Warning: The following episode contains depictions of graphic imagery. This is where Ostium turns into a horror story for an episode. It’s not for the faint of heart. The fearful and squeamish should turn back now.

It’s dark. Oh-so-dark. But I can smell. I can hear. Dark, drippy, putrescent. I scrabble for Monica’s hand in the black and find it, holding on tight. The crunching of gravel beneath our feet is both comforting and eerie. You can feel it on the sole of your shoe, but also hear those tiny pebbles grinding together to make grains of sand. But in this dark place of strange sounds and unfamiliar smells, it doesn’t belong. It isn’t comforting. It’s a disembodied sound that you just want to go away.

Then we’re out of the tunnel we didn’t know we were in. For the first time coming through a door, it’s dark out. No bright shiny sun and blue skies. It’s the all-covering blanket of darkness with a billion tiny star-holes in the firmament. The orchestra of crickets are rubbing their legs together, creating their unique song. I take a deep breath and know where we are. Sort of. We’re by the sea. I can smell the tang of brine and kelp, taste the salty vapor in the air. Now we can hear the gentle susurrus of waves on the nearby beach: drawing in its essence and then throwing it back upon the sand. It’s like the opposite of a mirage: you can’t see it, but you can hear it. An auditory mirage.

We walk along the path parallel to the beach; our shoes continuing a syncopated crunching and almost crackling. It’s quite different from the tunnel of the unknown, this is almost . . . Relaxing, restful. The temperature is just right: balmy from the sea, but not too hot or humid; at times there is the faintest tickle of a breeze, just enough to cool you down.

As our eyes become accustomed to the night’s sky, an iridescent glow makes itself known in the direction of those waves crashing into the beach. It’s a greeny-blue blend sparkling in the water, mixing in with the foam. It has a life of its own.

“Phosphorescent algae,” says Monica.

“Yeah. It’s pretty incredible. I saw it for the first time when I stayed up at Fort Bragg with my ex. It was like, a year ago. We rented this house we found on Airbnb that was right on the beach. It was gorgeous. A couple of bedrooms, though we only needed one. Nice sized bathtub, big living room with comfy chairs and an awesome deck where you could sit back, put your feet up, and get lost in a good book.”

[Deadpan] “Or other things? I take it this was the lovely Anne?” she responds

[Humorously] “Or other things.  And yes. It was a great place to just forget about the world. And you could walk straight out onto the beach. It wasn’t a private beach, but might as well have been, we had it all to ourselves. And you could go straight up to the water’s . . .”

“What?”

“I think . . . Holy shit. I think this might be the place.”

“Jake. It’s fucking. Dark.”

“I know. I know. But, I just feel . . . Look, let’s keep walking.”

The path winds and curves for some time and we just enjoy our senses doing what they do best: sampling this world and life. The moon reveals itself with an increasing glow that has us confused and wondering, but once that shimmering thumbnail peeks over the hills, all is made clear. As more of its perfect shape is revealed, we realize it’s going to be full and glorious. It almost seems too big to be the full moon rising in the night’s sky. But then I remember this is when the moon appears largest. It’s a perfect pearl making it’s way across the cosmos of stars that are innumerable and endless. And as the moon continues to rise, it bequeaths its light to us, guiding our way, and granting us the gift of sight in this night of blackness and dark.

In but a short while the house up ahead is shown, like the poignant detail of a book that is made known to the reader with the turning of the page. I study its profile, its topography, the facade I’m able to make out. Yes. It’s the same house. I am reminded of the confrontation with Brandon, during that last time I went back to my former home. How he’d put me on the spot as I tried to tell him the truth he wouldn’t believe. In the end I’d concocted a lie, but the fabrication contained mostly truth as I think on it now. At the time it felt like a fictional idea I’d pulled out of thin air.

And now, here I am, again. Here we are, back in this place I didn’t expect to visit again. But I know Ostium has other plans than relaxation and enjoyment as it was the last time I was here.

The path makes a new turn, angling away from the beach and the cold Pacific around to the front of the house. Bordering the front yard is a white picket fence. This wasn’t part of the original house. In this ghostly, lunar light it looks like a rampart of bones forming a protective wall around the house. But is this osteo-palisade keeping something out? Or trapping something within?

There is no gate at the bony center, just a hole. Monica’s face is no longer as relaxed as when we first found ourselves at the beach, but then neither is mine. I lead the way past the white face and up a new, narrow path.

“Jake, I need to tell you something. Something that happens . . .”

“Hang on a second, Monica.”

As we’re walking I’m hearing a crunching and crackling. They’re not stones, or shells. Unable to stop myself, I look down and try to identify what we’re walking on in the moonlight.

Insects. Millions and millions of dead insects, of many kinds. Cockroaches, beetles, grasshoppers, praying mantises, centipedes. None are moving, but this doesn’t help my now gravely weakened courage. I look to Monica who knows what I’m doing, forgetting what she was going to say for the moment. The sound our shoes make with each step makes it clear whatever we’re walking on is unnatural. I just shake my head: you don’t want to know. I wish I could un-know. Then I stop. To either side of this strange path of crunching carapaces are a few tombstones of varying sizes and slanting at different angles. Like the unnerving path, these were not part of the original architecture of this abode. I can read the carvings on the stone easily, perhaps because there is more moonlight, or because Ostium is wanting me to know what is inscribed upon these pieces of rock.

Oh, how I wish I could sponge away the writing upon these gray stones.

R.I.P. Catalina says one. In Memory of San Francisco says another. An ancient looking one filled with cracks and looking ready to turn into a pile of pebbles proclaims: May You Never Be Forgotten, Oh Lost Colony of Roanoke. Another, equally ancient, dripping with briny moisture, an anchor carved at its apex, reads: Never Forget the Lost Souls of the Mary Celeste. There’s one final one before we make it to the wide wooden stairs that will lead us to the front door. It’s clean and fresh and polished with three words: Remember Fort Bragg. Something about this last tombstone seems familiar to me, but I’m unable to ascertain what.

We ascend the stairs which bend and grown like living human beings. At the top we stop, happy to have those horrible sounds cease, but it is clear this long, dark night is far from over.

The door seems larger than I remember, and far more menacing. Oil-slick black with a shininess in which I can almost see my face. I grasp the handle, then look to Monica:

“Ready?”

She gives me a nod. I take a deep breath, turn the handle and push the door open.

If at any point I had been hoping for a silent entry, it is now rendered futile. The creaking wail of wood that the door screams at me feels equal to a hundred haunted doors in a hundred houses in a hundred haunted realms. Not only are goose-pimples raised all over my body now, but my fingernails, teeth, and hell, it feels like every one of my vertebrae are tingling. As if this wasn’t enough, a long-drawn out ghost moan erupts from within the house. It makes me think of that scene in Ghostbusters II, when Ray, Egon, and Winston were walking along an old abandoned railway line within the bowels of New York City and this horrible voice calls out Winston’s name. It makes me think of how that scene fucking terrified me as kid and on through my teenage years, especially when the ghost train comes out of nowhere and passes right through the ghostbuster.

“Jake, do we really need to . . .”

I know exactly how she feels. I don’t want to either.

“The artifact is in the house. Somewhere. I have to. But, if you want to stay . . .”

“No. No fucking way. I’ve got your back the whole damn way.”

I smile. Raise my fist. She bumps it.

