Xanum

Chapter Eight

The light faded and was replaced by a dim green glow. I opened my eyes and examined the dark room before me. In front of me was a counter, and on top of it, there were glass cages that held nothing more than dead plants and lifeless husks of strange, unidentifiable creatures. The floor below my feet was cracked, and while I couldn't see most of the room, the cracks seemed to suck in the rest of the ambient light. The air in the room was heavy with so much dust that it made it hard for me to breathe, and above us there were footsteps, but a moment after we heard them, they vanished. "What the hell?" I asked Tony. He turned his head to me, and the only part of him that I could see other than the dark silhouette was the glint from his eyes.

"Dude, do you recognize this place?" Tony asked. I looked around, squinting. I didn't recognize much of anything, but the green glow was somewhat familiar.

"Nah, do you?" I said, turning my head slowly.

"Yeah, this is the basement of that guy, Jon," he said quietly. I got the sense that he was scared by something, or at least paranoid.

"Hey man, you good? You seem kinda creeped out," I said to Tony.

"Yeah, I'm fine. But shut up, do you smell that?" he pointed up the dark stairs at the abrupt place where the ceiling met the stairs. I didn't see the point of having stairs if they were just going to stop at a ceiling, but I wasn't going to question Jon's logic. The man seemed pretty smart.

I sniffed the air, and detected a trace of smoke. Burning wood? What? "Dude, the house is burning," I said.

"Yeah, can't you hear it?" Tony replied. I closed my eyes and focused myself on my hearing. I heard faint crackling far above us. Fire. This house was on fire, Jon's house was on fire, but why? I walked up to the stone roof and pushed against it with both hands.

"Dude, what are you doing? That's fire up there, this house is going to burn down, we've got to figure out a way to get out of here," Tony said. I could hear the panic in his voice, he was scared. I ignored him. As soon as my tattooed arm touched the slab of stone, a series of symbols appeared just under the slab's surface.

"What the-" I started. I looked between the glowing symbols on my arm and the symbols on the slab of stone. My eyes widened as I realized that they were the same symbols. Only three of the symbols on my arm matched those upon the slab, but this was still enough to show that they were of the same language.

"Dude, come on. We gotta get out of here, stop messing around with the roof and give me the sphere. I've got an idea," Tony said. I turned around to see him at the bottom of the stairs with his hand outstretched toward me, waiting for the sphere that was held in my pocket. I reached down to the small piece of tech and handed it to my friend. He opened the book that held the combinations of the sphere, and grabbed my arm. "Press those symbols again," he said.

"What?" I asked, confused. He pointed to the most recent combination we had tried.

"Remember when Tyler attacked me? He somehow managed to hit the exact combination that was needed in order to transport us to Jon's house," he waved to the room around us, "Obviously, it's been a few years, but this is still his place. And I'm willing to bet that that combination needs to be pressed twice in order for us to get home. I'm not sure why, but it all seems kinda planned out, and it's our only option. So press the damn keys before we die of smoke inhalation," Tony explained. I looked at him with genuine surprise. I wouldn't have even thought of that solution. I examined the book, found the symbols on the sphere, and pressed them. As the blinding white light took over my vision, I put the sphere in my pocket and grabbed the book. I had an itching feeling I would need it, but I wasn't sure why. I was never going to touch that sphere again.