Dungeon in My Closet Chapter 1

“Are you sure you have to actually move out?” my mom pouted.

I glanced up to where she was leaning against my bedroom door frame with her arms folded across her chest and her dark eyes shimmering with residual tears, and I smiled.

“I’ll still bring you my laundry, if you like,” I chuckled as I tried to force the lid of my suitcase down over my haphazardly packed clothes. “It’ll be like I never left.”

“Hmm, on second thought…” my mom giggled softly and then wiped at her cheek as a stray tear dribbled down past her eyelashes. “It’s just gonna feel so empty without you here, James.”

I’d lived in Brooklyn with my mom my entire life, and so when the time had come to finally choose a college, it had come as no surprise to anyone in my life that I’d elected to stay in the best suburb in New York city. But that didn’t mean I wanted to stay under my mom’s roof while I studied, as much as she wanted me to.

“You’ve got Roscoe,” I reminded her, and as if on cue, the straggly tom cat leapt onto my desk with a lazy meow.

My mom scooped the grumpy cat up into her arms, much to Roscoe’s disdain, and she sighed heavily as she scratched him behind the ears. Then she looked up at me again with the same glassy eyes.

“You’ll call me at least every weekend?” she asked with a sniff. “And you’ll come home to see me?”

“Yes, I promise.” I grinned as I finally managed to zip my suitcase up, and I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before I scooted my luggage past her and toward the front door of our apartment. “You had to get rid of me some time.”

“I never said I wanted that,” my mom reminded me as I began to lug my packed up life down the rickety old stairs of our building.

“I’m twenty now,” I said with a grunt as I heaved my first suitcase round the corner and onto the next flight of stairs. “Nearly twenty one, actually, and I can’t be a functioning adult if my mom is my roommate.”

I’d taken a year or two off after highschool to take an internship at a record company in the city, but they’d wanted graduates for their permanent music production positions. Thankfully, my mom had saved up a whole bunch of money after my dad died when I was little, and so here I was, hauling ass to college at the ripe old age of twenty.

At least I’d be able to buy people booze soon, so it shouldn’t be too hard to make friends on campus.

“Girls love mama’s boys, though,” my mom argued. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you and help you get all settled?”

I let my suitcase wheels clatter to a resounding stop and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay, fine, fine…” she laughed and dropped Roscoe the cat so he could scamper back up to our apartment. “I get it, you’re blossoming.”

“Mom…” I groaned. “Blossoming? It’s not my quinceanera.”

She continued to tell me all the how’s and why’s and great benefits of me studying from home as I moved my packed up bedroom down the stairs and out onto the stoop of our building, and when I’d finally dragged the last box down, she pulled me into a spine-crushing hug.

“I’m proud of you, baby,” she mumbled somewhere beside my shoulder. “So is your father.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said softly and gave her a squeeze in reply. “Thanks, Mom.”

She insisted on waiting with me as I hailed a cab, and then she hastily shoved a small wad of twenty dollar bills into my shirt pocket as a yellow car slid to a stop against the curb beside us.

“For emergencies,” she said, and she shook her head as I tried to protest. “Nu-uh, you take it. And call me when you’re all settled in and stuff, okay?”

“Thanks, Mom.” I smiled widely and kissed her one last time on the cheek, and then I hopped into the waiting cab and shut the door with a sigh.

I turned in my seat and watched as she waved me off down the block, but soon, the cab turned a corner, and my mom, on the stoop of the building I’d grown up in, eventually disappeared.

“Congrats on your first day.” The taxi man grinned knowingly in the rearview mirror as I settled back into my seat. “NYU?”

“Nah, I’m headed to Brooklyn School Of Music,” I said with a proud smile on my face. “At the Clinton Hill campus, corner of Hall and Willoughby.”

“Keepin’ it local.” The cab driver nodded in approval. “I like it. Alright, Brooklyn School Of Music, you got it.”

The cabbie was a quintessential New Yorker. He had leathery skin and a wide smile that showed his crooked, cigarette stained teeth, and he studied me with crinkly old eyes. He wore a pressed white shirt that had seen better days and a chunky gold chain around his neck, and he even pulled a pair of aviator style sunglasses from his visor when the sun broke through the clouds.

I just grinned to myself as I nodded along to the song blaring on the radio.

I could’ve gone anywhere to study music production, but why would I, when I lived in the coolest place on Earth?

