"What's in the cube?"

Lee and Tabby were bent over a table, earnestly studying the contents of the cubes. They couldn't really accomplish much in the previous days; suddenly thrusting two bachelors into a full-time parental/guardian role threw their plans out of the window.

Thankfully, they managed to work out a semblance of a schedule and their individual responsibilities for Rosie. Lee is in charge of cooking, general caretaking and TV entertainment, Tabby is in charge of household chores and acting as a fluffy pillow/bolster, Sparky meanwhile is the main playmate and impromptu entertainer. Between the three of them, they were able to keep Rosie sufficiently entertained and most importantly, tired enough to take afternoon naps.

While Lee has been carefully fiddling with the cubes on and off, he couldn't really focus much due to Rosie's needs. However, he could finally fully focus on his research this afternoon and try to understand exactly what the heck went wrong with his portal experiments.

Lee had carefully isolated both Tabby and himself within a separate pocket dimension. After enlarging both cubes to be the size of a 25 square meter room, he donned an enchanted hazmat suit.

Meanwhile, Tabby opted for a pair of enchanted glasses and a completely normal bowtie. He was sitting outside the cubes and in charge of carefully recording their observations and results from today.

"While I don't have an actual answer yet, I can wing some theories," Lee said as he carefully examined one of the isolated particles using a tweezer.

"Let's hear it," Tabby sat upright, rapt in attention.

"Remember on the day of the second experiment you were woken up by some strange sounds?" Lee asked. Tabby nodded.

"What we both noticed then was that only you could hear it within your head, while Rosie and Sparky remained unaffected. That leads me to think that whatever was trying to get out from the portal might be telepathic."

"But why only us? If it's a telepathic blast anyone who has a brain should be affected right?" Tabby asked.

Lee stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps they is a criteria to distinguish who should be affected? Maybe by the level of individual consciousness?" Lee proposed.

The two of them ruminated in silence.

"I noticed something else as well," Tabby said slowly, "I was observing how those foreign particles were moving before you entered the cubes. They were originally just floating around, but the moment you entered they suddenly became much more active."

"Hmm, so this means they can also sense conscious lifeforms near them." Lee thought out loud. "Why though? Are they trying to devour one's consciousness? That seems ominous."

"Maybe it's not something so scary, maybe they are just affected by your thoughts instead?" Tabby asked.

Lee's eyes lighted up in epiphany. After exiting the cube, he conjured several bookshelves filled with grimoires of various shapes and sizes. Several sinister looking and heavy books floated down, but Lee quickly flipped through them before having Tabby putting them back in their respective slots.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

After several minutes of flipping, Lee eventually found what he was looking for. It was a small, illusory volume which felt cold to the touch. Thin wisps of fog seeped through the pages that were clamped between two relatively thick covers.

"Almeriz's Travels to the Fog," Tabby read the words on its spine. It was definitely not a cheery looking book. While most books had welcoming words, quotes, or illustrations on their covers, the front cover of this book was instead occupied by a fully embossed eye, while a slow-moving black swirl was on its back cover.

"Looks a bit like the portal we created previously," Tabby muttered. "What is this book about?"

"To be honest, I actually haven't read it yet." Lee responded. "I plundered this when I destroyed a minor cult two centuries ago. Unfortunately, the cult leader was already crazy when I found him. I managed to piece from his ramblings that this book actually records the story of their missing founder who went to 'seek the truth' but got lost in a weird, twisted dimension."

"And you think that we accidentally opened a portal to this dimension?" Tabby asked. "What's twisted about the dimension he explored?"

"Only one way to find out," Lee grimaced and opened the front cover.

* * *

Tabby felt a sudden chill the moment Lee flipped open the book. Weird howls, echoes, and faint screams emanated from its pages. Lee's face contorted and he started sweating profusely.

Tabby immediately put his hands together. A glowing white circle filled with rotating glyphs and geometric shapes appeared behind him. As Tabby concentrated, the circle shrank and transformed into white wisps of light on his right hand. Tabby quickly pressed his palm on the back of Lee's head.

The light from Tabby's hand washed over Lee, expelling an inky, foggy substance from Lee's body. After a few tense moments, Lee gasped and quickly shut the book.

"Thanks," Lee said. "I could dispel it myself, but it would take much longer." He stood up and quickly isolated the book in another barrier before throwing it and all the remaining bookshelves into his dimensional storage.

"No worries. Did you manage to learn anything?" Tabby asked in concern.

"Some," Lee said as he massaged his forehead. "At least I am able to identify what those particles are."

"So what are they?" As Lee was trying to gather his thoughts, Tabby performed the same purification spell, but pressed it against the ground instead. A wave of white light spread across the dimension and quickly dissipated, washing over them both and the two barrier cubes.

"It seems we successfully punched a hole to the In-Between, which is good. What is bad however is that while the In-Between is supposed to be a blank void, something has altered its environment to be more reactive to consciousness instead."

"The particles are most likely corrupted substances reacting to the consciousness near them," Lee continued. "That's why you observed them being docile earlier, but suddenly turning much more reactive the moment I stepped into the cube."

"Okay, that makes sense," Tabby nodded. "You seem to be forgetting something though. Something, i.e. the tentacles, was obviously trying to break through the portal."

"Which brings us to Almeriz's book," Lee remarked. "He noticed that some creatures can form a self-perpetuating existence within the fog. These creatures will instinctively try to break into our dimension and become an actual, living entity. The tentacle-thingy should be one of them."

"Almeriz was actually trying to find clues to the corruption of the dimension. He was unfortunately attacked by something inside the fog, which also left its mental image within the book."

"Ironically," Lee smiled grimly. "Almeriz's goals were actually good. But the mental corruption within the book warped the minds of his followers, thus accidentally creating one of the most annoying evil cults I have ever faced."

"That answers some of our questions, but not all," Tabby said as he lifted his fingers one by one. "What caused the corruption of the In-Between? Who, or what, attacked Almeriz? How did Rosie travel through the In-Between without being affected? Can we send her back? What is Rosie?"

"One thing at a time, Tab," Lee shrank the cubes. "Meanwhile, its time to think what we should have for dinner."