“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” Laura asked.

“I do.”

“When will make it? It’s gonna get dark soon and we’ve spent the whole day wandering these reeds here.”

*

It started on a Sunday. One afternoon my table in the back corner of a dim bar full of cigar smoke was visited by a man with an offer that was hard to refuse. In hindsight he looked quite peculiar, but at that time in that bar, sitting by my sixth glass of tequila I was not able to make note of that. Back then I only saw a tall older man with a long beard standing rigidly before me wearing an impeccable black suit, wearing a bowler hat and tinted glassed with small silver frames. He had black leather gloves on and his right hand leaned on a black cane with an intricately carved silver head.

As it had been a long time since I had had a job that would truly interest me, the unknown stranger’s offer seemed quite a temptation. My small basement office was full of memorabilia from a thousand corners of the earth and boxes full of offer for new expeditions. But after my last contracted journey into the secret places in Siberia ended suddenly and according to the papers classified for decades “as a catastrophe,” I had no interest of leaving my drink in this bar called The Black Goat of the Woods With a Thousand Young.

In short, the man promised me all the right things. My own team, everything necessary for getting to my destination and full support from the Board of Data in what ever I would dedicate myself to next. In other words: total control. Of course at that moment I was too drunk to really considered whether this was not too good of an offer. But at that time, not knowing was far more tempting than being open about things. When I asked where I would need to lead the team, the stranger did not answer me, instead he produced a pen and wrote an address he would be waiting me the next morning. This could only mean one thing – a long time dream of mine, the Route.

For a long time, that thing called the Route had been part of folklore and nothing more. Just like stories about tunnels connecting old missile bases, catacombs under the city bathing in Northerly winds and spatial ships fallen into the bogs and suburbs. And secret alien bases only visible and perceivable to experienced mediums. And for them too only when traveling as astral bodies.

As conspiracy theories, for a long time Kaiu marsh and the Route were considered to be under the same heading. The story about both was largely the same – drunks and old people had been taking a shortcut to the neighboring town through the forest and ended up disappearing for several weeks, some even for longer. When they did reappear, they appeared in perfect health which was in no way consistent with having to gather their own food from nature for at least a dozen days. And what the lost people said when they reappeared was enough to commit them to an asylum for a few months. In there, they were examined in every possible way to come up with a rational explanation how poor simple country folk had lost their marbles from staying in the forest too long and had become danger to themselves and others.

But then something happened. Whether it was caused by hitherto unknown force or only the road workers constructing the new village road, is impossible to say. But the Route to Nowhere turned from a pipe story of the drunk and the senile into a stable local anomaly. It is located in the middle of a newly paved road between two villages which are now again gaining life due to this, being a phenomenon about six miters wide and almost circular in shape.

It took a long time until it was understood that what they had was a doorway to some other place not located here. A door which functions in both directions. Meaning if one crosses the event horizon traveling in either direction on the road, one will disappear. After this apparition became stable, none who have crossed over have returned. All expeditions were considered lost and the people were considered dead. Those more in the know have theories that the place the doorway takes them to has no doorway back. Or there a more hopeful option that the place of entrance and the place of exit are not the same doorways and do not lie in the same moment and on the same spatial coordinates.

All this was already known to me when I was a small boy playing on golden fields, but still there I was standing in front of that jugendstil building at the required time with my face shaved clean and hangover slept off. Other than the luxury cars visible from the archway to the courtyard, the building seemed to have been abandoned for a long time.

My thought was that if the Triumvirate heading the Board of Data really had nothing else to do than to collect people with broken souls and those unsuccessful in life to use as cannon fodder for some vodka money against the anomaly then I could always say no. I could refuse and go back to the bar and continue with my tequila until they decide whether they can trust me to be silent or not.

Despite that I was not ready for what I heard and saw. Under the watchful eyes of a special police unit I was thoroughly searched and then led to the third floor of the building. I was asked to sit at small wooden table in the middle of a huge darkened hall. After the doors behind me had closed, nine lights slowly started to grow brighter revealing nine dark shapes backlit. A committee consisting of nine members. The brights lights behind them did not allow me to see their faces or even their clothes, but from the outlines I could tell that four of them were women.

The chair of the board, according to his rumbling voice a man past sixty, clearly said that this would not be a suicide mission. And although none of the expeditions they have sent have ever returned, they are still in possession of materials showing that where ever this anomaly leads to, human-like creatures from the other side have also come to investigate our world, just as we have sent ours to investigate theirs. The only difference being that the people from their side have all managed to return to their side. None have been managed to be stopped, captured or even shot.