We step inside the house and it feels huge and old and really fucking haunted. It’s like a combination of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, times ten, combined with the Tardis from Doctor Who. You know: bigger on the inside. Much bigger. The outside may have borne a resemblance to the house I once stayed in with my ex-girlfriend in the wonderful town of Fort Bragg, but this place we have entered is 100% Ostium and a million percent other worldly.

I think they call it a landing. I don’t know. It’s a space right by the front door with stairs that lead to the second floor, and doors showing the way to adjoining rooms. I touch Monica’s elbow to get her attention, not really wanting to make any more noise than necessary in this place, then give her the halt sign. I close my eyes and focus, trying to narrow down the location of the artifact, but . . . It’s different. Different from any door we’ve gone through so far. Different from how I usually do this, especially when I was just starting to feel confident about this part of the Ostium job. I can’t tell where the mental pull is coming from to lead me to the artifact, because it’s coming from multiple directions, and not just two or three, but more like between five and ten. There are lots of cranial attractions going on telling me to come here, check this out, wait, no, no, over here, hey, me first. They’re all equally strong and equally demanding, and since I’m already dealing with holding the blackness at bay – which so far is being quiet and obedient – it’s quite frankly impossible to tell.

Shaking my head in confusion, I direct us to one of the open doorways. If we’re going to have to check every part of this house we might as well get started; we don’t exactly have all the time in the world. And then a small part of my brain reminds me the according to the ongoing door schedule whenever the artifact for this particular door is found and placed, something big in Ostium may happen. The last time it was an earthquake that caused a giant crack through the center of the town to open it up like the gates of hell.

We’re in the other room, and unlike the landing, there’s no light on. I can’t see a thing.

“Jake. Jake, I have to tell you something about the future.”

There’s a strong smell in the room, something metallic. I want to hear what Monica has to tell me, but the smell is overbearing. What the hell is it?

“Okay, Monica, let’s find out about this room first.”

Attempting something new, I reach out to the wall and look for the light switch. I find it covered in something noticeably wet and sticky. Not sure if it’ll work, I flip it. The room is bathed in a sickly yellow light, like those days that are hazy and worn out, as if the sun has some weird filter covering it. Or the zombie rising has begun. But that’s not what wrong with the kitchen that we’re standing it. It also explains that wet, stickiness.

“Fuck!” I yell, while Monica let’s out a drawn-out: “Goddamn.”

Blood. In vast amounts. Blood everywhere. Blood on the walls, the cabinets, the ceiling, the floor. The sink is a full tub of blood. The stove in addition to being covered in the red stuff, is also oozing more out of its gas burners, while the oven door below has more of the dark, viscous fluid running from its edges. I can’t help thinking of that scene in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. It’s like a fucking dump truck of blood has just got emptied in here. Then the smell hits me: heavy, meaty, coppery, rancid. Of something that was alive, but is no longer. Then I see and hear the flies, big black blobs circling around, landing here and there in the blood, then taking off again. In search of meat, tissue, something solid that isn’t liquid blood. One of the flies comes over to us and lands on Monica’s cheek. I swat it away, making sure not to hit her. There’s a red smear on her cheek and by my look she knows it’s there and begins vigorously rubbing it away.

“Not here. We’re getting the fucking out of here,” I say, grabbing her arm and dragging her out.

Back on the landing it feels like returning to a semblance of normal life, but it isn’t. The light is still on in the kitchen. The crimson landscape is still an eyesore that can’t really be avoided. I give us thirty seconds, then stretch it out to a minute. Then it’s time for the other doorway, which, as it’s opposite, is dark. Forcing myself, I walk into the dark room. Monica follows eventually. I try the same experiment again, wary and simply outright scared. My wandering hand finds this room’s light switch and flicks it on.

It’s a dining room with an unsurprising dining table at its center. Curtained windows frame the dining table on two sides. What is both surprising, unexpected (and very much unwanted), are the occupants seated at the table. There are five of them. Two on either side of the table, with one seated at its head. There’s an empty seat at the opposite end. The men are dressed in military uniform, and I don’t need Monica to tell me these five men are members of the “squad” that paid a visit to Ostium some time in what feels like the Cretaceous period and then blindly went through one of Ostium’s ill-fated doors. What is wrong with these men is that they are all headless. Decapitated. The rough, jagged, skin-flap edges of their necks are as clear as the empty serving dish in the center of the dining table; the wound cauterized and blackened; the sawed-off veins, arteries and severed spinal column easily recognizable. Upon the plates before each of these five men are their severed heads, their faces placed so that they are looking at their headless bodies. Each of the faces bears a look of sheer terror.

It is clear that these men died of fright first . . . Before their heads were removed.

[PAUSE]

Monica may have shown little emotion towards these men and after what had been done to her and Steve, it may have been even somewhat warranted, but seeing them end up like this . . . It takes a toll on both of us. Obviously. But I could tell Monica was being eaten up inside. This was beyond horrific and she had to be blaming herself right now. Neither of us could have ever predicted such a fate for these men, and we don’t know what actions they chose once they passed through the door. They must’ve done something to end up in this world, and to end up like this.

I just stand there, my mouth open, not believing, except the decapitated proof is sitting there in front of me; their heads further concrete evidence of the unfathomable tableau of this room. Monica’s eyes are weeping, twin trails running down the sides of her face, while the eyes stay wide open, as she forces herself to watch. Her hands covering her mouth to stop any sounds coming out.

I’m the first to move, to slowly close my mouth and take a step back, then the rest of the actions come easier. I grab Monica’s arm and simultaneously flick off the light switch. Although the room is flooded with darkness, the unforgettable image is still scored upon our retinas, but it does help . . . A little. Then I drag her out of the nightmare room and back onto the landing where life remains normal and almost serene. There’s a warm light from a decorative chandelier above. A small table against a wall for keys, change, and other everyday, ordinary-life ephemera. I find it . . . Grounding.

“Look, Monica. No keys or cellphone. Guess nobody’s home.”

Monica looks, her eyes staring but perhaps not seeing, like someone who hasn’t slept in three days and is just working on automatic. Then they do focus and it works.

“Were you really expecting someone?”

“Course not. But a guy can hope, right?”

[Snarky laugh]

“Time to check what’s waiting for us on the second floor.”

She mumbles something noncommittal; I’m with her there.

We start ascending and each step makes a sound like a body builder bending a two-by-four one way, then the other. I really hope there’s no snapping sound.  The stairs are also lit by the chandelier, and we take our time going up together, trying our best to somehow get over what we just saw, or at least compartmentalize it in some way. Push it away to the back of our minds where it will remain hidden and fester but at least be out of the way for now, as we face our next challenge.

The repetitive creaking of the stairs is almost hypnotic, and we absorb whatever catharsis we can from this now-rendered ordinary sound. It’s kind of a good mind clearer, like when you’re trying out different scents and then take a whiff of coffee beans to clean your nasal palate; or in this case, your mental palates.

And then we’re at the top, the second floor, and out of time. Our reluctance is equal, so there’s at least something we can share in this place.

“Any change with the artifact’s location?”

I shake my head. “Still feels like it’s in a bunch of places.”

“Could it be in pieces, like before?”

“I dunno. It . . . It doesn’t feel like that time. This feels different. Almost like it’s a smokescreen. Trying to trick me into thinking where it might be, like . . . Like it wants us to check every door.”

“Which we’re going to do anyway.”

“Yes. Unfortunately.”

