Troy stared out into the wilds for several seconds before he firmly shut the door. His eyes closed tight as he tried to process it all. Had that been real? For all he knew, it could be an optical illusion, like those tourist traps up in Oregon. Though how they had managed to fit it in there was beyond him…

After a few deep breaths, Troy slowly opened the door. When he saw the salty forest was still there, he hesitantly reached out with one foot. The feeling of damp moss greeted him when he stepped down. With no imminent pain or prank, he continued to walk forward, unsure of how far the illusion went. It was only when he turned back and realized that he had walked far enough to pass through the far wall that he realized this wasn’t any illusion.

His heart racing, Troy raced back to the house and slammed the door shut. His chest heaved as the concept hit him, and he placed a hand on his head before slumping on the floor. “Okay, so my bathroom leads to a portal to god-knows where,” he commented aloud, trying to think it over, “I know it worked earlier when I washed my hands just thirty minutes ago. So what could’ve changed?”

His gaze remained distant as he thought it over, trying to think of what that catalyst could possibly be. As he looked down at his hands, his eyes looked over at his wrists before a thought struck him. With some quick rummaging, he pulled the bracelet out and examined it. He hadn’t been carrying it earlier, and it had been hidden oddly. Was it… magical, maybe?

Troy let out a snort at the idea but grew somber as he mulled it over more. It might be the fact that ‘portal fantasy’ stories had become a lot more common over the last decade, but it felt like anything could cause it. But with how the bracer stood out so much, it was a strong candidate. How did it even activate, though...?

Troy held up the bracelet with uncertainty and turned towards the door. He first tried tapping the bracelet against the handle, but nothing changed. Using it like a magical key and drawing common magic symbols on the wood didn’t work either. In fact, all that caused was scuff marks on the door.

After some more testing, Troy threw the bracelet away and rubbed his brow in frustration. “How does this even work?” he wondered, placing a hand on the door. As it pushed against the wood, the door slightly swung open again, only for a lack of any salty air to hit him. Troy glanced up in confusion and pushed the door fully open to reveal the bathroom, like he remembered.

Now fully perplexed, Troy glanced in the mirror before closing the door behind him. “Alright, it works when I use the handle, but not when I push on the wood?” he pondered, rubbing his temple to kill the growing headache. It was hard to tell what even triggered it, with all the attempts he tried. As he looked back at the bracelet, he slowly frowned as a rather persistent idea began to form…

Troy took both hands off the door, and gingerly reached for the bracelet. Once he took it in hand, he reached for the door and opened it once more. The bitter scent of saltwater immediately hit him, and Troy closed the door once more before he finally let out a sigh.

“Okay, so it is the bracelet that makes the portal,” he stated, and glanced at it to figure things out. He hadn’t been wearing it when the portal first opened, just carrying it in his pocket. So maybe it just had to be ‘equipped’, or just carried by the wielder? But in that case, how did it activate when he wasn’t wearing it? It might be a button, but you’d think the gemstone would affect it. Maybe he had gotten some blood on it…

With the headache coming back in force, Troy set the bracelet back down and put the questions to the back of his mind. He could think about it later once the headache drowned itself again. As he hissed through his teeth, Troy felt a low rumble shake his stomach and looked towards the kitchen. Chuckling slightly, he patted his college flab of a belly before he went over to the pots. Some food would definitely help him recover nicely - It always helped to think on a full stomach!

However, when he bent down to grab the box, he winced at the surge of pain that came down on his back. “Owww… definitely waiting until later,” he wheezed, and simply grabbed a pot from the top. Twenty minutes, two ramen packets, and a can of chicken later, Troy twirled his fork in the broth before taking a big bite of his makeshift chicken ramen.

While Troy continued to eat, his mind began to wander about the ‘portal’. He hadn’t really looked around the area, but the other side sure seemed lively. However, for all he knew, it was on a secluded island that was just hidden from view. But if it was near a town or city… What life was found there? Were there other humans? Or something evolved from something else, like a bird-based race? Maybe it was friendly. Maybe a magical beast lived nearby, like a troll or ogre. Though for all he knew, a magical army could be stationed nearby, preparing to invade Earth through his house…

Troy paused mid-bite, his mind awhirl with worsening scenarios, before he let out a low sigh and finished his meal. “Fuck, I’m going to have to check the area out, won’t I?” he asked himself, head dipping down to the bowl. If he just went to bed and woke up surrounded by spears…

With his energy returning with the meal, Troy quickly gobbled up the rest of his noodles and began to rummage around for any form of protection. Going to the north wall where he put all the miscellaneous stuff, Troy began to open them up again for any options.

After going through the first few boxes, he let out a cry of satisfaction when he pulled out a wooden circle. Made of oaken boards nailed together and painted blue, Troy flipped it over and tugged on the straps. “Guess I owe Mark thanks for taking me to that renaissance festival,” he mused as he slid his arm in, and hefted it up. He gave the wood shield a few experimental lifts, then set it back down to keep searching.

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He rummaged around the box a bit more before he finally pulled out his purchase from the festival: A solid steel hatchet. Troy slowly set the weapon across the length of the box and looked it over. Thankfully, the handle was still unstained, and the hard cloth it was wrapped in still held strong. However, when he unbuttoned the leather blade cover to examine the edge, he hissed at the visible rust on the side of the blade. It wasn’t a layer of rust on the edge itself, but a brown streak that ran from the ‘heel’ to the center.