To convince me that this was not suicide mission or a forced move, they offered two scientists for my team and allowed me to bring along one assistant. There reason for asking for me a was simple – in their opinion I had load of experience with environments hostile to humans and my future without this job would be relatively dim and full of tequila.

I met my final team a few days later in a checkpoint set on the Route. Watched by a branch of the military established for this particular purpose. My choice for a partner in my journey was Laura Mesi, a 5’5” woman with dark blonde hair who had accompanied me on the past 13 expeditions out of the 25 or so I have done so far. Different from many of her contemporaries and precursors, she was one of the few to have managed to return with her life and health intact. This had been mostly because unlike other white apes of the Western Society she never had a habit of jumping head first into the unknown or putting unknown things in her mouth without a pressing need.

The unknown committee had handed over a professor named Anatoly Tamm, a man in his fifties, whose hair, beard and brows had a little gray in them but who was still in health good enough to travel the world, and hike both in sharp winds of the Arctic as well under the scorching equatorial sun. Accompanying him was a young lad who did not arouse in me any feelings one way or the other. He did not seem to have much experience nor self-confidence. Thus I didn’t even bother to remember the brown-eyed boy’s name when the professor introduced him to us.

*

“Is this everything?” I asked from our group in full hiking gear. “Can we go now?

“You know this is a one-way ticket, right?” Laura asked.

“More of a one-way ticket to look at a lost city in the Arctic?” I asked.

“It sure is. I’m just reminding you.” The woman with big olive eyes said.

“If you don’t like it, why are you coming along then?”

“I didn’t say I don’t like it. Do you know how many times I’ve said over the years that I want off this planet? I would never forgive myself if let this chance go by me.”

“We’re not yet ready to go.” Professor Tamm said. “A Guide should join us and a soldier.”

“A soldier?” I asked. “The parameters of this expedition do not specify a need for guns. We have no need for them and I don’t want any member of our team to walk around with them. If we are in no danger of meeting wildlife, we have no need for weapons.”

“You misunderstand.” Professor said, smiling. “The soldier is not here to protect you from the Route but to protect you from the Guide.”

“And who is the Guide?” I asked.

“The guide is a Guide.” The soldier said stepping closer. He wore his full military kit along with a uniform and a kevlar vest, but his only weapon was a sidearm.

“My name is major Vernadsky.” He raised his hand to his ear. “It is not important who it is, it is important that they have their purpose.”

The major turned to look at an approaching convoy of vehicles flanked by armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicle with large caliber autocannons. In the middle of the convoy was massive 8-wheeled military vehicle the size of a missile transporter-erector. But instead of a missile there was a big specialized contained on the back of it. The convoy was shadowed by at least two helicopter gunships which stayed in the air even after the convoy stopped.

As soon as the convoy stopped, the dozens of soldiers exited their armored vehicles and started to secure the perimeter. However their focus was not the exterior surroundings but instead the specialized container at the back of the transporter truck. This was strange to see as the checkpoint cordon itself was like a massive military base full of special forces soldiers with assault rifles, tanks and other armor as well as helicopter gunships flying overhead.

The transporter truck had a specialized crane attachment which now lifted the back end of the container clear off the truck much like a garbage bin and lowered it gently onto the ground. After this, all the soldiers who had arrived as well as the infantry fighting vehicles trained their guns on the part lifted off the truck.

Dumbfounded, I observed how the locks on drab green container were remotely disengaged and then the sides of the trapezoid container were hydraulically lowered, revealing a single metal chair on which sat a female figure with a thick bag over her head. She was clothed all in black. Knee high combat boots, knee-length skirt and knitted long-sleeved black sweater. Next to the chair there was a small wheeled trolley with a tank and plastic tubes running to the cloth hood over the woman’s head.

Again remotely, the metal clamps on the arms, legs and her waist were popped under the watchful eyes of the soldiers aiming their weapons at her. She slowly lifted her hands, stretched them and then slowly raised them to pull the sack off her head.

