Disclaimer: Same old, same old.

Author's Note: This fic has since been rewritten; details in first chapter.

WAYFARERS OF THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM
Chapter Three

It was with some regret that they left the restaurant. Despite the little help and information they had received there, at least it was a place with people around. Out here, there was not a soul to be seen, just the darkness that almost, but not quite, enveloped everything; for some reason the place wasn't as dark as it ought to have been with no moon and just a few stars.

From somewhere in the darkness came the swishing sound of trees blowing in the wind, a wind which now swept past them, ruffling through their hair. In the distance behind Joe's were what might have been mountains, but they couldn't see for sure.

They trudged down the road.

Marty didn't know if it was his imagination, but he thought it felt colder than before. He pulled his jacket tighter around him. On his right, Ted was also starting to look more subdued as the drink's effect wore off and the burst of energy it had released started to take its toll.

Joe's gradually grew further away as they trudged down the straight road which seemed to go on forever. Eventually, they passed the first fork in the road. It led off sharply to the right, disappearing into the distance. They took note of it and walked on.

"What time is it?" Marty asked several minutes later.

Frank shrugged. Ted checked his watch, trying to make out the faint glow of the numbers. "Ten twenty," he replied.

"Whoa," Marty said softly. "I didn't think it was that late yet."

Time ticked slowly by.

Ted yawned. He was starting to wonder just what he had been so happy about mere moments ago, because now all he felt was the clichéd combination of tired, hungry, and cold. He wished that they would arrive somewhere soon where they could stop and rest; at the moment, it took all his will and energy just to keep his feet moving forward, telling himself that it was just one step more, just one step more… just one step…

Ted rubbed his eyes and blinked sleepily into the darkness.

Turning his head to look back, he saw Joe's as no more than a tiny speck on the… Ted paused and squinted. Strange. There wasn't a horizon. Or maybe there was, only it was too dark to see. The sky and the ground just seemed to go on forever without meeting, but as both were currently kind of blackish, he couldn't really tell…

Neo put a hand on the teen's shoulder and steered him forward. "Keep moving," he said.

"I'm tired…"

"We can't stop here."

"I wanna sleep, dude."

"Later."

Eyes barely open, Ted forced his feet on, Neo guiding him forward whenever he strayed from the path. In front of them, Marty yawned.

It took about another five minutes before they reached the second fork in the road, this time leading left. They headed thankfully along it with slightly more enthusiasm than before.

There was a small building in the distance, and Frank pointed at it. "D'you see that?"

Neo looked up. "Yeah," he replied. "I suppose that's the place Tom told us about."

As they got closer, the house became more distinct. Two stories high, a sloped roof that made the upper floor look like an attic of sorts, its exterior walls a whitewashed white with wooden windows set into them at intervals.

They finally arrived at the main door. Frank knocked and waited, but no one came.

"Try the door," Marty suggested.

Frank turned the knob, and the door opened. Beyond was a cosy room whose main feature was a table in the centre filled with food. A side door next to it led out into another room, and opposite that a staircase curved along the wall and disappeared upstairs. On the wall before them a wooden plaque read:

Pause here, you weary travellers
The road ahead is long.
Here may you find the rest you need.

"I guess that means we can go in," Marty said.

"It's funny," Frank commented as the four of them stepped in and he closed the door. "There's all those fantasy books where some character reaches some place and gets a fancy rhyming poem to greet him. Whereas all we get is something that sounds like it was composed by some student who was attempting poetry writing when she should have been paying attention in Literature class."

Neo gave the food an appraising look, and felt sorry that he was too tired to eat.

"Where's Ted?" Frank asked.

Marty gestured in the direction of the staircase. "He went up there."

"What's upstairs?" Neo asked.

Frank shrugged. "Beds, maybe."

There were beds up there, which Ted had discovered to his sleepy delight. Six of them, to be exact, all made and waiting. Grinning tiredly, the teen sat down on the nearest one and kicked off his shoes. He stripped off his jacket and chucked it onto the foot of the bed, then climbed under the covers and settled his head down onto the pillow with a contented smile. By the time the others came up, he was fast asleep.

Neo raised an eyebrow at the sleeping teen. "That was quick," he muttered.

The other three turned in for the night as well. Frank lay awake for a while, staring out the window next to him at the curious radiance outside. There was no moon, and the lighting from the house was minimal, yet the sky was brighter than it had any right to be. Frank eventually dismissed it and focussed instead on the fact that the four of them were sleeping unprotected in a strange house in a strange place, and who knew how safe that could be? What if they woke up the next morning and found themselves dead? And then wondered how they could wake up since they were dead? Tom had said that there would be people here… what if the owners had been brutally murdered? Or what if they had simply ended up in the wrong place?

Well, it's too late now, isn't it? he thought.

Yeah, he replied, and went to sleep.

Outside, a low breeze rustled through the wood around them, and the Nexus registered the presence of its four new inhabitants.

To be continued.