The Portal - V

Part 1

“I am the author of this vile doctrine. With these words I will expel life from these empty vessels and claim my entrance to the worlds beyond. No one will stop my machinations. This is the end of an era.”

Following dead trails, cold tracks, men that don’t want to be found, was proving next to impossible for Thomas. Where should he start? Where would they go? In which direction? He had no clues, no inkling. After venturing to the edge of Westknell, passing the bobby’s heading towards the sanitarium and procuring some new clothes from a thrift shop on the corner disposing of his old garb, he was at a loss. He sat down on a bench to think.

                Not everything over the past ten hours had been processed by his tired brain and the first thing he really wanted to do was sleep. He looked around and saw an apparently abandoned house and skulked over keeping his head down looking side to side spying for wandering eyes on him. The boards covering the back door came off easily and he slipped inside. To his surprise the house was furnished. As if the last owners, some months ago, set the house up for travel and simply never returned. An old Victorian style, still in good conditions despite an aura permeating the walls.

                With his new feeble refuge, he settled down. The dusk he kicked up from the first movement through the rooms made him cough but he stifled it enough to stay hidden from the outside world. Upstairs he looked in the rooms to find a suitable bed. He found a bedroom where he could lay his weary head but the room, he passed in the hall called to him. When he tried the door, it was locked. He took step away willing to let it stay as it was, but something pushed him to try again.

                He threw his weight against the aged door frame and the lock broke free sending the door slamming into the wall as a layer of dust fell in the stale air. Thomas covered his mouth and moved into the locked study. Only fragments of paper and tattered books existed on the desk. Thomas had a strange feeling like he knew where he was, but he knew he had never been in such a place before. He touched the desk and wiped the dust away revealing a seal printed on the dark wood. The initials under the seal were M.R.M.

                “Mathias?” Thomas whispered. Was he really in Mathias’ house? With a renewed curiosity he examined more of the house.

                Downstairs he found a small hutch inside were placed little trinkets and bobbles. Though the thing that drew his attention the most was a gold chalice. He was fixated by it and a pulling in his chest made him lurch forward without thinking. He shook his head and stepped back. There was a feeling he couldn’t shake that feel upon the rooms, but it wasn’t something currently present, more like an afterimage, an aftertaste of something that had taken root in the walls. He didn’t’ want to stay longer than a short rest would grant him.

                He made his way back to the bed upstairs and felt a shudder down his spine as if someone were looking at him. He spun and saw no one then the feeling melted away. There hadn’t been any one in this place for a long time. He reassured himself that he was alone and laid his down for sleep. After waking he wasn’t sure what he would do next but he knew somewhere deep inside that the two men he was looking for were no longer in Westknell. He’d have to find a trail somehow and follow swiftly after them. To what end he didn’t’ know but he grasped the papers in his pockets tightly. There was one solution to this mess, and he felt he had to try.

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