Sophia followed behind Tim. They followed the tunnel for a long time and eventually it let in a gentle curve. Suddenly Tim let out a surprised cry when his hand met only air, and Sophia prepared herself to quickly back pedal in case he started to fall and she needed to pull him up. But once Tim had all four limbs on solid tunnel he used Sophia's flashlight to investigate. "We've come back around to the chamber," he informed her. They clambered out of the tunnel and found themselves in the chamber they had come from. They untied the rope from themselves and Sophia stuffed it into her backpack. Using flashlight and cell phone they confirmed that they were indeed back in the mysterious chamber covered in runes. "That's weird," Sophia said, her mouth turning down in a frown. She investigated the room closely to find the tunnel they had first crawled into but only saw the one they had just crawled out of. "That's even weirder," Sophia remarked as her skin started to goosebump. "Tim, there's only the hole we came out of. Do you think at some point the tunnel looped around on itself and we didn't realize it?" She felt it could be the only explanation unless there were in fact two holes that led to the same tunnel, creating a U-shape, but they were worked by some sort of mechanism and they had happened to open one and then closed it only to open the other--like in a video game.

Tim was slack jawed, feeling around the walls of the room, trying to find a second hole. Obviously, he was unsuccessful in his attempts to uncover anything other than what they had already known: they exited at the entrance. He shook his head, his arms crossed in front of him as he stared dumbly at the hole they crawled out of. "This doesn't make any fucking sense. How can we come out where we went in? How is that possible?" He ran a hand through his hair as he walked away, mumbling a little to himself, pacing the floor, trying to figure out exactly what the hell was happening. Obviously, he didn't have a damn clue. "I don't have a damn clue!" Sophia stepped towards him, shrugging a little as she did. She was just as clueless as he was.

Feeling a little frustrated Sophia shook her head. "Come on," she said, patting Tim's shoulder. "Let's head back and see if the rain has stopped. We can come back here later and investigate further." Begrudgingly they tramped back up the trail that lead them to the mouth of the cave. When they got there the rain had stopped, but everything was still cloaked in dull gray shadows from the clouds overhead. Sophia looked around, wondering where their jackets. "Our jackets are gone!" She exclaimed a little angrily. Trying to reason she added, "Maybe someone came by here and found them, thinking they were abandoned. They might be in the lost and found or something. I think it's time we go back anyway." Tim agreed, though he too was a little annoyed that their jackets were missing, and they started the trek up the nearby service trail and back to base where her car was parked and the visitor center was located.

Tim shook his head a bit as they walked away from the cave. He rubbed one of his arms to warm it as they walked. He was sort of angry that his coat was gone. It was his favorite--and only-- jacket. And it was November. It was cold as all hell outside, and it was still dropping. He made a noise that could easily be translated to "fuck." "That was my only jacket, man! And it was perfect! It was honest to god the perfect jacket! I found it at Avalon's Thrift Store and it was amazing and now I dont have a jacket anymore! Why... um, why does...uh..." His anger boiled away in a matter of seconds. He stopped in his tracks, eyes wide. He shook his head in bewilderment as he looked around. "What? What is it?" Sophia asked, just as confused as he was by this point. "Everything is dry." he said, shocked. "There was, like, a goddamn torrential downpour about twenty minutes ago. There is no way that the sun would have dried all of this up so fast. What the hell happened?"

Sophia stopped dead in her tracks and looked around. "Holy shit, you're right!" She exclaimed in surprise. Everything was bone dry without even a hint of the recent storm. Yet it was overcast and everything looked dull, almost gray. There was something else that was putting her off, but she couldn't place her finger on what. Still, natural phenomenons not doing what they should do was too much for her to handle. "No," Sophia started off, more annoyed than anything. "Hell no. Fuck no. I can deal with tunnels with trap doors, but I am _not_, repeat, _not_ dealing with nature being fucky! We are going back in that cave, through that damn tunnel, and back out the cave again. And when we get back there had _better_ be a goddamn storm raging out here, or at least water left over from one." Saying so Sophia angrily marched back toward the mouth of the cave. She wasn't going to deal with any mumbo jumbo magic today. Real life was complicated enough. She didn't need some sort of Narnia crap going on. Sophia turned a corner along the cliff face and suddenly let out an angry string of curses. "Tim!" She yelled for him. "The goddamn cave is gone!"

