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something’s really wrong with this place.”

“Other than the usual? No people? Eerily quiet? What else?”

“What day is it? No, what year is it?”

“You mean in Ostium or here?”

“Here. Avalon.”

“No fucking clue. You tell me?”

“Okay, that’s warranted. How about: what year does it feel like it is here?”

“I dunno. When was the casino building built?”

“It opened its doors on May 29, 1929.”

“So . . . nope. It’s definitely not 1929.”

“Right. The buildings. The few cars we can see. By the way, FYI, cars are very limited on the island. Golf carts are way more common. Like there and there,” I say, pointing. “So what year is it here?”

She stares at me. Then she crosses the road – no traffic to worry about – and stops in front of a store window. I soon join her. It’s a clothing boutique called Seashore Angels. There are mannequins in the window: one in a vibrant green dress, the other an elegant maroon gown. Behind are racks of different types of clothes: tops, shirts, pants, skirts, dresses. In the back corner I can see a section dedicated to shoes.

“It’s modern.”

I nod. “Yep. Contemporary. I’d even go so far to say it’s the current year here. I could imagine anyone wearing just about any of those clothes and not feeling out of style or old fashioned.”

“Or looking like they’re in Back to the Future II.”

That brings a smile to my face. She makes great references. It’s definitely something I really like about Monica.

“Though they’d need some serious moola or deep credit cards to afford most of this shit.”

“Indeed. So if it’s this year, why is there a door leading to it from Ostium? We’ve only gone deep into the past or the future so far.”

“Doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”

I nod, take my time, parsing her words.

“True, but the places we’ve visited so far. The ones in the past. They actually happened. There’s historical evidence and sources. The one on Mars obviously is a different can of fish.”

“I think you mean a different spot on the map.” She winks at me when she says this.

I don’t miss that it was on Mars she’d given me that same saucy wink before she went through the door back to Ostium.

Is she flirting with me?

Okay, focus Jake.

“Yeah,” I say, smirking back. “So if this is Avalon, Catalina, in the current year of our lord, has this actually happened? Have the people of Avalon, the people of Catalina disappeared?”

She stares at me. Eyes widening.

“Holy shit.”

She’s looking into the boutique again and takes a deep breath.

“Why couldn’t you have just said that to begin with? Instead of asking me the year and all that shit?”

“That’s not really the way I work.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

Then she turns around and starts walking back to the promenade.

“Come on, Hitchcock.”

I follow, with a smile on my face.

[Music break]

Fifteen minutes later we reach the foot of the casino building. I’m sweating heavily. It’s relatively hot here, but not too toasty, so I shouldn’t be perspiring this much. That’s because my defenses against the blackness were dropped a couple minutes ago. For the last ten minutes we’ve been walking in silence as I focus all my energy and will power on keeping whatever the hell that onyx doom actually is at bay. And then I can’t hold it back any more. It feels like an overflowing vessel of water and I just let it go and it all came tumbling out like a burst damn.

Monica stops just as I did. I can tell she feels it and looks out to sea. I see the distant line of blackness now. It’s growing, just like it usually does.

We walk faster after that.

For a millisecond I wonder what we’re going to do if all the doors are locked, but it pulls open easily enough. As we step inside I turn on my tour guide voice, even though I’ve never had an aspiration to be one.

“The Catalina Casino opened its doors for the first time on May 29, 1929. Designed by Sumner A. Spaulding and Walter Weber, it was built under the direction of William Wrigley, Jr. with a price tag amounting to two million dollars. It was one of the first completely circular buildings of its kind. The styles are a combined Art Deco and Mediterranean Revival. The building is 12 stories high. On the lower level is a museum. On the main floor, where we are now, is a movie theater that still has a working organ, back from when music was a big part of going to the movies, or the pictures. I came here with my parents. Can’t remember what movie, but I do remember the organist totally rocking the Phantom of the Opera theme. On the upper floor is a promenade and twenty thousand square-foot ballroom that can accommodate fifteen hundred dancers and is the largest ballroom in the world without supporting pillars.”

“You remember all that bullshit from when you were a kid?”

Sort of,” I answer nervously.

“You are such a nerd.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say proudly.

She laughs. “No worries, nerd bro, I’m one too.”

We’re now in the concessions area of the movie theater. There’s a stale smell of popcorn and greasy butter in the air. I believe it’s an odor that will never leave this place, much like its mystique and history.

“You still tracking that artifact?”

“Yep,” you say, leading the way into the main theater.

It’s a grand, sweeping auditorium with a surprising number of seats. The floor is angled downward, giving each row full view of the stage and the screen. On the walls are breathtaking frescoes bursting with color, detail and life. The ceiling is painted white. There’s an ornate, curving arch around the stage with golden decoration. At the apex is a golden woman with red hair standing on a shell. The movie screen is currently retracted and behind it is another beautiful piece of art: a man surfing on blue waves with a golden background.

I can tell Monica is taken aback by this place. It has that effect on you.

Then I feel that magnetic pull start to focus. We’re getting close now. I lead the way down the main aisle, passing the rows of red velvet seating. Well, probably not velvet, but definitely red. Blood red. Fresh blood red. Given the circumstances, I feel a twitching down my back. The red seems too bright for the lighting. Also there’s lighting?

“The lights are on.”

“Yeah, I noticed that as soon as we walked in. Like they had it all going and then everyone just up and left.”

“That’s . . . Creepy.”

We reach the front row, the wide stage before us. The man surfing the wave without a surfboard looking like a mighty Hawaiian god. I make myself look to the right, even though I’ve been feeling the ethereal tug from the left side. But I just caught a glimpse of something before I looked in the opposite direction and I’m telling myself it isn’t in any conceivable way what I think it is.

I take a breath, staring at the empty row, then look to the left.

Shit.

It’s exactly that.

In the tenth seat of the front row is a body.

A dead body.

I take a few steps towards the body and stop. This is the first person we’ve seen in one of the worlds Ostium has sent us to. Now, I’m not certain that the man is dead, but there is no indication of life or movement. That’s when Monica starts running to the man.

“No. Oh no! No. No. No. No. No.”

A heavy stone drops in my chest, pulling me down.

I think it’s Steve. The guy she had some sort of thing for and the main reason she came to Ostium in the first place.

I slowly walk to her, giving her the time she needs. When I reach her she’s kneeling, her hand over her mouth staring at him.

Before I can say anything she gets up and puts a pair of fingers to the pulse on his neck, waiting twenty seconds. Then she leans in and puts her ear close to his mouth, waiting for a breath. After another twenty seconds she goes lower and leans her head against his chest, searching for any sort of quivering heartbeat.

She gets back up. Her body language tells me everything I need to know.

“Is it Steve?”

She looks at me. Complete confusion. Then it clears, but there’s still a deep sadness in her eyes.

“No. It’s not Steve. His name’s Richard. Richard Kahling. Another private from . . . My former base.”

“Really? Was he in that group that walked into Ostium yesterday?”

She stares at me and it feels like her eyes are piercing into my very soul. That sadness in her eyes goes away, hardens into something, though I don’t know what.

She gives me a small nod in admission. I don’t think she thought of this when she saw his body in the chair.

