I crawled inside the tent and meditated for a while. When it was time for the ritual to begin, I grabbed my backpack and went outside. Using the compass and GPS feature on my phone, I found north and faced in that direction, making sure there were no tree limbs or other obstructions directly over my head. Satisfied with my choice of location, I found a stick and used it to scratch a circle into the forest floor, at a depth of about a quarter inch—just enough to clear the dead leaves and disturb the soil. Then, I filled that circle with salt. Returning the salt canister to my backpack, I pulled out a red blanket and spread it out on the ground inside the circle, making sure none of the fabric overlapped the circle’s edges. Then, I placed four red candles in four different positions—north, south, east, and west. I lit each of them and then retrieved a small incense burner from my backpack. I filled it with a tiny amount of scented oil and lit that, too. When it was burning, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a piece of paper on which I had drawn the required symbols for this particular ritual. I touched one end of the paper to the flame and let the ashes fall into the oil, holding it there even as my thumb and index finger burned. I winced, clenching my teeth and resolving to feel no pain. When the paper had been consumed, I sat down cross–legged in front of the incense burner and faced north again. Finally, with my left hand, I pulled out my final item—a pocketknife my father had given me for my tenth birthday—and sliced the ball of my right thumb.

  “I have fasted according to the Nomos,” I said. “The Nomos is the Law. I have eaten nothing unclean. I have drunk only water. I have avoided spilling my seed and have abstained from worshipping at the temples of Ishtar or Lilith. Thus, I have kept my essence and remained pure. My candles are of the appropriate and required color and were lit at the appropriate time. With them, I cast light upon the four Gates of the Earth, even as I face the Northern Gate. There is no roof over my head, except for the sky. I have done these things in accordance with the Nomos, which is the Law, and thus, I command your attention.”

  I held my bleeding thumb over the burning oil and squeezed out three drops of blood. As I did this, I repeated the incantation three times. “Ia unay vobism Huitzilopochtli. Ia dom tergo Hathor.”

  Finished, I paused for a moment, sucking at the cut. The taste of my own blood made me feel queasy, but I shrugged that sensation off. I pressed the wound against my jeans and waited for it to stop bleeding. When it did, I continued.

  “I sit in the appropriate and required manner, and am safe inside my circle of protection. You cannot harm me. I come here with respect to open a gate. I come seeking passage. And so, I call upon the Gatekeeper, who gave to us the Nomos, which is the Law. I call upon the Doorman, who is the Burning Bush and the Hand That Writes and the Watchman and the Sleepwalker. I call upon he who is named Huitzilopochtli and Ahtu. He who is named Nephrit–ansa and Sopdu. He who is named Hathor and Nyarlathotep. I call upon him whose real name is Amun. And thus, by naming you and offering my blood three times, I command an opening.”

  Nothing happened. I held my breath, waiting. My heart beat once. Twice. Three times. Then, the oil began to smoke. Wisps curled from the incense burner and rose into the air. The smoke seemed to be meeting resistance from something, even though there was nothing there. The wind was still. There wasn’t even the faintest hint of a breeze. I glanced down at my thumb, and when I looked up again, a doorway floated in front of me, hovering just a few inches from the ground. On both sides of the doorway was my world, but inside the door was another level. Through it, I glimpsed a scene very similar to the one I stood in—a forested lakeside after dark. Steeling myself, I stepped through into that other world. Sure enough, it was an almost exact duplicate of my own level, except for one telling difference. When I looked up at that other reality’s sky, the constellations were very different than my own. Indeed, they were different than anything I had ever seen from my Earth. Most telling was a long, crooked scar running across the face of the moon, a shadow that had no counterpart on my own moon.

  I only stayed on the other level for a few minutes that first time, and when I emerged back through the doorway into my world, I was scared and shaken and didn’t sleep for two days. I had no appetite and ended up struggling with an unexpected and deep melancholy. But that didn’t stop me from trying again. If anything, it just encouraged me. The depression passed, and my hunger returned—and with it, a thirst for more.