She was young, in her early twenties at most. Long dark brown hair reaching down to her elbows. Simple yet elegantly beautiful face, strong brow line and dark eyes. The plastic tubes from the tanked ran across her ears and seemed to supply fresh oxygen as the tubes ran under her nose. From her face it was evident that all the measures for detaining, securing and transporting her were more of a source of entertainment for her than anything to be taken seriously. Despite the mechanical locks on the chair there were still leg irons on her feet and metal braces on her arms and waist.

As she got up, several soldiers approached her along with major Vernadsky. While the other soldiers kept their rifles trained at her, the major attached some chains to her wrists and waist restricting her movements. The chain did not allow her to to raise her hand higher than about 45 degrees from her waist. It was also obvious that she was tall or at least taller than average, being easily the same height as the major.

“That’s the guide?” Laura asked. “Her? She can’t even breathe on her own! And why is she in chains?”

“That is not your business, ma’am!” Major said in a loud voice. “And before we start I have a series of rules pertaining to the guide.”

“Yes?” I asked with some skepticism in my voice.

“The Guide will remain in chains. They will not be removed under any circumstance. You are also not allowed to discuss removal of the chains or mention them! Any failure to do so will give me grounds to suspect that you have been compromised by her influence and act accordingly! You may not talk to the Guide! You may not touch the Guide! You may not discuss her amongst yourselves! You may not do anything to risk her oxygen supply! Should these rules be not adhered to, I have been invested with the power to terminate the Guide at once!”

“Terminate the Guide? You mean kill her!?” Laura asked. “Isn’t that a bit too much?”

“I assure you ma’am, the authorizations and rules are only equal to the danger the existence of this person creates, nothing else.”

“In any case, you just told us everything we need to know, despite not wanting to.” I said. “Good job, dumbass.”

“And what exactly have I told you?” The Major asked. “Any conjecture you may draw from this we may just as well deny it especially if there is no evidence to corroborate your claims. And there will be none, as I just mentioned.”

“So you’re major Vernadsky?” The girl asked as she closed in, dragging her oxygen cart with her. “Is perhaps the old Vladimir Vernadsky a relative of yours?”

“That is irrelevant!” The major barked.

“So he’s not?” The girl asked, fearlessly yet comfortably staring into the major’s eyes. “That’s good.”

It was immediately evident how wary the major as well s the professor was of the tall girl in black. They had the guns, the men, the power and yet they were afraid of her.

I saw Laura approach me. She put her hands around my neck pulling me down. For anybody observing, this may have looked like a display of personal affection but really this was a way she could hide a serious discussion behind something mundane.

“What has he told you?” Laura asked.

“She is one of them, I think.” I said. “One of the people who don’t exist. One from the other side of the Route.”

“There are people on the other side?” Laura asked.

“There might just be. I see no other reason for her to receive such a welcome reminiscent of a serial killer whose value as an academic subject far exceeds their value as a human being.”

“That means there is a way back, or a way forward.” She said.

“Just what are you afraid of?” I asked.

“Making the greatest discovery on what seems like two Earths and having nobody to tell about it.”

“I see.” I said.

“Are you two just about done?” the Major asked, clearly annoyed by us.

“Just about.” I said. “Are there any other rules we should be aware of? Or can we go?”

“We can go.” The soldier said.

Out group of five advanced warily along a road of broken tarmac. Stepping over small clumps of dirt and low grass which grew in the cracks in the pavement. A clear sign that the nature was slowly clawing back some of what had been taken from its domain. Tanks and the rest of the military was left behind us. Ahead of us was only an empty disused road, not a single visible sign that this was anything unusual. No strange smells, no sudden alterations to one’s senses of time and space. Not even any strange lights or ebbing of air. The only thing before us which was somewhat disjointed was a lone raised crossing gate for no discernible reason which we soon passed.

“You know something about this, don’t you?” I asked the girl in black walking next to me.

The next moment the major hit me in the shoulder. The girl only gave a secretive smile, confirming that I was right in some way.

“That was not a personal question!” I said out loud.

“She talks, you do not!” The major replied sternly.

“How long do we have to walk?” Laura grumbled. “Before… Olavi?”

I heard my named called and turned to look back. An empty road. No raised barrier. No military checkpoint in the distance, just an arrow straight tarmac road being encroached by forest on both sides. Some of the grass which had taken root in the cracks of the pavement was getting pretty tall.

“I didn’t even notice us slipping in here!” The Professor said in a surprised tone.

“This is a forest, interesting stuff often happens in the forest,” I said, “That which just took place is one of the more mundane of such things.”