It changes a lot of things. It poses a whole new set of questions.

How the hell did the guy from Monica’s secret base who came to Ostium yesterday and then left through the front gate end up on a chair at the Catalina Casino movie theater . . . dead?

What happened to the rest of the team?

Are they lost too to Ostium?

Are they all dead?

And how did Richard die?

Monica’s looking at him again. I’m guessing she’s got similar questions running through her head. We’ll have to discuss it, but that’s a conversation best left on our return to Ostium.

“Where’s the artifact?”

I stare at the back of her head.

There’s an uncomfortably pregnant moment of silence that stretches out like a long dark highway.

I see her shoulders rise as she takes a breath and finally she turns to look at me. I’m just staring back at her, still not saying anything.

“Fuck no. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

I slowly shake my head. “I can pinpoint it right to here.”

“Fuck.” Then gets up and heads to the entrance door to the theater.

I stare at the body, not envying my task in the slightest.

There’s no clear or apparent cause of death. No bullet wounds. No body parts at strange angles. No marks on his neck. I touch the top of his hand. It’s gravestone cold. Sorry, poor choice of words. He’s been dead for a long time.

In my head I have a blurry image of the artifact, like a vague dream. There’s enough definition that I’m able to hesitate a guess at what it is. I start going through the guy’s pockets. It doesn’t take me long to find the movie ticket stub. That’s it. When I hold it in my hand, it feels warm. The magnetic pull in my head disappears and it calms me.

The movie listed on the stub is Armageddon. That crappy action flick with Bruce Willis from the late nineties. But it can’t be that old? Then I see the date on the stub: it’s today’s.

I got what I needed, so I quickly walk back to the front of theater and find Monica waiting there for me.

“What should we do about . . . Richard?”

Monica looks over to where the body is and just shakes her head.

“Leave him there. We don’t have time to do the honorable or correct thing.”

Then we’re out the door and into the lobby. The loud crackling is instantly noticeable. Outside the windows the afternoon is coming to a close and twilight is fast approaching. We make it out of the door we came through. It looks like the end of the world and it’s all being swallowed up by a giant black hole. As stuff is consumed by the blackness, it doesn’t make a sound, just goes into the maw and is gone. Though the now deafening crackling sure makes up for it.

The reality is painfully obvious: we don’t have enough time to make it back to the pier and the door we came through to take us back to Ostium.

We’re out of time.

We’re out of leeway.

We’re royally up shit creek, and the paddle drifted downstream a long time ago.

“Fuck!”

I’m thinking. I’m listening to my thoughts. My feelings. Getting in touch with myself.

“Follow me!”

And then I start running away from the casino building, headed for the group of moored boats in front of us. I clatter down this tiny quay that starts wobbling as soon as I land on it. It’s on pontoons and none too stable. The water is all choppy and alive as the blackness guzzles its incredible volume. I reach the penultimate boat on the left, take a look back and see Monica just a few steps behind.

I leap onto the boat and head for the cockpit. Monica is on board in seconds, fully trusting me. It feels good to know she trusts me as much as I trust her now. We’re in this together. All the way. In the cockpit is a hatchway leading into the boat. There’s a padlock hanging from the latch. It’s unlocked. I also notice its hexagonal. Then I’m ripping it off and throwing open the hatchway.

Beneath it is darkness. Much like the darkness getting very close to us now. The boats have started pulling tight on their mooring lines, as the sea and everything within and upon it is drawn into the blackness.

I reach for and grab Monica’s hand. I look into her eyes. She is with me and her life is now in my hands. I turn and dive into the hole, pulling her in behind me.

[Music Break]

We crash land onto the street in Ostium. The door closes by itself behind us, sealing the darkness behind the fifth door forever. We gingerly get up, check to make sure we’re each okay, then make our way back to the clock tower.

Back inside I’m standing by the map table. I’m looking at Monica and she comes up beside me. I know she wants to rest. To chill out. To make a real strong cup of tea and probably have something to eat. But I want to get this out of the way first.

It’s important.

Because I think something is going to happen.

Something big.

I scrutinize the map for thirty seconds and feel Monica become impatient with me. I look up at her.

“There’s no number six.”

She stares at me, not getting it at first, then her eyes widen.

She makes a more thorough search, only needing to skip past the few golden numbers, the rest she checks over individually.

“You’re fucking right. What the hell?”

I shrug. “Ready?”

The nod is all I need.

I pull the ticket stub from my pocket and place it on the number five.

The light instantly appears, enshrouds the stub and sucks it in like a hungry carnivorous plant. Then there’s a pristine looking gold five sitting there.

Seconds click by. I start to think maybe that’s it and we can have a snack and some tea after all.

Then a low rumbling begins and builds. It seems to be coming from beneath the map table, welling upwards like a volcanic eruption. Then we watch as the table itself starts vibrating, swaying a little from side to side. I hadn’t checked before, but I was pretty sure the table was solidly bolted to the floor. It makes me think of the movie Jumanji. The crescendo builds, coming up and up and then reaches the table.

Before our very eyes, we watch the five golden numbers light up with a more brilliant golden color, then a white line . . . A jagged crack forms between the numbers linking the five together across a significant portion of the map. The white crack widens, emitting more light, forcing us to squint at it. First a half inch, then a full inch, then two inches, and finally stops at three. The light weakens, dims, then disappears. The golden numbers return to their normal, unbrilliant selves.

The chasm that has opened up on the map table is clear and abrupt, almost vicious looking. An angry, wooden scar. At the bisecting point of that crack is a small number. I lean in.

“It’s a six. No, an eight. Wait, I think it’s an infinity symbol.”

Monica doesn’t care what’s on the door.

“And how the hell are we supposed to get to it? Dig our fucking way into the ground?”

That makes me snort with laugher as I contemplate this next mystery.

That’s when I both hear and feel another rumbling. Similar but at the same time different to the one on the map table. This one’s much stronger and bigger.

Monica looks at me, the smile diminishing from her face like someone who’s forgotten how to smile.

That’s when the ground starts to shake.

I reach out to Monica, wanting to pull her close . . .

[End Credit Music]

I’ve got the place to myself again. For a little while. Jake’s on a joyride back to his home. Collecting a few last valuables and necessities and then he’ll be back up here for good. I’m cool with it. So far we’ve been getting along pretty well, even in the recent crisis situation with my old buddies showing up. He trusts me. That’s what’s important. And I like him. That’s important too. We haven’t had any super weird moments yet. No lengthy silences. And I’m sure once we get to know each other better, I’ll just start feeling normal around him. Hopefully we’ll have some stuff in common. Hopefully he’s not a secret neo-Nazi or KKK member. That would be . . . Beyond fucked up. I’d have to end him.

Maybe he likes to read like I do? Hopefully he’ll bring back a book or two. There’s nothing to read in this place except for lots and lots and lots of numbers. I bet when he gets back he’ll have a bunch of questions to ask me, once he’s got some distance from me and Ostium.

Oh, and I’m not bothering with the date and the “oh-six-hundred-hours” bullshit anymore. In Ostium time really doesn’t matter. Plus Jake had mentioned something about the last time he went home the time was off or he was missing time or some shit. It wasn’t really clear. But I guess if something is happening out there versus in here, he’ll have to say something about it when he gets back.

