Jared had found a home deep in the mountains. He had been hiking them since he was a child, wandering the twisting paths to its peak. Not once had he ever seen a glimpse of this ancient home. It stood three stories tall with pines surrounding it like an army besieging a castle. The path he was on lead straight to it. He walked this trail because he had never seen it before. Shrugging, he continued to the house itself.

It looked like something ripped from a Victorian era novel, its architecture matching the era precisely. Somehow it was kept perfectly preserved among the towering pines. Up close, it looked hundreds of years old. Older even than the structure's Victorian roots. everything about this mansion was pristine.

He called out to anyone who might be home waiting patiently for a response of some kind, showing a human presence besides his own. Belatedly, he noticed there were no other ambient noises. No birds chirping, no squirrels chittering, no dogs barking, and if this were a horror movie, no wolves howling. Empty silence echoed in its own eternity, mocking his earlier calls. Not even the pine needles scattered over the ground stirred, as he stepped closer to this mysterious home.

The electric shock of thrill and adrenaline began pumping through his body with a heart full of excitement. He mounted the porch before the doorway. The windows stood dark, either from the lack of light inside or some fancy curtains, he couldn’t tell. He called out, yet again, reaching for the antiquated door knocker, in the shape of a fist crushing a looped serpent devouring itself. The thing looked chilling.

He waited a while longer this time, the house seemed to have devoured the sound of his calling and knocking. He felt a tingle of fear creep down his spine, almost arcing his back in an attempt to make him flee. He scoffed at his petty fear, and thought of other mountains and places he had been that were surely more dangerous than this place. After all, this must be a movie set or something to just appear out of nowhere. In the back of his mind he thought, if this is a movie set where are the people or equipment?

He hammered away, yet again, with the knocker, bordering on paranoia as no sound occurred whatsoever. Sweat beaded all across his skin, cold and slick as the ice being pumped into his veins.

Somehow guts and daring still remained as he glanced upon the old-fashioned keyhole, an overwhelming urge came over him, he had to look.

He bent close, heart pumping shards of ice along veins full of lead that rooted him to this spot, all but forcing him to bend and look though the keyhole. Unable and unwilling to resist looking, he framed his eye with his hands to block ambient light and pressed close to the keyhole.

For a moment there was nothing but black, but within that eternal moment, that space between breaths, a flickering began. Not as one would assume, a flicker of artificial light, but of all colors at once and at random. Eventually, after a time he could not determine, in his rapt attention, the flickering slowed, resolving into images. Yet, they were more lifelike and real than the mountains that surrounded him.

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The images were still flowing by quickly, almost too fast for him to comprehend them. Flashes of a Victorian party, a business meeting that might have happened today, a field where men wearing red shot men wearing blue, then men wearing blue shooting men in grey; a funeral where everyone was dressed like the 1920's. Endlessly these images invaded his sight and he began to notice a curiosity, a man in a threadbare brown suit and hat, clearly in the 1950's style, with a card saying press stuck in the hat band. He was in all of them, he began to see, and soon he noticed he was looking in his direction.

He came towards him, a constant shape amid the torrent of images. Soon, he stood before the keyhole, hiked up his pants and squatted down, mirroring his pose. "So, you found it at last, did ya?" His mind froze as he heard him speak. He thought how unreal this was. This must be a trick or something.

"Son, this isn’t a trick. I’m talking to you through events in history and the future. Everyone I meet just thinks me crazy, but I am a witness to everything in time and space, here and many other worlds and realities. Honestly, I started out just like you, staring through that keyhole. I was no one then, just an alcoholic looking to steal some rich broad’s jewels. I saw what you are seeing instead. Except no one was there to give me this spiel. To everyone anywhere else, I seem deranged or just a crazy wanderer in a tattered suit. Really, you got two options now, son. Either open the door and join me in seeing everything this existence has to offer, or walk away and always wonder what life could have been like. I watched that branch of my life. I was haunted by what I saw, and hunted after it, never to find it, and drowned in drink shortly after. We all get our choices kiddo, but all too many are one-time and limited-time-only offers. You either leap or live on."

Jared could only stare in wonder, as tears fell from his eyes. He felt a pull unlike anything he had ever felt before. More than even the natural world around him. He realized his calling. "I am a witness to the ends and beginnings, to the triumphs and defeats, the love and hate, the life and death, the stars in all their multitude await me and the depths of space beckon my wayward feet. Everything will be laid out before me. I am a Witness." Jared stood heart pounding with curiosity and wonder, his mind made him stand tall, and tried the door knob. It was locked.

He was shocked and furious; this desire was shut away from being achieved.

A hand took him by the shoulder. "Take it easy kid, I got this." The man in the suit said, with a smile clear to his ears, in his voice. "Good you still got your hiking backpack on. That, my friend, will be priceless throughout your adventure. Cut back on the serious melodrama though. Eternity is wondrously amusing and full of energy, cherish it." The Suit stepped around Jared with a key in hand and unlocked the door. It swung open with a soft sigh that somehow seemed pleasurable. Suit threw an arm around Jared's shoulders, giving him a friendly half hug. "Guess if I’m a Suit, then you're the Hiker. Trust me, it’s how you’ll be remembered. Suit and Hiker stepped through the door, that was suddenly large enough to do so side-by-side, into an infinite existence.