“Could you at least release my hands from the chains?” The girl in black complained. “I have nowhere to escape from here.”

“There is no chance in hell!” The major replied.

“Fine then,” she sighed. “A proposition then.”

She walked to the side of the road and used her feet t line up some small pebbles on the tarmac.

“Let’s say this first pebble is where we are and this next one is where our lodging is supposed to be. We could get there by following the road. It will be a long boring walk and we will get there by sundown at the earliest. If we can even notice a sundown at this place. Or we could take the shortcut.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

She turned and used her leg, raising it as much as the chain allowed, to point to a direction off the road.

“We could be there in a couple of hours.”

“We will not be doing that.” The major outright refused. “We have enough equipment on each of us to spend the night right here on the road if necessary. It is no different from suicide, jumping into the woods in an unknown place!”

“You want to spend the night right here?” The girl in black asked. “Not even the locals want to spend their nights in the forest after everything went to shit. Compasses no longer work, the air is full of signals jamming everything. And in a dark forest, one can lose their sense of direction at a moment’s notice. I will probably manage to spend the night in the forest just fine, I have never been afraid on any of the forests around this place. I have never been afraid of the forest critters who come out in the open once darkness falls. Of course, during the olden...”

The girl’s musings where stopped by the major who slapped her across the face without holding back.

“Through the woods then.” He curtly said.

“It is very difficult for us to travel with me like this.” the girl said.

“Not my business!” Vernadski replied. “Show us the way and don’t even think about getting away from our grasp!”

“One other thing.” The girl in black said. “If in the forest you should lose sight of the others, stay put. I will come and find you myself.”

“We.” the major said. “We will find them ourselves.”

“What’s the difference if you’re taggling along with me?” The girl asked.

She started walking again, the major produced his pistol and followed after her.

“Tell me you knew these two would be coming with us.” Laura said as we got deeper into the dark damp forest.

“I had no idea.” I replied. “I was only told where I was supposed to be to see the rest of my team. If I had known there was a career soldier involved, I would have considered it with much more care.”

“Remember what happened in Mexico? Mediocre soldiers in a non-military expedition never spell good. And this major and his behavior are the quintessence of mediocrity.”

The way Laura put it made me smirk. Despite that, I agreed with her. Essentially we were all alone in a world, far away from home and culture familiar to us and this was clear to everybody but one person who was still trying to hang on to a former way of life and order of the world, collecting gold he could never exchange. Demanding respect he had no use for.

“At the very least I hope you know who that girl is?” Laura continued when we passed the patch of forest and reached thick grass nearly ten feet tall, it was even more difficult here to not lose sight of the girl and the major.

“Nothing beyond what I already told you.” I said. “I think she’s from the other side. From this side. The Committee told me that the Route is not only unidirectional. Just like people have disappeared into here traveling along it, people have also appeared over there. But they told me that all that have appeared have returned without fail, none have been captured. But maybe that was...”

“You two! Shut up right now!” the Professor demanded. “You are revealing information classified at the highest level!”

“It is my own business what information I decide to reveal to my team members!” I said, slightly ticked off. “I believe in trust and respect. And considering this is no different from a one-way trip I find it important for each member for the team to know what they are facing, then they are also more serious towards what is expected of them. That information is of vital importance and I have no shits to give whether this is also a state secret or not! Also there is nobody in here to complain to!”

“There is the Major.” Professor said in all seriousness.

“By the way, did any of you notice where the Major and that girl went?” The young man following the Professor asked.

We looked around. Our guide and the person guarding her were gone. The four of us were standing alone on a small wet clearing in the middle of tall man-sized grass. Not a single other sound around us besides us breathing and walking around in it. No wind, no birds, no animals. The deathly silence and the lack of wind were the two things wearing down our nerves the most. This did not at all match the autumn cool and damp air. Seasons here were somehow different, even if in this case ‘here’ only stood for this very wetland of tall yellow grass.

“The girl in black said that we should stay put if we get lost.” I said. “At the moment we have no other option but to trust her.”

“There is another option.” Laura said, dropping her backpack. “That girl in black. She was not captured , instead she allowed herself to be captured.”

“You mean that girl in black is from this place?!” the Professor’s assistant asked, frightened. “This is her home?! Maybe then she brought us here to get rid of us one by one!”

“Shut the fuck up!” The Professor shouted. “We are lost, that is all. Nobody’s gonna die here. Let’s just stay here until they find us.”

