Amity led them out of the door, and then she got back to work trying out the magic system, this time with the new rocks. First, she chipped a bit of the yellow one and mixed it with some of the green one, but nothing happened. Then, mixed some with the red one, but still nothing. Finally, she mixed a tiny bit with the blue one which resulted in it glowing a bright green, and when she spread it into a circle she saw the same light fly by again.

Using the same method as before, she traced the glyph, and then saw as a bright yellow-green light shined from the paper, and when she tried to stick her hand into the light there was a small flash and she felt a huge jolt of electricity go through her arm as she yanked it backwards. She realized what she had found, but not before she had a burn all along her arm. She was in a lot of pain from it but Amity decided to try out the green rock first, which when traced and activated, launched a teal light out of the paper and sticking the same arm into the light as she did with the electric light, she felt the burn… disappear?

“What the shit. I just magically gave myself a burn and an electric shock, then healed it in less than 5 minutes. This is fucking insane. I’m gonna get so popular.”

As Amity tried out these combinations, she was very much thinking of the future ramifications, and that magic may not be entirely good, but she brushed it aside, assuming she would never even be able to use it for anything like that in the first place. Magic was really inconvenient to use, needing some paper and that weird mix, as well as it being super hard to trace the glyphs.

Amity put away every rock and a copy of each glyph into a cardboard box, and then as she tried to put it onto a shelf into her room, the box nearly fell, and a few rocks fell out, but she didn’t bother to put them all back into the box, so they were left on the nightstand.

Amity sat up. It was just 6 in the morning. She saw a series of texts on her phone followed by a missed call, being what woke her up in the first place. She called them back, and she heard a similar voice on the end, this time whispering.

“Hey, Amity. Come over. I know you can get out through your window. We just found something huge. One word- portal.”

Himiko hung up on Amity, and so she did what she was told. Grabbing a small change of clothes, she rushed to get changed before climbing out of her window and jogging to her friends house, carrying the two rocks left out. Upon reaching the house, she hopped the fence and climbed up the wall. It’s not as impressive as it sounds - the fence was maybe 3 feet, and there was a ladder that if Amity jumped to she could grab onto enough to climb up. After getting level with the window, she stepped over and slipped inside. “Yo, what did you find.. what is.. that?”

“Oh, uh, to be honest I’m not actually sure. All that I was able to tell is that I spilled a mix of every rock type onto my closet door and now…” She glanced at the closet door. “That.”

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Amity looked at it. She noticed that the door-frame, now illuminated a light yellow, was notably wet on the bottom and a bit up the left side, and now had a darker yellow spiral going around it from the bottom corner and circling around to the center.

“Is this a fucking portal? What did you do?” Himiko responded by simply sticking her hand inside. It disappeared, not in a way that would indicate a curtain or a weird sort of screen, just gone. Amity then tried the same, sticking her hand into it and watching as it disappeared. She could still feel it though, and it felt cold. Whatever this thing was, it somehow had a cooling effect.

“Whoa, that’s cold.” Amity immediately wanted to see what this place was, but she wasn’t risking herself for it.“I’ll give whoever steps fully in there first and comes back alive 5 bucks. Tell the truth on what you see.”

“You’re on magic man.” Raleigh responded, “I’ve gotta recoup my loss from when you found this shit in the first place.”

And so, Raleigh stuck his hand in there, feeling the cold firsthand, before deciding he needed a backup plan.

“Himiko, I’m gonna hold onto this blanket, I need you to keep hold from the other end, pull me back in after maybe 10 seconds at most, I don’t wanna die.” Himiko grabbed onto the blanket, and held on tight as Raleigh stepped foot into a new world.Raleigh stepped into the portal. Immediately, he felt his foot digging into loose sand, then he saw some tall sand dunes.

“What the shit it’s a fucking desert.” He couldn’t do much before he got yanked back in, but he grabbed a handful of sand before heading back.

“Welcome back to the real world Raleigh, how was it? What did you see?”

“It was, uh… It was a desert. Really weird.”The group stared at him, no way it was just a desert, right?

“There were super tall sand dunes, probably three or four times my height? And I didn’t see any animals or anything, it was just sand, not even any signs of a shelter. I don’t think there are any people there… I grabbed some of the sand, here.” He showed them all the sand.

At this point, the group was convinced; they needed to see for themselves. It sounded weird, a cold desert with nothing in it? Amity spoke up.

“I’m going in there, there’s no way you’re telling the truth. Probably just pocket sand.”

Amity grabbed hold of the blanket and ran in.

“Oh, shit it was a desert. God damn it. Fuck this.”

Amity returned to the real world, and admitted defeat, handing Raleigh his well earned bet money. “It was a desert. How did you make a fucking portal to the desert Himiko?”

“I told you, I mixed together some of all the rocks you gave me and I spilled it, and it just MADE that.”

“All of you are coming in there with me again, we’re gonna see what that whole place is about. Himiko, do your parents have a printer?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s in the living room by my dad’s desk. What do you need?”

“More glyphs. Also, can I pour myself a bit of water so we can actually make more of the magic goop stuff?”

“I’ll go do that, they don’t know you’re here so its not a good idea to go down there.”

After probably 3 minutes, Himiko returned with a paper condiment cup, tap water in a water bottle, and a few sheets of paper.

“Here, paper, weird cup thing, and some glyphs. Also, a fire glyph I set up for you while I was down there.”

“Alright, thanks. Are we all ready to check that place out?”

“Yeah, I guess… Katie, we’re going into the thing.”

“Oh, shoot, uh, I’m not ready yet. Give me probably 60 seconds.”Katie scrambled to grab her bag and stuffed some stuff into it, notably her sleeping bag and a few water bottles.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Amity stepped into the portal.