The first thing Harry noticed walking through the door was the sheer darkness of it all, whatever windows he’d seen on the upper walls had probably been covered in either blackout curtains or something of the like. Reaching around blindly for a lightswitch he eventually found one, large industrial lights in the ceiling snapping to life one after the other to reveal…

‘...What the hell?’ Harry asked to no-one in particular as he looked at the infrastructure before him. The interior of the warehouse was not at all what he was expecting, instead of either vehicles or crates the place seemed to be filled with a double layer of small cement rooms against the longsides of the Shed, a small modular office cube towards the end of the way and a set of rotting metal walkways to allow access to the top rooms.

The place looked like a prison hall.

Entering in behind him Harry heard Dimitri gave out an impressed whistle at the sight of the place, casually walking in while James stood nervously beside the door. Noticing him Dimitri hesitated a moment, before giving a small smile and waving the boy over.

‘C’mon mate, nothing to worry about. If you feel nervous you can stick by me, alright?’

Giving a mouseish nod in response James made his way over to his older cousin. After all, even if he’d only known Dimitri for some fifteen minutes he’d started to warm up to the guy, and kinda wanted to learn more about him. Seeming to notice this uncharacteristically trusting behaviour from James, his older brother quickly called out for him.

‘Sorry bud, but you’re not going with Dimitri. This place is falling apart and I don’t want you out of my sight. Ok?’.

Patting himself on the back for his caring behaviour Harry quickly moved forward to open the first of the rooms on the right.

Finding the door somewhat difficult to budge, Harry hesitantly turned to face Dimitri. ‘Say, the, uh. The doors locked’.

Taking his meaning Dimitri sighed and pulled out his tools as Harry moved to the side. Yet for whatever reason he didn’t begin working on the lock.

‘Is there a problem?’ Harry asked, growing impatient as Dimitri inspected the door

‘No’ he replied, ‘you just needed to put some force behind it’. And with that Dimitri pushed the handle down and bashed his shoulder against the door, forcing the ancient, unlocked slab of metal to open.

Walking into the room Dimitri immediately recognised this as something a little more… storage-ish. With rusting shelves against both walls alongside rows of metal safes.

Dimitri heard Harry before he saw him. ‘Say, did the old man leave you with any combinations?’

‘No’.

‘Well that’s just fucking cheery, isn't it? Old man’s left us with a bunch of extra work’.

Although Dimitri didn't appreciate agreeing with his cousin the fact remained that he too was a little confused at what they were going to do with the safes. Ah well, perhaps the next room would be better.

It was not.

And neither was the next.

In fact, almost every room they opened was the same; metal shelves, heavy safes, no way to open them. By the time Dimitri opened the fourth room both Harry and James had gotten tired of this, with the pair deciding to skip the next few rooms and head straight to the office cube.

‘Christ, there has to be something in here’ quietly snapped Harry, just beyond Dimitri’s earshot as he fiddled with the door, growing more and more frustrated the longer he messed with the knob. ‘I mean, codes or cash, or… well anything!’

‘Um, Har-’

‘Yes, I know!’ he snapped at his brother. ‘I just need to pull the knob open and…’ bashing his shoulder into the door Harry let out a squeak of pain, slowly reeling back from the door as James moved around him.

‘...I was going to say it’s a pull-door’.

Following this James quickly made his way in before he could see whatever expression Harry was giving him. Looking around with sticky-notes still in hand James was even more confused now as it appeared that the room was a… study? Indeed with polished wood panel floors, a small writing desk, and bookshelves on almost every wall James felt as if this room belonged in some kind of mini-mansion. Remembering that the man who owned this place was dead James once more felt like he should be somewhere else, as if this was disrespectful to a T. Even so he was a little curious, after all what kind of man kept a hammock in his study.

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Hearing Harry enter the room, James turned to his brother for guidance on what to do.

Sneering as he gazed around Harry spoke up, moreso to himself than anyone else. ‘Ah, this is more like what I expected from the old fart, uppity weirdo’. Seeing his little brother looking at him James quickly spied the room for how to best utilise his brother.

‘Hey, go and check in the next room, ok?’ he said, waving his hand towards the black door snuck between two of the bookshelves.

‘Oh, ok’. Looking towards the door his brother mentioned James audibly swallowed his panic and went over to open it. The door looked sickly in a way James couldn't quite explain, glistening with the vile colours of an oil spill, reflecting the light in strange patterns. The doorframe and central doorknob were no exception to this disquieting feeling, instead appearing to be some sort of copper, though aged to a point wherein it was reminiscent of mould, or greening bruises.

