After arriving in a new town with his mother and sister, 18-year-old Daniel finds a mysterious corridor under his new house, and beyond it, a mysterious old man who traps him on the other side. There, Daniel finds another dimension filled with nothi...
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His family car was passing Lake Hoover when Daniel woke up from his slumber. Even though he slept through an almost 8-hour drive across the country he was still really tired. It wasn't physical exhaustion. Daniel felt refreshed in theory but the tiredness he was facing at that time was mental and chronic regardless of the sleep he had. He felt like that for at least a couple of months already, but this trip made it really a highlighted problem.
His parents got a violent divorce leaving Daniel and his sister, Maise, in the middle of their battlefield. It was hard for them to focus on anything when somewhere in the background there was a constant quarrel over who did what wrong, or who said something bad. Living in this environment for almost 18 years didn't make it better either. Daniel always said to himself and Maisie that it was going to get better or he was going to get used to it, but in the end, none of those two things happened. Up until the divorce, the battles they had to witness were fierce. The damage has been done but at this point, it was gone at least - a bit more quiet.
Finally, their mother was the one to take care of them. Right now, they were driving to her family mansion in Roseville which was passed down to her when her parents died a long time ago. Daniel sitting at the backseat with his sister looked at the rear mirror to share a look with his mother. She seemed happy... or at least relieved. He looked behind the car window. Lake Hoover was a massive blue body of water. It looked like an image of heaven with the sun rays coming from behind the clouds. It was "pretty", and that was the only thing Daniel could think of looking at it. A pretty thing in the world full of disgust and sorrow. On that side of his mind, he saw Lake Hoover, but there was no water in it. It was just a crater surrounded by pale white trees and the aura of overall emptiness. The sky was the color of sand and the air was dusty. He could almost feel like his tongue was getting dry. From the distance, he saw someone. It was a boy, walking alone across the lake's remains. He resonated with that lost boy deeply. Deeply in his dream.
-We're here. - Mother said about half an hour later. Daniel opened his eyes, feeling even more tired than earlier. Maise was already awake looking out at their new town. Before them was a big sign saying "Welcome to Roville!" It was a pitch-black night at this point. The clouds were covering the sky, and they could see no moon or stars. They parked before a big, two-story residence that looked like it was taken from a really old horror movie. It stood near a street with barely any working lamp posts at least a few kilometers from Roseville's main square. It was a single long street at one of the side exits from the town, so there was little to no traffic, and the number of neighboring houses was meager. Many of them looked like they were from completely different time periods. It was clear that people who lived here didn't bother renovating them whether they moved in 10 years ago, or 50. If you look at their new house which stood before them, it followed that pattern just like the others.
There was one house that broke out of that pattern and it was the one standing just across the street directly facing their new home. It was clearly identical to their new house but with one difference. It was completely burned down - covered in carbon black soot, with a roof that collapsed at most places, and a little garden near the driveway that hadn't been trimmed in those 50 years. Why would it still stand here? It looked like it burned down a good while ago, yet nobody bothered to take it down. It set a tone of this neighborhood which was not abandoned, but rather neglected or forgotten. Not at first glance, but being here for the first five minutes gave Daniel enough things to worry about - things that weren't as they seemed.