Speaking of which, I’ve got a plan for what I’m going to do with my free time here while he’s gone.

First off, Jake is never going to hear this voice recording. I’ll get it up online somewhere, like he has all of his recordings. I’ll do all of that for my recordings. It just makes sense. Backup. Covering our asses in a way. What far, who the fuck really knows. I just feel . . . Calmer doing it.

But he’s never going to hear this recording. Because my plan is dangerous.

Whoever’s listening to this, if you’ve heard all the stuff before, you’ve probably noticed that neither of us brought anything back from Mars. Yeah, we both just plain forgot. I shoulda. I shoulda known better. Anyway, I don’t think we can keep going on unless we keep turning the numbers on the map table gold. Maybe the next door’ll open for us, but that’ll be it. It’s just how Ostium works.

So I need to go back through door 4.

And I’m doing it without Jake.

I’m going to do it right now.

~ ~ ~

Okay. I’m outside door number 4. I have no idea what to expect. Will it even fucking open for me?

Only one way to find out.

I turn the handle and push. The door moves. A little. But it’s like there’s something stuck on the other side.

Yes, I do remember the blackness and the moans and the fucking creepy skull from the last time I was here. Don’t worry.

But the door is moving. So I push hard. I give a little. Push harder still. It moves in more each time I try. Then it just lets go and swings wide open. I almost fall through it, but stop myself.

The darkness is there, but it’s different. Thicker. Like it’s sorta alive. It’s moving. Tendrils. Fingers reaching out. A whiteness and that motherfucking skull face shows itself again, moaning like a banshee.

I don’t need to be told I’m not welcome.

I grab the handle and wrench it back closed.

Now it’s like there’s a weight holding it open. Some force pulling on the other side.

Fuckin let go, banshee!

I yank as hard as I can, feeling my feet beginning to slip in the dirt.

Then the door moves and slams shut.

Just fell on my ass and let out a chuckle.

Well that didn’t go so well.

[Music Break]

He’s back and he’s moving in! The amount of stuff he’s dragging in is kinda freaky. He even asked me to give him a hand, carrying his stuff. He’s real excited. I can hear it in his voice. Like one of those guys on House Hunters and he just go the perfect place. But I gotta admit. I kinda like it here. Nah. Scratch that. I really like it here. I never ever saw my life ending up at a place like this. A place that could take you anywhere. I’m also happy to have Jake back. Surprisingly happy. Guess I don’t mind having the guy around.

He starts setting his shit up. He attaches the little pump to his brand spanking new inflatable mattress. The machine sound is kinda weird in here. In Ostium. Like it doesn’t belong. While he’s “moving in” – arranging his suitcases and duffel bags (I guess he forgot to bring a dresser); and adding his toiletries to the bathroom, he starts asking questions. This time, I don’t hold back and give him the answers.

He brings up the weird lock that was on the gate when he first arrived. I wonder what the hell he’s talking about.

Huh. I flip through the files in my head on Jake and find the one on his first time seeing Ostium. Oh yeah, the weird hexagonal lock. The one I’d never seen before. I tell him, as he should recall, I saw it too when I first came to Ostium. And when I came back the second time, like he did, it was gone. It’s just as much a mystery to me. Apparently Ostium only lets certain people in. We passed whatever weird-ass test there was and were allowed in.

He asks about my military friends. They got in easy enough.

I say I don’t know again. It’s something that gets said a lot when talking about Ostium. They probably broke the lock. Maybe Ostium let them in.

Why? he asks.

I say because it knew what I was going to do. What I had planned. Ostium knew they would be more likely to go away and not come back if things went my way, instead of keeping them locked out. They would’ve tried a lot harder to get in. Now, not so much.

I ask him if he’s got any more on that missing time stuff. What day is it supposed to be now?

His says Sunday. I say okay. Then he tells me the date, and I say what the fuck?

He explains what he knows. Time moves differently in Ostium. I gotta say, I’m not surprised. But that’s just the way it’s gonna be now. Since I got no ties to the “real” world anymore, I’m not that bothered about it. Jake kinda says the same thing, though I can tell he’s not fully convinced yet. In time I’m sure he’ll come around.

I ask if he’s tried using our Ostium mind thingy on the outside. He said he did. Right outside Ostium it starts to get kinda fuzzy, little hazy. The further away he goes, the worse it gets until it just shuts off. No longer working. Huh is my response. Again, not surprised.

Then he gets this serious look in his eyes. They sharpen on me. Like he’s just looking through me. Something big is coming.

He says he thinks I haven’t told him everything I know about Ostium. That there’s more. And then he just stares. He’s angry. Kinda angry. It’s also kinda cute.

I think. Then decide.

Yes, I say. There is some more. I told him in my recordings what I experienced. How Ostium was found. What the military did about it. What I was ordered to do. How it was all handled. How I got away. How I got here. I’ve never really told him what I think about Ostium.

This is something I’m still working on. Answers are hard to come by when it comes to this place. So you have to come up with ideas. Theories. I’ve done research. On my own time. When I was with . . . them. And on my own now. I look back at him with that same hard look.

I tell him I don’t think Ostium’s one of a kind.

[Music Break]

What? He practically yells at me.

I repeat and rephrase. I say I don’t think there’s just one Ostium. Ostium is unique, but it’s also a type of place. There are other places like it. Over time. Over history. Throughout the world. Some’ve been documented. Others talked and thought about. And some stay shrouded in mystery.

Okay, he says. Like what? Gimme some examples.

Atlantis, I say. Not saying anything else about it. The one word covers it all really.

He gives me a nod. He understands. He wants more.

Avalon. A mysterious place out of King Arthur. Stonehenge. The Bermuda Triangle. The Devil’s Sea or Dragon’s Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle equivalent near Japan. Each of these places has history. Multiple instances of people disappearing. Accidents happening. Problem spots. Places you kinda want to stay away from.

His eyes are wide now.

I also found obscure references to towns like Ostium. I know nothing about them. Just their names. And how they’re impossible to find. People who found them may have disappeared. It’s all just conjecture. Hearsay. But it’s there.

Night Vale is one.

Tanis is another.

Limetown is the last one.

It appears these three are likely located within the United States. But there’s nothing to prove that.

Jake has nothing to say. His look has softened. He also looks kinda shocked. Well, I had to tell him at some point. Better sooner than later I guess.

I continue. What this tells me is there’re more places like Ostium. Not the same. Just like. These other towns could have doors to other places, or they could be something completely different. I just don’t know. No one appears to. There may be more around the world.

So what does this mean? I ask him.

He closes his mouth finally. But he’s got nothing to offer. I didn’t really expect him to say anything.

This is the part I’m still working on, I say. Cogitating I say, smirking at him. That’s one of your words right? What I know for sure is this place is important. Really important. And at the moment we’re the only two people Ostium seems happy with. So we gotta take advantage of it. Use whatever leverage we can get. We do that by going through doors. Lots of doors. Learning more. Experiencing more. Trying to figure it out. We bring back pieces of those times and fill in the map. We try to find out what Ostium is trying to tell us. What Ostium wants.

