Not too long after the conversation between those two beings, two others were walking through a dense forest. These individuals were not godlike entities, and were not even out of the ordinary among their peers. They were two young humans, brother and sister, living in our world of Earth. As they advanced deeper into the woods, they talked.
“Listen, drama king, I think you’re overreacting.” Teresa Thompson said.
Trace responded, “No, you listen. I’ve looked everywhere for my journal. I haven’t seen it since 3rd hour in school, and I think maybe some of the other kids stole it.”
Teresa sighed. “You’re being kind of paranoid, Trace. You might have just dropped it in the halls or something.”
“…I guess. I just don’t want other people reading it. Personal information in there.”
“It’ll be fine. Don’t worry about that right now. We’re here in the woods, and we have so much to explore.”
The town of Oakton, the home of these two, was quite small, but the area around it played host to the Oakton Forests National Park, one of the biggest in the country. It contained 43,000 acres of trees, fields, rivers, and some small mountains. In other words, Teresa was quite right about them having lots to explore.
About an hour passed as they climbed trees, waded through rivers and scaled up enormous rocks. After that, they chose to relax in the shade for a while. They did, until Teresa stood up, pointed, and said “Woah.”
Trace looked to the point she was indicating and saw something unusual: twenty feet away from them there was a large crack in the side of an outcropping of granite that went deep into the ground.
“A cave!’, he exclaimed, jumping up from his sitting position. “I’ve never seen any caves in this forest!”
“I know!” she said, starting to walk towards it. “I wonder what’s in there…”
“Wait.” He grabbed her shoulder. “We gotta be careful. It might be a sheer drop.”
“Yeah, maybe…do you have the rope?”
“Of course.” Trace kneeled down, opened up his backpack, and dug around in it for a minute before pulling out a long, rough rope. He went to a tree that was close to the cave and started tying the rope around it. “You want to go in first?”
Teresa grinned. “No, you had a hard day, you can.”
“Thanks.” he said, pulling the knot tight around the tree. He started looping it around his waist, and soon was tied to the tree. “If you hear me cry for help, start pulling on the rope.”
“Thanks for telling me, I probably would’ve just stood there.” Teresa smirked. “Ready to head in?”
“You know it.” He walked to the entrance of the cave, grabbed the sides of it, looked at Teresa, and said “See you in a few minutes.”
“See you then.”
He smiled, and descended into the darkness.
And realized he probably should’ve grabbed a flashlight. It was only a momentary concern, however, because the cave was full of strange bioluminescent mushrooms.
“Cool.” he whispered, his face lit by their soft cool glow. He advanced farther into the cave, until the sunlight that had been piercing the darkness was all gone. The cave’s floor was rough and rocky, but not too hard to navigate. He could also tell that he was definitely moving down into the earth. And soon he perceived something else.
There was a faint glow from up ahead. It didn’t match the mushroom’s warm blue. It seemed to be multicolored and almost…moving? The glow reflected off the moisture on the cave’s walls, so the whole place looked like it was covered with the rainbow sheen of soap bubbles. Trace, now very curious, turned the corner to see something he wasn’t prepared to see. His lack of preparation wasn’t his fault, of course. Few beings are ever prepared to see a rift in reality.
Trace didn’t know what it was, though. All he saw was a hole in the surface of the cavern’s stone wall. It glowed a brilliant white, and had a million other colors swimming around in it. It was beautiful, and a little intimidating. It radiated an energy that seemed to want Trace to come towards it. By the time he realized what the portal was doing, he was already walking.
“Wait!” he yelled, trying to stop himself. But now there was no need for walking. The portal had its own gravitational pull, and he was caught in. He got closer and closer and the light got brighter and brighter and then the light was all around him and then he fell and fell and fell.
A scream echoed from the cave and the rope went limp in Teresa’s hands. She was stunned for a second then ran into the cave calling Trace’s name. She tripped a few times on the rugged terrain, then got up again and kept running. She ran around the corner Trace had only a minute before, but she didn’t see a portal. All she saw was the rope, looking as if it had been cut, and no Trace. Of course, we know Trace passed through the portal, which closed around the rope, slicing it. Teresa never considered this. She searched every inch of that strange cave, then the surrounding forest. She found nothing.
She was looking in all the wrong places, obviously. She really should have checked the magical alien planet halfway across the galaxy.
Trace Thompson's Guide To Monsters 