Right after the last bell rang, I kicked myself out of my seat and raced to my locker, shoved the books into the walls of mold, and walked to the gates of the school. Me and Jake always met up there, since two years ago when Jake moved to this town. We had stuck right away, and I still had to grin at the memory of him being obsessed with long hair, to try to follow his favorite band or something. He gave it up after 2 months, and he now had extra-short hair.
I was the first one there as usual, but I still paced, watching the others roll out of school, chatting like crazy among themselves about some new movie, drama series, etc, etc. I had other stuff on mind, much more serious than those. I only looked through the crowd to search for the short hair in sight.
Jake finally walked to me, face blank. We both said nothing as we walked to the parking lot. Jake lived close and walked to and from school, rendering his brand new Beetle a bit un-resourceful. He slipped very naturally into the passenger seat of my ancient SUV.
"No schedules for a drinking night today?" I asked, jamming in the keys and pulling the car back to a slow rise from its nap. Jake shook his head. "No. I think I should try to cut off drinks for a while from today, though I started yesterday for real," I gave him the face that meant clearly that 'I thought you'd never say that in your life'. Jake gave me a small grin. "Hey, I'm also human, though I might be 'lame', whatever, 'Err,,eek'," I drove slowly out of the parking lot. The shudders of my car that ran all over its frame didn't surprise the last streams of people getting out-they were very used to this one.
"Straight home?" I asked, though I knew I didn't want that myself. I had thought of my plans after school during P.E. as I hopped around in the volleyball court. I had to find the real meaning and reasons of today's curse. I was also curious in the childish way on the shack's existence. I could believe Jake's prior reaction now.
"No," Jake answered curtly, but he still managed to sound a bit shaky.
"Exactly," I said, thankful that Jake was going to come along with me, and that he wasn't going to put up his tantrums. "Together," He added for confirmation though. "Correct. Well, you shouldn't be afraid of the wind and the shack this time, at least," That made him shoot me an embarrassed and pissed out glance.
I at least knew Sandra's house since we had had group projects together. It hadn't been so fun, since she was trendy and tried to distract herself, while I had wanted to get the thing done as soon as possible and get back home, near the dense part. I didn't prefer deserted places-who would?
I drove a few minutes to her alley, and then started relying on my personal human GPS.
"Where?" I asked, feeling some butterflies in my stomach since we were actually near the abnormality. Jake's eyes darted from Sandra's 'welcome' porch(at least to him), then to the houses further down. "Go straight. I'll yell at you to stop, it's along the way," I nodded, and glued my eyes to the houses around.
As I drove, I felt even stranger-since I wasn't doing my homework and watching social media and You Tube, as usual. Plus, I wasn't here for a good reason, somehow.
Still, a bit of difference to your life would be perfectly fine...
"Shit, I told you to stop!" I blinked and turned to look at Jake. "Huh?" I asked. "Locked up in your thoughts, you ignored me. Just park on the street. We'll walk the few meters," I drove to the side, then stopped the engine. "I think the cop will get us, and my car, especially," I said. "We won't be staying inside there for a whole evening," I could see Jake roll his eyes, but nervous himself. I had thought that we'd stay there for a long time, somehow, and it had come out of my mouth. No way! I thought. But why did I just say it?
We got out of my car, hopefully and grimly at the same time. I locked the door firmly, then left a quick message to dad while Jake hopped onto the street.