Goddamn, that’s brilliant he says.

I smile.

Thanks, I say.

So you know what’s next? I ask.

What? He says. We go through door number five?

Nope, I say. Not that door.

He stares at me. Frowning. Then it clears. The eyes are as big a billiard balls again.

We need to go through door four because we didn’t bring anything back.

Damn fucking right, I say.

So how do we do that? He asks. We already went through and came back. Isn’t the door locked now?

I look at him. Thinking. Weighing options. He needs to know. Even though I really didn’t wanna tell him.

I tried earlier, I say.

Stop looking at me so freaked, I yell at him. Deal with it.

I tried earlier. While you were gone. I tried the door. It opened. But there was blackness and that skull face on the other side.

Shiiiit, he says, drawing the word out like taffy.

I got the door closed before anything could come out.

So what are we going to do? He asks

He still doesn’t get it. It’s going to have to slap him in the face before he does.

I say: you and I go back there. You open the door and we see what happens. We go from there.

[Music Break]

It’s the next day, whichever one or date that might be outside the walls of Ostium.

Inside the walls, no one gives a shit.

So what exactly did you do? He asks. We’re standing in front of the door to the outhouse.

I just turned the handle and slowly opened it, like normal, I say.

And you think it’ll be different with me? He says.

I bring up something specific I said when I first went through this door and was waiting for him. How that crunching, crackling blackness wasn’t there on the other side. I wasn’t seeing it or hearing it until he came through. That’s what started it.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. You’re right, he says.

I say: I think you might have some control over it. Somehow. I dunno. Just give it a try.

He sucks in his chest. Puts on a brave face. I smile at him, so he can relax . Then turns the handle and opens the door as if he doesn’t really care what’s on the other side.

That gusto’s impressive.

It seems like for just one little second I hear that crackling blackness. Then there’s silence. The door is open and all is dark inside like usual. But there’s no sound. No creepy floating skull.

He looks back at me to make sure I’m watching and that I’ll be right behind him and steps through.

I quickly do the same and just like that we’re on Mars again.

It’s like the whole thing has reset. It’s all clean and shiny. A gentle humming. The windows are big and clear like before. Outside I can see the rocket ships. The red and orange sand and hills. The grayish sky. Jake starts walking. He has a direction in mind. I follow.

It definitely feels weird to kinda have our roles switched. Me following him now. But . . . He has some sort of control here. Maybe a power. There’s no blackness out there right now. And I can’t hear anything.

He’s stopped at one the terminals. I come up beside him, looking over his shoulder. The screen is turned on now. It’s different from before. Jake looks at me and mentions this. I nod. He starts to touch the keyboard then stops. Instead he taps the screen with his index finger. The screen changes. Shows a small thumb-sized square. Above it it says FINGERPRINT ID. He raises his thumb, hesitates. Takes a deep breath, then puts his thumb on the screen. There’s a series of beeps. When Jake takes his thumb away and I can see his thumbprint clearly in red.

The screen clears and two words come up: WELCOME JAKE. HOW CAN WE SERVE YOU?

Er . . . Jake says: I’d like to see the footage from when I was last here.

The screen changes immediately to playing a video, showing Jake coming through the doorway. Camera angles switch as he walks along, giving the viewer the best viewpoint to see him. Along the bottom the screen is a line with a little progress square. Intuitively, Jake puts his finger on it and drags it towards the end, but stops it just before.

We watch as I give him a wink, go through and close the door.

Sorry for doing that, I whisper in his ear, that was mean.

Then we see Jake running up to the door, clearly panicked, and then pulling it open. The blackness shows at the edge of the screen, coming for him. It’s moving incredibly fast. It’s hungry. He turns back and looks at it before diving through. From this angle it’s possible to see moving forms in the blackness.

Turn it off he says, then starts running. I chase after him, yelling What the hell?

Can’t you hear it? He says. The blackness is coming back. A lot faster this time.

I hear it now. And he’s right. It’s getting louder, real quick.

I chase after him. Where the hell is he going? He knows as much about this place as I do? He’s looking for something, but what?

We pass through rooms and then he stops at a bed and picks up the datapad.

Oh, that! He knew exactly what he wanted all along. Knew it probably before he went through the door. And why is that, exactly? Because Jake knows more than he’s been telling. Someone’s been a naughty boy. Now it’s my turn to get some answers.

But not right now. When I have fucking time.

The light’s starting to fade. Whatever the hell that blackness is it’s not just blocking out the sunlight, but sucking the energy from this place. The lights are starting to dim.

Shit.

While I’m woolgathering, Jake is long gone. Good thing I know the way. I’m after him in a flash.

He’s at the door and now he’s through. I’m not far behind.

The blackness is passing through the windows and walls now, like they’re whispery spiderwebs. There are screams along with the loud crackling. It – I t sounds like a raging fire. The screams and wails are horrors I’d like to never hear again. But I’m sure Ostium has a different plan for us.

My guts have turned to jelly. It’s been a while since I was this fucking scared.

I hate it.

Fortunately, I’m at the door now.

As I pass through I hear my name called amongst all the screaming and crackling.

It’s Steve’s voice.

[Music Break]

Back in Ostium, Jake is ready. He’s grabbing the door handle as I come through and slamming it shut.

The grassy ground of this familiar town never felt so good.

Ohh, I just need a moment to catch my breath. Jake is watching me, concerned. How sweet. I sit-up and tell him the one word I heard before I came through.

His eyebrows rise up and I wonder if they’re going to slide off his forehead.

Then I tell him who’s voice it was.

He gasps, choking on something. Emotional spit?

I tell him he was right, the blackness got him.

I have nothing more to say now. I get up and head back to the place we call home these days. Jake quietly follows.

We’re rested. Had some nosh. Collected our senses a little.

Jake hasn’t let go of the tablet. He hasn’t done shit with it yet, but he’s keeping it close. Like a good luck charm. I think of that little fat figurine from Roanoke. Yeah, it meant a lot to me. I get it.

He sees me staring at him. He holds it up, showing me the white back. It looks a lot like an iPad mini. So that would make it what, the iPad mini 200? 2000? He flips it over and I see the blank screen. At the very top above the screen, on the material of whatever it’s made of is a little number four.

Huh. I ask him how the hell he knew that that was what he needed?

He says it’s a feeling he has inside him now. A drive. He probably had it in Roanoke, but didn’t know what it was. There was too much going on. He could sort of feel it on the Mary Celeste. A strange pulling. That’s how he knew the dining table was important. And on Mars he recognized it, but then he heard the noise and got distracted.

How comes it wasn’t in any of your audio broadcasts? I ask.

He says he didn’t really know what the feeling was until Mars. He didn’t understand.

Jake, I say. I’m going to take some time with what I have to say to him next. They’re going to pack a wallop. Jake, have you noticed you’ve had a strong connection so far with what’s behind the doors?

He’s silent. Looking at me like I just grew another head. He’s never looked at me like this before. And I can’t say I like it. I prefer when he’s smiling, or questioning, or looking at me in that confused, adorable way.

