Chapter 2

I stumbled forward and caught myself against a tree, breath shallow, heart pounding. The air felt heavier than it had just a second ago—cooler too, like I’d passed through a refrigerator door someone forgot to close. The shimmering door in the ground was gone, swallowed by brush and shadow. Had I been hallucinating? Some weird trick of the sun on dew-slick moss?

“Zack?” I called out, my voice unexpectedly hoarse. “Neal?” I turned back toward the ridge trail.

No answer. Just the wind moving through branches high overhead, and something chirping in the undergrowth—a bird I didn’t recognize. I listened harder, expecting the thud of their boots or maybe a laugh echoing up the trail. Nothing.

I pulled out my phone. No signal.

Not even bars.

Not even the time.

The screen stayed stuck on the lock screen for a second, then blinked out completely. Dead.

Weird. I had at least 70% battery before I wandered off. I shoved it back in my pocket and looked around again. Same woods, mostly. Same slope of the ridge. But something was wrong in a way I couldn’t name. The light filtering through the trees was ... off. Softer. Older. Like the whole forest had reverted to a time before power lines or fences or trails with gravel paths.

Maybe I got turned around. Maybe the trail split and I didn’t notice.

“Zack! Neal!” I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Hey! I’m over here!”

Still nothing. The silence was starting to throb in my ears.

I needed a reference point. I glanced at the sun’s position and the nearby rise—if I kept heading east, I’d eventually hit the trail we used to hike in yesterday. I looked for a rock, something flat, and scratched a quick X with a stick in the dirt next to the odd patch of foliage where I’d ... emerged. I added an arrow pointing in the direction I planned to walk. Not exactly GPS, but better than wandering in circles.

It took me nearly an hour to reach where the cabin should’ve been. I knew the slope. I recognized the big outcropping of granite just before the clearing. I could picture the view in my mind—the tiny porch, the woodpile, the green-painted shutters Zack always made fun of.

But the clearing was empty.

Not a single board. No path. No gravel driveway. No sign that anything had ever been built here. I turned a slow circle, heart banging in my chest.

The cabin was gone. Disappeared into thin air.

I knelt down and ran my hand over the grass. Untouched. No tire ruts. No disturbed earth. Just wilderness. Pristine, like no one had ever set foot here before.

I sat back hard, my brain buzzing. What the hell was going on?

I could still smell the sweat on my shirt. I could feel the ache in my calves from the morning’s hike. It had all been real—Zack’s dumb story about the bear, Neal humming the Indiana Jones theme while climbing rocks. That had been this morning. I knew it had.

Unless it hadn’t.

I looked back at the woods, half-expecting to see that shimmer again. But it was gone, hidden, like a door that had closed behind me without a sound.

Where the hell was I?

Maybe it was some kind of psychotic break. Maybe my brain, finally pushed past its limit by the breakup, the stress, the isolation, had cracked wide open.

That shimmer in the woods? A seizure. The empty clearing? A dream.

I told myself all of this as I backtracked toward the logging road that curved northeast, toward town. In theory, it should’ve been just a couple of miles—a steep hike, yeah, but I’d done it before. I’d driven it more times than I could count, the same road that led to the nearest grocery store, the gas station, the shitty pizza place with the burnt crust.

I pushed forward through brush and bramble, my breath getting shallow. No trail markers. No familiar signage. Just trees pressing in too close, and birds that didn’t sound quite right.

Keep walking, I told myself. Get to the town. Get to a person. Someone can explain this.

After nearly two hours of hiking—twice as long as it should’ve taken—I crested the last hill and caught a glimpse of the town down in the valley. Relief surged through me ... until I took a closer look.

No traffic. No power lines. No cars parked outside homes. No homes like I remembered. Just squat wooden buildings with front porches and rocking chairs. Dirt roads instead of pavement. Smoke curling from chimneys.

My stomach dropped.

I crouched low, heart hammering again, and crept to the edge of the trees.

People were moving through the town center—on foot or by horse. One man passed, leading a mule hitched to a wooden cart stacked with hay. A woman stood on a stoop beating a rug. Two children, barefoot and grubby, chased each other with sticks.

Their clothes looked like something out of a museum exhibit—homespun shirts, long skirts, suspenders, bonnets. No logos, no denim, no synthetic fabrics. No cell phones, earbuds, or digital anything. The air smelled like wood smoke and manure.

I stared, trying to will some crack to appear in the illusion. Waiting for someone to step out with a Starbucks cup or check their Apple Watch.

Nothing.

A tightness gripped my chest, cold and slow, like ice in my lungs. This can’t be real. But the longer I watched, the harder it became to believe otherwise.

Everything was too real. The rhythmic thud of the blacksmith’s hammer. The bark of a dog. The creak of wagon wheels over dirt.

If this is not a breakdown, I thought, then my mind is doing one hell of a job simulating it.

I pulled back behind a thick cluster of rhododendrons, trying to breathe. My legs were trembling, partly from exhaustion, partly from something else—something that hadn’t touched me since childhood.

Fear.

Not the modern kind, like fear of missing a deadline or getting ghosted. This was primal. Unanchored.

I was alone. Utterly. I had no ID. No signal. No map. No proof I belonged anywhere. And everyone down there ... they didn’t know I was out of place. Not yet.

I ran my fingers over the bark of a nearby tree, grounding myself. I needed a plan. I needed answers.

But first—I needed to figure out who I could talk to. If I could trust anyone. Because if I was really where I thought I was—when I thought I was—I wasn’t just lost. I was an intruder in someone else’s time.

I had to know more about what was going on. I could just ask someone, right?

Not so easy. There I was, in futuristic clothes that would instantly identify me as out of place. If I was going to pry loose the information in that manner, I’d have to do it quickly and then split. I figured my best bet was to find a lone individual who looked non-threatening.

I crouched behind a barrel and continued to observe. Soon, I saw a man pass by.

Middle-aged. Wiry frame. Straw hat. Rough work shirt tucked into patched trousers. He had the look of someone used to being overlooked — not a leader, not the type to run straight to the sheriff.

Perfect.

My pulse was hammering. I was drenched in sweat, more from nerves than the heat. I glanced down at my hiking clothes — moisture-wicking fabric, synthetic zippers, bright nylon laces. All of it suddenly felt loud. Wrong. My REI jacket might as well have been a neon sign.