  On my second attempt, the doorway opened into another alternate reality. This time, I found myself looking at a city. At first, I wasn’t sure which one. They have always looked alike to me, especially American cities, where the architecture is usually the same, and the streets are filled with chain stores, fast food restaurants, and discount outlets. The doorway hovered directly over a busy sidewalk, and people bustled around the portal without even giving it a glance. I assumed that only I could see it. I stepped through the door and explored the city a little—half a block, no more, endeavoring to keep the doorway within my sight at all times. I found a newspaper at a bus stop and skimmed through it and found out that I was in Chicago. This level was much like our level and dealt with the same problems—global recession, terrorism, a new arms race, social unrest, the politics of polarization, and a media that focused more on entertainment news and celebrities rather than issues of actual importance. But there were subtle differences, as well. The President of the United States was somebody named Anthony Genova. On this level, Microsoft was the manufacturer of the iPod and iPhone. And the Chinese had launched a successful return to the moon in the year 2000. This act had since been followed by landing human beings on Mars, beating Russia and the European Federation there by a projection of five years, even as the American space program was discontinued due to a lack of funds.

  I stayed in that world for an hour, never straying far from the door. I determined that this alternate America’s cash was the same as ours and bought something to eat from a sidewalk vendor. I watched some television in a storefront window and listened to music booming from car speakers as the traffic crept by. I didn’t recognize the television program or the various snatches of songs. When I returned through the doorway, I brought the newspaper with me as a souvenir. I wasn’t sure I would be able to, and when I closed the doorway and stopped the spell by extinguishing the oil, I half expected the paper to vanish, but it didn’t. It was still there, proof that I really had traveled to an alternate reality. When I got home, I hid it safely.

  This time, upon my return, I felt none of the adverse side effects I’d experienced the first time. Instead, I felt excited and euphoric. Rather than becoming depressed, I was simply impatient to do it again as soon as possible.

  So, I did.

  My excursions grew more frequent—and more daring. I never did master the art of opening the door on a specific location. Instead, my attempts were similar to channel surfing. But I did become adept enough that I no longer needed to work the ritual from a place of power. I began doing them from the comfort of home, rather than the woods, opening doors into the Labyrinth and visiting other levels from the rooftop of my apartment complex in the dead of night when everyone else was asleep and I wouldn’t be spotted. I visited a world where the Nazis controlled America, and one where the gas crunch of the late–Seventies had turned us into a Third World economy from which we’d never recovered. I went to other time periods in our level’s history—the Old West, the Sixties, and what I think was a time about fifty years in my future. I can’t be sure about the latter because I spent all of my time there hiding in an alley as a series of massive explosions rocked the city I was in.

  I also glimpsed other worlds, realms, and dimensions completely different than Earth. Out of an abundance of caution, I never set foot in any of them, although the desire to do so was strong. The first one I saw was a desert planet, coated with red sand, much like we are told the conditions on Mars are like (although I have my doubts about that). A human skeleton lay there in front of the door, dry and desiccated. Nothing else moved in that wasteland except a group of scarlet dust funnels, dancing lazily in unseen wind currents. I didn’t like the funnels. They reminded me of mini–tornadoes, and I had the uneasy impression that they were alive. I can’t explain why I came to that conclusion, but I felt it strongly. Suspecting the air there was poisonous, I stepped back from the door, lest any fumes cross over from that level to mine. Another time, I glimpsed a world populated by what I think were robots, but nothing lived there, either—at least nothing constructed of flesh and blood and other organic material. The last alien level I saw was a city composed entirely of crystal. It, too, was empty and lifeless, and so utterly alien in architecture and dimensions that I grew uneasy just gazing upon it. After watching it for too long, my stomach turned nauseous and my vision grew blurry.