“Yes, let’s wait.” Laura said, attempting to get her backpack on again.

She then stopped, and instead started using the small shovel hanging from her backpack to dig right beside the backpack. She finally lifted out a small metal can covered with a torn label and dark brown with surface rust.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“A can. I think there is something in it.”

Laura attached the shovel back to the rucksack. She then shook the can, something was rattling inside. She tried to make out the label and the markings on the can.

“Guatemalan coffee.” I said. “It is written right there on the can.”

“Coffee?” The Professor asked. “In here? That is impossible. How is it possible to find a can of coffee beans in here that looks like a can we had for sale in the year...”

“But these don’t sound like coffee beans.” Laura said, still shaking the can.

She gave up and used her pocket knife pry the lid off the can.

“Coffee beans.” I said, looking into the can. I picked one and put it in my mouth.

“And coins.” Laura said. “Estonian cents.” She pulled a few out to examine them. “From 1928.”

“1928!” The Professor exclaimed. “Do you not understand how old these are?!”

“Older than you can even imagine.” The girl in black said us, now standing before us, alone.

She carelessly threw her handcuffs and leg irons into the grass. It took her some effort to drag her oxygen cart on the rutted ground as she stepped closer.

“Put the coins and the beans back in the can, seal it and replace it.” She continued in a steady tone.

“Wh-why?!” the young assistant asked.

“Because the Lake does not like if somebody makes off with its property.”

“The lake?” Laura asked.

“This may look like a marsh, but once long ago there was a lake here.” The girl in black spoke. “But something happened. The lake evaporated… and now there’s this wet and noxious marsh which only remembers everything bad. This is what usually happens to lakes if you seriously slight them. Or outright rape them. Better people than us have tried to take things out of here. It has never ended well.”

“What happened to the Major?” I asked.

“He started to panic and fell into the kolk. He went into the waters and that was it. I tried to grab his belt but the only thing I manage to grab onto were the keys to my irons. Lucky break, huh?”

Shew now threw the keys to her bonds into the grass as well.

“At least we can now continue onward in peace.”

“Can you show us this place you say he fell into?” The Professor asked in a skeptical tone.

“Showing it is not up to me but to this marsh. And the marsh most definitely will not want to show it to you.”

“What kind of answer is that?” The Professor asked, annoyed.

“An honest one.” The girl smiled. “Anger is not helpful here. It will much more likely be a detriment than a benefit. The Major already made that mistake.”

“In what sense?” Laura asked. “Why can’t you show us?”

“Because the marsh does not allow me to. We could try our best but there is no chance whatsoever that we would make it back to that very same body of water.”

“Very handy.” The professor said, still annoyed and suspicious.

“Somebody once said that when going into nature, you should only leave there your footprints and only take away the refreshed feeling. In here this is more valid than anywhere else. That which has been abandoned into here, can no longer be retrieved. The only choices are to resolve oneself to leaving or to cling to the abandoned things and become abandoned yourself. To become forgotten.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

The girl only smiled for a few seconds, weight that question in her mind.

“I think the late Major was right, knowing who I am offers no help to us in our current task. It is way more likely to bring forth other questions.”

“What’s your name? Or is that something you also cannot tell us?” Laura pressed along.

“My name is a great part of who I am.” The girl replied. “It completely reveals who I am. But if that is your deepest wish… My name is Mariann.”

“And this… is this the Lake of Forgetfulness?” the Professor asked.

“It was.” Mariann said in a longing voice. “Once...” she raised her face towards the sky.

“Does anybody else have any questions?” I asked.

There were none.

“Very good then. We can continue moving.” Mariann said. “Our journey is going to be long, if not in time and space, then definitely in this marsh. And the marsh will be doing its best to lure us off our way and mire us into what lies here.”

“Where are we going?” Laura asked.

“It is hard to say.” The girl in black replied. “Simply because the names and the places they refer to have not matched up for a long time now.”

Soon I started to realize what the girl had meant with her riddles. I started to notice things. First of all, we weren’t just aimlessly wandering the tall grass and the marsh, there was a faint trail we were walking on. We also started passing various adjacent locations both natural and unnatural of which our guide could tell us little beyond what we saw.