The late morning was bright and cheery, with a warm sun hanging high in the air and a light breeze that only had the faint whisperings of an approaching fall. The Clinton Hill campus was a surprisingly green oasis in the middle of Brooklyn’s concrete jungle, and I counted four separate brick buildings shrouded by the welcome shade of the tall trees that surrounded the college.

The cab driver pulled up and even helped me with my luggage and boxes that had packed his car up, so I tipped him heavily for his help. He thanked me and wished me good luck with a toothy grin, and then I watched the yellow car as it disappeared into traffic.

There were lines and lines of parked cars full of families wishing their loved ones goodbye, or helping them unload all their stuff, and I spotted a helpful looking pair of guys dressed in school colors standing guard against a row of metal carts for new students to load up their luggage.

I grabbed one from the shorter of the two guys with a grateful smile, and then I hauled my suitcases and boxes onto the metal grating Tetris style, but I was careful to keep my prized PC tower and sound recording equipment on top. Then I wheeled my stuff further onto campus, which was a sprawling mess of first day of semester chaos, and as I was busy people watching, an eager guy with wide eyes and a mess of red hair bounced in front of my path.

“Hi there!” he said in a bright voice with an even brighter smile, and I had to yank the handle to stop my cart from knocking him flat on his ass. “Welcome to the Brooklyn School of Music!”

“Hi,” I chuckled breathlessly. “Sorry, I nearly took you out then.”

“I’ve gone through worse.” He shrugged his skinny shoulders and held up a clipboard with a grin. “First year?”

“Yeah, I’m in Dalton Hall apparently,” I replied with a nod.

“Okay, so you’re gonna wanna go all the way across the quad, past the fountain, and then take a hard left at the end. There’ll be someone there to greet you and tell you which room you’re in, okay?” The redhead guy even put his hands on his hips as if he were a real life Peter Pan, and I laughed

“Yep, that’s perfect,” I said as I quickly wove my cart around him and headed in the direction he told me. “Thank you.”

I continued my way across campus, and there was a surprising amount of already established students hanging around and watching the newbies arriving.

A bunch of what passed as frat boys at a music school were sitting on camping chairs in a large semicircle, and they’d made a drinking game out of people watching. As far as I could tell, their rules stated that they had to drink every time somebody tripped up or every time a parent or family member cried, and they had to all shotgun a beer any time someone’s luggage cart toppled over.

A potentially dick move, but harmless enough all things considered.

I ignored the lot of them, and thankfully my luggage cart didn’t betray me and leave me to their mercy as I headed toward Dalton Hall.

As promised, another student helper wielding a clipboard was standing sentinel at the door to the dorms, ready to guide new students to their rooms, though he was far less enthusiastic than his counterpart I’d met earlier.

“Name?” the clipboard guy asked me with an exhausted sigh and a tired smile.

“James.” I grinned. “James Miller.”

“Room four twelve,” Clipboard said in a flat voice as he ticked my name off from his list. “All the way down the hall and just before the corner. You got a laundry room round that corner, and then the common area is here at the front of the dorm.”

I wheeled my cart with my luggage into Dalton Hall and followed Clipboard’s instructions. The corridor bustled with people doing the exact same as me, and I smiled and nodded at my new dormmates as I passed them. Eventually, I found myself outside a door with the numbers ‘412’ stamped in black paint, and I pulled my cart to a stop.

“Hey, neighbor.” A voice sounded out from behind the door beside mine, and a petite girl with a blonde pixie cut and a silver lip ring leaned against the open doorway with a wide grin on her face.

“Hey.” I nodded politely and matched her smirk. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you.” The girl smiled even wider and cocked her head toward me nonchalantly. “Name’s Honey.”

“I’m James,” I said as I tried to keep my eyes on hers instead of the breasts currently attempting to pop out of the tank top layered beneath her open flannel shirt.

“Nice to meet you, Jamesssss.” Honey just continued to smirk as I dragged my cart into my room, and I had to bite my lip against the natural flirting that was doing its damnedest to come out.

I didn’t have a girlfriend, but I also didn’t want to completely ruin whatever chance I had at making friends, and Honey seemed cool, so I turned my focus on unpacking my shit instead.

My room was small but cozy, and thankfully I got it all to myself. A large double window on the north side took up almost the entire wall and drenched the room in a wash of natural light, and I heaved the window open to let some summer air in as I set to work.