The upstairs hallway is dimly lit by the complete opposite of the beautiful hanging chandelier on the landing: there’s a single twisted wire hanging from the ceiling around the middle of the hallway with a single naked bulb dangling from it. Somehow it’s swinging side to side like it’s on a pendulum or a metronome. The effect is every horror movie director’s wet dream: shadows spinning and morphing and changing into every nightmare imaginable. Was that a misshapen monster coming toward us? A curled human form dragging itself closer? Something oozing along the floor?

I know I’ve got a headache a-brewing from this fucked light show, and the way Monica’s shielding her eyes with her hands to try to help means she’s headed down the same migraine path. We need to speed this up. Get this over with, however bad it’s going to be.

[PAUSE]

“If you want to wait here, I’ll check the rooms.”

“Not on your fucking life. We’re not splitting up in this place. I thought you were a horror movie buff. What’s the first rule?”

[With a chuckle:] “Don’t split up.”

“Right. And I need to do this. I feel like this door is a test for me, as well as you. Steve might be on the other side of any of these doors.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“But if he’s like any of those other guys . . . I’m gonna lose my shit.”

“Me too. Come on.”

There are four doors, all on the same side of the hallway. I open the first door: it’s dark like the others. It feels like the artifact is in here, just like all the others, including the ones downstairs we already checked out. Nothing’s changed. I find the light switch in the same place as the others. At least something’s standard here. The light turns on and we wait five seconds to take in the scene.

It’s a library. Bookcases on three walls, a window on the last. In the center of the room is a desk with miscellaneous piles and old books and pens and quills and paper. A mishmash of everything escritorial. Behind the desk is a chair. In that chair is a man in camo fatigues slumped over on the desk. His arms are on either side of his head. His face is turned to the side, watching us where we stand just inside the door.

Buried in his skull is a sixteen-inch machete, part of the long knife sticking out with the yellow-white ivory handle; grooves that are brown and dirty with age. The rest of the knife has gone through the man’s head and buried itself in the wooden table to hold him there. There’s a little blood. A dried, dark red trickle running across his forehead and pooling on the table. The blood on the table is a lighter red, still a little wet because there’s more of it there. This tells us it didn’t happen that long ago.

I turn to Monica. Her look has hardened, but her eyes are glassy, wet, holding back the tears.

“It’s not him.”

“Good enough.”

I turn off the light and we leave, closing the door behind us.

[Short pause]

The next room. Light is turned on. We take it in. Then we turn to each other, wanting to look away from what we’re seeing. We put our heads together, holding each other, not wanting to hug, because that will force one of us to rest their head on a shoulder and be facing this.

The room is stark. Bare. No furniture. Just white walls. In the center of the room is an electric table saw. The biggest one I’ve ever seen. On . . .[BREATH] . . . On the floor are two halves of a man. They are spread about four feet apart. The insides of both halves are falling out like an open, tipped over can of chili or spaghetti-Os. No cauterizing here. It’s set up to infer that the man did this horrific act to himself. A suicide to never be forgotten.

I don’t know what Monica’s thinking, but I know this guy didn’t do this to himself. No matter what’s been happening to him on this side of Ostium, he would never choose to end his life this way. Some one or some thing did this to him.

Monica takes one more look at the face and then drags me out of the room.

I go willingly.

[Short pause.]

Two down. Two to go. It feels like they’ve been getting worse, but other than knowing there’s probably two more dead and disfigured bodies we have to face, there’s no real way to prepare yourself for this.

Monica opens the third door and turns on the light switch slowly. But once that electricity gets sent to the tungsten it goes . . . Well, at the speed of light. Except the room doesn’t light up with white, but red. With blood. Because there’s blood on the light bulb.  Blood everywhere. It’s a bedroom, or it was a bedroom. A bed, bedside table. Chest of drawers. But everything is covered in dripping, viscous blood. And also parts. Body parts. Big pieces. Small pieces. Here and there and everywhere. You don’t let your eyes focus on it too much, because then you might be able to identify what body part it originally belonged to. But there are also some . . . [clearing throat] . . . Ropes. Stringy, twisting vines that can only be . . . Intestines. What is all here may once have been a complete human being, likely a man, but it’s very hard to tell. There are also small pieces of burgundy cloth. If these were washed and cleaned they might be camouflage colors.

And then I see it on the floor, a couple yards away from me. It’s the only piece in the room that isn’t covered in blood. It’s . . . [Said with horror] An eyeball. I also know now, more than any room in this house so far, that it’s the artifact. I don’t let Monica know, I just take one careful big step into the blood.

[Disgust] “Jake, what the fuck?”

I reach down and pick up the eyeball like it’s a delicate egg. It hard. Hard like an eyeball isn’t, because this really is the artifact. Now that I have it close I can see where there should be a pupil there’s a black O. For Ostium.

“It’s the artifact.”

I carefully step back, my foot peeling off the floor like it’s attached to fly-paper. I ground the sole of my shoe into the carpeted floor to clean off what blood I can. Then I close the door and we’re done with this fucking place.

“Okay. Let’s go. The blackness is on its way, but we’ve still got plenty of time.”

“What about the last door?”

“What about it? We have the artifact. We’ve got what we need. Time to go back to Ostium.”

“This is Ostium. And we need to know who or what’s behind that last door.”

“Because?”

“Because . . . Steve.”

I don’t need to say anything. I give a small nod and follow her down the hall. I don’t want to point out that that wreck in the last room that looks like something Pinhead from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser got at could’ve also been Steve. Maybe she would’ve known. Somehow.

At the fourth door I keep back, letting Monica open it. My work here is pretty much done, I’m just here to watch now, I guess.

I step into the room beside her. Hear her take a breath. Then she turns on the light.

It’s another empty room. But there’s a man. He started at the far end of the room, beneath the window. There’s a massive blood stain on the wall below the window. Maybe a gunshot, or multiple gunshots. Then he dragged himself along the floor. The blood trail makes that abundantly clear. He’s only a couple feet from us now, face down on the ground. He looks pretty dead.

And then I see the words.

[Alarm] “Monica!”

I step further into the room, getting close to the man, so I can read what it says. The look on Monica’s face says she’s already done that.

In the man’s own blood, with his finger, he has written two lines on the linoleum floor.

The top line says: IT’S YOUR FAULT.

The bottom: ONLY YOU CAN STOP IT, MONICA.

My eyes widen, making it feel like my eyeballs may just fall right out of my skull. The blood writing looks very fresh. I kneel down and check the man for a pulse. No. He’s gone. I look at Monica.

“What the fuck does this mean?”

Her faced is confused, then angry, then undecided. What the hell is going on here?

[Angry] “I said: what the fuck does this mean?”

She closes her eyes and takes a breath again.

“Do we have time? Before the blackness,” she quietly says.

Damnnit. I close my eyes and concentrate.

[Angry] “Fuck.”

I get up and storm out of the bedroom. I don’t know if Monica’s following, and right now I don’t give a shit. I thunder down the stairs and out the front door. The blackness is definitely getting closer. I hear Monica close behind me now. I start jogging. She keeps pace. I go faster. She keeps pace. I start running as fast as I can. She keeps pace. This just pisses me off more.

We reach the door and I step through, again not caring if she comes with me. I half want to slam the thing in her face, but I don’t.

Then we’re back at the clock tower, we’re going to have words.

[PAUSE]

I go straight to the map table, noticing that number 201 is gold. Monica did take care of this yesterday. Guess she can be trusted about that. The anger is seething through me. I don’t think I’ve ever been this mad before. Definitely not at Monica. I don’t really understand or comprehend it. It’s like it’s been building and building, but I didn’t know about it. Didn’t feel it. Weighty baggage. It’s like I’ve forgotten . . . No, I have forgotten. I can’t remember stuff. And it’s because of her. It’s gotta be. It’s what I’ve thought, but never had the proof. And now a man has sacrificed his life to give me that proof.