It started with little things. Again and again, we found ourselves nearby the can of coffee beans, the keys to the irons and the handcuff and leg irons Mariann has discarded. And on each occasion one of us noticed it, she warned us to not pick anything up, not to stray from the path and just ignore what we saw. Sometimes it felt as if we were walking in circles, as if we were stuck in space, always ending back at the starting point. At the same time it felt like the landscape and the plants kept changing each time we rediscovered the items.

And then something changed. The weirdness grew stronger, the locations appearing and appealing to us grew bigger. For example there was like a good hour while I was certain we were walking round and round on a forgotten cemetery because all around us I could notice iron and steel crosses which had fallen over or were just about to, illegible stone grave markers and orderly moss-covered raised platforms which felt the size of grave plots. Or remnants of foundations made of field stones.

All this held no appeal to our guide though. She also had no interest in a spectacularly big rust-covered orthodox catholic cross diagonally rising out of the ground, just barely five steps off the trail. Or the tank turret and a barrel just barely above the waters of the kolk at some other place. Even the assistant of the Professor was hit on the back of the head when he started to show a little too much interest in a car wreckage which had long since become one with nature once more.

It also seemed like the terrain under our feet was changing. It was becoming more solid and less damp. More certain. Sometimes we even noticed patches of cobblestoned areas here and concrete curbstones and walkway tiles there. In the end, we found ourselves before a whole section of street from the 20th century. Complete with building facades, pavement, lighting and utility poles and paved walkways and the two-way street between the two sides.

“What the hell happened in here?” Laura asked. “Was there a town here at some time?”

“Some time… I don’t know.” Mariann said. “What happened here, I don’t know. Whether there was something here at some time or not. What we see here now does not allow us to make any guesses on what happened here.” She smiled. “Even the word ‘happened’ may be inappropriate to use.”

“You mean it might be deliberately erected to look like this?”

“No, not quite that.” She replied. “Not ‘happened’, but rather ‘will happen.’ The happening of this place is still in the process of happening. It is continuing its process of happening and us being here is part of this event and this process. This is not only true about the marsh but also about the world itself, in fact this holds true for all possible worlds.”

As we continued, our path became littered with broken pieces and shards of of some gigantic concrete structure the purpose and origin of which was impossible to discern from the broken pieces. Even if these pieces were whole sections of buildings. Rooms and hallways broken off, pillars and towers, corners of rooms. None of those sat level with the ground, jutting out in all sorts of obscure angles which made it even harder to guess what they were. All of it created an apocalyptic landscape which was quite capable of resisting being comprehended and contemplated. As if somebody had broken the buildings like bread between their fingers to feed the birds in the park.

Some of the surfaces were tiled with black, off-white or cream tiles of various colors, roughly ten by ten centimeters in size. We could see steel sticking out of the concrete, both as rebar as well as pieces of fences, railings, barred windows and such. Some of this steel had been twisted into grotesque inhuman artworks by unfathomable forces. One section of a hallways even had a barred security gate, with thick pieces of steel bent and ripped in all directions as if some massive creature has torn its way through it.

It was also strange to see, when jumping on a new section of hallway, or a corner of a room, that there was a layer of water few centimeters thick on the tiled surface, or a layer of mud or other sediment. Once one that was wiped off one could also discover old coins or firearms, electrical outlets or lamp sockets. The firearms were usually rusted to the point of seizing, their original purpose only discernible from their shape. Sometimes there were also bilingual old signs on the wall sections, giving the impression that once this had been some sort of hospital.

“We’re getting closer.” Mariann said. “closer to the epicenter of everything that happened, if it can indeed be called that.”

“Why do you think so?” The Professor asked.

“Look ahead.” She replied. “An abandoned railroad. That brings us quite close to the place we intend to reach.”

“These pieces of a building, it was once a hospital, wasn’t it?”

“A hospital…? Yes it was.” Mariann seemed to remember something as she gave a sad smile. “But it was also something more than just a hospital.”

“I-is that an... anomaly?” The Professor’s assistant asked, pointing at a twisted evil-looking cluster of trees in the distance.

The most distinct aspect of it seemed to be a massive blackened tree with multiple forks in the trunk. There were no leaves or thinner branches, the whole thing looked dead. However between the forks there was a massive under-wing turbine engine of an aircraft. And although the tree itself was bare, the trunk was from the ground up covered in ivy, which gave it a look of being covered in dark green soft fluff.