Tim basically sprinted towards her when he heard. There was no way. there was no possible way in hell that-- The cave was gone. Nothing there. Just rock and moss and nature. No cave, no hollow, not even a goddamn hole. Tim pressed his hands against the surface, trying to determine if this was actually happening to him right now. Perhaps his years of solitary confinement had finally caught up to him and he was really just slowly going insane. But no. As he trailed his fingers over the rough exterior of the rock, he slowly came to the realization that this was real, this was happening, and this was crazy. He backed away, scanning the face of the cliff side for any trace of the cave they had just left. But there was nothing. "Okay, no. This is some...okay, this is some fucking Eternal Sunshine bull shit! This... I mean, this is impossible, right?! So what the fuck is going on here, Sophia?! Because last time I checked, nature doesn't just _FUCKING REINVENT ITSELF_ and disa-fucking-ppear! What in god's name is happening to us? Are we going crazy?" Tim was pacing by this point, shaking his head vigorously, hands in his hair, completely at a loss. He had no clue what he was supposed to do.

As much as Sophia wanted to vent her frustration, she knew she had to calm down. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out. "Alright," she said, feeling calmer now. "We can't panic. Panicking never helps. We have to go back to base. Find someone to talk to." For a moment Sophia looked around, her thoughts drifting back to the wrongness of it all. She shook her head vigorously. She had to stay calm. She couldn't freak out. Approaching Tim she grabbed his hands to stop him from tugging at his hair. "It'll be ok," Sophia said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "We'll work out what happened. Whatever it is that happened. Perhaps we were down there longer than we thought, giving the land time to dry out some. Maybe that cave is worked by a series of trap doors and we happened to trigger it. Whatever it is, it's not that important. Let's just get to the car and go home." But despite her attempts to reassure Tim and convince herself that everything would be ok, a part of Sophia--the part that had immersed itself in books and games for years--knew that there was definitely something going on. She tried not to act like it, however, as they began trudging back up the service road that led to the top of the cliff. At least that was where it should be.

"Okay...alright, fuck." Tim knew what she was saying was at least 88% bullshit, but he didn't really feel like arguing against it right now. He just wanted to get in the car and go home. But he felt like that wasn't really a possibility now. There was something sinister and strange happening right now, and he didnt know what he was supposed to do. But he tried his hardest to stay calm. "So, do we, like tell someone about this?" He asked her as he trailed behind, checking over his shoulder. He couldnt quite place it, but something felt really, really, incredibly wrong with the world around them right now. "Because it feels like we should be talking to someone about this. It feels important."

Sophia and Tim made their way back down the trail to base. The trek down seemed to take longer than it had coming up. A tense silence seemed to lay over the two new friends as they were each lost in their thoughts. Both sensed that something was incredibly wrong here but neither knew what. Finally they made it back down to the parking lot where Sophia stopped dead in her tracks. "My car!" She declared, now utterly pissed. "It's fucking gone!" Indeed her gray Altima was gone. Furthermore there were no other cars in sight. Sophia knew that not many people visited the park in November, but it was still early in the day and the park was still open. _Someone else_ should have been there too. Her initial anger past, panic set in. What if someone had stolen her car? She had paid for that thing with her own money! How was she supposed to get around? Sophia tried to remain calm but there were tears threatening at the corners of her eyes as she turned to Tim. "Let's walk back to the ranger's station," she said, trying and failing to keep her tone even. "See if they know what happened to my car." Feeling utterly frustrated Sophia turned to walk the road leading down to the ranger's station where she had first stopped to pay for Tim's entry fee. She hoped that someone there could tell her what happened to her car. Sophia desperately hoped that it hadn't been stolen or towed for some reason, but she didn't know why else it wouldn't be where she had parked it.

Tim--who was freaking out from the beginning--was finding it really hard to keep his cool now. Everything was weird and fucked up and he didnt have all that much experience with weird and fucked up outside of one event in his life, so it was all a bit much for him right now. "Oh, yes, okay,and maybe he can tell us just how huge mountainside caves can just disappear at their own will, because I would love to know how that happens!" he said, more frantic than ever now as he trailed right on her heels. He was looking over his shoulder more often now, and he was getting really freaked out by the fact that there was still something other than the obvious that was incredibly wrong with the world that he just _could not place._ Sophia spoke flatly as she led Tim to the ranger station, clearly fed up with the day. "Sarcasm wont help Tim, please." "Sorry, but I'm going to do whatever I want with my attitude right now because if I dont anxiety will kill me." he replied, his tone quite serious in answer, like he really, 100% believed that to be the truth. And so they continued.