But now he’s looking at me with a mixture of emotions. Shock, but not exactly scared, more like me telling him something he already knows. And there’s a dose of anger there too. I get it. But he needs to know. He deserves to know.

And if we’re going to keep getting along and start actually liking each other, we need to be honest.

Look, I say, we don’t have to talk about it now. You just go ahead. Think about it. So you wanna go stick that thing on the map table and see what happens?

There’s the cutie look. I actually missed the goddamn thing.

First, he says, I want to see if it works and what it can tell me.

No shit, I say.

He searches around the edge for a button. Finds nothing. So he presses his thumb on the screen. It lights up, showing the familiar small square and FINGERPRINT ID.

Here goes nothing he says and touches it with his thumb.

Two words flash up on the screen for a second and then disappear: WELCOME JAKE.

I’m watching, just as hooked to the screen as he is.

Two icons are showing. There’s nothing else on the screen. I can’t see any buttons, anything that looks like it would make something happen. The two icons are images. Jake presses the first one. A video starts and we see Jake coming through the door and do his walking around on Mars routine we were watching just a little while ago. I almost tell Jake to try and stop it, since this is nothing new to us, but don’t. He watches, not moving. Just in case there’s anything new.

There isn’t.

The screen clears and we’re staring at the two icons again.

And last but let’s hope not least, Jake says, and presses the second one.

Another video loads up. It’s Steve leaning against the map table.

I try, but I can’t stop myself from whispering his name.

Jake looks up at me for a split second, then back down at the video.

Looks like he’s using some sort of handheld camera or maybe a phone.

He’s smiling. He looks good. Hale and healthy. Damn, I miss him.

Hi Monica, he says to the camera. To me. I feel tears form in my eyes. If I know you at all, Steve continues, I know somehow you’re watching this video. I’ve been inside this strange town for a few days. It’s pretty wack. Fucking weirdness at every turn. I found a place to camp out. It was like walking into a new house. Clean floors, empty cabinets, a bed ready for sheets. There was hot and cold running water, the damn toilet even flushed. Whoever installed the plumbing here did a kickass job. There’s a number one on the door here. And I’m leaning against a mindfuck of a map that’s carved into the wood. The detail is shit-crazy. I got my bigass order of supplies this morning. I didn’t expect anyone in command to approve it, so I’m gobsmacked. I don’t how long I’m spending here, but I got supplies for a long time. In a little while I’m going to go check out the door with a number two on it. See if it opens for me. After that I’ll come back and do a report for HQ. And if that door opens, it’ll be cool to talk about what’s on the other side. Well, I think that’s it for now. You know, Monica. Since I’ve been here. Off base and away from you. I’ve . . . I’ve kinda missed you. A lot. I didn’t think I would really, but. Shit. I don’t know. When I get back, maybe we can’t talk about it. Okay. See you soon, babe.

The screen goes black, and then clears to show the two icons again.

It’s all blurry.

Nope, that’s just me crying.

I turn away, trying to keep it together. I wipe my eyes, but somehow touching my face with my hands triggers something. I start sobbing and cover my face. My shoulders shake and I do the whole song and dance routine, sobbing all over I’ve been keeping a lot together, a lot inside. This video just cracked it open. I need some release.

I feel something touching my shoulder. It’s kinda heavy, really warm. It’s Jake. His hand.

I need this too.

I turn and lean into him. His arms coming around me and holding me tight are the best things I’ve felt in a while. I can smell him, his scent and deodorant. So clean and welcoming. I’m sure there’s something oedipal, reminding me of my dad. But it’s really helping.

Less than a minute later I’ve got myself together. I pull away and his arms immediately let go.

I take a few steps back, wipe my face and start to feel a whole lot better. I look up at Jake with thankfullness and see his eyes are teary too. The waterworks almost start again. I’m just fucking brimming with feels. This guy wasn’t just copping one, not that I’d ever think Jake would be capable of that. But he’s a guy after all. Nope, the damn son of a bitch gives a damn.

Okay, we got this together now.

Jake offers to make me some tea. I mention something about him being a life-saver.

When he comes back with two steaming mugs I’m standing by the map table. In my had is the datapad.

I trade Jake the datapad for my tea. I take a sip of the scalding liquid and it helps a lot.

I ask Jake if he’s ready to put the datapad on the four. He watches me for a while. Just before it starts to get awkward, he says: You know you won’t be able to watch the video again.

I take a breath. I know this. It’s what I’ve been thinking about while waiting for Jake to come back.

Yes, I say. If he’s gone . . . Permanently gone, I need a way to put him to rest. This is a way.

He nods, not offering any empty words. There’s nothing that can be said here. I wonder if he wonders if I’m still thinking that Steve isn’t gone. Because I’m not sure. We know nothing about the blackness. Other than Jake has some sort of control over it. And I heard Steve’s voice in it.

Jake picks up the datapad and puts it on the four. A few seconds pass and the light I’ve seen a couple times envelops the tablet and then it’s gone. Underneath is a golden four.

That’s when I feel the exhaustion. Like a cartoon character who just got hit on the head by a grand piano. I tell Jake I’m heading to bed. I’m beyond beat. He just nods again. I’m thankful for that. I walk away, go into the room and close the door. I don’t know what time it is, but sunset can’t be too far away. I curl up in my sleeping bag, feeling the tears coming again, starting to leak from my closed eyelids. I wonder if I’m going to be able to sleep and them I drift off into slumber land.

[End Credit Music]

That shaky, terrified feeling was back, in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t missed it. But just seeing those strangers come into Ostium. In my place . . . No, into our place. We just stood there, staring at the wall, but our minds were linked to Ostium. It was kind of like a digitized security map meets Pacman: the whole town was laid out inside my head and at one end where there was a broken line was an amorphous red blob. I was able to zoom in on the gate.

“Monica! I think I can lock the gate somehow . . . With my mind.”

“No. Don’t do it. We want them to come in.”

“What the hell? Really? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Just trust me on this. These are my people. I know how they act. I know what they’re going to do.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded. I might’ve even been shaking my head. Then I focused back on the action.

The gate was now open. No surprise there: that strange padlock was long gone to wherever. I made a mental note to ask Monica if she knew anything about that. The soldiers – I presumed they were soldiers and everything Monica had been telling me so far was right and true – were streaming in now. The amorphous blob had separated into twelve smaller, more distinct blobs.

“Good. It’s just one squad.”

“Why is that good?”

“Because for all I know, they could’ve sent a whole fucking battalion to come charging down our door.”

“Good point. So what do we do?”

“Wait. And do nothing. It’ll work out fine. Trust me.”

We continued watching the squad hold a tight formation and begin their search. You could tell when they tried opening doors. They would stop, then start moving again. Stop at the next door, try it, then move on down. It got pretty repetitive, and if it’d been anyone other than armed military bearing down on us, I probably would’ve got pretty bored. As it was, we just stood there, stock still. Focused.

[Music Break]

It took them awhile, but they eventually made it to the clock tower. It was separate from the rows of buildings and looked significantly different, so they were inevitably going to notice it. Plus they had intel on this place, as lacking as it might be. When they started coming in range, I peeked through the window. I was being careful not to be seen. Monica noticed me, but said nothing. So either I was doing it right or there was something else going on I didn’t know about.

