Page 8 of Devil's Night

“What the--?!” My eyes went wide.

Sargon grunted, but when he pulled his arm back, it looked no worse for wear.

“It appears to be some kind of rift or portal,” he murmured, studying that section intently. “But highly unstable. Almost like an unfinished transition between quantum states.”

I blinked at the technobabble. “You lost me, but go on “

Shaking his head, Sargon refocused on me. “It may be our way out of this labyrinth. If I can stabilize and widen one of these rifts, we could pass through to another area.”

“Another area?” My heart leapt at the possibility of escape. “You mean like back into the real house?”

“Perhaps.” Sargon flexed his hand, claws extending fully as some unseen force shimmered around his fingertips. “Only one way to find out.”

With a sudden forceful thrust, he plunged that clawed hand straight into the rift. This time his entire arm disappeared up to the shoulder as fractal patterns of scintillating energy sparked outward.

I held my breath, watching in awe and trepidation as Sargon’s features contorted in intense concentration. Muscles ridged and straining, he looked like a sculptural study of focused power.

With a final heave, Sargon wrenched his arm sideways - and the rift split wide in a dazzling kaleidoscope of light and color. A massive rent had been torn in the very fabric of the shifting corridor, revealing

“A bedroom?” I squinted through the haze.

It was indeed a child’s bedroom, complete with gabled windows, floral wallpaper, and a canopy bed with tasseled curtains. Plush stuffed animals littered the floor, along with scattered toys and picture books.

“I’ll be damned,” Sargon growled, already pushing through the rift. “We’re back in the house - one floor down from the attic where we started.”

I hurried after him, ducking beneath the low, slanted ceiling as I emerged into the dimly lit chamber. The heavy curtains were drawn, lending everything a gloomy, dusty pall.

“How is this possible?” I swept my gaze around the decidedly mundane setting, so at odds with the shifting labyrinth we’d been walking through moments before. “We didn’t go down any stairs…”

Sargon’s eyes glinted as he nodded toward the canopy bed. “The rifts must allow passage between spaces, circumventing normal physical laws. Doors within doors, if you will.”

“Freaky,” I murmured, unable to look away from the slightly sinister air of the shadowy bedroom. Beneath the dust and neglect, I could envision a child happily at play amid the stuffed toys and books.

I shuddered, feeling the weight of the decades pressing down. What had happened here, in this once-loved space? What had turned this warm sanctuary into a haunting tomb of lost innocence?

“Over here,” Sargon called, already rifling through the room’s scattered detritus. “We should search for any sign of that missing release card.”

Nodding mutely, I set to work, sifting through the debris and detritus with a cautious hand. My fingers brushed over smooth leather binding, and I pulled free an ancient photo album from beneath a pile of moldering toys.

The cover creaked in protest as I carefully opened it, the ancient adhesive cracking. I drew in a sharp breath at the images contained within.

Faded, sepia-tinted photographs showed a smiling family - father, mother, and three young children, two boys and a girl. Their faces beamed with simple joy, caught in warm domestic scenes around a cheerfully decorated Christmas tree, or gathered at a birthday celebration with a lavish cake.

“So they were happy, once,” a gruff voice rumbled near my shoulder, making me start.

I hadn’t even heard Sargon approach, but there he loomed over me, scanning the tender family portraits with an inscrutable expression.

Clearing my throat, I carefully turned another page, revealing more images. The children clearly growing older witheach successive snapshot, their smiles becoming more rare, their expressions more somber and withdrawn.

“I wonder what happened,” I murmured. “To take them from that bright, loving home to well, whatever nightmare transpired here in the end.”

Sargon uttered a soft grunt, but said nothing more as I gently closed the album’s covers once more. I couldn’t bear to look at the remnants of that lost family any longer, to see the inevitable deterioration into misery and darkness.

“Nothing here that can help us,” the bounty hunter pronounced after one final sweep of the room. “We need to locate another of those rifts and keep searching.”

Giving the album one last mournful look, I rose and rejoined Sargon. He was right - wallowing in past tragedies would get us nowhere. Our own survival took priority right now.

My gaze landed on the bedroom’s antique armoire, its once-gleaming wood now dull and scarred. A strange, flickering luminescence seeped from the seams around the closed doors, like heat distortions shimmering in a desert mirage.

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