While he was upset about it, the blade still seemed sharp to the naked eye. With narrowed eyes, Troy picked up the weapon and pressed the blade’s edge against the cardboard lid. With a small jerk, the edge sunk into the cardboard like a knife in butter. After mulling it over some, Troy eventually shrugged and put the hatchet back in its sheath. If nothing else, he could get it sharpened later in the week.

With his blade and shield decided, Troy continued to look around for more equipment. It was pretty bare-bones as he worked through his collection, but he got a decent set together: His old biking helmet to block falling debris from one box; Some disused hiking boots to keep thorns and bites out; his old biking jacket, worn but still good against scrapes; And to top it off, his cut-resistant work jeans, which had been a god-send while working at the sawmill as a freshman.

Troy huffed and puffed as he tugged the jeans on, but finally buttoned them in place. Now fully dressed, he stood up and looked himself over. The tan pants went nicely with the dark gray jacket, but he could already feel sweat on his back.

“If it keeps ya safe from lions and tigers and bears,” he told himself, and attached the hatchet to his belt next to a flashlight. As he picked up the shield though, Troy froze when the phrase lit up a mental lightbulb - Hadn’t Carter said he had left a gift in the pantry?

Now distracted, he set the shield down and began to look around for the mentioned pantry. He managed to find the storeroom for old chemicals easily enough, and the closet across from the basement. But as Troy opened the door next to the fridge, the gleam of an iron barrel met his eye before he fell down screaming.

Troy scrambled back several feet, trying to put his distance from the firearm. It was only when he looked down the length to see it was propped up on a shelf that he froze in confusion. His fear quickly died down, only to turn into frustration just as fast. “Dammit, Carter!” he spat out, and shot back up to his feet. Troy grabbed the rifle with an outstretched arm and pulled it close to examine it.

A low growl escaped his lips as he realized the safety had been left on but pushed his own anger down to focus on the details. “No scope, good condition. Seems to use a tubular magazine,” he mused to himself, old memories with his father starting to come back. Though what kind of ammo wasn’t easy to determine. Thankfully, a quick glance in the pantry soon revealed a box full of ammo on the shelf, ‘.22LR’ on the outside in bold text. Troy tossed the paper on top away and stuffed three hefty handfuls of rounds into his pocket.

Once he shouldered the rifle with a makeshift shoulder-strap, Troy grabbed a few more supplies, ranging from rope and markers to a high-grade flashlight. Now geared up, Troy walked over to the counter. He took in a deep breath as he looked down at the bracelet, then finally grabbed the magic item and shoved it in his pocket.

“Come on Troy, you can do it,” he told himself, and boldly walked up to the bathroom door. As he put his hand on the door, he hesitated for a few seconds. However, as the roar of a plane passed overhead, he finally grit his teeth and walked through the door.

As he entered the magical world again, Troy began to look around for any details he missed when he first looked through. The smell of seawater was still tangible in the air, and while there were some mountains in the distance, the trees didn’t seem like they were part of an ancient, centuries-old forest. When he looked up though, Troy was surprised to find the sun glaring directly down on him.

“Guess the portal’s set on a different time zone,” he mused, slowly turning around. As his gaze lowered again though, he found the portal’s ‘exit’ was placed rather precariously: Rather than being a floating portal, the exit ‘door’ was set in a rickety shack. The doorframe was the only part built solidly, but the rest of the building had more holes than walls. However, the fact there was a building at all suggested something lived around here.

Troy cautiously walked around the house, checking it for any sign the building might fall over. However, for all the problems the walls had, at least the frame seemed sturdy. After a full lap for inspection, Troy nodded in satisfaction and looked over the landscape. With the hills slowly sloping down into the coastline, he looked around for where to walk before heading off towards what he hoped was the west.

The landscape was thankfully dry as Troy trekked away from the shack. His feet still sunk partially into the moss and mud, but the winding roots made it a pain to walk steadily. As he walked up the hillside, he began to notice the sound of crickets and birdsong coming from the surrounding areas. He couldn’t tell if it was the same birds as back home, but they were at least a nice sense of normality to the unfamiliar landscape.

As Troy came to a stop on a high point, he placed his hand on a tree trunk and looked around. Even after all this hiking, he still failed to find any sign of civilization. Maybe he went in the wrong direction - It wasn’t like he had looked for any paths.

Troy continued to glance around for a bit longer, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary. But after he circled around enough to mat down the grass, he let out a sigh and sat down on a fallen log. “Well, guess there really isn’t much out here,” he rhetorically wheezed, thinking about the possibilities. He knew that there had to be something living around here, the shack was proof of that. But for all he knew, maybe the shack was just a private site made by fishermen when they landed for the night.

Troy hissed through his teeth, unable to shake the sense of foreboding. Once he recovered his breath, he stood up and began to walk back to the shack. But as he put his hand on the trunk for support, a demonic roar ripped through the air. Troy stumbled at the sound and turned around only to see several trees fall over.

A chill ran down his spine as more trees fell, the adult trunks being tipped like unbalanced shelves. But as a pained bellow shook the trees, Troy felt a growing sense of something clinging to his back. A latent despair that clung with a thousand claws and leered at the back of his head with a hundred eyes. And yet, for all the unknown factors of it all…

Troy grit his teeth to the point he could hear it and spun around as he raced towards the sound. Like hell he could let something this loud sneak up on his place!