“Goodbye, and I do hope you make it out alive.”

John Rand just stood there. He shouldn’t be here! It was his grandchild’s birthday! He wouldn’t have missed it for the world…
Unless of course, the entire world was against him.

What was this place? It didn’t even feel real. It felt too much like a nightmare. He should just be able to pinch himself, and…
“OW!” Now John was sure. There was something, someone, that had brought him here. And then he heard it.
A scream.

He leaned heavily on his cane, and hobbled over to the wall where the sound seemed to be coming from. There were steps engraved in the wall, like a ladder, leading from all four sides of the door in the center of the white panel.

John carefully climbed up the niches in the wall, and put his hand up against the door to catch his breath.

The door opened suddenly when John touched the wall, and he fell through to the other side, caught unaware by the sudden movement. He fell with a thud and opened his eyes.

A female face looked down at him.