Chapter 8 - Through the Timber
The air rushing in from the forest smelled of rotting pine needles, damp earth, and woodsmoke, completely overriding the stale concrete stench of the vault. Daniel stood frozen, staring through the narrow crack of the door at the impossible landscape beyond. No forest existed within fifty miles of their suburban subdivision; their backyard ended at a manicured concrete drainage ditch and a strip mall parking lot.
"Get up," Daniel said, his voice hard as steel. He grabbed Elena by the arm, hauling her and the struggling boy to their feet. "We are walking through that door. Right now."
"That's not our backyard, Daniel! Look at it!" Elena cried, her voice rising in hysteria as she looked through the gap. The trees were unnaturally tall and thin, their grey bark twisting into tortured, skeletal shapes that seemed to lean toward the opening.
"It doesn't matter what it is," Daniel said, his jaw set. "It’s an exit from this concrete box. Grab Lucas's hand. Do not let go, no matter what you see or hear."
Lucas had stopped thrashing, his expression suddenly blank, his eyes fixed dead ahead on the forest. He nodded mechanically, whispering under his breath in a language neither parent recognized—guttural, clicking syllables that made the hairs on the back of Daniel’s neck stand on end.
Daniel braced his shoulder against the heavy vault door and shoved with all his might. The hinges shrieked in protest, the metal groaning before the door swung wide open into the freezing night air.
The contrast was blinding. Instead of the warm interior of their home, they stood on the threshold of a rotting timber floor that extended out into a vast, misty woodland. The blood-red moon hung low in the bruised-purple sky, casting long, distorted shadows across the forest floor.
"Move," Daniel ordered, stepping across the threshold first, his boots crunching on dry, brittle leaves that felt suspiciously like crushed bone.
Elena followed closely behind, pulling Lucas with her. As her foot crossed the threshold, a loud, metallic bang echoed behind them.
She whipped her head around. The vault door had slammed shut on its own, dissolving into thin air as if it had never existed, leaving only a sheer, moss-covered cliff face behind them with no sign of a door, a house, or civilization.
"We're trapped in the memory," Elena whispered, her voice dropping to a flat, hopeless monotone. "We crossed the threshold. We're inside her story now."
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A twig snapped loudly in the dense brush twenty feet to their left.
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