  That wasn’t how I felt when I first gazed upon the Lost Level, though. You must remember that I didn’t know that’s what it was upon that initial encounter. When I first saw it, I was transfixed by the beauty and splendor of a lush, green, tropical jungle. I saw palm fronds and ferns gently bobbing in the wind, and a white–tailed deer with velvet–coated antlers nibbling at some low–hanging leaves. Mistaking the dimension for an alternate reality of my Earth, I stepped through the doorway. In doing so, I startled the deer, who ran away. The ground was soft beneath my feet, a mixture of white sand and soil. The air was warm and humid, but a cool breeze caressed my scalp through my crew cut. I sighed, then smiled.

  “This is paradise,” I murmured. “Maybe I’ll stay here awhile.”

  A buzzing insect hovered around my ear. I slapped at it and then turned back to the door.

  But the doorway was gone.

  2

  BLADES OF GRASS

  AT FIRST, I WAS TOO shocked to do much more than stare. I was certainly too surprised to even think about being scared. I turned around, and blinked, but when I looked again, the door was still gone. Stunned, I ran back to the spot where it had been and put my hands out, feeling for it, but they passed through the air and met no resistance. The door hadn’t just closed. If that had been the case, I would have still been able to see it there, or at the very least feel it. No, this was something far worse. The door through the Labyrinth—and my only way back home—had vanished.

  Only then did the fear set in. I’m ashamed to say that I whimpered like a lost puppy. My frightened sobs grew louder and more frantic, with no concern for who or what might hear me, until I finally began to rave like a madman. I just kept repeating “No” over and over again, so fast that the words just sort of blended together. It sounded more like “Nuhnuhnuh” than anything intelligible, and had anyone saw me, they would have thought me insane. Perhaps I was. I certainly felt so at that moment; crazed with terror at the prospect of being trapped on another world or dimension—whichever it was, I didn’t know, but neither possibility appealed to me. In desperation, I tried the invocation again, but without the proper accoutrements, the ritual was useless. I ended up on my knees, clawing at the dirt and crying out, but the door didn’t return. The Labyrinth was sealed off, and with it, my way back home.

  Eventually, I gathered my wits. More buzzing insects darted around my eyes and ears, their tiny drones bringing me back to my senses. I slapped at one as it landed on my neck and felt it squish across my palm. I glanced down at my hand and frowned. The crushed insect looked much like a mosquito, but its blood was bright green, the color of a lima bean, and it smelled slightly alkaline. Wrinkling my nose, I wiped my hand on a nearby leaf.

  Moments later, my palm began to tingle and then burn. When I looked at it, the skin was red and swelling. The pain quickly grew intense, like a bee sting, but much stronger. Tiny welts popped up on my skin, like the blisters caused by poison ivy. I stripped off my t–shirt and wiped away the rest of the noxious fluid as best I could. Then, swatting the shirt back and forth to keep the insects away (just as a cow or a horse does with its tail) I began to make my way through the jungle. My hand throbbed. There was a small game trail cutting through the foliage. I guessed that it had been made by the deer I’d seen earlier, or perhaps a herd of similar animals. If so, then there was a good possibility that the trail would eventually lead to some sort of water source, so I decided to follow it.

  Before doing so, I noted my surroundings so that I could find this spot again. If I could obtain the ingredients needed to effect another opening ritual, it might be possible to regain entrance to the Labyrinth and find my way home. That was what I told myself at the time. Of course, I know better now.

  I am lost, and I can never go back. This is my home now, for better or worse.

  I started along the trail, and other than swatting at the persistent bugs, I did my best to be quiet and stealthy. My pulse hammered in my chest, and my body tingled with nervous tension. Fortunately, the pain in my hand had slowly begun to subside. The flesh was still red and puffy, but already the swelling was starting to go down, and the blisters had receded. Whatever the poison inside the mosquito was, my allergic reaction to it had been mild.

