A full moon shines through a partially overcast sky on a windless evening and the sun set not long ago, as Claire Oberhauser creeps through High Point Cemetery. Bats fly through the evening sky and night birds call out. Being the ultimate stalker has its advantages because she is using her night-vision goggles that she bought months ago, to better spy on Story October. Claire is looking for that tall guy from earlier that knocked her down. She came prepared for a long night, she's wearing a backpack with snack bars and a bottle of water and some of her favorite pills.
She walks along the perimeter fence slowly, looking for any signs of movement in the cemetery. She sees no one or any movement anywhere but as she walks slowly along the fence, she sees a ruin of a house not far down the hill and a vehicle pulls up to the ruin. She watches the lights turn off and a really tall man steps out and starts getting bags out of the trunk. Claire says to herself, “That could be him,” as she climbs over the fence and creeps down to the back of the structure. Upon closer inspection she can see it is the tall man from the cemetery, “That fucking bastard,” she whispers to herself, “What the hell are you up to?” as she watches him enter the ruins and go to a doorway in what's left of the kitchen. It would seem the doorway leads to a basement.
Fortunately for Claire, Theodore is heavy and makes more noise as he walks than her, he weighs about 290 pounds, and she weighs about 115 pounds. She watches Theodore from the top of the basement stairs, peeking through the door that's ajar. Once he is out of view, she slowly descends the old staircase, being careful not to make any noise. Claire can hear Theodore in the back-room area, she silently moves toward the sound, being careful not to step on anything or knock over any debris until she can see him by peeking around some boxes. Theodore is standing in front of an old bookcase.
Claire thinks to herself, “This is my chance,” as she reaches into her backpack and pulls out her full-size heavy-duty metal flashlight, the kind police officers often carry because it can act as a club if necessary. She starts to sweat despite the chill of the night air as she sneaks up very slowly behind Theodore. The intensity builds and she can swear that Theodore is going to hear her heart pounding in her chest as she inches ever closer with the flashlight held up, ready to strike.
Just when she's nearly upon him, Theodore suddenly says, “Aperta,” with the appropriate tongue-roll, then the bookcase seems to pop open from the wall a tiny bit.
Claire is standing there, frozen, not sure what to do, so she waits and hopes he doesn't turn around but then comes to her senses and takes cover behind some boxes, making a tiny bit of noise.
Suddenly Theodore looks back but sees nothing, so he grabs the bookcase and swings it open wide and enters the darkness beyond the threshold but he's so tall, he has to duck his head down to fit. He pulls the bookcase shut behind him.
Once she remembers to breathe again, Claire catches her breath and gets her resolve back and comes out of her hiding spot and stands in front of the bookcase and tries to pull it open. She tries again with no results and then says to herself, “Maybe I'm not strong enough? He is a lot bigger than me..." as she puts the large flashlight away. She remembers Theodore said something, a weird foreign word, “What was that word?” she whispers to herself and continues, “Apartide... apart, uh wait, aperta!” confident that was it, but she said it without the tongue-roll, so nothing happens. Getting frustrated she exclaims quietly, “God dammit, that was it, work, stupid door!”
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After a moment, she remembers he did it with a tongue-roll, she thinks, “that damned tongue-roll,” that she was never good at doing. After letting out a long sigh she gives it a few more tries, “Aperta... aperta... aperta!” with the last try she makes a passable tongue-roll and the bookcase pops away from the wall. “Fuck yeah, bitches!” she exclaims to herself while making a victory fist. Caring not for the abnormality of a secret password to open a secret door in a ruined half-burnt old house near a cemetery, all she thinks about is moving forward to find out what Theodore did to Story October.
Slowly she opens the bookcase/door, leaving it open behind her, but it closes itself somehow after she takes a few steps and it makes her look back quickly and say to herself, “Okay,” dragging the word out as if it was a question.
Once inside, she notices the damp smell of earth and faintly of decaying material and possibly distant strange sounds, like scratching, skittering noises and other noises that she is unsure of what it could be. All the strangeness of the place makes her constantly look around nervously.
She hurries along to try to catch up to Theodore, wasting no time, after a moment when she turns a corner, she sees him up ahead and closes the gap. She tries to keep a manageable distance, so she doesn't lose him but not follow too close.
After walking for a bit, turning here and there, Theodore reaches an arched threshold, stops and says, “Aperta,” some marking or symbols on the floor glows briefly then fades. Once the glowing light subsides, Theodore advances.
Claire reaches the threshold and assumes it would be best if she copied everything he did, so she stops copies what he said, and she still struggles with the tongue-roll but manages to disarm the magical trap. It's a good thing she did too because there are two zombie guards standing vigil in the recesses of the threshold and she notices one as she passes it and is startled and stumbles backward, saying, “Oh fuck!” falling into the other one that was across from it in the opposite recess. She manages to get up and the zombie guards make no move toward her, she pauses a moment to look at their glowing eyes as she says, “What in the hell?” With barely a moment of reflection she wonders what she has gotten herself into.
Most sane people would be scared out of their minds by now, but Claire is of a singular vision and that singular vision is to find Story October, no matter what... so she presses onward.
Up ahead where Theodore is, there is light emanating from the area beyond, it starts to get too bright for her night-vision goggles.
She slowly enters a massive cavern with stalactites overhead, there is a huge stone ring in the center of the space with a glowing, swirling sphere of light and energy coming from within the ring center and a strange pulsating sound accompanied with a murmuring whisper-like noise. The stone ring is inside a large pentagram with five figures, one at each point of the star, these figures are chanting something unintelligible. All around the mesa that the stone ring resides is a drop off into the darkness, presumably with stalagmites below to match the stalactites above. On the far side of the mesa is a bridge that connects another small mesa. There is a bridge that connects her threshold to the mesa where the stone ring sits. All around the area is wood, stone and dirt debris and bones. In front of the stone ring is an altar of some kind, covered in a lot of dried blood.
Even with Claire's singular vision, she knows that she is way over her head now, so she quickly crosses the bridge from her side and takes refuge behind a large debris pile near the stone ring but not too close. That's when she tries to use her phone, but she doesn't have a signal, so she says, “Oh shit..."
She sees Theodore walk up to a man that is wearing dirty black robes and starts talking to him and Theodore hands him a shotgun from his bags.