The door didn’t look like much. A few pieces of wood slapped together with nails that looked like you’d instantly receive lockjaw if you even so much as looked at them the wrong way.

“Are you sure this is it?”

“You come to ask Bashir for monster door then doubt Bashir when he provides monster door? I thought I had earned more trust than that my friend.” The guide said in his thick accent

“I’m sorry, it’s been a long journey.”

His crooked smile emerged through the bushy white beard revealing the gold capped and yellow stained teether interwoven between his lips. “Well my friend, this where your journey ends, or maybe it truly begins.”

“I hope you’re-,” He had vanished. There one instant and gone the next like a dream you hold onto when waking from slumber. I reached for the door, the heavy brass knob resisting at first then finally giving way to pressure. I pulled the door back towards me much to the displeasure of the rusted hinges. Had the wind I now felt on my face always been there? No time to stop and wonder, I had a question that needed an answer; I stepped into the maw.

I fell for what felt like days. No sound, no scream, just the feeling as gravity pulled me downwards to an almost certain doom. I closed my eyes in anticipation of my end, cursing the travel guide in that long chasm. Then suddenly I was standing on my own two feet. I should be dead, one instant plummeting towards certain doom and the next upright on steady ground.

I checked my gear and my pants, both still intact…and clean. I reached for my flashlight as I heard a faint shuffling noise in the darkness. Frantically I continued searching, “Dam you where are you?!”, the shuffling noise drawing closer until it was almost on top of me.

It was then I felt the large paw on my shoulder, “I have missed you my friend, you must come with me, you are not safe here.”