Chapter 1

There are two things I need to do immediately:

First, check the time.

Second, convince myself that I’m not stranded.

I eyed my watch as I started to lay out the equipment I held onto after the flood. My breath caught in my throat as drops of water slipped off the surface of the watch’s glass, a prayer for a miracle unable to leave my lips in the space between seconds.

Tick.

I tried not to collapse from the sheer relief of seeing the small hand move on the watch, the paraquartz somehow unaffected by the waters that washed me away. It was a tiny solace seeing as all I managed to keep on me was my walking stick, a flare gun, and my car keys.

So now what?

I’d washed up in a corner of the labyrinth that looked like a forest was slowly digesting a parking lot. Patches of grey concrete dotted the grassy floor, while ivy and briars crept along a wooden utility pole, slowly returning it to its origins as just another tree in a forest. There were spots of the ancient masonry that made up the maze’s walls where I could see good old fashioned red brickwork.

This was a place that echoed human civilization as I knew it; a memory of what, to me, was the present day. I didn’t have any real basis to go on, but I got the feeling that this place looking at all familiar meant that I was either closer to my target. I was cut off from GG, and I figured it’d be a second until my flare gun was dry enough to try and fire a shot up through the maze’s open, which left me with only one option.

Keep walking.

***

KennaKelpie posted: Guys, I think I found DD.

BuddyVamp66 posted: no shot…

KennaKelpie posted: I know it sounds crazy, but check the picture. That’s totally him, right?

Kappatako posted: OMG!!!!!!!!!!1!!1!

ShermaGriff posted: Wait, slow down KK. Where did you find this?

Kraken1nk posted: Looks sketchy, but that’s a gate, no?

BuddyVamp66 posted: KK’s right.

BuddyVamp66 posted: that’s 100% that edgelord.

BuddyVamp66 posted: boy never met a comb he was on speaking terms with.

KennaKelpie posted: Thanks for the confirmation, BV :P

Kappatako posted: KK, tell me you aren’t gonna follow him by yourself????

Kraken1nk posted: Do NOT go alone looking for that asshole. I swear to god.

ShermaGriff posted: Krak and I are out of town, but we can send some stuff when we get home.

Kaken1nk posted: We aren’t sending SHIT if she’s gonna go and get herself killed.

KennaKelpie posted: Guys chill.

KennaKelpie posted: I’m gonna be fiiiiiiine.

Kappatako posted: :/

ShermaGriff posted: :/

Kraken1nk posted: :/

BuddyVamp66 posted: :D

***

Forty miles from the edge of town was this thick patch of forest that I was slowly trudging through with nothing but vibes and a blurry photograph to go on. Fine by me. Most of the stuff we so-called Wanderers got up to was vibes-based work held together by long-distance collaboration and a shared curiosity.

The forest canopy was dense enough that it blocked out the sunlight, so even as spring started to warm up, the darkness kept me cooler than I expected. It was a shrouded realm unto itself, far away from the bustle and anxieties of the city, free to keep its secrets. I followed a trail of stones that looked like they might form a pathway until the very last stone hit a grey pillar.

“Bingo…” I muttered to myself.

Standing sentinel at the end of the trail was a pair of twin petrified trees stretching as far into the canopy as their collapsing trunks would allow. All the forest floor beneath them was a perfect circle of dense grass and flowers that looked as if the ground had drained the life from the ancient trees. If you stood at just the right position and looked with an open mind, the petrified trees almost resembled a doorway.

I pulled the copy of the blurry photo from my pocket, checking it against my surroundings. The trees were the same, no doubt about it. The only thing missing was the barely visible boy with the mop of jet black hair in the corner of the photo. If he made it this far, I knew where he went next.

My ritual was simpler than some of the others. I clapped my hands twice, then nodded in where I vaguely assumed the four cardinal directions were; North, West, East, South, then North again. I did one last glance over my stuff, my grandpa’s old wooden walking stick he got from a trip to Australia, and a backpack roughly half the size of my body. The time on my phone said 11:44am, and would likely say the same thing when I got out.

I let myself feel the jitters of finding a new Gate, and took one step between the twin trees as reality began to bend around me.

Every Gate feels different to pass through, even if they lead to the same place. Some of us on the forum like to think of the strange sensations priming us for the shift between two distant places as a kind of entry fee. Moving between the trees felt like ripples across my skin, as if the surface of my skin had been transformed into pond water and a stone was skipped across my body. When the ripple stopped, I could tell immediately that I wasn’t in the same place I started as anymore.

A warm breeze blew gently past my face as I blinked into a space hidden from the rest of the world.

***

DonnieDullahan posted: Just be cool for like, once.

DonnieDullahan posted: It’s not hard.

BuddyVamp66 posted: We’re always cool!

Kappatako posted: Yeah!! Rude!

Kraken1nk posted: You think he’s nervous?

ShermaGriff posted: I didn’t even think DD could GET nervous…

I shifted slowly awake from a blue light hitting my eye from the corner of the room. It probably should’ve felt lonelier waking up alone in someone else’s bed, but DD’s space was so cramped that I was honestly glad to have the wiggle room. Back then, I didn’t know him as “DD” just yet. I knew him as Alan from the radio store with the same taste in bad movies as me.

I also knew he got kinda touchy when I said he was really good at photoshopping pictures of landscapes.

I pulled myself up to see him in a faded band t-shirt and stripped pjs hunched over his keyboard at his desktop. On one monitor, there was a collage of all these crazy looking places that couldn’t possibly exist in the world. Waterfalls flowing in reverse, a canyon of stones suspended in the air, a series of staircases leading in impossible directions. On the other monitor there was what looked like an old school message board.

“Didn’t expect you to be interested in travel forums.” I muttered as my legs dangled over the edge of the bed.

“Is that easier to believe than me being bad at photoshop?” He chuckled dryly without turning around.

“Why not?” I shrugged, wondering if it was really in my best interest to start an argument first thing in the morning, but he seemed relieved.

“You’d have found these guys sooner or later. The fact that you’re here at all proves it.” He said, and I quietly rolled my eyes.

I was used to DD being cryptic when he spoke, but I didn’t learn until later that this was the most frank he’d ever been with me.

“These places…we call them Wonderlands.” DD turned around in his chair, his ink black hair covering up his dark eyes and the bags under that made him look older than he really was. Yet even there, in the darkened room without even the blue light of his screens to illuminate him, I could see something like a spark in his eyes.

“Wanna see one?”