Unlocking Part 1

I've been hiding in my room like a coward, though I know that at any time it can pass through the locked doors. I don't regret going to the house...but I know now that things are only going to escalate

On the 15th I grabbed the keys (just in case), filled up my car with gas, and drove all the way to the ends of town to see the place overrun with ivy, but still intact. I took one final sip of my Coke before going right up to the door. Unlike the dream it wasn't open, but a quick turn of the handle fixed that.

The place could not have been more quiet. The only sounds were of my feet stepping carefully on the old floors. I turned to the left and beheld a somewhat clean living room scattered with relics of the late fifties and early sixties. I know nothing about that place, not even rumors, but in my gut I knew something went very, very wrong here.

The grandfather clock in the corner chimed, and that's when the floor gave out beneath me.

I screamed as gravity fulfilled its purpose, sending me careening to the basement. instead of plumes of dust and cobwebs, I was confronted with the unbelievable.

A forest. There was a goddamn forest in the basement. Trees that should been poking through the above floors stood with thick trunks and bare branches, their paradoxical existence only frightening me more. The floor was now dirt, partially wet and bereft of any insects, and the hole that I fell through was now the sky.

My heart caught in my throat and my stomach felt like it was filled with lead. But even with this, I pursued. It was not as claustrophobic as one would think, but even then I looked behind me to be aware of where I was going.

I saw a large tree with a bronze chain encircling it. No lock, though, but I pulled out the bronze key. A hole near the roots grew wider and wider until it became easy for me to go into.

Right in the center there was a dog so big it was like a small horse, staring at me with eyes as big as teacups and sitting calmly in the center. It didn't lunge at me or bark, but it did pant heavily as if it was thirsty. I slowly walked closer to it, mumbling platitudes as I willed my feet to move. Suddenly, when I was just close enough, the dog stood and closed the distance between us, nudging my hand with the key open. My finger shakily exposed my item, and in the blink of an eye the dog gobbled it up.

I yelled at it to drop the key, or rather, I would have had the dog not melted away into a large, unlocked chest. My jaw could have fallen from my skull. It took a while for me to collect myself, but when I did I opened the chest and found one third of a DVD.

I fond another large tree with a silver chain around it. I took out the matching key, went through the hole, and what did I find? Another dog, just as big as the last one, also staring at me with eyes as big as pinwheels. It ate the key like the one before it and turned into an chest. I took another third of a DVD within it and quickly left.

Not far along there was the final tree. There was one last dog, also big with eyes as big as a human head, that swallowed my final key and it, too, turned into a chest. I grabbed the final piece and made it out of the tree.

I thought that maybe, just maybe, that would be it and I could figure out a way to get out of the forest-basement. Little did I know that they weren't done with me.

At least fifteen feet away I saw three figures, dressed all in black, wearing Venetian masks that concealed their faces. One wore large goat horns upon her head, another with cardinal feathers that made up her earrings, and the last had a multitude of fish scales entwined in the veil she wore.

They were watching me, and I realized then that they had been doing so this entire time.