I look up from the map table, the eyeball artifact hovering over the number, ready to be placed and complete the process. I look at Monica with fury.

[Afraid] “Jake. I . . . I can explain.”

[Furious] “Can you?”

[Pleadingly.] “Yes.” 

She’s reaching into her pockets and drawing out . . . gloves? Silvery gloves? They look like Michael Jackson’s sequined single glove. What the hell? But seeing them has made something happen in my brain. A spark. A thought. An idea. A . . . Memory. Of those gloves. Coming to me. Doing something to me.

But what?

Monica is coming towards me now, with the gloves on. She’s saying something, but I can’t hear. The blood is rushing in my ears, to my brain.

And then I remember.

And drop the artifact.

It lands near today’s number, stays there for a moment, then rolls on to it. Blood-red ruby light explodes up from the number, engulfing the eyeball, and pulling it into the map table.

The number turns to gold.

And everything turns to night.

Something’s not right. Again. But it’s not with Ostium. It’s . . . It’s with me. I’m not right. Somethings wrong. With me. And I’m . . . I’m really fucking scared. I’m . . . I’m recording this while Monica is out. She said she wanted to take a walk downtown, clear her head or something, and look at some of the doors. I said sure, it gives me time to do a recording. A private recording. About what’s happening to me. Or at least what I think is happening to me.

[CLEARS THROAT]