A small double bed was wedged into the corner beneath the window, and on the other side of the room was a simple desk with a black leather chair. There wasn’t a door for a closet, but there was a wooden wardrobe that looked so old it was almost out of place sitting in the far corner.

“Good thing a dude is in this room and not a girl,” I laughed as I looked at the Narnia-inspired wardrobe-closet-cabinet-thingy. I didn’t exactly have an impressive array of clothing, so I figured I could still keep all my shit in there. I could get to organizing my clothes later, though. Now I just wanted to get my computer and sound equipment set up. I shrugged my shoulders out of my checkered shirt, tied it around my waist, and readied myself for the mental and physical duress I was about to willingly put myself through.

Cable management.

Luckily, I’d remembered to buy a whole bunch of zip ties before I’d moved, so by the time I had my PC tower, LED strip lights, sound equipment, and microphone set up, I had gathered the mess of black cables together in neat bunches at the back of my desk. I was still breaking a sweat, though, and as I fastened the last zip tie, I collapsed onto my back right there in the middle of the floor.

“The grunts and moans coming from this room,” I heard Honey’s snicker from somewhere by my still open door, and I just let out a laugh as I stared up at the ceiling.

“I’d apologize, but…” I heaved myself up so I could prop myself up on my elbows and then fixed her with a smirk. “I’m not sorry.”

“I’ll get you back the moment I get a girl back here.” She grinned, and then she fully cackle laughed when she saw my expression as my brain worked to catch up to her words.

“Oh!” I laughed in surprise. “You’re…”

“A raging lesbian?” Honey grinned. “Yeah, dude, I’m dressed the fucking same as you, did that not give it away?”

“Hey.” I shook my head with a chuckle and sat up with my arms resting against my knees. “I don’t assume based on appearance.”

“Good to know.” Honey nodded in approval. “I was gonna a-- woah.”

She was cut off mid-sentence when the screech of an electric guitar, hooked up to an amp with the volume cranked to eleven, suddenly wailed through the dorms. I immediately recognized the Led Zeppelin riff and hauled myself to my feet to investigate the source of the shredding, with Honey at my shoulder.

The previously closed door of the room opposite mine was suddenly wide open, and I watched as the guitarist worked his instrument with a scrunched face and a classic power stance.

He had a mess of curly black hair much like Slash’s, except he wore his in a half up half down ponytail, and he wore thick black framed eyeglasses, a cut off faded black t-shirt that showed off muscular arms, and ridiculously tight skinny jeans with a thick metal chain dangling from his belt loops.

Then he looked up, as if he could sense the eyes on him, and froze in place as he stared at me and held the note.

“Black Dog?” I grinned. “A classic.”

“Thank fucking god someone has taste here,” the guitarist sighed and then riffed excitedly before he unplugged his cherry red guitar and hauled it off his shoulders.

“Was that a test?” Honey asked with a wry smile.

“Kinda,” the curly-haired guitarist chuckled as he put his guitar in its stand beside his desk. “I just wanted to see if I had any decent roomies.”

“Did we pass?” I smirked.

“Fuck yes,” he laughed as he switched his Marshall amp off. “I’m Aron, and I pinky promise I’ll do my best to not be too annoying.”

“If you keep playing the likes of Zeppelin, I can’t be mad.” I laughed and crossed the gap between our rooms so I could quickly shake Aron’s hand. “I’m James, this is Honey.”

“Pleasure.” He winked at the both of us. “What’re you guys studying?”

“Production,” I explained with a proud smile, and I motioned to my open door. “Hence my tasty little set up.”

“No kidding,” Aron breathed as he eagerly hopped across and peered into my room. “Do you play anything?”

“Nah, I’m no musician,” I chuckled. “I wish, though.”

“Maybe I can chuck in some free lessons, if you produce some of my band’s shit.” Aron waggled his eyebrows and adjusted his spectacles as he turned to Honey. “I’m just kidding. But hey, what are you studying?”

“I’m a musician, too,” the tiny blonde explained. “Not as cool as you, though. I play the violin.”

“That’s pretty fucking cool,” I countered.

“Classical.” Aron nodded approvingly. “I dig it.”

“You’d be surprised how many metal bands use classical music, to be fair.” Honey grinned up at Aron.

“Like Metallica’s S&M performance?” I offered.

“I’m so fucking glad I have cool neighbors.” Aron held his hand up to his heart and groaned theatrically. “Are you guys going to the party at the Sigma Alpha house? I’m not normally one to mingle with frat boys, but it’s the first party of the semester, and I’m pretty sure, like, everyone’s going.”

