I hope you like chapter 2!!! This part was the most fun to write!

I blinked the sleep out of my eyes as morning light filtered through my window. In it I saw tiny dust particles that softly touched the wood floor giving the room a dreamy feeling. I glanced at my clock. Its red numbers read 10:06. Rolling out of bed, I took my Led Zeppelin shirt and black jeans from my closet, glancing at the panel on the wall. It is barely noticeable. I walked down the hall, grabbed a towel and went into the bathroom to shower and get dressed. At 10:25 I was downstairs eating a bowl of Rice Krispies and waiting anxiously for Aiden. After I was done eating, I slipped on my green DC's and went outside on the porch to wait for him. The morning was cool – about 60º or so. The trees on my lawn were brown, leaves falling and landing softly on the yellowing grass. My favorite season – fall.

Just then Aiden's Mom drove up in her big, blue minivan and he hopped out of the car and raced up the walkway.

"Hey man," I said, giving him a hi-five and a pat on the back. "So how do you like Jersey?"

"It's cool I guess. But I miss NYC, you know?" Aiden answered.

"Yeah man, completely. We should go inside now." I suggested. I waved to his Mom, Mrs. Hartwick and she responded with a "beep" of the horn and drove off.

We talked a bit about our old friends as I showed him around my house. My Dad was up, making himself some waffles, his usual Saturday morning meal. Mom was getting ready to head out for her first day at her new job with TD Bank. Erik was asleep as usual and next thing I knew we were in my room.

"Man" Aiden said, "It's cold in here."

"Yeah" I explained, "something is off with the heating back here, but I like the cold." We made our way to the closet. I opened the door and told Aiden to keep his shoes on. I found the lever and flicked it up. The panel on the wall slid open. "Come in here, and don't get freaked if you feel wind or if the door slams. As if on cue, the wind kicked up and "slam" the door closed. He gave me a sideways look and then peered down the stairway. Now, you should know that Aiden is the quiet and curious type, unlike me who is loud and impulsive. He slowly descended the staircase, running his hands along the walls on either side of him, as if feeling around for something. We reached the bottom and our footsteps echoed off the walls of the room (which I was calling the cellar). He glanced around briefly and turned toward the door, cocking his head to the side as if to say "is this the one?" I nodded and he put his hand on it as I did yesterday.

"Ready?" he asked, his eyes wide with fear, curiosity and excitement.

"You bet" I said, probably mirroring his look. He turned the ancient handle and the door creaked. For a second I absent-mindedly thought, "Wow, those hinges could use some WD-40." The inside of the door was dark, but Aiden slowly went in. I followed close behind, my hand on his shoulder so we stayed together. My heart was pounding and my breath was ragged. Suddenly, I heard footsteps. Gripping Aiden's shoulder we stopped and peered around. Then, in a split second there was a slam from behind us, and it was pitch black. I caught a scream in my throat. There was a light moving from somewhere in front of me. Step, scrape, step, scrape. It sounded like someone walking with a limp. The light got closer and I made out the face of a very old man. He had a lazy eye and crazy, white hair. Both of us, paralyzed with fear, were breathing heavily, sweat forming on my brow and dripping into my eyes, stinging them. The man was now three feet away from us holding a flashlight. With one last step, scrape, he stopped. Wordlessly, he put his head down. Strange blue smoke poured from his mouth and enveloped Aiden and I. It smelled sweet, of flowers and sugar. Then it turned green and I felt something heavy appear in my hand. The man looked up, coughed and melted into the shadows.

"That was...freaky." Aiden whispered, his voice barely audible.

"Too true" I said, breathing hard. "And that smoke was odd. I think it put something in my hand." As I said that I began to see a faint light coming from the right. Looking over at it, I realized it was a sun. But not an ordinary sun; this one was at least ten times bigger than the Earth's sun. It rose up over the horizon and I looked around. "Whoa." I breathed. We were standing in a huge expanse of some sort of forest. There were weird-shaped and colored trees, with dark, red trunks. Some flowers were ten feet tall, and very far back was a volcano, orange smoke seeping from the top. I looked down to see what had appeared in my hand. Gasping, I dropped the object and jumped back. Aiden looked at me.

