Reverse Falls [DISCONTINUED]

Tourist Trapped: Part Three

After Gideon had settled down in his half of the very cramped room, he and Pacifica headed to the living room. Pacifica's parents were nowhere to be seen. 

"Mom's probably giving another tour outside again," Pacifica remarked. "Let's go."

Sure enough, Gideon's aunt was outside in front of a large group of people. A window had been pushed open, so the cousins listened to the tour.

"And here we have the rock that looks like a face," Mrs. Southeast said brightly.

"Wait, so it's a rock?" a confused tourist questioned.

"It's a rock," Mrs. Southeast confirmed. 

"Is it a face, though?" another tourist asked. 

"It's a rock that looks like a face, sir," Mrs. Southeast corrected.

"So it's a face that looks like a rock?" yet another tourist said. 

"It's a ROCK that looks like a FACE." Mrs. Southeast took a deep breath. "And that signals the end of the tour!" She put on a smile that clearly signaled she was done. 

As the tourists started leaving, Mrs. Southeast slipped into the house. 

Gideon and Pacifica sniggered, running off before Pacifica's mother caught them.

Gideon soon found himself outside in the forest that surrounded the Shack. Pacifica was inspecting a pretty monarch butterfly that dawdled on a dandelion, its wings gently flapping in the breeze.

The butterfly, startled by Pacifica waving her hand around, fluttered off. Pacifica started chasing it, knocking into Gideon -

- who slammed into a tree and fell to the forest floor.

As he winced and picked himself up, he remembered the sound the tree had made when he had collided with it.

It had sounded . . . almost metallic.

He inspected the tree and could almost make a - square - of something.

With much difficulty, he managed to pry open the square in the tree. Inside the (now fake) tree was a device that closely resembled a radio - but with levers.

Gideon started fidgeting with the levers. When he pushed one in the very back of the radio-like thing, he heard something open behind him and Pacifica yelping.

He whirled around to see Pacifica sitting in a hole in the ground, rubbing her head.

"What . . . just happened?" She climbed out of the hole and dusted herself off, looking up at her cousin.

Gideon joined Pacifica to see what was in the hole. "I dunno. I found a radio-thing in a tree and played with a few levers."

Classic conversation starter.

Pacifica followed her cousin's gaze and gasped when she saw what she landed on.

A red leather-bound journal lay half-buried in dirt, covered in a thick layer of dust. Pacifica reached down and grabbed it - once cleaned off, the cousins could see a golden six-fingered hand shape on the journal that gleamed in the sunlight. An inky and black number "3" had been painted onto the center of the hand.

Pacifica's eyes widened in shock. She hurriedly flipped through the journal's pages, leaving the book open at a page that had a drawing of a triangle with one eye. 

Pacifica turned to her cousin, her jaw dropping.

"Gideon!" she whispered. "Uncle Ford told me all about this - we found one of his journals!"