“Oh, I’m completely in!” Honey clapped her hands together with a giggle. “I made my dad buy a bunch of beers for exactly this reason.”

“I’m definitely down.” I nodded in agreement. “I’m gonna finish unpacking and stuff, and then I’m all yours.”

“Okay, I’ll let out the bat signal in a couple hours.” Aron grinned.

I hadn’t banked on a full blown college party on my very first day, but I was definitely excited at the prospect, especially going with Honey and Aron. It was a good feeling, knowing I’d already made two pretty cool friends.

I made a mental note to tell my mom, just so she didn’t worry about me crying into my pillows with homesickness on my first night away from her.

Since I’d successfully set my computer and sound production equipment up already, I decided to finally unpack all my clothes before I jumped into the shower to get ready for my first proper college party.

I only had the one suitcase of clothing, although that was the one that was fit to bursting despite it being mainly jeans, checkered overshirts, and band merchandise. I hauled it across the room with a grunt, and it spun on its wheels and eventually came to a stop beside the battered old closet.

The thing looked like it was a hundred years old, despite the rest of the furniture in my dorm room looking like something out of an Ikea catalog, and I wondered why on Earth they’d decided to keep it. The hinges were pretty battered and rusted, and the brass handles, which might’ve gleamed once upon a time, were a tarnished brown color.

I pulled the two doors open, and I was already a half-turn around when I spotted something in my peripheral vision.

The back of the old closet should’ve been the same wood the rest of it was made from, but it simply wasn’t. I blinked once, then twice, and then rubbed at my eyes before I peered at it again, and I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was seeing.

The back of my college dorm closet looked as though it were made from molten gold. It swirled and ebbed of its own accord and had a weird glittery sheen to it as it moved, and I became suddenly hyper aware of the fact I was staring at something that absolutely did not belong in my world.

“What the fuck…” I muttered under my breath as I stared at the wall of my closet, and without giving it another thought and letting my curiosity take over, I extended my hand.

It was the equivalent of a sign that said “DO NOT PRESS THIS BIG RED BUTTON!” Of course I was gonna touch it.

The moment the tips of my outstretched fingers came into contact with the swirling gold, I felt a yank somewhere near my navel as my entire body was sucked toward the back of the ancient wardrobe.

Instead of headbutting the wall of my dorm room, though, I instead started to fall forwards. My arms began to flail, and a panicked yell fought its way up my throat, but the sound was dampened by whatever the fuck I had fallen through.

It only took a second, but it was like the world slowed down, and I felt the weird shimmering portal envelope my entire body and suck me through to a place that was definitely no longer my university dorm room.

When everything stopped spinning around me, I froze for a moment and tried to catch my breath.

What the hell had even just happened?

It was pretty dark, the air was suddenly cold and damp, and my knees already ached from where I’d slammed into a hard stone floor.

I let out a long shuddering breath and brought my head up so I could inspect my surroundings. I had fallen into some sort of underground dungeon, which was only obvious to me because of the amount of video games I’d played in my time.

The walls and floor were made from a dark gray stone, and old metal brackets were nailed into the walls where wooden torches, or maybe shackles, should go, except they were totally empty which was probably why it was so dark. Aside from a smattering of old dried straw on the stone floor, the place was utterly empty. There were a couple of ante rooms on either side of where I stood, but aside from that, nothing.

I crawled to my feet, brushed my knees down, and looked behind me to see an exact replica of my dorm room closet. I tentatively pushed one of the doors open and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the same shimmery golden portal at the back.

Then my eyes widened when I stared down at my left hand. The skin somehow had what looked like a tattoo inked into it, but it was mostly numbers and letters instead of a pattern.The tattoo looked like something out of a video game, with a skill tree that alluded to my dexterity, luck, and also strength, with long inky tendrils that curved across the back of my hand and was yet to be filled in.

“What the hell?” I said as I flexed my hand and looked at the design. It was for sure a character skill tree, but I was missing any actual named skills.

Then I stretched my arm out to push my fingers back into the weird molten metal of the portal and breathed another sigh of relief when my hand slid through to the other side.

I needed to check if it worked both ways, or whether I was permanently stuck in this strange dungeon, and I didn’t particularly take well to the latter option.

I took a shuddering breath and pushed myself back through, and I felt a sharp tug somewhere in my lower abdomen. Then I stumbled out of the shimmering gateway and back into my college dorm room, where everything was exactly as I’d left it.

