The Book of Ditherlon

The Before

January 30, 2022

Somewhere Near Denver, Colorado.

"C'mon, it's cold out, let's just go home," I half-yelled against the wind, pulling my red trench coat against my chest.

"No," my brother, Connor, said without hesitation, "You just decided to choose fashion over comfort," which was true, I had.

"At least I have a coat," I stared pitifully at his thin sweater and jeans. It wasn't snowing, but it had snowed yesterday, and it was still only 19 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Then why are you cold?" Connor snapped back, I sighed, he was right, and as much as it pains me to say, he usually was.

"What did you want to show me? The only thing here are corpses and trees." I said, anger seeping out of my voice. I glanced at the grave stones sticking out of the snow laden dirt. My legs hurt beneath me, I walked half a mile to get here, and it was most likely for nothing even remotely important.

He stopped, I was a couple feet away from, leaning against a tree, Connor yelled something, but the roaring of the wind against my ears drowned him out. When I shot him a confused look, he childishly began pointing at something. I leaned towards where he was gesturing, almost slipping on the snow on the ground and falling off my tree. A warm glow was scintillating from behind the tool shed, illuminating the snow and trees surrounding it.

I gasped and slowly walked to where Connor was standing, behind the tool shed, built into the wall, was a visibly old mausoleum door. An oak door judging by the broad bands of grain that ran in a zigzag pattern, intermixed with straight grain lines, the edges marked with old designs that I recognized from my mythology elective. The light seemed to be coming from underneath the door and through the locked shaped hole under the knob, but the window looking into the shed was dark and abandoned. I looked at Connor, to see if he was as confused as I was, he said nothing and pulled a key out of his pocket.

"Where did you get that?" I gestured to the key, my tone growing mor defensive by the moment.

"Found it," he replied helpfully, inserting the key into the keyhole.

"Wait," I grabbed at the key, but the wind was blowing hair in my face, making me miss by a bit, and I accidentally grabbed the doorknob instead. Connor shoved me away, I slipped and fell in the snow. He glanced at me, not an single ounce of sympathy in his eyes, he opened the door, light temporarily blinding me, flooding everything around us in refulgent light. I struggled to my feet, the half-melted snow wasn't helping. I focused my eyes on the ground, trying to steady myself, but only then I realized the light from the door was gone, only a sliver was left, Connor had gone through the door.