If you’re not from East Texas, then you probably don’t know that the whole region is basically a giant swamp of silty soil. We don’t have a lot of stone here. Certainly not enough to create a few dozen steps that lead down into a chamber with a stone floor. And stone walls. And a stone ceiling supported by stone pillars.

  I was having trouble reconciling this chamber made of ancient stone and the small country house just above my head.

  I stood at the top of those stone steps and shone my flashlight down and around into the dark room. Flecks of dust drifted in the bright blue light. As the light landed on the steps closest to me, I noticed the stone was dark green. Not like jade or emerald, it was a color that I had never seen before.

  As I was studying the steps, I noticed a soft glow in the dark chamber below. I couldn’t tell if the glow emitted green light or if the stone just reflected it. Curiosity got the best of me, and I walked down the steps. The scuffing sounds of my hiking shoes on the stone echoed softly off the walls. I froze at the bottom when the lights came on.

  At first, it was a dull green glow that seemed to come from everywhere but grew brighter. I glanced around and saw that the green light emanated from strange shapes and symbols carved in the four stone pillars. The growing light stopped and stayed at a steady ambiance, which allowed me to see the room in greater detail without the need of my flashlight.

  The room was longer than it was wide, with a ceiling that must have been twenty feet above me. The glow that attracted me into the room was from a strange symbol on the wall across from the steps.

  The arcane symbol was roughly circular and at least ten feet in diameter. Lines criss-crossed an array of smaller symbols and runes unlike anything I had seen before. It wasn’t alien, though I could tell that it was something that didn’t belong to humanity. No human mind could conceive of something so intricate and sinister.

  I stepped closer and saw that the massive symbol was carved into the same green stone that comprised the walls, floor, and ceiling of the chamber. A soft glow emanated from the interior of the carving. I reached out with trembling fingers to touch one of the cuts in the stone to feel how such precise carvings were made.

  The symbol flashed into life as soon as my fingertip touched it. Brilliant green light flared from the engraved lines, blinding me. I stepped back and covered my face with my hands until I could see through my fingers that the green light had diminished and was replaced by a warm, orange light.

  I dropped my hands and saw that the circular symbol was gone, and in its place was a hole in the wall. A portal of some kind. It showed an orange sun in an orange sky. It looked like a sunset with no horizon to interrupt its view. Then I felt myself pulled into it.

  Terror shot through my spine as gravity pulled me forward. I was falling deep into a dark tunnel!

  My hiking shoes slipped away from the floor, and I was hurtling forward towards nothing. The orange sun never came closer to me, but a black nothingness surrounded me. There was no wind or sound. But my body fell faster as something at the far end of the tunnel pulled me towards it.

  I fell farther and faster. My breath rushed in and out of my lungs. Tears streaked out my eyes. I clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t scream. Panic rose within me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

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  My flashlight flew out of my hand and tumbled away from me. In an instant, it was gone. Then, my clothes ripped off my body, and I was left naked. An incredible cold rushed into my flesh and filled my lungs.

  My skin peeled away. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t see anything. I just felt the skin of my face pull back, over my body, and fly away from my legs like stripping off a sticky sock from a sore foot after a long hike. There was no pain, though I was certain that every muscle and nerve ending was exposed to that terrible cold.

  Then, my muscles ripped away, and my organs flew from my body. I was little more than a skeleton hurtling through the nothingness that pulled me faster and faster towards it.

  I had no eyes, so I don’t know how I could see the bright light coming toward me. It was like the power of a supernova rushing towards me even faster than I fell towards it. I tried to close my nonexistent eyes, but I had no eyelids. The blinding white light slammed into my skeleton and shattered it. My bones flew back to meet the rest of the tattered remnants of my body.

  My consciousness was all that remained. Time became meaningless, and I felt like I was falling for a thousand years.

  I flew towards the center of the blinding light. I knew there was a center, and it wasn’t until that understanding that I saw it. A small spot of light only slightly less blinding than the rest of the supernova.

  It took on an indistinct shape. After falling for so long, I felt no fear of the shape. It was comforting to know there would be an end, and I no longer cared in what form the end came. Just so long as it all ended.

  And just as suddenly as it began, it was over and I was on the other side.

  ---

  I screamed.

  Huddled on a cold stone floor, I screamed as loud and long as my lungs could stand it. I screamed until I felt my throat crack, and then I screamed some more. I understood why babies scream right out of the womb.

  Every nerve ending hurt. My bones felt as if a giant crushed them under a massive boot. The dull green glow radiating from the pillars was like a hot knife stabbing into my newly formed eyes. Even the sound of my ragged breathing was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I don’t know how long I lay there, panting, waiting for the pain to stop, fearing that it never would.

  But slowly it did.

  I became aware of other sensations besides raw pain. I was hungry and cold. The light from the strange shapes on the stone pillars became a comfort. I could see again, and there were things to see.

  The memory of an eternity of falling was slowly slipping from my mind like waking from a nightmare in which you remember little else except the relief that the nightmare is finally over.

  I sat up and realized I was naked. My flashlight was also gone. When I stood up, I was standing in the same chamber made of green stone. Except, I was facing the wrong direction. I had been pulled into the dark tunnel with an orange sun, but the way I was facing seemed like I had walked out of the wall. That’s when I noticed something else out of place.

  When I looked back at the wall from which I had emerged, instead of seeing the orange sun in an orange sky, there was a star field. It was a night sky, and I could recognize some of the constellations.

  I felt terror shoot up my spine, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with that darkness again. I ran up the stairs, and that’s when I noticed that not only was the door closed, it was different. Rather than the nice, polished hardwood door with a brass doorknob, there was a plain stone slab.

  I panicked.

  Was I trapped in there? Was that eternity of darkness my only way out?

  There was no doorknob, no latch, nothing to show how to open it. I pushed on it as hard as I could and was shocked when the door flew open as a central hinge inside the stone slab allowed it to turn like a turnstile.

  After everything I had just been through, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by what was on the other side.