Of course, Harry would get annoyed if he didn’t do as he was told, so bearing his game face he reached for the strangely new, steel metal bar lock across the upper-half of the door, then the second across the doors centre, followed by the third across the lower-half.

Placing the bars against the bookshelves, James turned around to see if Harry had his back.

He did not.

Instead he was routing through several journals, growing increasingly frustrated as it would seem that his uncle had a passion for worldbuilding. Indeed each journal was filled to the brim with idiotic drawings of monsters, maps, and treasures. Probably from one of those fantasy games James was always collecting dice for. As he heard the weird door open, the desk he was standing over became flooded with daylight as James opened the way outside.

‘Jesus Christ James!’ he snapped, covering his eyes from the light. ‘If you’re gonna go out then at least close the door behind you’.

Getting a panicked ‘sorry!’ from James, Harry sighed as he heard the door slam shut behind him, rattling the bookshelves. Honestly, he loved the kid but why couldn’t he be more… like him? After all, Harry was great, always scoring well in school, always doing their parents proud… God rest their souls. But James? Well the kid could barely keep his grades up, hell he couldn't even find new friends after the move. Honestly it was kind of pathetic.

Still, he needed to look like a good brother. So, thinking on what he wanted to say Harry put down the rubbish he was reading, turned around and went to follow James outside through the… strangely pretty door.

Actually looking at it for a moment Harry noticed the strange material, almost like smooth obsidian in its make, as well as the gorgeous patterns of green stress dappled over the copper doorframe and oddly placed knob. ‘Might be worth a bit of cash’ he thought to himself.

Then he noticed two details his little brother had missed. Firstly, there was some sort of automatic flip counter made of the same material as the frame placed just above it. And secondly he noticed underneath rows of inlaid switches built into the doorframe, each one with a strange symbol carved above and camouflaged by the green patterning of age over the copper. Reaching out he flipped one to see if the door might do… something.

With a whirr… and a ding! the numbers above the door began to flip through combinations before snapping to the number ‘00’.

‘Huh, neat’.

Well, anyhow it was time to fetch James. So, turning the handle, Harry opened the door…

—

If James were to describe himself in one word, it would be compliant. Well actually it was a toss-up between cowardly, stupid, and compliant, but in this moment the third seemed like the most applicable option.

After hearing his brother yell about closing the weird door behind him he quickly obliged, leaving himself just outside of the Shed with nothing more to do than twiddle his thumbs. Ah well, at least the surroundings were interesting. Indeed, ancient brick walls wrapped around him into a sort of walled off courtyard with a path leading further out into what looked like a flower garden. Looking around a bit James wondered just why this uncle of his would have something like this built on his property. Ah well, maybe the guy liked gardening. Either way James would never meet the man himself and Harry would be no help in asking about it, so best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Ok, so back to those three descriptors of his personality, cowardly would soon make its appearance. Indeed as the sun began to lower just beneath the walls and shadows started to spread across the courtyard James felt the weird urge that he was in danger. So he turned around and went to make his way back inside.

That's when he noticed that the brick walls continued around behind him, and although they were tall they were far from tall enough to block the sight of the shed…

Had it been there.

No, instead all he found behind himself was a curved brick wall, and the weird door which, despite turning the handle, refused to budge.

‘Oh shit’.

—

Standing before the near-collapsed metal stairwell to the second floor, Dimitri wondered if it would be worth dying under a collapsed pile of scrap in a quest to see if any of the rooms above contained more than just safes. It would be stupid to risk it, yet he didn’t consider himself a very smart man.

Making up his mind Dimitri began to take out his work-gloves (so as to not risk tetanus on the handrails) when he heard a particularly panicky sounding door-slam as Harry burst out from the little square building, scared shitless.

Immediately knowing something was up, Dimitri took a deep breath to calm himself and to act smartly in whatever disasters come up when Harry grabbed him by the biceps and began digging his nails in panic.

Keeping his cool, Dimitri looked his cousin up and down as he stammered over his words. Finally Dimitri spoke; ‘Are you ok?’ he asked firmly, slowly tearing Harry off of him and grabbing the man by the face to look him in the eyes. Harry nodded yes. That’s when serious panic dawned on Dimitri. Keeping his voice calm once more he looked his cousin in the eyes again and asked with utmost seriousness; ‘Is the kid ok?’.

Harry shook his head.