Okay.

~~~

Today began like it has for the last couple of days. With me waking up in Monica’s bed, next to Monica. And she’s usually naked, as I ma, which is totally awesome. Sorry, definitely still enjoying this honeymoon period of great sex that I hope never ends. But it’s weird. I feel different in the mornings, now, when I wake up. I don’t want to talk to Monica about it, at least not yet. Maybe down the road a bit, when I can make more sense of it, I might. It just seems . . . Superficial right now, like it’s not really something to get all worked up about. Even though that’s exactly what I’m doing. Because I just don’t feel right . .  Right in my mind . . . In my right mind. Things are hazy and fuzzy like a bunch of pink cotton candy got stuffed into my skull. And then, as things start to clear, I find I can’t remember things exactly, or as well as I did the day before. All the important stuff is there just fine. My history, memories of my life before Ostium, my family, my work, all the thousands of books I’ve read, even the bad ones, unfortunately.

There goes that photographic memory again.

Hey, come on, I haven’t mentioned it in a . . . while.

It’s the more recent stuff that’s iffy. The really recent stuff. About Ostium. I remember all the doors and all the important stuff about Ostium, except . . . [COUGH] What I need to remember that I can’t anymore. It’s to do with how Ostium was making me feel. I’m not sure. What effect Ostium was having on me. Something about what I thought of Ostium. Going through those doors. Finding the artifact. Bringing it back. Putting it in the map table. Like there’s a price that’s exacted on something or someone to be doing this. I know I’ve thought of it recently through the laws of nature. You knows those, right? The one about every action having an equal and opposite reaction. And the other one about energy, and how you can’t ever destroy energy, just transform it into something else. Well, I feel like I’ve thought about this in relation to Ostium on a number of occasions. I even feel like I’ve talked with Monica about it. But it’s like it’s not there anymore. I can’t remember the details or salient points or what I was trying to say about it. They’re just blurs now, hazy intuitions that tell me nothing.

And the real reason this has got me so freaked out is because even though I can’t remember this stuff, I can remember something else that’s way more scary. I can remember that yesterday I didn’t remember this stuff at first, but then I worked at it, to try to jog my memory, and then I did remember it. And now, on this new day, it’s all gone again. I don’t know why. And I’ve been trying since I woke up – so for like two hours – to remember it, and it’s just not there anymore, or I can’t access it.

So yesterday I couldn’t remember but then I made myself remember.

Today, I can’t even do that.

And . . . I’m fucking terrified about it. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t  . . . I don’t know what’s happening to me.

Okay . . . [BREATH] I think I’ve made my point, for now. Oh, and I hear Monica coming back, so I need to pull it together and go find where our next door is.

~ ~ ~

I’ve got a moment while Monica takes a quick shower and then we’re going to head out for the next door. When she got back I had a quick chat about me doing some live recordings. Her immediate reaction was a big fucking no. She wants to keep out of all that stuff and focus on getting the artifacts and getting the hell out of there before the blackness starts coming in like a racing San Francisco Fog (he’s called Carl by the way, the fog of the City by the Bay), and find Steve. I cooled her down a bit and explained myself. I said it’s hard at the end of the day to remember every single detail and thing that happened, especially if there’s a lot of shit going on. And how talking and narrating it as it’s happening might help me figure out why Ostium is doing this to me and constantly putting me in pieces of my past. This pretty much convinced her but I added some icing about how I always end up doing my spiel in front of her once I recognize where we are, and what’s the harm in recording it as it happens. It’ll save me having to repeat myself later and try to remember what I said. Plus, doing it then and there always makes me remember and monologue it way better. I reminded her about the guided tour of the Catalina Casino Building courtesy of yours truly. This got me a smile.

As for recording, I can set my phone to record and I’ve noticed before that it picks up sound really well, even when it’s in my pocket. Impressively well. Like there’s something helping it record that clearly, or there’s something . . . Perhaps supernatural about the recording app I use. Maybe it’s those Ostium waves buzzing around us all the time. Who knows.

The other big reason I want to start doing this is because of the stuff I talked about earlier, with my memory issues. Some weird shit has been going on with me, and I don’t know what’s causing it, but I do know recording everything as it happens like this can only help me try to figure it out and ultimately help get my memory back.

There’s also one point I have to make real quick before I run out of time and let my subconscious slap me for even thinking or saying this, but: what if Monica has something to do with it? What if she’s causing this to happen to me?

I know, I know. It sounds crazy. What with all the sex and how great we are together and how it really seems like I make her happy. I know she makes me happy. And we’re a team. So, it’s a couple hundred miles beyond far-fetched . . . And yet. I just don’t know. It’s a big if.

But it’s still an if.

~ ~ ~

On our way to the door I let Monica know my prediction: that this door will lead us to somewhere in the future.

“And how do you know that?” she asks.

I tell her about the pattern Ostium has been following so far: a door into the past, followed by another door into the past, then a door into the future, and then a door from my own past.

“So now we’re due for a door from the future?”

“Yep,” I say.

“And tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll be taking a trip down your memory lane?”

“Er, yeah. As you say: if all goes well.”

“I’ll call your bluff. Let’s see.”

I lead us to a door in the east wall of Ostium. It’s number 201. I grab her hard, open the door, and we go in together.

It closes behind us and there’s just darkness. I swear it lasts a second or two longer than usual, testing us. Or as Monica would say: “It’s just Ostium fucking with us.”

Then there’s a whooshing sound and the door in front of us splits open into two doors, each side receding into the wall. Before us is a whole lot of metal: metal walls, metal ceiling, metal floor. I hear a humming. There’s some sort of indirect lighting that you can’t really see, and yet you can see the hall in front of us just fine. I step out, not wanting the doors to close on us and somehow trap us in some sort of Ostium limbo.

I actually shiver at this thought.

“Yeah, let’s not get stuck in there,” Monica says, joining me.

Within a single look we both know the same thing: the hallway we’re standing in is awesomely futuristic.

“I should’ve made you place a bet on my prediction.”

She just gives me a look. Too soon I guess.

It’s a hallway of doors, as hallways tend to be. Though these doors are all cool Star Trek looking ones that whoosh open as you approach them, but it all feels kind of overwhelming here. Our door has remained open for a bit and now closes once we move away from it. OSTIUM is imprinted across it in big red letters. So we’ll be able to see it from pretty far away.

I walk up to another door, it opens and gives me a view of another hallway with lots of other doors. I try a few more, Monica tagging along, and we find more of the same. This is starting to tell me either we’re in a really big spaceship – like that George R. R. Martin short story series, no, not the one about knights and dragons and Westeros; it was about this crazy spaceman called Tuf and his travels across the galaxy in a ship that was literally multiple kilometers long. Alternatively, we could be on something like a space station, or a settled planet with future tech, or something else entirely. My mind is flipping through science fiction ideas and possibilities I’ve read like John Cusack flipping through his vinyl in the High Fidelity movie. I’m also very excited about being here and the possibilities of what we’re actually standing on.

“Why’s you’re hand so sweaty?”

“Er . . .” And then I tell her where we could be.

“So basically this is a scifi wet dream for you.”

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

Then I see a box-like shape on the right wall ahead. I jog up to it. It has a small viewer panel in the front, like you’re supposed to lean in and look at it, or look through it maybe, to see what’s on the other side. Maybe I’ll be able to get an idea where we are, or at least see what space looks like on the other side of this wall.

I put my face to the viewer panel and a frame extends out to block out light and allows me to focus better. I rest my face against the frame, which is supportive and comfortable. What I see on the other side defies my logic at first. I just can’t wrap my mind around what I’m seeing. Because it takes time. I pull away and look at Monica with a dry lake-bed of frown lines on my forehead.

“Lemme take a look, braniac.”

She peers in and watches for about ten seconds, then she pulls away.

“I don’t get it. It’s a big bright ball. Really bright. Really big. Is it like the opposite of the Death Star or something?”

I just shake my head, my brain working in overdrive, going through those science fiction ideas now like a flip-book, and then I suddenly find what I’m looking for.

“No, it’s much more than that. Though one hundred points to Gryffindor for the Star Trek reference.”

“I believe that’s Star Wars!”

“Another hundred points! I was testing you. No, it’s not just a big bright ball. It’s a fucking star. We’re in a Dyson Sphere.”

~ ~ ~

The Dyson Sphere is one of those distant future science fiction ideas, you know, along with teleporters and FTL drives (that’s faster than light for you Luddites). The kind we’re not going to see in our lifetimes, but then neither will our grandchildren, or our great great grandchildren. It’s named after the physicist and mathematician, Freeman Dyson. He formalized the concept in 1960 in a paper for the journal Science, entitled “Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-Red Radiation.” But let’s keep it simple and straightforward.

“For us idiot tourists?” Monica says.

I just not gonna touch that. Not with a ten-foot pole. Not even to try and make a joke out of it.

