Good evening. This happened in the summer of 1986. I was living in Columbus at the time, working construction. I'd just gotten passed over for a promotion, so I was spending a lot of time at home, kind of bitter about the whole thing, if you know what i mean. My neighbor, guy named Tom, lived in the house behind mine. Our backyards faced each other, separated by a wooden fence. Tom was in his fifties, kept to himself mostly. Polite enough when you ran into him, but he didn't socialize much. I'd see him out there sometimes, working in his yard, but we never really talked. It started maybe two weeks before the main event. I'd be up late, couldn't sleep, and I'd notice these lights coming from his backyard. Not like floodlights or anything normal. These were different. Pulsing, sort of. Blue-white color, very bright. They'd appear for maybe ten, fifteen minutes, then disappear. Happened three or four nights in a row.
So one night I decide I'm going to take a look. It's around midnight, and I see the lights start up again. I go out my back door, cross my yard to the fence. There's a gap between two boards where I can see through into his yard. What I saw, I still can't explain it. There was this doorway standing in the middle of his yard. Not attached to anything, just standing there. Maybe seven feet tall, four feet wide. The opening was glowing, that same blue-white light I'd been seeing from my window. And through the doorway, I could see another place. Not Ohio. Definitely not Ohio. It was desert. Red sand, rock formations in the distance, completely flat horizon. The sun was up there, wherever there was. Bright daylight. And I'm looking at this from Ohio at midnight. Through a glowing doorway in Tom's backyard. Then Tom walks into view. He's wearing normal clothes, jeans and a work shirt. He's carrying this metal case, looks heavy. He walks right up to the doorway and steps through. Just steps through like it's a regular door. I watch him walk out into that desert.
I don't know how long I stood there. Felt like an hour, probably wasn't. Then Tom comes back through. He's still carrying the case but now he's also got this container. Clear glass or plastic, about the size of a coffee thermos. Filled with liquid that looked silver. Not gray, actually silver. It was catching the light from the portal. Tom sets the case down and seals up the container. That's when he looks up and sees me watching through the fence. We make eye contact. I freeze. I don't know what to say, don't know what to do. I left my camera sitting on the kitchen counter, completely forgot to grab it. your camera in the moment is so frustrating - Sage' He doesn't look surprised. Doesn't look angry. He just looks at me for a few seconds, then he says, 'You're not ready yet.' Just like that. Four words. His voice was calm, matter-of-fact. Like he was telling me the time. Then he picks up his things and walks toward his house. The portal stays there for maybe another minute. Then it just collapses in on itself[ The light folded inward and disappeared. The whole thing was gone.
[ Story continues in the full game... ]