But the young man wasn’t referring to the tree and the engine but instead some twisted landscape much nearer to us, which looked like an object roughly the size of a communications satellite had dropped here, gouged a massive crate here and then made the roots of the trees or something else stretch up and over it covering it like a winding framework. Fit for building a shelter if one were to cover it with a tent or some evergreen branches.

“Are these...” Laura started.

“These are not roots.” I said.

“True. They are not.” Mariann agreed. “It is glass. Sand and dirt which has burnt into glass.”

“How on earth…?” Laura asked. “What could have caused this?”

“It is not my place to put forth theories about what was or about what is about to be. I only know most about what currently is.” The girl in black said.

“We should go and take a closer look at that entity.”

The professor said, stopping on a narrow boardwalk which reached from the last section of a crumbled hospital onto a tilted railroad bridge one end of which disappeared into the water not far off.

“That is not a good idea.” Mariann said. “Only one way traverses the marsh and we are standing on it. Should we deviate from it, there is the danger of never getting back onto it. One may simply get mired in the marsh. Not in a physical but in a temporal and spatial sense. That’s why you only see man-made object and tech which has gotten mired in here, but no people. All the people who have ever gotten stuck here have either already died or they have not yet ended up here to get stuck.”

“I am still failing to understand why we couldn’t go along the paved road but had to come into the swamps?” The Professor asked annoyed. “You saying that one might get stuck in the swamp or get lost cannot be valid to the least. One can always get out. If not by themselves then with the help of the others.”

“Look ahead into the distance along the railway bridge.” Mariann said, not the least affected by the rising emotions.

“What am I supposed to see there?” The Professor asked, straining his eyes. “I see the railway, do I not?”

“And what else?” She asked.

“The railway.” The man repeated.

“Oh yeah...” I suddenly said.

Indeed, I had remembered that each of us had binoculars in our backpacks. I started lowering mine before I noticed Laura handing me hers.

I raised the binoculars and immediately understood what Mariann had been referring to. In the distance I could see thick fog on the surface of the marsh rising to just about the height of of the elevated railway we were on. But I could also see a railway intersection where the elevated railway on the marsh met a broken steel-trussed bridge, with broken sections collapsed into the marsh on both sides of the elevated railway. I could see no bank on either side of the of the railway.

“We could not have taken the road, because in the distance the road crosses the railway.” I said. “And the road bridge has collapsed.”

“The railroad runs straight, the road does not. And the road winds back and forth crossing the rails at least twice or thrice.” Mariann spoke. “But the first one of these crossings is the most serious, which we could not make if we were to be on the road.”

The professor too finally produced a binocular and started observing the objects in the distance.

“So we have to move along the old railroad?” He asked dejectedly. “How long?”

“I think about five kilometers.” Mariann said. “This is the shortest route.”

“Copy.” The Professor said.

He used his binoculars to observe other directions as well, including the twisted landscape objects around us.

“God damn it! That boy!” he suddenly shouted out.

I did not need to use the binoculars to see what had angered him so. While we were discussing the railway and our route, the boy had made off and found a way to that strange half-cylindrical framework of fused sand. He was now standing quite near to that and looking at from every angle, obviously fascinated by it.

My judgment about the size of the object had been generally correct. The boy was about 180 centimeters tall, and the top of the invisible cylinder the sand was reaching around was about twice his height.

“Hey! Get back here! Come back!” The Professor started jumping up and down and waving his hands to get the boy’s attention, he was standing maybe 50 meters away from us.

The boy noticed him and waved back. But it was obvious that he was more interested in examining the strange object than following the Professor’s orders. I could see how he even raised his hands to his mouth to shout louder, but despite that, we heard nothing. He saw it too, because soon he raised his hands again to shout something.

This time something made it to us. And every one of us flinched when we heard it. The way we heard it infused us with some strange and inexplicable trepidation. We could not explain it, it had no clear source. But suddenly I felt like I was standing in the middle of a minefield, where every one of my steps could be my last. But there was also another feeling, like the whole world around us suddenly transformed without a single thing changing outwardly or visually. It transformed from an ordinary marshy forest full of abandoned structures and equipment into something completely different. Something more mysterious, more terrible, unpredictable and incomprehensible. Something more alive and yet more alien. Dimmer, darker and more dangerous. For a long time now this had not been a home or a playground. There were only memories crumbled and torn apart, impossible to match up with anything still remaining.