It’s the concept about a distant, future civilization. If we’re talking about Earth and humanity, we’re looking at least a few thousand years in the future. It’s basically an extremely technologically advanced civilization that’s also like super massive. A population in the trillions probably, and they’ve conquered the galaxy. If we look at our planet again, we’re talking about expanding beyond our solar system and we’ve colonized and live on every planet, moon, meteor and asteroid that we can safely inhabit. We’re talking more advanced than Star Trek and more advanced than Star Wars. It’s all about power and energy. When you’re running a galactic empire, you need a lot of juice to keep it going. And what has more energy in the universe than a star? Dyson’s idea was to create some sort of containment  . . . Er, contraption around the star. So we’re talking massive size. And this Dyson Sphere would somehow harness the energy of the star.

“That sounds . . .”

“Yeah,” is my terse reply.

Imagine a humongous solar panel that’s big enough to encircle a star. You’re talking about a beaucoup amount of wattage.

“And that’s where we are: inside a Dyson Sphere?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure from what I can see through the viewer. It’s always been a theoretical concept. Some science fiction authors have used it, like Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, and Robert J. Sawyer. In TV, there was actually an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that featured a Dyson Sphere from an alien civilization, I think it was called ‘Relics.”

“You think?”

I can’t help smiling. “No. I know it was called that. Actually Dyson himself said he was partly inspired by the works of Olaf Stapledon and Edgar Rice Burroughs, to name a few, before he came up with his eponymous sphere. Come on.”

I lead the way up the corridor, wanting to see as much of this place as I can before we run out of time. It actually feels like being on an episode of Star Trek, except those were all sets and this is the real deal. But this means we’re surrounded by technology that’s millennia into our future. At the same time, this place is huge. Massive. We have to be constructive in how we look around. As usual, the most important thing is to locate and collect the artifact. So that’s what I’m focusing on.

I take a deep breath, clear my mind, and concentrate on where I’m being drawn.

Monica knows what I’m doing and now she’s frowning at me as I narrate this. I’m peaking at her. It’s kind of cute. And now I’ve got a smile.

Back to honing in. I can feel it, that gentle pull I’ve become so familiar and comfortable with, drawing me along. We pass through a door as it whooshes open, then another, and then another. We go through five doors, and it feels like each successive room we enter I can see more details of this incredible advanced civilization and want to spend valuable time studying it, but can’t. Plus Monica’s ready to drag me along if I start to dawdle. And then we’re in a hangar-sized room. It’s just overwhelmingly huge. And I’m immediately reminded of that exhibit room in the base on Mars with pieces of Earth’s past in its exploration of the red planet. Here there are displays and tables and glass cases like little glass houses showcasing this civilization’s history. We’re passing between them and I’m just catching snippets. Objects of history I can’t quite recognize. Datapads and screens displaying information. I think I catch sight of what might be ancient, brittle paper. That’s when I start wondering. What if? Could it be?

Then I see a display about twenty feet away in a glass care. It’s a photo, a big photo. I recognize it. All too well.

My legs turn cold, then to jelly and I collapse to the floor. I haven’t felt like this since I went through the infinity door, back in the office where I worked. Because I’ve just witnessed an impossibility. Something that simply should not be.

Monica didn’t see it, but like before, she’s there by my side, helping me.

“What was it?”

I raise a shaking arm and try to lift a finger, but can’t. I point my chin in the general direction, and Monica helps me walk over. The closer we get, the clearer it is to me. After a few steps, Monica recognizes who’s in the photo, slows down. She looks at me, but doesn’t understanding. I don’t either. But I keep going, pulling her along more now that she’s helping me.

We reach it and I stare in both confusion and awe at a giant-sized photo of me, one of my old Facebook profile pics. I think Brandon took it. Maybe it was a selfie? Holy shit. It was. Like one of the first and only one’s I ever took of myself.

What the fuck is it doing in a museum thousands of years in the future?

~ ~ ~

Fortunately there’s a screen below the photo of me with a big block of text. Even more fortunately it’s in English. I don’t need to start reading it to know that the star this Dyson Sphere is encircling is ours. The sun. Sol. The one belonging to our solar system. And then Monica and I start reading.

~ ~ ~

Jake Matthew Fisher. A savior of humanity? In a time of strife and suffering, where the number of dead was an everyday mounting number, there was purportedly one who changed that, who helped those in need, who rescued those who were lost. It is a period now deep in our history, millennia ago, where much of the history and knowledge has been lost. But this is one story that has survived across the ages, carried through time and across space by word of mouth, by text, by subsonic message, who knows? We no longer know the when, or the how, or even the why. All we know is the what.

The What: What records we have are vague and their accuracy is in question, but sometime during the earlier part of the twenty-first century Planet Earth was hit with a bizarre series of catastrophic events that seemed to come out of nowhere. They occurred unexpectedly and at random across the globe. It is not known exactly how many people died from each horrific event, but that number was at the minimum in the thousands and likely reached into the tens and potentially hundreds of thousands.

The Events: While this is not thought to be a complete list of the catastrophic events experienced by our home planet during these troublesome times, this list is as complete as possible (any further events or details discovered will be added to this list as needed). Original terminology has been used for these events; you can research further using your datapad and the museum application.

Radiation: Due to a nuclear plant malfunction, a radioactive cloud spread across the continent of Europe.

Virus: A devastating new strain of the Ebola virus erupted in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Earthquake: A tectonic tremor of a level never seen before occurred in the western Pacific Ocean, generating a record-sized tsunami or tidal wave that swept across Japan and the east coast of China.

Tanker: A ship carrying crude oil ran aground along the south coast of Britain and the polluting oil reached the coasts of France and Spain.

United States: A series of mass disappearances struck the United States of America during this time, specifically the state of California, where it is thought Jake lived. The concept of people or groups of people going missing has a deep and disturbing history throughout the world. Some notable ones include the Lost Colony of Roanoke in the United States; a sailing vessel called the Mary Celeste in the Atlantic Ocean. An island off the coast of California called Catalina had its entire population suddenly disappear. The great city of San Francisco had a mass of its people in the center suddenly vanish. The Northern California coastal town of Fort Bragg somehow suffered a similar fate when all the people simply vanished.

While these strange disappearances don’t seem to relate to the aforementioned catastrophic events, according to the literature, they are always mentioned together.

The Legend: As with all stories that had their genesis moment long ago and have been passed down through time via various means, the question of their veracity always comes into consideration. But what can perhaps be considered a tenant of these tales, these legends and fables, is at the heart there is an important kernel of truth. With the story of Jake Matthew Fisher, it is perhaps impossible to separate the fact from fiction, so here we give you the whole story as we have been able to deduce from the research. Again, if you research yourself, you will find a multitude of alternate, parallel, and conflicting theories on this enigmatic and mysterious person. We seek here to present you with the simplest and most concrete version of thes tale.

At some point after all these strange and terrible events, it is unclear how much time, whether months or years or decades or perhaps even centuries, all the people were somehow, suddenly and irrevocably returned to life and restored to where they lived. One moment they were gone, nonexistent; and the next they were brought back. The catastrophic events, the damage; all was undone as if it had never happened. And all those many, many people were hale and healthy again. What Jake Matthew Fisher had to do with this, that remains unknown and mysterious, but for every single one of these people that came back, his name was the first word on their lips.

~ ~ ~

I was dumbstruck and awestruck and numbstruck, and any other kind of -struck you can think of. I just didn’t know how to take it. I felt like Harry Potter finding out it was up to him to defeat Voldemort (yeah, I said his name!); or Frodo learning that he would have to travel to Mordor to destroy the One Ring (My precious); or Luke (or Leia) finding out he (or she) was the one (there is another) hope. I fucking felt like King Ralph finding out he was next in line to become King of England. It was impossible, inconceivable and overwhelming and . . . And . . . Not me. Not me. NOT ME! I can’t do it. It’s too much. It’s too fucking much!

“Jake. Jake! You need to calm down!”

I mean. If it’s me. All me. ALL ME! I . . . I . . . I have to make the right decision. The exact right decision. To be precise. Infinitesimally perfect, to make it so all the events slot perfectly into play. The ultimate fucking domino fall across time and space. But . . . But . . . But! If I don’t get it right. If I don’t get it right. Exactly right. Then history will be different. History will be changed. All those people won’t somehow . . . Miraculously . . . come back to life. They’ll be dead. Forever. And it’ll be my fault. All my fault. All on me . . . And . . . And . . . And that means the present will be changed. Because if you change the past then the present gets changed. And that means it affects us. Here and right fucking now. And if that happens then maybe we just . . . Completely . . . Fucking . . . Cease . . . To . . . Exist.

~ ~ ~

