Chapter 3: A Whole New World

    Nikki fell out of the portal, catching a mouthful of earth as she skidded roughly from it. She stayed on the ground, still fatigued from their long chase.

            “Nikki?! Oh, no, you okay sis?!” Jesse’s concerned voice rang out, hurting her ears, which were still tender from the echoic scream from the vexes. She felt his sturdy hand rest on her shoulder, shaking her.

            Rising slowly, she spat out the grit in her mouth. “*Phah!* I’m fine,” she breathed.

            “Oh, Nikki, I thought you were dead!”

            “Nah. Got at least 65 more years before THAT happens,”

            The siblings, for the first time, looked about, observing their new surroundings. Despite all the fog, they appeared to be in a park, outside of a small town. It was a cloudy night. Not a star could be seen, and even the moon’s mysterious glow couldn’t break through the cloak in the sky. The only lights were streetlights, dimly lit on the streets outside the park. There was an iron bar-and-brick wall separating the recreational area from the main town.

            “Where the hell are we?” Nikki wondered aloud.

            “Well, we’re not in that mansion with those vexes anymore,” Jesse reminded her. “I guess that’s enough.”

            “But we need to get back home! Maybe they gave up the chase,”

            “Hmmm…good point. Let’s go, this place is giving me the creeps,”

            Nikki turned to go, and expected to be standing back in that secret room, but she ended up walking through an empty portal frame. “Oh…no…” she said in barely a whisper, on the brink of panic.

            “Relax, I got the enchanted flint and steel with me,” Jesse coaxed, pulling it out of his pocket to prove his point. Nikki sighed with relief, and stepped back to let him do his work. But when Jesse lit the frame, the only result was a high cyan-blue flame pillar. “Uh…” Jesse flashed a sheepish smile at his sister, and lit the frame again. The same result. Starting to worry, he lit the portal on different blocks again and again. The bone blocks only became very charred.

            “Can we panic now?!” Nikki squeaked.

            “Sure. Why not?” Jesse said simply, before screaming uncontrollably.

            “Great! Just fantastic!” Nikki complained. “So first we were trapped, now we’re trapped again! My guess is that our next misfortune is DEATH!”

            “Okay, let’s stay calm,” Jesse advised.

            “You literally gave us free reign to panic 15 seconds ago!”

            “And we did. But now, we need to be calm, and find a way to fix this. We’ll just sit here and think this through until one of us learns how to fix this,”

            “Very helpful,”

            “Alright then, Miss Wisecrack. What’s YOUR plan?”

            “A good place to start is figuring out why the flint and steel didn’t work. This portal must be different somehow,”

            She had a point. If it wasn’t in the Hallway with all the other portals, then this one had to stand out in some way. Chances were, that way would be the key to opening this portal.

            “Maybe this isn’t the real one?” Jesse guessed.

            “If it wasn’t the real one, it wouldn’t have dumped us here,” Nikki reminded him of how these portals seemed to work. “Maybe…we’re just using the wrong key?”

            Again, she had a point. Just like regular flint and steel wouldn’t light a non-Nether frame, there HAD to be something else this portal needed to be complete. But what? Jesse examined the sides of the portal, and to his amazement, there was a hole in one of the blocks. It had a winged skull with floaty long hair biting an iron sword’s blade engraved in a small dented circle.

    “This must be the keyhole!” Jesse exclaimed.

    “But where do we find the key if it’s not the flint and steel?” Nikki queried.

    “We’ll do what we always do: explore!”

    “You’re reading my mind. Let’s get a move on!”

    Eyes shining with excitement, Nikki shot off into the swirling fog. Jesse sighed and padded after her. That’s when he heard a faint smack and a thud. Jesse was a bit alarmed for a moment. Was Nikki hurt?

    “Nikki?!” he called out. “You good?”

    “Ow…dumb…fence…”

    Jesse breathed a sigh of relief. She was fine. She had just forgotten about the park fence. Nikki got to her feet, rubbing her sore spot. “I left my pick in the mansion,” she admitted. “We’ll need to find another way through this thing.”

    “TNT might work,” Jesse thought. He already had the gunpowder. He just needed to find sand. He did a quick 360 of his surroundings. He and Nikki had been taught many helpful tips from their parents on survival. Maybe one of them could help. Jesse shut his eyes and tried to remember what his parents told him about finding sand on a cloudy day.

    “When there’s fog on the ground, use it to track bodies of water. Fog is created out of the moisture in the ground. That means the most moisture is found near water. So where the fog is thickest, that’s where you’ll find water. And where you find water, you find sand.” Jesse recalled what his dad told him about this handy skill. He squinted through the fog, trying to find the thickest bit. There, a few sheep-lengths away, was a patch of cloud rather than a fog’s thin veil. He jumped into the cloud, and found himself shin-deep in ice cold water. Around it was a patch of sand, which was just what he needed.

    “Thank you, Mom and Dad,” he thanked silently, punching and collecting the blocks. “Alright. Now I just need a crafting table to blow that fence sky-high.” Jesse looked all around him. He didn’t see any nearby crafting tables. What he DID see were trees. Maybe he could use one of their wood blocks for some planks? He went to the nearest tree and punched one wood block out. He then divided the block into four wooden planks, with which he made a crafting table.

    “Good. Now, what’s the recipe again?” he wondered aloud.

    “Five sand, four gunpowder,” Nikki answered, attempting to plot out a good blowing point.

    “Got it,”

    Focusing carefully, he put the sand he collected in an X. Then, gunpowder in between. When the ingredients were in place, they converged to form a single block of TNT. “Well, it’s no F-Bomb, but it’ll do,” he supposed. He took the TNT of the building bench and placed it next to the wall. “Now we just need to get it lit,” he finalized. “The flint and steel will do.” He took out the enchanted set and lit the TNT. It hissed angrily and pulsed white.

    “Quick! Get clear!” Nikki warned, diving for cover.

    “Huh? Why?”

    “That’s TNT, you dope! Don’t stand so close!”

    “TN…T--Oh, crap!”

    By the time Jesse got wind to the situation, it was too late. The TNT exploded right in his face, sending a shockwave of heat and pressure through his face and body and propelling him backwards. He landed with a rough thud on his back.

    “Holy Notch! Are you okay?!” Nikki gasped, running up to her blown brother.

    “*Cough!* I’m good,” he assured her with a cough of smoke. “Thank goodness for this armor.” He peeked up, and saw a gaping hole in the fence. The TNT had worked.

            “Well…I guess we go forward now,” Nikki said, gazing off into the fog-laid streets. “Wherever forward is…”

Actually, this chapter wasn't as scary. I think I'll have to leave that to Chapter 4. See you all till then!