When Sophia and Tim made it to the ranger's station they found no one there. No vehicles, no people, no lights on in the building. Sophia would have said that maybe they were out to lunch, but she didn't even bother. There was no reason for everyone to go out to lunch at once, and if they had left for some reason there would have been a note of some sort. Trying not to be further frustrated and failing miserably, Sophia decided to just try the door. It swung open with a slow creak. It was dim inside the building, and yet it was lighter than it should have been. Sophia looked around for a light switch and found one. She flicked it on and the lights came to life. "Hello?" She called out as she stepped into the building. No answer came. Looking around she noticed furniture strewn with papers and other things to show that this was a used building, but there was a light coating of dust on everything too. "Looks like someone's been neglecting to clean," Sophia muttered more to herself than Tim as she started to wander around. It was then that she walked into the main room of the ranger's station and almost tumbled forward into nothingness. She stopped and looked at the perfectly round hole in the floor before her. It wasn't that large as it appeared only one person could go through at a time, but it seemed completely out of place. Squatting down Sophia put one finger cautiously into the hole to feel the surface of the surrounding wall. It was smooth rock embedded with glittering gems, just like the tunnel in the cave. "Tim, you gotta take a look at this," Sophia said, motioning for him.

Tim walked over to her, sighing a bit, absolutely dreading every single moment of this day. And then he saw the hole. It looked completely out of place. It was absolutely not supposed to be here. And he was just...overwhelmed, to say the least. "Oh, what the fuck, Sophia? What the fuck is going on?! Are we hallucinating? Was there some sort of...like, some sort of natural gas that got us really fucked up or something? Is this all some sort of weird dream?! Do we _go through the hole again?_ Because right now that seems like the best thing to do and I dont know what else to do so I think we should just do it." He looked down over the edge into the darkness of the hole, trying to see the bottom. He saw nothing but blackness.

And to think that the day had started out with the potential to be something good, only to turn into a shit-storm of weirdness. Heaving a sigh she abandoned all sense of reason. "Fuck it!" She exclaimed. "I'm going in. Maybe it'll lead us back home." So Sophia sat down at the edge of the hole and felt around with her feet. From what she could tell the tunnel gently curved downward. She slid into the hole and started to skooch down into the tunnel until she was all the way in. Looking back up toward the light and at Tim she asked, "You coming?" Heaving a sigh of his own Tim followed after her. Together they descended the tunnel. Eventually the tunnel started to ascend slightly and Sophia started to crawl upward. Fortunately it was a gentle slope and not hard to traverse. Finally Sophia saw light. She crawled toward it, hoping that it would lead them home and not somewhere weirder. When she popped out of the hole she felt wet grass beneath her. Sophia looked around and found that instead of appearing in the ranger's station, they had come out behind it. She quickly crawled out the hole and hoped that no one would come around and find them. At least she could hear them on the other side. That in itself was a relief. She then helped Tim out of the hole. It disappeared as soon as he was free of it. Sophia shook her head vigorously. She was really beginning to wonder if she was seeing things. Sophia motioned for Tim to stay silent and the two carefully crept away from the ranger's station back to the parking lot where they found her car exactly where they had left it.

"This shit is so_ fucking fucked up, Sophia!_" Tim whispered--though it was a very loud whisper--as the hole closed up behind them. He was utterly dumbfounded for just a moment, and then he shrugged it off, deciding to freak out about it later and just get out of here now. He was creeping incredibly close behind her as they eventually got to the car. It was back, just as it was before, unscratched, untouched, completely normal. "Yes, let's get the fuck in there right now, please, Sophia!" he said, rushing over to the passenger side and frantically pulling on the handle of the locked door, signaling that he was ready to get in.

"Tim," Sophia said, trying to appear calm. "Let go of the handle." Once he had she unlocked the car. Tim hopped in and Sophia threw her backpack into the back seat before sliding into the driver's side. She turned the car on and backed out of the parking space. For a moment she stopped, thinking about their jackets left in the cave. Then she shook her head. She could get a new jacket later--she'd get Tim one too--but she wasn't going back to that cave. Putting the car in drive, Sophia pulled it onto the park's main road. She took is slow, going the speed limit because she didn't want to upset the park rangers. But as soon as she was on the main highway she hit the gas. She just felt utterly creeped out and wanted to get away from the park as soon as possible. Once they were a few minutes away from the park Sophia said, "Alright, we need to go somewhere and talk about this crazy shit. Your place or mine?"