Except the very stark tree-like tattoo that’d marked my left hand on the other side had suddenly disappeared, and I pulled and pressed at the skin on the back of my hand in confusion. Whatever it was, whatever had marked me, it didn’t transfer to my world apparently.

“What the hell…” I murmured breathlessly as I stared at the portal in my closet in sheer disbelief.

I could walk away from the otherworld portal in the back of my closet and try to tell people about what had just happened to me, though I’d probably get carted off to a psych ward for my troubles, and I had no intention of starting, and ending, my college career like that.

Or, I could go and explore.

Maybe this was just a dream, like I’d fallen and hit my head or something. That was definitely the most logical explanation, but… something told me this was more than that.

I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists, and pushed back through the golden portal.

The air on the other side was cold enough that goosebumps had appeared along my arms, and my knees ached with very real pain from where I’d stumbled through the gateway the first time.

So, what if this was all real? It sounded totally crazy, but I had to find out for myself.

I made my decision and gently pulled the closet door closed behind me, but I made sure I kept it open a tiny crack, mostly out of fear that it would magically weld itself shut and I’d be stuck in wherever this dungeon was for the rest of time.

And my mom would never forgive me for going missing, hell, she’d come and track me down herself.

After a quick study of my immediate surroundings, I realized there was a whole bunch of nothing in the damp and dreary cavern, at least nothing that would help me in my exploration. I found one archway that seemed to lead into a tunnel, but it was caved in several feet down. I wondered where it went. Was there a whole underground network of caves and tunnels down here?

And if so, where did they lead?

I pressed forward, away from the closet portal, and further into this weird unknown world.

After walking for a minute, I could feel a slight breeze in the dungeon, so I headed in the direction from which it came, because I figured that would at least show me how to get out.

The air started to become cooler, and I finally found a tight spiral staircase carved right into the stone on the other side of this large underground room. I hurried my way up the steps until the air opened up around me, and I found myself in a relatively empty wooden cabin. The entrance to the cellar itself was concealed by an old wooden trapdoor similar to farmhouse style tornado hatches. The huge metal hinges were rusted red, and the wood itself was covered in patches of dank green moss, but I was still glad I had something to cover the entrance to my portal.

I quickly looked around and inspected my dusty surroundings. There was a fireplace on one side of the main cabin room, but it had no fire or even old ashes in the hearth, so I figured the place was most likely abandoned.

Definitely, considering the thick layer of dust that covered the place.

I saw a few wooden structures that resembled coat racks, but they also were empty of anything interesting. There was also an old wooden table and one or two rickety looking chairs, but other than that, the little cabin possessed zero signs of life.

I figured someone must’ve lived in this cabin at some point, and the portal between worlds was right there in the dungeon beneath, but the disarray and dust proved it had laid dormant for at least a couple years.

I slowly headed toward the door on the other side of the cabin and I eagerly pushed my way out to see where the hell I actually was.

The little wooden hut and stone dungeon was nestled within the middle of a gorgeous forest clearing. Incredibly tall trees clawed their way up to a clear blue sky, and their branches were full of deep red and gold leaves. The forest floor already had a light carpet of orange and gold, and I realized wherever I was, fall had definitely come early. The air was crisp and light, noticeably different to any kind of New York air I’d ever breathed, and I could hear the distant chatter of birds circling and playing together somewhere high up above me as I trudged my way through the clearing.

“What the hell is going on?” I rubbed my temples in confusion, but to my genuine surprise, I didn’t feel any fear. I’d never particularly been a wimp, but falling through an otherworldly portal in the back of a closet into a different world Narnia-style would’ve definitely warranted some sort of panic.

Then again, I still wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t a dream, so maybe there really wasn’t anything to be scared of.

My initial shock had given way to a mildly confusing calm, and I wandered through the idyllic forest with a slight smile pulling at the corners of my mouth. The trees were lush, the sky was clear, and the air had a refreshing chill to it. It almost felt like home.

Until I heard an almighty fucking roar.

My heart jumped in my throat, which made my breath hitch, and I froze. The birds above me squawked in protest at the intrusive sound and scattered from the trees, and I could suddenly hear my blood pumping in my ears.

Then another roar sounded through the forest, and I realized, with an impending sense of sheer dread, that it didn’t sound like it belonged to any sort of animal I’d ever heard of.

Shit.