Into the Wild Fold

The long trek had taken its toll on me; I hadn't counted on the heat and the bugs. The thought of a cold shower sounded nicer than ever, but I had to push on.

I walked under a canopy of trees, their leaves overlapping to create a thin sheath of shade. I was looking forward to reaching my destination soon, as the sweat was beginning to drip down my back. Slowing my pace, I grabbed my water bottle and took a swig. Suddenly, something caught my eye in the distance - a large patch of green grass that contrasted against the brown earth around it. It was only about 200 meters away from where I stood, so I decided to walk over and check it out.

The patch of grass was situated on top of a small hill and ended at its peak with an outcropping of rock formation. The grass itself was quite thick and undisturbed, as if someone had planted it there recently. With nothing better to do, I sat down for a rest to munch on some trail mix. As I did so, the sun began to set behind the hills in the distance. I noticed that the light reflected off one of the rocks onto the ground just below it, so I walked over to investigate. Standing directly beneath the rock formation now, I saw that there were actually several reflections of light dancing along the ground - they looked like flickering flames!

At first I didn't really think anything of it until one of them flickered in a way that made it appear as though something fell into one of them. Curious, and still half-out-of-it due to dehydration, I slowly walked into one of the "flames." As soon as my foot touched down in the ground, something pulled me into it. In shock, I stumbled forward and fell face-first onto hard rock underneath me.

Suddenly everything went black for a few seconds before returning back to normal again in an instant. Still sprawled out face-first on the rock flooring beneath me, I slowly lifted myself up with my arms and looked around at where I had been transported too.

I was sitting at what seemed like a table in what appeared to be a dining hall or meeting room of some sort; high windows lined the walls which allowed sunlight to spill into the room from outside. Except for me, however, all traces of life were gone - even worse was that all signs of humanity were gone as well, including all furniture and ornaments within this room. Aside from being dusty and covered in cobwebs that hung from ceiling corners like long strands of hair being blown across by wind, there wasn't much more to look at here.

Cautiously standing up from where I sat down at this table upon arriving here in this strange place, I wandered around the large empty room scanning for any possible danger from within its depths when suddenly...