Tim was silently freaking out right now, not wanting to set Sophia off. He tried his hardest to concentrate on the trees as they passed, one at a time. But every time he tried to pick a tree out, it blurred into an deep green blob, merging with the grass, the sky and the sun until the whole world was just one indistinguishable blur. Tim shut his eyes tight, gritting his teeth as this happened. He felt lightheaded, a little sick, and tired. More than he usually did. Just as well, his heart was beating too hard, his breathing was shallow, and he felt ever so slightly like he was going to vomit, even though he knew he wasn't really going to. He was just having a panic attack, and he knew in about fifteen minutes it would pass. Hearing Sophia, he leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, sliding them back through his hair and letting them grip hard as he tried his hardest to think. He would sit in this position for most of the car ride home. "Um...uh... fuck it, lets just go to my place please. It's... that's what I need right now. Let's go there, okay?" He was trying hard, focusing on his breathing at least, wanting one thing to go back to normal. _in, out._ _in, out._ _in, out._ _in, ou--fuck it._ Clearly it wasn't working, so Tim gave up and let his body do what it wanted for the time being. He couldn't think when there was so much going wrong with the world right now. Science fiction didn't feel so fictional anymore. Everything felt incredibly surreal. The events kept playing over and over and over again in his head. He couldn't figure out what had happened to them, and h really didn't want to. He just needed to get home right now.

"Yeah, we can go there," Sophia agreed readily. Anywhere. She would go anywhere so long as it wasn't back to that damn park. Soon they arrived at her family's cafe and Sophia parked her car in an open spot. Before she even switched the car off Tim was out the door and quickly heading to his apartment. Sophia wasn't far behind him and soon they were both charging up the stairs leading to his flat. He fumbled with the keys for a moment and then had the door open. Feeling like they had demons chasing them the two all but dove into the apartment, slamming the door behind them. Instantly they both felt a bit better, if only barely. Tim collapsed onto his couch and Sophia slid down onto the floor beside him. "That was some serious Narnia bullshit right there," Sophia finally said after an initial few minutes of silence. "Not even Narnia! That was more like... like... I don't know! It was fucking weird is what it is." She shivered and started to rub her arms with her hands. "You were right, Tim. Going to the park was crazy. After today I don't think I'll _ever_ go back there again."

Tim was gripping hard at a throw pillow on the couch, trying to make himself calm down. He wasn't answering Sophia just yet. Instead, he tried focusing on different things in his apartment. He needed to get a handle on himself. He stood up, still hugging the pillow against his chest as he walked circles around the decently sized apartment. Once he got to the kitchen, he reached up into one of the cupboards above the sink, pulling out an orange bottle of pills. He took two of them, put the bottle back, and leaned against the counter. He breathed in, then out through his mouth, his breath uneasy and shaky. "Give me a moment..." he said, running a hand through his hair again, gripping a bit. "Hey, are you...like, are you okay?" Sophia asked, walking up next to him. "Just...in a minute, yes, I'll be okay." Slowly, everything started coming back into focus. Everything wasn't so out of place. He was beginning to relax as much as someone in his position could. His breathing slowed, his heart started breathing normally.

Sophia was concerned about Tim. She was freaked out, but he seemed to be taking it worse than her. Not wanting to crowd him she gave him some space and went to sit back on the floor next to the couch. Eventually Tim wandered back over to the couch and plopped down on it. Looking up at his pale face she risked asking, "Feeling a bit better?" Tim's response was to let out a barking laugh. "Are you fucking kidding me?" He asked a little sharply. Sophia sighed. "Yeah, I know. Dumb question," she mumbled as she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "That shit was really freaky. I mean, the cave was kind of cool, but the... other place? Yeah, let's say it was another place. That's just weird. Beyond weird. That's completely messed up. Everything was the same, except it wasn't. It was dull and cloudy, but there was no water from the rain. My car wasn't where it should have been. There was no one at the ranger station. The cave and that tunnel just fucking _disappeared._ I... I don't think I want to go back there again." Sophia shivered and started to rub her arms, which were covered in goosebumps.

Tim bit his lip and shook his head. He was still having a bit of trouble processing everything that happened to them on the nature trail. He looked to Sophia to tell her something, but instead, he noticed her shaking. He remembered that their jackets were still back at the cave that they never went back to. He stood up, walking into the kitchen. He felt a bit calmer now, so he was able to speak with a bit less of a harsh edge to his voice. "Oh, right, our coats are gone." he said, picking up a pullover hoodie that was draped over one of the chairs around the kitchen table. It was a pale, washed out red, and there was a picture of a large blue whale on the front, _The Decemberists_ scrawled above it in a handwritten font. He walked back into the living room and held it out to Sophia, who was still sitting on the floor in front of the couch. "So, here, you can wear this for now."