Cassie's Experiments

I had no idea what it was, but it was sitting right there watching me. If it was an animal, it wasn't any animal I recognized. It was about the size of a dog, but it didn't look like a dog at all. It was covered in dark fur with lighter stripes, and it looked like it was scowling at me. I wasn't sure if it was upset with me, or if it always looked that way.

I said, "What are you?"

"Hungry," it said, still staring at me.

I hadn't expected it to answer, and I wasn't sure how to interpret that. Hopefully it didn't intend to eat me, but I wasn't sure and asking it outright seemed like it might be a bad idea. Instead, I fished a candy bar out of my pocket and held it up.

It stared at my hand as I unwrapped the dark chocolate and tossed the bar at it. It sniffed it, picked it up, and started chewing on it.

"Still hungry?" I asked.

"I am Hunger," it said, "And also Cunning. And you are in my world."

"I don't think I did that intentionally," I said, wondering if my plan to return would actually work.

"If people would only pay attention to my intentions, they would be much happier with me," it said. I think it was smiling. "No one does, and it is their loss. You are not a part of my intentions, but I can make you a part of my intentions."

I stared back. "What does that even mean?"

"The toll, the toll," it said. "I made this world, so you must pay me the toll. For you, that means food. Delicious food. Succulent food." It licked its lips and stared right through me.

I pulled out another chocolate bar, "What about this?"

It sniffed the air. "Yes, yes, that will do for a start." I tossed the bar to it. "Food first, and then labor," it said, licking its lips again.

"Hey," I said, "You didn't say anything about that before!"

"I bite! I bite well," it said, coming closer to me and showing me its teeth.

I pulled out my last candy bar. This one was chocolate with a peanut-butter center. "Well, eat this first then."

It grabbed it from my hand, not even giving me a chance to give it. "Eat, and then you will work. Or I will bite you. Or both!" It bit down on the candy bar.

I was already backing away when it realized that it's teeth were stuck together. The hissing noise it made sounded surprised and worryingly angry, and I turned and ran for the fallen tree and the passage that hopefully lead home.

I didn't look back as I plunged into the tunnel, but I could hear it running towards me. Something sharp racked across the back of my leg, but I didn't even slow down. I kicked back and hit something, though I don't know it was for sure, it didn't follow me and I wiggled out into the forest air all alone again.

I didn't figure out what was actually going on until later, when I compared my notes with the topographical map of the woods that I was using to mark out my grid. As it happens, everything within the sight of the gate is an exact match on both sides. But as soon as you step away, things start to change. If you can't see it from the gate, it is likely to be different, and to get more different as you move further away. Of course, I didn't figure that part out until after I got back. All I knew was that something seemed off. I had only my memory to go on, and in the woods one tree can look a lot like another.

Nevertheless, it was pretty apparent that something was different. I had been combing these woods for hours, so I was pretty sure that I knew what it looked like in general terms. There was no way that I could have missed the giant ravine with the brook at the bottom. It wasn't visible from the fallen tree, but it was plainly visible just a short distance away. And I'm sure that I would have remembered the well-worn path lined with faintly glowing lights.

I started taking notes furiously, trying to mark down the exact position of everything I thought might be different. I didn't set foot on the path. I was careful about that. Somehow it seemed like it might be a bad idea. But I did write down everything I could about it. Here's what I wrote down:

 
That was where my notes ended, because as I finished writing that bit I heard a sound and discovered that someone was watching me.

At first glance, the other side of the tunnel was exactly the same as the side I entered. And I mean exactly the same: on the same side of the tree. I pulled out my compass to check, and found the second strange thing. My compass didn't point in any particular direction. The needle just wobbled around all over the place.

You might think that the woods would look out of the ordinary. Maybe it'd be inhabited by some geometric parody of trees or a surrealist coatrack or something, but it looked quite normal, for trees. Looked exactly like the woods around the fallen tree on the other side. If it wasn't for the compass, I would have thought that somehow got turned around in the tunnel. But there was something else that was different: the plastic bag with the note in it was missing. The evidence wasn't conclusive, but there was every possibility that I was somewhere else.

