1 Chapter 1:

The interior was dimly lit, made of wood. Alex's eyes opened; his heart felt clanging against his chest. He sat up suddenly, disoriented, and looked around at the barren room. Rough-hewn logs formed the walls, and dim light flickered through the wide chinks to do little to alleviate the gloom. "Where...where am I?" he muttered, the voice loud and grating in the silence.

He rose, unsteadily getting to his feet, looking all around with jerky movements as if he had been trying to seek out something familiar to explain his sudden uprooting from wherever he had been. The room was nothing else than small, filled with a straw cot on which he had lain and a simple wooden table. His fingers trembled when he felt the gritty surface of the table, as though he half-expected to rouse from that bizarre dream.

Minutes drew out, each a second—impossibly long—until finally Alex wrestled his building panic to a halt. He forced himself to take deep measured breaths, trying to quell the storm of anxiety raging inside him. "Calm down, Alex," he whispered to himself, closing his eyes and slowing down the rapid race of his mind.

Lastly, with a determination that was by no means unhesitant, Alex thrust home the door of the hut, which seemed to creak so loud in the stillness. The external world was shrouded by thick mist, as a white blanket was covering everything up to the site just past a few meters. He moved downwards; his footfalls grated against the gravel path and looked around.

The foggy plain before him seemed to stretch on for an eternity, sans the stone altar, standing solitary in solemnity. So eerie did the queer quietude of the heavily fog-laden landscape seem to pull at the isolation of the wooden hut. Alex squinted, trying to penetrate the dense fog, but it was like staring into a void.

Standing in that mist, he felt his sense of unreality and wonder slowly pervading him through the first fear. The world seemed alien and old; this place was where time had not lived.

Alex stood in the swirling mists, cursing under his breath. "Where in the hell am I?" His voice had a creak of utter disbelief from looking at the stone altar to the rickety wooden hut. "Grade-A bullshit," he mumbled, dumping his confusion and anger over the situation.

He tried to put the events that have led him to this current incident together in his head. "I was just watching Naruto, for Christ's sakes," he spat, shaking his head. "And what now? I am in some godforsaken foggy wonderland with a hut and a freakin' altar? This gotta be some dream, all messed up."

Frustrated, he pinched himself hard, wincing at the sting. "Wake up, Alex!" he hissed, slapping sharply at his cheeks twice. He waited for the foggy scene to dissolve into the familiar walls of his room. But the cold, damp air and the unyielding ground under his feet remained painfully real. "Damn it," he cursed, his voice echoing slightly in the foggy expanse. "This isn't a dream, is it?"