Three days.

Could it really have only been three days? I was certain there had only been three rotations of the sun, and it seemed time moved just the same as it did in the real world - if there had ever been a real world to begin with.

"No, no, no. Stop thinking like that, Wilson. You can't give up hope already."

And yet, even though I knew that day and night had only cycled through three times, it seemed like it had been so much longer. Weeks. Months, even. So much had happened already, in this strange new dimension. I'd been living off of berries, carrots (somehow growing naturally in the ground, not in any cultivated farmland?), and roasted birchnuts. I'd seen brown rabbits with little curled black horns and round white eyes, completely lacking pupils. I'd found a thickly woven nest of spider silk, as big as I was, and seen arachnids the size of cats crawl from it. I'd spotted a beehive sitting on the ground, and watched as honeybees large as my own hand buzzed around nearby flowers.

And now... this.

The door was here. My door. No-not mine, Maxwell's door, but the one I had created for him, with my own hands, sealing my own fate. Sitting innocently out in a field of grass, silent and unmoving. Until I had approached it.

It opened, then (as I jumped back in shock), revealing a swirling red vortex.

My initial thought was that I could go home. Certainly it would take me back; it had taken me inside to this new dimension.

But no, of course not, that had been foolish to even consider. It couldn't possibly be that easy. Maxwell wouldn't have had me build the damn door and brought me to this hell if he intended to just let me go.

The man was far too sinister. I knew he was. I had felt it in his presence, while he loomed over me, and I blinked groggily up at his tall figure in the grass, a cigar hanging from his too-pale lip. "Say, pal..." he'd said to me, "you don't look so good. You better find something to eat before night comes."

His voice was mocking, chiding me for being so easily fooled, so easily manipulated, and I hated him almost as much as I hated myself. And I had felt the wickedness in him. It had sunken into my very soul, turned my blood to ice, filled my heart with pins and needles. Even long after he'd miraculously vanished - though that was the least surprising thing, after everything that'd happened prior - the cold had stayed with me, and I'd jumped at any little noise or movement.

No. This door would not take me home. It would probably take me to another dimension, even more nightmarish than this one.

"I'm not sure I want to fall for that a second time..."

I'd taken up the habit of talking to myself. It was probably a sign of growing insanity. But, it made me feel better, damn it, and if there was no one in this entire world that I could talk to, I may as well talk to myself.

I was used to dealing with loneliness, cooped up in my shack. But there was a town, outside of the woods I resided in. There were people there. Here... there was nothing.

"No. I'm sure this is another trap. He wants me to think this will take me home. I need to find more food before dark."

I nodded at myself. "Yes, good thinking."

"Let's go, then."

But I stayed. Watching the door, nervously eyeing the spinning vortex, standing quiet, waiting. Waiting for what, exactly, I didn't know.

"What could be worse than spiders as big as cats?" I mused. "Perhaps this will take me to another part of this world. With more food."

"I suppose I have nothing to lose. It won't kill me, I'm sure. He would have killed me a long time ago if he wanted me dead."

"Quite right..."

My legs were quivering under me. I was a scientist, not an adventurer. I didn't like danger, life-threatening circumstances. I liked to learn. Quietly. In the confines of my safe little shack.

But at my very core, I was curious. And you know what they say: curiosity killed the cat.

"Perhaps it also kills cat-sized spiders."

Fingers trembling, I reached for the door, and flipped the switch. I was expecting the door to open up fully, so I could step into the swirling mist inside, and it would take me wherever it was that the door lead to.

What I was not expecting was for two long, thin, shadowy hands to spring up from the ground, reaching for my legs. In hindsight, this is what had happened the last time, so I probably shouldn't have been so surprised.

I gasped, choked on air, as I tried to run away but was once again too slow.

"No..."

Grabbed by the ankles, dragged back on my stomach, kicking and screaming.

"No!"

Pulled down, sinking right through the ground, my vision fading as I fell, shrieking, twisting, struggling in vain. I wondered if I was dreaming, revisiting the night I had made that fatal mistake.

"PLEASE, MOTHER OF GOD, NOT AGAIN!"

But my screams were lost in the darkness.