They were coming now. Their guns were raised, pointed right at this building. I think they were M-16s. A few years ago a friend of mine – Brandon, the guy who I used to go to Giants games with . . . Man, the idea of going to a sports game right now seems as foreign as . . . facing a squad of soldiers with machine guns pointed right at your head. Anyway, as a birthday present Brandon took me to a shooting range. I’d never fired an actual gun before. It was something that’d never really been high on my bucket list. I got to try out the Sig Sauer. Damned if I remember what specific model it was. It was a gun, and it was deadly. They showed us how to load it. To keep the barrel pointed down at all times until you’re about to fire it at the target. Now, I’d seen cops and mobsters load clips into their handguns hundreds of times on TV and in the movies. Popping in the bullets like they were magnetic; slamming the clip home for dramatic effect. And of course: loading that first round, with sinister intention. Doing it for real is pretty damn hard. The gun is heavy. Noticeably metallic. The first time I tried to force a bullet into the clip, it slipped, and I got a nice gash on my index finger, while the shell tinkled to the floor. I had to have Brandon load it for me.

When I fired the gun it was pretty devastating. So powerfully lethal it made me quiver. It put it all in perspective. That someone or a number of someone’s had invented this weapon, whose sole purpose was to kill, and kill it could. Easily. I couldn’t make it through the whole clip. On the eighth shot, I had to put it down. I was done. And I hadn’t come close hitting to the target.

Woah, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to wax poetic on gun control or lack thereof for so long. Watching these soldiers approaching us with those machine guns. This was the memory that came back to me so suddenly. Real strong.

“It’s okay.”

I looked at her, confused.

“You can look through the window. You don’t have hide.”

I raised my eyebrows. Really confused. And surprised.

“Just. Trust. Me.”

I could see all 12 of them now clearly. In their camo uniforms and all that gear weighing them down. They looked ready for anything. I knew they could never be ready for Ostium.

“They can’t hear us either,” Monica said.

I kept watching them come closer. The fear in me wanting to break free. I was barely holding it together.

“That little guy hanging a little behind everyone is Sergeant Harris. I don’t recognize anybody else in the squad. That’s intentional. In case they find me. I’d be court martialed. And they don’t want anyone who knows me getting cold feet for what needs to be done. Now. Watch this.”

One of the men in front had broken away and approached the door. He turned the handle.

It was both surreal and petrifying to watch the handle on the inside turn also. I held a breath and what I thought might be the start of a scream.

Then he pushed. The door didn’t move. At all.

He pushed with his whole body. Then threw his shoulder into it. He stepped back and started kicking. Another man joined him and they charged the door. It still didn’t move.

The sergeant walked up to one of the windows. The one I was looking out of. I watched him come up close. Then just as I’d done days ago upon first entering Ostium, he put his hands up to cup his eyes and then leaned against the glass, looking in.

He was looking right at me, and I was looking right back at him.

It was beyond surreal.

I could see right into him. His eyes were green.

“Can’t see a fuckin’ thing!” came a gravely drawl, muffled by the glass.

I gasped.

The sergeant turned to the men at the door.

“Put a few rounds in it.”

The soldier who’d tried the door first received the honor. He pulled something on his M-16, took aim at the door handle, and opened fire.

This time I jumped back, falling over, my hands over my ears. It was loud. I expected there to be smoke and splinters and the door to come swinging open. I slowly opened my eyes. Monica was still standing there. She hadn’t moved.

The door meanwhile was . . . Perfectly fine. Not a scratch on it from the inside. And judging by their reaction, unblemished on the outside too. There was a lot of yelling and cursing. The soldier took aim again, looking to perhaps empty his entire clip into the door.

“That’s enough, private,” said the sergeant. “We’re done here.”

There was no hesitation in any of the other eleven men. They’d been given an order. They were going to follow it without question.

They all turned and started walking back. I watched them until they were gone from view, then switched to the mental Ostium map. Once they were past the gate, the red amorphous blob was back once again and quickly began to grow fainter until it was gone entirely.

That’s when Monica finally relaxed.

I found myself on the floor once again, not really sure how I got there, but happy to have the support of solid wooden boards.

“How did you know?” I asked Monica over some strong tea and hot grub a short while later.

“The windows.” She offered nothing else, drinking her tea. Typical.

Then it fell into place . . . Like a window sliding closed.

Sorry. That simile was terrible, especially given the circumstances.

“The windows were black. Just like all the other buildings?”

“Yep.”

“They couldn’t see in. Couldn’t see anything. Of course! I never thought of that. When I first came to the clock tower I was all focused on wishing the door would open for me and didn’t even glance at the windows. You checked them out, right?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“What?”

“I was going on a really strong hunch. All the other buildings had the same windows. This one had too. Like you, I forgot to check.”

“Woah. Well, you told me to trust you. I did. And we’re alive and well now.”

“And drinking tea.”

“Is that it? Will they leave us alone?”

She was quiet for a while. Thinking. Deciding.

“I don’t really know. I wanna say yes, but it’s not certain. They could come back, but it’s unlikely.”

“Well, with our handy dandy Ostium alert system we’ll know when we’re having visitors again.”

[Music Break]

I’m driving home, and I’m pretty sure it’s for the last time. No, I know it’s for the last time. I think it’s a necessary separation. The Ostium train has gotten rolling. It’s left the station and it’s gotten up to a good cruising speed. Unless there’s a wreck on the rails, it’s not stopping anytime soon. I think my apartment and my connections with the real world are part of the potential wreck. I need to make sure the rails stay clear as far as the eye can see.

Wow, I’m already into the deep allegorical shit and I haven’t even put on Pink Floyd yet.

That’s when I find the album I want on my phone and press play. Division Bell. Like the previous album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, it opens with an instrumental track. I haven’t heard it in a while. The beginning sound slowly builds. It’s a crunching, crackling, wrenching sort of sound. As it builds, the image of popping popcorn pops into my head. I then realize it’s the sound. I pull over to the side of the road. I’m not too far from Ostium and the road is still plenty quiet. I sit there listening. It’s the sound of the blackness coming towards me. Increasing in volume. I heard and saw it on the Mary Celeste. And on Mars. And now it scares the shit out of me. The music is finally starting, but I can still hear that horrible, haunting sound in the background. I skip to the next track. It begins with drums and some light guitar, then David Gilmour explodes with his unique sound. That gets me back on track. I start the car and get back on the road.

My brain is doing that thing it does when I’m driving. Working on automatic. Sifting through the events of the days. Percolating like Mr. Coffee.

The first thing it keeps repeating at me which I’m not going to deny is that Monica is a stunning woman. She’s beautiful. I know it’s been a few days since I’ve been around people, and it’s been . . . Let’s see . . . 11 months and 12 days since the fraught end of my last relationship – not that I’m counting or anything . . . But still. Of all the people to have shown          up in Ostium . . . Monica sure is . . . Something.

So let’s take a look at this. Jackpot winning luck aside. How did Monica end up finding Ostium? And then running into me?