Err,,eek:
'll be there before dinner

With Jake, hanging out

Which was true at least.
And I hoped it would still be true in the near future, and that I'd be safely home to eat dinner with dad.
Dad didn't respond immediately as usual, which meant that he won't even check his phone till he was in his Jaguar headed home. It'd be fine for him, I knew.
I quickly raced to Jake who was some good meters ahead of me.
"Where's it?" I asked breathlessly. Jake jutted his jaw to his left. "There," He said.
I turned to see it, and did see it now.
The shack was made completely from wood, and didn't seem to have a window on the side I was looking. With a few planks of unfitting wood tacked to a few holes that were still visible partially, wild grass uncut for some time surrounded its tiny yard. Then a wooden, white fence with the painting chipping off or wearing away surrounded the whole place.
"It's worse than the picture on the Internet of Uncle Tom's cabin," I said softly. "Yup, much worse than that," Jake said. I now looked to the other surrounding buildings. Yup, some years old, but all concrete, cement, and glass.
Why did this wooden shack still exist, then?
"How can this be a constructional mistake?" I murmured to myself. Jake nodded. "Exactly," He said.
We reached the fence. It was just the right height to jump with a hand supporting your weight. But the fence squawked under my tiny shake, so I gave up. Jake was already carefully squeezing his tall body into the middle gap of the fence. Good idea. I copied him, and dunked my head under the fence.
Then we were both inside the fence line.
"Let's go," I said unnecessarily, and we walked to the house. Jake led me to the door, some big wooden plank with a single metal knob on it. Probably the only metal part. It should have been the opposite, if it had been according to current trends.
I reached forward and twisted the door open with a tilt of the wrist since Jake was a bit hesitant.
I smelled the dust and the old woody smell that everyone's familiar of right away, but no smells of mold and corruption. We stepped in, cautious. With no windows, I couldn't see a detail of the shack, the light streaming from outside seeming meager to penetrate the dark. I brought out my phone to tap on the flashlight mode, and Jake mimicked me.
Swinging the light here and there, I finally saw the interior for the first time-and Jake hadn't been joking. It was completely bare, some dust on every corner of the floor. Questions struck me again-no particular use, unprecedented little possibility of fault in the gov.'s plan...
Then I saw something.
It was some window of some kind, but when I shone my light at it, it shone and sparkled like some strange dimension-
-or some computer virus in real life.
Blocks of clear stuff hovered in the air, right in the center of the room.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered. Jake noticed my frozen glance and also shone the light-the window sparkled almost gladly. "I hadn't seen that before," he said. "You were too scared out of our wits,"I wanted to say, but then found the window-thing the priority in my mental list, so just walked over to it without a word.
"This is illogical. How-" Jake said under his breathe, also circling the strange thing like a predator. I also walked around it, but the window stood firm-I could see pieces of those squares jut out here and jut in there, still.
"What if it teleports us?" Jake suddenly said. I wanted to snort, but my brain was wise-it paused and weighed it. "Possible. But-" "Hey, look here, Rick. This shack itself is the strangest thing I've ever seen in my life, and it now has this strange-" He jutted his jaw at the thing. "Window or something," "I believe you, I came here since I thought it was also peculiar," I said, defending myself. "So what's your point?" I added. Jake now stood in front of the window. Eyes doubtful.
"We should try this out," He said. I gulped. "I know, but-" Tell him, whatever. "I have this bad mood today, Rick. I had the dreams, I think," I expected him to leap up an down, or stare at me as if I'd betrayed him as his closest friend and leave me forever.
He didn't.
"So what's your point here?" He just asked normally.
Huh.
"If we're determined to try this thing out, I know it's all silly and childish, but we have to make sure. I mean, what if we fell into hell right away?" Jake seemed ready to snort, but his brain was wise, too. "Maybe, yeah... yeah," He said. I nodded, then walked to him.
"Ok. Here's the condition. We both wanted in the first place to find out about the shack. Both, remember-my point here is 'don't blame each other', even when we fall forever in hell. Plus, we don't split up till we're both ok with it," I made sure he was nodding for real. Jake was an easy person to imagine in some  crazy situation-I could see him jabbing his finger then leaving me forever in hell or something like that.
"Got it. For real," He confirmed my doubts to be false. "I agree, either," I said, a bit surprised.
Jake then took a deep breathe.
"You go first, dude," He said.
"Fine," I walked forward, feeling silly.
"This is crazy and silly and dumb and lame," I heard Jake mutter, then put up my hands to touch the window.
They were like clear plastic sparkling around. But we had already confirmed it to be a mystery.
I slid my hand deeper  into the deepest block, then raised my eyebrows.
I could hear Jake shifting his weight to a different foot. "Maybe this is-
And that was the last thing I heard of the world.
-well, at least in my world, to be specific.