That’s when a part of me comes back to reality. The part of me that’s able to speak in complete sentences right now. And sees Monica watching me lose it. Watching me completely break down. And that’s when I watch her reach into her pockets and take out these silverly-looking gloves. She slips them on with ease, like she’s done it a thousand times before. She holds her hands a foot apart and this bright, white beam of electricity passes between them, sparking and snapping like the ultimate bug zapper.

She looks at me  and I can’t hear what she says because it’s so noisy and I’m simultaneously losing my mind, but I’m able to read her lips: I’m sorry, Jake.

And then she comes at me fast and everything g . . .

~ ~ ~

Man. I’m fuzzy again. Extra fuzzy. What the fuck happened to me? I pulling myself into a sitting up position. The world spins for a second and then settles, like it suddenly remembered the fundamental law of gravity.

I’m in bed, in the clock tower, in Ostium.

What . . . Happened?

And then I see Monica come in with a glass of water and a drink and she explained it all to me.

“We went through one of the doors. 201 I think. And you said we were in a thing called a Dyson Sphere. You were nerding out pretty hard. Giving me the full tour. You were honing in on the artifact. Said you knew it was in this room. And you found it. This little metal ball. Looked like a ping-pong ball sized Death Star. And then you turned white. White as fucking milk. I ran to you, but you collapsed before I could reach you. Smacked your head on the ground something hard. It made my head ache just hearing it. You were out cold. And then I heard the blackness. Coming fast. Because you weren’t doing your magic trick with it. So I didn’t waste time. Threw you over my shoulder like the combat soldier I am, and hoofed it back through the door to here. You’ve been out for about two hours. But you still look like shit.”

“Thanks. I feel like it.” I look at my pale arms. My skin feels clammy; I’m sweaty; hot and cold.

“I’m gonna let you rest now. Catch some shut eye. If you sleep through the night. Good.”

“Thanks,” I say again, laying my head back down on the pillow.

There’s a strange look in her eyes, it’s like she’s happy to see me, but not completely. She also looks scared. I don’t get it.

She leaves, closing the door quietly.

As I feel sleep taking its hold over me again, I think. I think about how everything Monica just told me means nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because I can’t remember a single thing. And this feels like it’s not the first time it’s happened . . .

I’m so fucking scared . . .

The place is called Rapa Nui, or as it is better known, Easter Island. You know. That tiny island way the hell out in the ass end of the Pacific, far west of Chile. I think it was around there Captain Cook and his crew had trouble finding basic things like food and water. And I don’t remember if it was around there that the boat . . . er, the Essex, had its problems with a troublesome whale that basically sank the ship and left a bunch of guys stuck in a couple of whaling boats fending for themselves, and eventually they had to fend off each other too, as in that taboo most people don’t like to talk about. No. Not incest. Cannibalism.

Think it was around there.

And that’s where we’ve been taken today, courtesy of Ostium. Through door number 222, which ended up being a nice, normal door on the regular old streets of Ostium. Find the origin of that mental tug, turn the handle, step inside. Done. Aaaand get transported back to some point between the eighth and nineteenth centuries, though it looks to be more on the earlier side with the whole lushness of vegetation and trees surrounding us. But we’ll get to that in due course.

I don’t know what it is, but I feel especially spiffy today. Just on top of the world, pretty much. I’m not gonna lie, I am a little achy from last night’s . . . er, let’s say romp. Well, more like last afternoon’s that lasted into the night. We did get some food in us . . . Eventually. But this morning, after a very restful night’s sleep, I’m just feeling A-OK. Like everything is going just right with the world. Of course, our world is a little different now, since we’re no longer connected to it, and there’s really only Ostium, but let’s not put a dampener on things. It does seem like it might get a little boring sometimes, going through a new door every day, getting taken to another world and time, but doing it over and over again, bringing that artifact back each time. Putting it on the map table. Oh, and we did eventually manage to add that piece of pottery from the Anasazi settlement to the map table, so don’t worry about us forgetting about it. All done and taken care of, albeit a little delayed when compared to our usual rigorous schedule.

But life is just grand right now. Can’t get me enough Ostium. Even though it’s not always clear what we’re doing all of this for. But at least there were no more bodies of those men that Monica sent through a door to deal with. I talked a little more with Monica about them and just what bad people they were. I’m never one to condone violence, and the thought of killing is . . . Anathema is a strong word, but it’s not hard enough. Abhorrent. The thought of killing another human being is abhorrent to me, but when hearing about what those men were like. What they did to Monica and Steve. How their lives were ruined because of it. How finding Ostium was a godsend. It gave Steve an exit, a place of release, somewhere to get away. And then when Monica had no choice, she had to follow, to end the pain and suffering, and follow her heart. It just feels right. Both what Steve and Monica had to do, but also what those men did to them, how they treated them . . . It’s almost like they got what they deserved. And she didn’t outright mur . . . Kill them. She sent them through that door alive and well. If they didn’t know what they were getting into, they should’ve stayed away. They came once, found nothing. That should’ve been it. But no. They had to come back for more. To be sure. And they got what they deserved.

How those we’ve found so far died remains a mystery. Perhaps their deaths were carried out somewhat peacefully. Maybe it didn’t hurt when the end came. Perhaps the blackness came and swallowed them hole. Atomized them. Then reconstituted them in another place, another time, and that’s how we found them. Lives gone, bodies left. Whether we’ll find more remains to be seen. The coast was all clear yesterday at least.

And as for Steve. His circumstances were very different for entering into Ostium and its doors. Akin to ours one would say. Just like Monica, I believe he is alive in there somewhere. We’ve just got to find him. It’s our job now, not just Monica’s. He’s got to be very lost and we need to help him. I have my own part to play in finding out what Ostium wants with me and why I am intrinsically tied to it, but also to find Steve alive and well. Of hale heart and mind. Those are our goals.

~ ~ ~

But getting back to Easter Island. Rapa Nui. It means “Big Rapa,” coined after the slave raids of the 1860s. According to the evidence, archeology, and what historians have been able to deduce, the island was first settled sometime in the eighth century, presumably from people reaching the island by ship. Well, not presumably, certainly. They didn’t have any other way. They couldn’t exactly fly from South America to the island. Right? But they must’ve enjoyed a wealthy time of prosperity with all the growing vegetation and abundant wildlife that had been protected for so long in isolation. Like all islands that have little interaction with other places, when people or invading species first land on the island, pretty much all the fauna there doesn’t know what to expect. They’ve never seen anything like this invading being before and don’t know to necessarily run in fear and/or terror before they’re attacked and killed. Capturing and eating that original wildlife must’ve been pretty easy.

But as the population grew, the toll on the resources of the island began to rise. The big problem with an island is that those resources are never infinite: eventually you’re going to run out of food. Of wood from trees for building stuff. Or vegetation for using however you see fit. This seems very likely what started to happen to the people of Rapa Nui. And then the island was discovered and more outsiders came, and the slave traders, and everything pretty much went to hell for them.

Nowadays, there are some descendants surviving, getting by with what remains, and profiting a little from the considerable tourist trade.

So, getting back briefly to the name Rapa Nui, Big Rapa. So named because of its resemblance to the island of Rapa in the Bass Islands of the Austral Islands Group. Though the explorer Thor Heyerdahl thought it was the other way around. Te pito o te henua or “the Navel of the World” is also purported to be its original name. And according to oral tradition, its original name might’ve also been Te pito o te kainga a Hau Maka, or “the little piece of land of Hau Maka.” And the Spanish refer to it as La Isla de Pascua. But enough about white dudes asserting their right to naming an island with native peoples they know next to nothing about.

Let’s move on to what the big draw is to tourists and archaeologists and explorers and anthropologists each year.

The Moai.

They are the mighty stone monoliths carved by the people of Rapa Nui between 1250 and 1500. If you’ve never seen one before it’s like a big thick stone statue, with the head about a third the size of the body. The chest is bare, nipples carved in relief, and lines along the sides likely describing arms. They’d make great door stoppers, you know, for likely a really big giant. In earlier times the statues were scrubbed to a smooth surface with pumice rock. Since it’s a volcanic island this wasn’t too hard to find, though apparently this smooth surface erodes pretty quickly with the natural elements. The Moai are thought to represent chieftains, leaders and important ancestors of the Rapa Nui. The more recent Moai had representative topknots of the chieftains they were meant to be, known as pukao, made from a reddish rock known as red scoria.

While a large number of moai were left at the quarry site, there were still over 900 that were dragged to various sites all over the island using a system of sledges and sheer human strength. Though that’s where a lot of those trees went: into making those giants sledges to carry those giant, heavy rocks.  The tallest moai, called Paro, was 33 feet high and weighed over 90 tons; the heaviest moai Ahu Tongariki weighed an impressive 95 tons. One unfinished moai would’ve been a true giant among the rest of the moai, weighing almost 298 tons and would’ve been a whopping 69 feet tall.

Yeah, I know. Hold on to your butts.

~ ~ ~