This transformation had also torn down all pretenses of being able to help that young man. I knew it was impossible. How can I be an actor in a world I cannot fathom? If I cannot comprehend how even the minutest aspects of it function? That boy was lost. I saw Laura also reaching similar conclusions. The only thing we could do now was to wait for the reality to catch up to the fact of his death.

And Mariann, the girl in black accompanying us and guiding us, in my eyes she had also changed. Despite the oxygen tank and the pipes running to her nose, it seemed like with just a flick of her finger she had thrown aside all measures the Comittee had taken to capture and to keep her. Simply because she was able to foresee and utilize the secret aspects of the world we could neither recognize nor consider.

That was the source of my fear. I was afraid that everything that girl was telling us about the world and the way it worked was not just her delusion or some strange philosophy but the very truth, horrible in it’s reality. The shortest and clearest way to explain what was going on all around us.

“Hey! Professor!” they young man’s voice reached us.

But in a blood-curdling way, it did not reach us at the same time we saw him speak. It also did not reach us from the same direction he was standing. Even to distance felt wrong to my ears. To my hearing it seemed like he was standing maybe 10 meters away from us, on the railway.

“Come here! You have to see it! It’s… it’s like a fallen sputnik or something!”

A moment later we heard something we did not expect to hear. Something which made all of us look around nervously. It made all of us look for shadow figures we were suddenly starting to sense, made us look for the source for the disembodied voice we heard.

“Damn it, boy!” We heard the Professor shouting.

But the voice wasn’t coming from the Professor. He hadn’t said anything, instead it also originated from the direction of the railroad, as if he too had been standing on the rails.

“Pro-fes-sor!” We heard the young man shout again. “Come he-re! Sput-nik! The fu-ture!”

“That boy has quite the voice on him.” Mariann said. “Quite deafening I must say.”

Soon the boy repeated his message and then everything fell silent.

“We…!” The professor wanted to start again, but his words stopped as soon as he had started.

That was because his discarnate voice from the railroad took over instead.

“We have to help him! Don’t you understand?! Help!”

“Do you now understand why we cannot help him?” Mariann asked. “He can never again reach us. And even if we manage to reach him we would not be able to reach back here.”

“Is there anything at all we could do for him?” Laura asked with note of caring in her voice.

“We can remember him by not committing such a stupid mistake ourselves.” Mariann said. “Right now we can still see him, but soon...”

“What do you mean “right now!?”” The professor asked, rushing to the girl in black and getting in her face. “What are you saying!? Because of you, two people are dead and the first day hasn’t even properly started yet! You don’t care at all, do you?! Because of that you had that soldier accompanying you, wasn’t it?! So you would not kill any people! You better start speaking with some clarity and without riddles, or I’m gonna strangle you with your own oxygen hose!”

The girl in black started to laugh. I kicked the professor in the back of the knee and then dragged him away from Mariann along with help from Laura.

“I have heard a similar outburst already today.” The girl in black said. “From that soldier. He also threatened to kill me in a very creative way after we had wandered the marsh for the 8th hour, with his pistol still jammed between my ribs and hip.”

“For the 8th hour…?” Laura asked. “You were gone at most for...” she fell in a contemplative silence.

“By the 8th hour.” The girl replied. “Strong emotions will hurt our endeavor rather than help it along. On one hand with strong emotion you will fail to notice that something is wrong with the world and you might rush straight into your own disappearance. On the other hand, our own emotions may amplify the dangers around us, never mind the sense of direction fading into ambiguity. But, Professor, you wanted a straight talk.

The central theme would be synchronity. Where we currently are and where he is, are ticking at different speeds and in a different tempo. Same applies for all places between here and over there. Sometimes all of these are synchronized and sometimes not. When they are no longer in synchronity then we can no longer see this place as it is right now, only as it was between the moments of it’s birth and it’s demise. However we do not know when one or the other event took place or during which point in time do we currently exist. Such uncertainty is exponential.”

“I have an idea.” Laura said.

She lowered her backpack and after spending some time looking for something in it, she produced a little tea candle. She ignited it and set it on one of the rails.

“See you on the other side.” She said, then tried to remember what the boy’s name was. “Professor, what was his name?”

“Sakharinsky, Stanislav Sakharinski.”

“See you, Stanislav Sakharinski.” Laura said. “See you on the other side.”

“See you.” We all said.

“We have to continue.” Mariann said. “We want to make it to the campsite before the night falls.” She smiled. “At least you will after the first night here. I’ll be fine.”