Rosaendra’s neck tingled as a flash of dry lightning cracked through the sky. She squeezed her eyes shut to block the sudden brightness and when she opened them again, the world had changed.

All along the sidewalk; the parking lot; the street, and up and down the apartment complex’s hallway, were doors. Actual doors. Like those that she had just walked out of. She could see a few, ‘gates,’ further down in the middle of the street, as well.

Rosaendra pulled the mirror out of her pocket.

“They’re actual doors?”

Yes.

“I was thinking of something more....mystical. Metaphorical for doors.”

That is not the fault of Hecate or her Servitors. That was just an assumption you had made.

“I know.”

There was a Door that stood a few feet away, along the walkway that led to the staircase.

“Should I go into this one?” She asked the mirror.

It took a second for it to reply.

Yes. With your current abilities, you can conquer it. Those closest to human habitation will be the easiest to destroy.

Rosaendra swallowed the palpitating fear burgeoning in her throat in the form of a pea-sized lump in her throat.

“Do I knock?”

You do not have to.

Rosaendra shoved the mirror into her pocket and knocked three times in the cadence of shave and a haircut before turning the handle and pushing it open. She stepped into a black void. She fell head over heels through this void, she wanted to scream, but she felt if she opened her mouth all of the air in her body would be sucked out of her.

It didn’t last long. Soon her feet found solid ground which creaked beneath her step. At some point during the transition she had squeezed her eyes shut, so she forced them open once she was sure she was nowhere in that whirling, howling void.

She was standing in a...room made entirely of white wood. Pale and sickly things like the wood that sometimes washed up on the beach. Small hammocks hung on hooks bored into the wood. Fishing lines and hooks hung from each of these hammocks, and small harpoons that came up to her waist lined the walls. Small wooden trunks; broken open and full of torn, striped clothing that might have fit her midriff. She glanced around; making sure not to make a sound before she was absolutely sure she wouldn’t alert anything to her presence.

Stolen story; please report.

The floors and ceilings were made of great beams of pale wood, between these great beams she could see that there were floors upon floors. At the far end of the room, she could see a door. Pale light bled through the spaces of the beams that made up the wall. She turned around, and she saw that she had entered this space through a similar-looking door; though she couldn’t open it, at a testing tug. Pale white light filtered through that wall as well. Rosaendra pulled the mirror out of her pocket and clicked it open.

“So what do I do now?” She spoke in a hushed whisper.

Destroy the shrine. Came the reply.

“And then what?”

You’ll have ten minutes to come back to the door that you entered.

“So the one behind me?”

Yes.

“Do you know where this shrine is?”

I do not.

The only thing she could do was step forward. Her footsteps creaked against the deadwood flooring as she walked across a room. What would a shrine look like? Where would it be located? She supposed she’d look in the next room over. She walked along the wooden beams across the room. Near the door was a staircase made of the same wood that made up everything else.

It felt as if the entire building swayed with every step she took. All of her concentration was spent on not falling over as her stomach churned and whirled. Perhaps she still felt dizzy from falling into the void? She didn’t know.

As she neared the door, she noticed a staircase that led to the floors above and below her. She gave it a wide berth and pulled the brass ring on the deadwood door, and stepped out. Just beyond the door was a walkway, much like the one in her apartment complex. A thick fog hung in the air all around her, and about two or three steps on either side of her down the walkway. In front of her was a banister that blocked off the ledge that overlooked a great fall. The scent of salt-stained air wafted past the door.

Beyond the fog, she could see the faint outlines of hundreds of buildings, circling a great bay over a dark, inky ocean that stretched far, far into the horizon that washed in. As the tides flowed in, she felt the entire structure she stood on move up and down. Her stomach churned again.

She approached the great fog to her left. It didn’t retreat or fade like normal fog did when approached, but stood strong and as resolute as stone. It blocked her as she tried to step forward through it. The wall of fog felt like a thick, impenetrable jello. She pulled out her mirror once again and clicked it open.

“What is this?” She asked as one of her hands moved up it to explore it further.

Proof of a dead world. The spirit of Efra has been extinguished, and the world is falling apart. The Anchors of Roki are the only thing keeping this world together. When they’re destroyed, this area will fall apart and join the haze.

“What a sad fate.” She muttered as she placed the mirror back in her pocket.

She turned around and went back into the longhouse. Where to start? Eenie-meenie-minie down. The handrails were far too short for her to use. She stepped lightly. As she entered the room below a shadow from below caught her attention. She stopped at the edge of the stairs and pressed her back against the staircase to make sure her shadow didn’t do the same to whatever it was down there. She knelt down and peered forward, through the cracks between the floorboard to take a look at whatever was down there.