I started thinking of ways that I could test it. How can you tell if your world has been replaced with one that is almost exactly identical? Look for the differences, differences you can't explain any other way. Some one might have come along and removed the bag, for starters.

Not that there's weren't any other differences. It was much dimmer here, and completely overcast. I guess the weather could have changed really rapidly, but could fog really have rolled in that fast? It wasn't an ordinary fog, either, it almost wasn't fog at all, just a dimness that kept just out of reach.

I took out my notebook and started to take notes on the immediate area. It would be important to be able to document any differences, rather than trying to rely on my memory. Though, as it turned out, it didn't matter, because there was an obvious difference just a few steps away.

I'm basing this report on the notes I took while I was searching. I'm afraid that I didn't take as detailed notes as I should have during the search. Reconstructing things from memory, I had been searching the woods for nearly two hours when I encountered the anomalous location (in the grid G38 in my notes). There were no easily apparent visual signs, and my first notice was when my compass needle jerked. I thought that I had accidentally tipped it too far, so I stopped and held it steady until it returned to magnetic north. I now suspect that something about the gates may disturb magnetic fields slightly, but more testing is required.

While I was stopped, I happened to look around. There was a large fallen tree nearby. I hadn't been paying attention to it because it was the same tree that was also blocking F38 and I had to climb over earlier that day. This time my path detoured around it's base, where it's torn roots were hanging in the air. But a little ways up the trunk was a carving that had apparently been there while the tree was still alive, since the bark had healed over it. Three straight lines and one curved.

I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been looking, because it was facing toward the ground and half-hidden in the shadow of the trunk. Crouching down, I put one hand out to steady myself and found myself slipping. What I had mistaken for a shadow under the tree was actually a depression, a depression that continued under the trunk. A dark tunnel, in other words, very similar to the one that Ariel had described to me.

I used my cell phone to get the GPS coordinates and to note down the time and I took out my flashlight. The LED-bright beam confirmed that the tunnel extended at least ten feet, sloping downwards. I couldn't see any further than that because of the angle, but I could see enough to tell that the far end of the tunnel had a natural stone floor.

There was just one problem: I would have to crawl. The tunnel was way too low for me to do anything else if I wanted to see the other side. It was a good thing that I wasn't claustrophobic. I had been prepared for a caving expedition, though, so I clipped my second flashlight to my belt, sent a text to Ariel, and left a note in a plastic bag taped to a nearby sapling. It'd be better if I had a partner as a backup, but I didn't really want to involve anyone else until I was sure that this wasn't completely crazy.

This is the story of how I set out to figure out what was going on. I haven't posted in a while, and you'll see why in a bit.

I made up my mind that this thing has gone on long enough. I was OK with it when it was just things that Ariel was imagining, but when she said she went back things were going way too far for me to believe it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so I decided to see if I could disprove the whole thing. Now, the existence of a doorway to another world is tough to falsify if that doorway only exists some of the time. Lacking a theory as to why it would disappear and reappear, I decided the first step was observation.

I put together a kit, a survival kit. I told Ariel that she ought to do the same thing, but she only took her flashlight. Maybe next time she'll listen to me. The most important part of it was the notebook: recording the evidence is vital when you're figuring out a pattern.

Watching the tree turned out to be a complete bust for the first week. That was pretty much exactly what I expected. If this stuff is real, which was a big if, it wasn't going to be easy to find. The breakthrough came when Robert posted his story. If there were gates other than the tree then maybe they could work under slightly different conditions. So that was the start of my search.

I started from the tree and worked my way out in a grid. I didn't have a lot to go on, but that symbol was the one common point in both stories. Maybe someone was marking the places for me. I wasn't really expecting to find any other places, but while I was at it I thought that I should be thorough. And it turned out to be a good things that I was.

Ariel's acting weird again, but I figure that I can at least let you folks know that you don't have to keep checking the site for updates. There's a link at the bottom of every page that will let you subscribe to the posts. Or you can click here:
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