And here we are on Rapa Nui from long ago. It’s an island full of life and greenery. Of course, there’s no real sign of animal life but everything floral is having a hell of a time. And there are a few moai around making themselves proudly known, standing majestic on green hills looking down on their creators with all the power and dignity the creators were trying to imbue them with. It’s . . . It’s fucking incredible. It’s like seeing the pyramids how they were originally, or that perfect looking Sphinx, or the original pristine Golden Gate Bridge, that magnificent looking Statue of Liberty, a bright shining beacon from afar, and that pinnacle of architectural excellence, the Eiffel Tower.

Dragging Monica behind me, I run over to the nearest one, which happens to be about a hundred yards away, so it actually takes a bit of running, but the closer I get the more I can feel Monica speeding up, then matching me, feeling the thrill of Ostium and this door, and this unique, incredible place. We reach the giant moai together, out of breath, like a couple of kids racing each other down the hill to the park. She seems just as ecstatic as me to be this close to something this awesome.

We just bask in its majesty, its perfection, until we regain our composure .

The very surface of the moai shines, and sheens in the sunlight, giving it an almost ethereal look, as if it were something sent down from on high by a greater power.

“So, in case you haven’t guessed, the artifact is up there somewhere.”

“What? Are you fucking kidding me? Of course. Of course it is. This is fucking Ostium! This sorta shit isn’t scripted.”

“The good thing is, after the last door, I’ve gotten pretty good at climbing, if you catch my drift.”

“No kidding. Well, the good thing is I’ll be right under you ready to catch your ass when you fall.”

“Good. That definitely helps my confidence. But no checking out my ass while I’m climbing.”

“Honey . . . That’s all I’m going to be checking out.”

With one giant shit-eating grin on my face, I start climbing. While the surface is pretty smooth, there are lines and carvings here and there to give the body of this big moai definition. Using these, I ascend from the side of the moai. This guy’s a big sucker, probably around thirty feet. But I’m in the zone now: skillfully using my hands and feet to find whatever crevice or handhold I can use to hoist myself up higher. I’m not sure where the artifact is on the moai, but it’s up there somewhere. Because this is one of the older moai, not the ones that will get made two or three hundred years in the future, there’s no topknot or pukao to deal with, just a big head with a triangular nose and those divots for eyes. I bet it’s in one of the eye sockets. Can’t really be anywhere else.

I start to wonder why Monica didn’t offer to climb the moai. She probably could’ve done it in a half or a third of the time that I’m doing it, and made it look good. I wouldn’t have been worrying about her falling at any point, unlike she is with me. I give her a brief look down and she sends me back an encouraging wink.

I got this.

But this isn’t for her. She’s looking for Steve. I’m all about the artifacts and the place. That’s my domain. So it just wouldn’t be right to have her do this part. It’s not a chivalry thing, it’s just the way things are done in Ostium. For all I know, Monica could try and find the artifact and not find it at all. She doesn’t have my honing sense, but also it might not appear to her. It might simply cease to exist. Just like she can’t get through the doors on her own. She needs me.

Huh. It’s something I haven’t thought too much about before. I knew she needed me to help her, with Steve, and continuing through the doors of Ostium, but when I lay it out like this, Monica is basically helpless without me when it comes to this place. She couldn’t do a thing without me. It gives me power over her, which being Monica, I’m sure she’s not a fan of.

But it hadn’t really occurred to me before. Interesting.

Okay, I got this.

I’m starting to feel close to this moai, not just because of physical closeness, but because we’re going through a lot together, with he being the vessel for the artifact and my having to climb all over him.

You might say there’s something between us . . . Or not.

I reach the sculpture’s eyes and find them sunken and empty.

Great.

I have no other option but to keep going up and at the very top of the moai on the flat surface of his head I find it.

It’s a little birdman effigy. Well, to be exact, it’s half man half bird. It happened a little later during the span of the Rapa Nui culture, as the leadership veered from the sole chiefs to a warrior class. That birdman figure was the symbol of the warrior class. Seems kind of weird and interesting at the same time to see it here, since it’s thought with the rise of this “birdman cult” as it’s known, they’re pretty sure the construction of moai stopped. Nevertheless, I know it’s the artifact. I pick it up, feeling its stony weight, and put it safely in a pocket.

And then begins the fun of climbing back down this sucker, which is never as easy as climbing up. Monica is watching me below. I give her the thumbs up, turn around and start inching myself down. It’s going okay, I’m taking it real slow; watching where my feet go, making sure they have a solid purchase and then easing myself towards the ground, while gravity keeps trying to make me do it much faster . . . And easier. It’s about halfway down that what I thought was a secure foothold turns out not to be. Maybe there’s a bit of dirt or moisture or moss there. Whatever it is, my foot slips and with that goes my leg and then the rest of me. Then I’m falling backward and away from the moai. I have time to think I’ll land on my back which hopefully won’t be too bad. I lift my head to avoid a cranial collision and cry out “Monica!”

And then I land. On Monica. But it really isn’t that bad. She’s absorbed and fallen back with my fall, letting my trajectory bring her to the ground. We’re both a little sore and bruised but nothing like I would’ve been if she hadn’t been there to catch me. I roll off of her, our breaths once again strong and fast. I look at her and see her looking at me. We start giggling and then laughing really loud. It’s a combination of fear and release and feels great. And then I’m crawling over to her and kissing her. And she’s kissing back and it’s just awesome. Our hands run over our bodies and soon belts are loosened and clothing is shed. Monica like some prophylactic magician whips out a condom from somewhere and that’s when I know we won’t have to cut this canoodling session short.

“Wait,” she says as I’m about to start. “What about the blackness.”

“Don’t worry. I’m holding it back. We’ve got time.”

“Sure. But don’t make it too quick, okay?”

I give her my winning, beaming smile, and then I’m kissing her again.

~ ~ ~

We make it back to the door in time before the blackness reaches us. Not a ton of time, but a decent cushion. It’s clearly visible, speedily making its way toward us.

Just before we step through, Monica turns to me and says: “And in case you’re wondering: we’re totally in the mile high Ostium club now. It’s only members.” Then she’s gone.

On the other side it’s back to the clock tower and this time we take care of the artifact on the map table right away. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it before, but from one nerd to another, doing this definitely reminds me of Ghostbusters, after they’ve caught the ghosts in the trap and put it in the storage containment with the extremely powerful protection grid.

Light is green. Trap is clean. And it actually is an iridescent green in this case.

~ ~ ~

Over dinner I talk more about Rapa Nui with Monica and that’s when a thought occurs that I voice across the table: if we were in an earlier time of the Rapa Nui culture, when the moai were pretty new, the population would’ve been considerable. In the many thousands. It wasn’t until later, centuries later, that there was a decline and deforestation and people started dying. And after the slave trade the population obviously plummeted. At one point it was as low as 111 people. But we weren’t there at any of those times. It was much earlier when the people were plentiful and happy. And now they’re not there anymore. Snuffed out because of Ostium. Because of the door. And because of me.

These are the thoughts that begin piling onto my conscience like a football being smothered by a hill of football players: nothing can stop it.

Monica tells me I can’t think like that. There’s no way of knowing. Why would Ostium be doing this if all those people were dying because of it. It just doesn’t make sense. There has to be a better reason. A better purpose for all this.

This appeases me a little, but not fully. I tell her she’s right and move on to another conversation. Inside, I’m not so sure.

After dinner’s all done and cleared away Monica says she’s going to take a shower. As she goes in to the bathroom and strips down to her birthday suit, she says: “Care to join me?”

It doesn’t take me long to shed my own clothing and join her under the hot water.

We have another amazing time. And afterwards we’re both ready for bed.

Because tomorrow’s another day, and another door.

~ ~ ~

Monica: The guy’s finally asleep. I gotta hand it to him, he’s got some stamina. Of course. We are doing it a lot. That’s probably helping. And while I’m doing what needs to be done. So I can find Steve. Still, it ain’t bad. Ain’t bad at all. I’m having a real good time. Mr. Cutey’s actually great in the sack. Who knew? Being a video game developer and all. Will wonders never cease.

I try. I keep trying. But he keeps remembering. The suffering. The death. The cost he thinks Ostium is causing. He’s not sure. I know I’m not sure. But I gotta keep him focused. Keep him going. Without him the ball game’s over. No doubt. But so long as I can keep him happy. Keep him going. Keep this train running. Then everything will be fine.

Got close today though. In that Easter Island place. I was ready for him. If he fell. And fall he sure did. But I knew how to catch him. How to take the fall. And then one thing led to another. It was all good. It was all fucking great in fact. But going back. To the door. He never even saw the body. Another one of them. Couldn’t tell who it was. Black hair. He was face down. Got what he deserved. Like the rest of them. Good riddance. Maybe I need to go through them all. Find every single one of their lifeless bodies. Before I can find Steve and find out just what the fuck happened to him.

But still. Today was good. Really good. It was fun being in that place. Running with him. Fucking him. Got all the juices flowing. All the emotions running.

I kinda don’t want this thing to end.

Time will tell. I guess.

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]