  Trying to remain calm, I trudged along the narrow footpath. The sun hung overhead, its bright rays occasionally breaking through the thick, leafy canopy overhead. I mentioned earlier that the sun here never changes position and that we live in a perpetual state of high noon. I didn’t notice this until later on that first day, but as I climbed the trail up a hill where the trees thinned and eventually cleared, I did get the uncanny impression that this dimension’s sun was much closer to this world than my own sun, and that it was smaller, as well.

  “Where am I?” My voice was hoarse after all the crying I’d done. “Where the hell is this place?”

  A glint caught my eye, the sunlight flashing off something in the dirt at my feet. I knelt down and found a silvery coin half buried in the footpath. I dug it out with my fingers and brushed it off, examining it. The coin looked just like an American quarter from my world, complete with George Washington on the front and an eagle emblazoned on the back. The date stamped on it was 1958. I paused, wondering what this find meant. Was it possible that I was in another alternate reality version of my world and just hadn’t discovered civilization yet? Or was it more likely that another traveler from my world had dropped the coin here on this level? Both were possibilities. Ultimately, the only way to tell was to continue onward and keep exploring. I stuck the quarter in my pocket and looked around.

  The game trail wound down the hillside and back into the dense jungle again. I took note of a few large rocks jutting from the dirt. They looked banally normal—the same type of rocks I could find in the yard back home in Minnesota. The vegetation around me was the same, as well. Granted, there were no lush jungles in Minnesota, but the ferns, palm trees, vines, and other plants all looked very Earth–like. The strange mosquitoes had disappeared, perhaps in search of a meal that didn’t swat back. I could almost convince myself that I was indeed back home on my level. I closed my eyes for a moment and let the breeze blow over me. It felt good on my sweaty forehead and chest. I stood there and listened to the sounds around me. Insects buzzed and chirped in the greenery, and I heard a number of birdsongs. None of them sounded particularly alien.

  Now that my panic had subsided, and the pain in my hand had completely disappeared, I began for the first time to logically consider my predicament. While I still thought it was a good idea to follow the footpath and find water, I decided to inventory my pockets and figure out exactly what I had with me. As it turned out, I didn’t have much. I always traveled light when journeying through the Labyrinth. I’d left my wallet, phone, and keys back home in my apartment. All I had on me was a wad of bills, a few coins (including the one I had just dug out of the dirt), and my jeans, underwear, socks, and boots. My shirt made a fine fly swatter, but I was hesitant to put it back on again. The venom had left ugly discolored stains on it, and just in case the poison was still potent even when dry, I didn’t want to wear the shirt for fear it might seep into my skin from the fabric. I had no desire to experience that pain again, no matter how briefly.

  It occurred to me that perhaps I should search for the things I’d need to re–open the doorway from this side, but I had no idea where I’d find salt, a red blanket, red candles, or oil in this world. All of these were required ingredients for the ritual. There were other ways of accessing the Labyrinth, true, but I’d neglected to study them after having so much initial luck with this method. Only then did I realize the inherent foolishness in such a single–minded pursuit of study. I’d grown overconfident and cocky, and now that self–assuredness had left me stranded.

  Sweat ran into my eyes, stinging them. Sighing, I wiped my brow and then got to my feet again. I returned the money to my pocket. I thought of my parents, and my brother and sister, and my few friends. The distress they would suffer, not knowing what had happened to me—the thought was crippling. For a moment, I felt another surge of panic, but I fought it down, certain that if I succumbed to it now, I would die right there on that hilltop. I wasn’t ready to give up or die. I wanted to get back home. Strengthening my resolve to do just that, I started down the trail again.

  When I reached the bottom of the hill, I found myself once more surrounded by thick vegetation. The insect and bird sounds stopped, and the jungle became still. I wondered if it was my presence that had caused this silence, or if there was some sort of predator about. I walked slowly, creeping along, trying to stay alert. I found a stick that was as long as me and about an inch thick. Testing it, I found the wood to be sturdy and sound. It would make a fine walking staff, and though I doubted I could do much with it as far as a means of self–defense, it made me feel more confident to hold it.