Chapter 3

It wasn’t until her breathing stabilized that she got on her feet again and looked around. Emma was in the place she did not know in the middle of the foggy night. When she realized that, her first thought was to fall on the ground again and never to get up. Or at least not until everything is back to normal again.

But obviously she could not do that. The only thing to do was to look for a way back. She tried to remember the rout she was running, but she could not remember any of it. She was under too much pressure at the time to remember stuff like that.

So Emma tried to walk around and see if maybe she recognizes the place. But it didn’t work either. Maybe it was the fog or the darkness or both, but she could not find anything familiar about the place.

The only thing she knew is that she was in some kind of a park. Trees surrounded her and if not for the stone walkway she would have thought that she’s in the woods.

Finally, she came to a high stone wall covered in moss and leaves. Emma looked up, but as far as she was able to see the wall was impenetrable. “Maybe, if I go along the wall, I will in the end find my way back to the town?”

So she put one hand on the wall so that she wouldn’t lose it from her sight and went along it. It was longer then she remembered any wall in her town. And after some time Emma started feeling cold again. She had forgotten all about it when she got lost. But now her fingers and nose started freezing. She let go of the wall for some time to rub her hands and warm them up a little. But she kept walking anyway.

When she wanted to put her arm on the wall again, to her surprise it wasn’t there. She turned her head to look. The wall in fact was there. It just that she came to the section where there seemed to be some kind of a hole. She got the golden-yellow hanging leaves out of the way to have a better look. It was not a hole at all. It was a wooden door in a recess. The strangest thing about it was that it was wooden. It created a contrast between the stone wall and itself.

Driven by a strong desire Emma took the door handle and pushed it. Surprisingly it opened without even making a sound.

Emma looked around. She didn’t see anything or anyone for that matter. The fog was still pretty heavy, as well as the darkness. So, again almost as if charmed she pushed the door further and stepped inside. Into the unknown.