Her series of audio recordings explained the steps she took, though I have a feeling there’s more to be told on her part. A lot more. Like any good, complex character – looks aside – I need the back story. The history. I was actually going to kind of confront her about it today and then the goddamn military showed up and threw everything out of whack.

But I’m heading home now, and like I said, it’s for the last time. I’m severing that tie with this world and becoming a permanent resident of Ostium. When I told Monica that this was what I wanted to do, what I needed to do; she wasn’t just understanding but encouraging. The one bed might have something to do with that.

As much as I’d like to share it with her . . .

Okay, I’m sorry. I’m going to stop being a crass asshole.

I’m going to dig out my sleeping bag. Buy myself an inflatable mattress and that’ll solve the sleeping arrangements at the Clock Tower Ritz. I’ll also need blankets and a pillow or two for comfort.

So . . . Getting back to Monica.

I’m not really well versed in military etiquette, other than the conglomeration of inaccurate stuff from movies, so I don’t really know if her story checks out 100%. I don’t know how hard they come after you if you go AWOL. It seems like one of the worst things you could. Desertion. Other than like treason. So you’d think it’d be a lot bigger deal. But she didn’t make it sound like it was. Our country isn’t at war right now with any big mean nation, so maybe that has something to do with it.

The story rings true. And if you take a look from a distance at my discovery of Ostium, it certainly sounds somewhat fantastic, bordering on wizards and dragons craziness. But I know it to be completely true. So why couldn’t Monica’s be? And we found each other in a strange and somewhat scary place, so it’s natural we would want to work together to get through it and try to understand what Ostium is trying to tell us. To join forces. An alliance of comprehension.

But what about the lock?

That weird-looking padlock that was on the gates the first time I came to Ostium. And then was mysteriously gone the next day. I needed to ask Monica about that. See if she had a specific answer for it. Or find out if it was just one of the weirdnesses of Ostium. Or . . . Discover if Monica hesitated before giving me an answer, like she was making something up, or just feeding me something, indicating she was holding back. Keeping secrets from me.

Ostium was still doing its best at keeping most of the secrets from us, or at least from me. The last thing I needed was my one and only ally keeping her own secrets.

No. When I got back we were going to have a heart to heart of sorts. A state of the union. With me moving in full time, we needed to be on the same page about everything. Discuss and link up our hopes and goals.

My favorite song – the last track on the album – was starting. So that’s when I told my brain to shut up, cranked up the volume and enjoyed the music.

About halfway home the pervasive invisible fog that was that weird mental map of Ostium cleared. Was that the extent of its reach? Was it something specific to me as a honorary member of the Ostium club? Currently at a grand two members.

But that was when my mind cleared or perhaps reconnected with the world and I remembered my previous trip heading out to Ostium and how I’d been wrestling with the fact that Ostium had stolen time from me, in a way. I sucked in a breath and turned on the screen on my phone. I actually gasped when I saw it was a little after two pm, on Sunday. Not the Sunday I thought it was at the start of today, when I’d gotten that email from Robert. Was it really the same day? Apparently not. No, not by a long shot. It was the following Sunday. As in a week later. As in seven whole days. So basically what had been less than the passage of two days to me was a entire week.

Holy shit.

They say time flies, but this is ridiculous.

But I need to focus on getting home right now, don’t want to run myself off the road here with outright panic.

But . . . Holy shit.

[Music Break]

I arrive at my home a week later than I expected. I’m not happy about this, but there’s nothing I can really do about it now. I select my key from the small selection hanging from my key-chain. It looks foreign to me. Strange. Like it doesn’t belong. As if it’s somebody else’s. I turn the lock and step inside.

I know I’ve got doors on the brain, and that’s to be expected when traveling around in Ostium, but stepping through that door honestly feels like stepping into another world. On an esoteric level, it is. It’s something else now. Not really belonging to me. Legally that’s just not true, but I have no real physical or emotional connection to it. Even though I’ve lived here for over three years. Hell, I’ve had sex here, even if it was way too goddamn long ago. Thanks brain, for reminding me about that.

I close the door behind me. It has a dull, unnatural sound. Not like a door should sound. Not like a door in Ostium.

My apartment smells stale. Old. Disused. Even though it’s only been a day or two . . . Oh wait. No. It hasn’t. It’s been a whole fucking week.

I REALLY don’t like this time dilation thing. I always thought being involved or able to participate in any particular way with time travel would be the most awesomest thing I could ever experience.

I was wrong.

It fucking sucks.

But I need to move on.

I start thinking about what I’m going to take. What’s going to stay. If I should call anyone; let anyone know what’s going on. Or just disappear off the face of the earth. It’s not like anyone has really missed me since I’ve been gone. I guess Robert at work noticed, and my boss once I didn’t show up enough for him to decide to fire me. But otherwise . . . A few emails and posts on Facebook, but nothing really says: Where the hell have you been? Is everything okay?

And that’s when there’s a loud booming on my door. It not just knocking, and it’s a long step beyond hammering. Whoever’s on the other side has made a fist and is slamming it against the door as hard as he or she can, though by this point I’m pretty sure it’s a definitive he.

I’m just a few feet from the door and it scares the crap out of me. I actually jump in the air, and feel that wave of shock and fear wash over me like someone just upended a bucket of icy water. This is an ice bucket challenge I didn’t want to participate in.

But I guess at the end of the day (or is that the end of the week?) someone does apparently care.

I turn around and open the door.

Brandon is on the other side. My baseball buddy. The one guy who I’ve regularly hung out with over the last few years. The one guy out of everyone should at least give a damn about me. He does. That’s why he’s here. Obviously.

He strides in. Pushes me back. Slams the door behind him.

I wince at the sound, reflexively blinking.

“You!” he says, pointing his finger right at me. “Where the fuck have you been?”

He sounds really angry.

I just stare at him, the proverbial deer in the headlights. I can feel the blood draining from my head. I can feel my face turning white, a numbness setting in, as well as a growing light-headedness

“Siddown.”

He goes into my kitchen and grabs two clinking bottles from the fridge. He comes back with two Wyder’s Pear Ciders.

If I haven’t mentioned it, I’m a cider guy. Not a beer guy. Wyder’s is my favorite, especially the pear. Brandon isn’t really a cider guy; he’s most definitely a beer guy. But he’ll drink a cider occasionally. Especially if it’s all a friend’s fridge has. That’s what friends do.

Now I have a heavy feeling in my stomach. It’s guilt, with a healthy dose of shame.

He comes back and hands me a bottle and sits down opposite me on the long couch, where we’ve watched a number of movies together. Tough guy action flicks and had a great time.

Now I’m really starting to feel bad.

“Okay man, tell me what’s going on.”

I’m just staring at him. Trying to think of words. Any words. I drink some cider. It’s delicious, as always.

“You’ve been gone for a long time. I Facebook messaged you’ve. I texted. I called a bunch of times. I’ve even fucking Tweeted your ass. I called your work. Found out you’ve not been there for over a week. And got fired. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” Even though I’ve been imbibing a liquid, my voice is dry and croaky.

“I was getting really worried . . . I am really worried. I’ve been coming to your house for the last three days. Then I just camped out yesterday and waited and waited and waited. And then today I see you pull in. Go up the stairs, unlock your door and go inside like no biggie. Like everything’s okay.”