"What?" he asked.

"Look." I replied shakily, pointing to the object. It was a 3-foot long silver sword with a black leather hilt. At the base of the silver, where the metal met the leather, there was some sort of animal footprint.

"That's…weird." He said wide-eyed. Then I noticed something on his belt.

"You too" I responded, pointing. It was a small, curved case with a blue handle sticking out. He slowly took out the handle, revealing a wickedly curved golden blade. The knife gleamed in the newly risen sun. Aiden looked at me in awe. I just shrugged and said "Hey look! There's a house over there. Maybe there's someone in there that can show us a way out." So we started off through the woods (or wherever we were).

Aiden and I arrived at the house. It was a huge, white mansion with and old Victorian wrap-around porch. It would have looked perfectly normal except for the creature on the porch. It sat in a chair, eyes closed, snoring lightly. Now let me explain what it looked like. The head was of a beautiful brunette woman with full red lips and long hair. But then you saw the body. It was a huge rhino body, leathery skin in folds all over. It had three-foot long cockroach legs where arms and legs would go. Sprouting out from its back were huge white wings, moving up and down as the creature breathed. Lastly, a huge gray tail wrapped in front of the creature with a spiked ball at the end.

"Um…excuse me?" I asked cautiously. The creature opened one eye. I gasped – it was blood red!

"How dare you" it began, its voice was shrill and girly. Then it gasped, "How did you get here?" So we explained the door to the creature stumbling over words from fear and confusion. Once we were done, the creature stared out into space, awed by how we came to be here.

"So if you can just let us out…" I asked slowly. That set it off. The red eyes flared and a growl came from deep in its throat. Aiden and I stepped back to leave.

"And where do you think you're going?" it trilled. "Do you know who I am?" We shook our heads. "I am Xanthiar, Lord of this land of beasts, and I thought I had ordered all of the portals to Earth", it sneered as if it were a revolting thing to say, "to be closed centuries ago!"

"Okay, listen you Lord of Beasts freak," I said. I was getting really mad now. "You seriously think that Aiden and I knew that this was here?" I gestured to the woods with my hand. "You think we somehow opened one of your portal thingies? This is crazy!" Aiden looked at me and we locked eyes.

"Are you insane?" he mouthed. The beast screeched. Now it wasn't just any screech. Imagine the sound a cat would make getting a bucket of water dumped on its head; then add to that a screaming woman and a yelping dog. Now multiply all of that volume by ten. Yeah, not so pleasant. Aiden and I tried to run but the beast whistled and a dozen monsters leaped out from the shadows. They were dressed like security guards except for the blue leathery skin and lion's heads. We looked at each other. A silent agreement passed between us. I grabbed my sword and stabbed forward. I caught a beast in the stomach. He squeaked and melted into a pile of green goo. I battled my way through three others and Aiden did the same. He jumped on their backs and finished them off. This all happened over the course of 15 seconds.

We had caught the Leader person/monster thing by surprise. We sprinted off and didn't look back. Aiden and I had no clue where we were going and were fueled by pure adrenaline. We stopped running after about ten minutes. We found ourselves at the bottom of a huge cliff. Somehow, the sun was already setting and the temperature was dropping. Aiden and I tried to set up a camp to sleep for the night. We used the petals from the huge flower plants as beds and blankets, and used moss as pillows. Also, we put our weapons at the tops of our makeshift pillows.

"Joey?" Aiden said yawning.

"Yup?" I responded.

"What do you think our parents will do when they find that we're gone?"

"I dunno man. Call the police maybe. I wonder what time it is back home. Cause today went by real quick here."

"Yeah", he said sighing. "Well I'm bushed, g'night." And with that he rolled over and closed his eyes.

I started thinking about my new house, and, how, even though I barely knew my way around it, I missed it already. I guess you don't realize what you have until it is gone. I started to lie down and slowly drifted off into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

Please Review!!!! Constructive criticism is appreciated!!