He takes a breath. I keep staring, speechless.

“Well, it’s not okay. I . . . I just want to know what’s going on. And . . . if you need any help.”

It’s that last part that hits home. That cuts deep. This guy really does care. And now I have a raw, weeping wound in my emotional nerve. I’m going to have to say something. I don’t know what.

So I just open my mouth and start talking.

“I found something. Well, more of a somewhere. It’s a place not on any map. It’s a secret. A . . . Hidden town.”

Brandon stares at me. A frown forming a grooved-V in his forehead.

“And . . .”

“It . . .” I put down my bottle and rub my face with my hands “It’s a place that didn’t want to be discovered. Only I found it. And inside are all these buildings and doors with numbers on them.”

“Okay . . . Okay, I get it. You found a cool old ruin of a town. Like those ghost towns they have all over California from the old west.”

“Sort of. But not really.”

“Then explain it to me. Put it in plain fucking English. Please.”

“The doors are numbered. It’s part of a code. You have to open each door in order. And these doors . . .” I unavoidably pause again. It’s getting hard to spit out the words. To make my vocal chords comply.

Is that me? Or is that the reaching, controlling fingers of Ostium . . . Clasping around my throat?

“Doors. Numbers. Sure. Why does that mean you have to drop off the face of the earth for a week?”

“Because . . . Because the doors lead to other places. Other places in time. Other dimensions. Other . . . Worlds.”

The disbelief is as clear on his face as a black and white newspaper with a half-page-sized headline.

“It’s real.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s . . . Real.”

“I don’t fucking believe you, man. That just sounds . . . Ehhh, fucking insane! Doors to other times? Like the past? The future? Seriously!”

“Yes. Both actually. I’ve been . . .”

I know at this point I’ve lost him. I’m also pretty sure whatever friendship we had has been irrevocably severed. This made-up story is just too much, even for a friend. I would’ve done better saying I’d won the lottery or met someone on the other side of the country.

I just keep going, because at this point I can’t stop. I may not be convincing Brandon, but I’m definitely helping to convince myself that this home, this friendship, this life, this world is over.

Now there’s only Ostium.

“I’ve been to Roanoke in the sixteenth century, and an old ship in the nineteenth century. I’ve also been to Mars, and it was incredible.”

That’s when he just looks at me with fury.

“Fuck you, man. Fuck you and fuck your stupid made-up town. Jeez, I thought there was more to you. But you’re nothing but a sack o’ shit.”

“It’s fucking real!” I yell right back at him.

He gets up to leave. The half-drunk bottle of cider long ignored.

“There’s also someone else there. In the town. Working with me. A woman.”

This stops him. He sits back down.

“So all this is about a chick?”

“No . . .”

And that’s when I decide to just give in. The friendship is over, no matter what. Let’s just try send Brandon on his way without completely hating my guts.

He’s looking at me now with raised eyebrows. I choose the path less taken and begin my lie.

“Well, yes. I met her last Friday. On the street on my way to work. We kind of ran into each other. But I picked up her things and I was real nice about it. I wanted to avoid being the asshole guy who just wants to connect with anyone of the opposite sex. She was reading the new Song of Ice and Fire book.”

“The Game of Thrones books?”

“Yeah. The new one just came out. I finished it the day I got it. So we started talking about it. She was almost done with it. And then that led to blowing off our respective employers and having coffee and really connecting. We went out that night.”

“Damn, nice job, man! It’s been a while since . . . Kristin wasn’t  it?”

“Yeah. We hung out all day Saturday. And that night we slept together and it was amazing.”

“I bet it was. Fucking kinky Game of Thrones sex. Am I right?”

“Yeah. And we just wanted to spend all of our time together. We got our stuff and went driving around Mendocino county for most of the week. Went all the way up to Eureka. Hung out in Fort Bragg. And just enjoyed each other.”

“Yeah,” he said with a disturbing emphatic wink. “In every way possible I bet. You randy. Mother. Fucker. So what was all that shit about doors and hidden towns and traveling through time?”

I was starting to remember pretty clearly now why I didn’t hang out with Brandon all the time.

“It was a sort of LARP thing we were doing.”

He just stares at me, dumbfounded.

“Live action role-playing. We were acting out a fantasy together.”

Kinky. Mother. Fucker.”

“So anyways, I literally just got back. Still got all my shit in the car. I just dropped Monica off at her place.”

“Wow. That’s awesome. Monica huh? Sounds sexy. She white?”

“No, she’s black.”

“Hot damn! Crossing over the . . .”

“Please! Anything you’re about to say, just don’t. I really don’t want to hear it.”

He mimes zipping his lips.

“And now I’m really fucking wiped and was just about to crash for like twenty hours.”

He knew his cue and stood up again. I joined him.

“I hear you man. You’re must be fucking wiped. In every way possible. Six fucking ways from fucking Sunday. Am I right? Am I right?”

“Yeah.” I practically moaned in abhorrence, trying not to cringe.

“Alright. I’ll get out of your hair then.”

“Thanks, I’d appreciate it.”

“Oh, but what about your job?”

“Oh . . . That. Well, I was pretty sick of it anyway. I’ve been looking around for something else. Even sent out a couple resumes a few weeks ago.”

The lies were just pouring out, but I knew the end was near.

“Good on ya. Well, when you’re ready to rejoin the world drop me a line. I’d like to meet this . . . Lovely Monica.”

“Yeah, sounds good, man. See ya around.”

He opens the door and walks himself out.

I close it behind him and deadbolt it.

I lean my back against the door and let out a long shaky breath.

I feel sick.

[Music Break]

I drag out my suitcases and duffel bags and fill them with everything I think I’ll ever need, and anything I deem important. I don’t worry about taking too much. There’s plenty of room in Ostium for all my stuff. I’m leaving a lot of books behind and that’s tough. I do grab my rare first edition hardcover of Game of Thrones. Yes, the first one in the series, AND it’s in mint condition. I also grab my leather-bound Lord of the Rings and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. I also grab my Kindle and Kobo ereader. On each of those devices are about ten thousand books. Have I mentioned I’m kind of insane about books and collecting them? Ebooks make it a lot more reasonable of an addiction, and feasible too.

My laptop goes in the bag, along with a couple of chargers.

When I decide I’m ready, I check outside to make sure Brandon’s still not spying on me. He’s long gone. I fill up my car with everything and get on the road. I hit an ATM and take out as much cash as I can. I’ll have to work out how to get the rest of my money from my account later. Today’s Sunday and of course, no banks are open. And I’m sure once my rent becomes long overdue my landlord’s going to be looking for me.

I get on the road with plenty of drinks and snacks. The sun is making its swift way down to the Pacific and the light is starting to fade. By the time I make it to Ostium it’ll be pitch black. Should be fun.

And as I’m heading up the familiar highway I have this warm, swelling feeling inside of me. It’s not food or drink related. I wonder what it is for a few seconds and realize it’s elation.

I’m really damn excited to be heading back to Ostium.

My new home.

I’m also really looking forward to seeing Monica again.

And seeing what’s in our future with regards to Ostium and its many mysterious doors.

[End Credit Music]