On Sunday, I headed out not long after sunrise, which, in Vancouver, is very early; somewhere around 6am that time of year. I didn't want to have to explain where I was going -- "why would you go hiking there the day after you already did?" -- so I left a note for Mom and Dad on the kitchen counter.

I was halfway expecting it to have been a delusion, but the path was right where I left it. I turned off the main trail and blurred through the Gate.

This time, the sun was high in the sky, and the moons were clearly visible as bluish-white shadows. Birds tweeted and chirped, but I saw no other signs of life. It might as well have been a world just for me, my own country.

I shrugged. Nothing for it. I set out at a brisk pace down the path leading away from the Gate. The further I went from my starting point, the more it felt like a commitment; that was my lifeline slipping away. Somehow, I was unbothered.

The path on this side was, much like the Earth side, little more than an animal trail. It was unnaturally straight for an animal trail, but who knew what sorts of animals one might find in a strange new world.

By the time the path levelled out, at the base of the hill containing the Gate, the trees towered over me, and the sunlight from above held less sway over the forest around me. I could see the forest floor, an old growth forest with a touch of temperate rainforest, just like on the Earth side. Wide, mostly open spaces between enormous tree trunks, light filtering down from above, tree needles carpeting the ground. Old fallen trees had begun to decay, and new residents had moved in: fungus, insects, purple-green moss. The air was cleaner and sweeter than any I'd ever breathed up to that point. I took deep lungfuls and sighed with contentment.

A change in the trees up ahead slowly resolved into an opening for a side path on the right.

The side path wasn't much of a path; it led very shortly to a large clearing. A small stream wound through, across a corner of the clearing, leaving a little stomach-like pool in a bend. My eyes darted here and there, taking in the space: the layered sedimentary rock around the bend of the stream, the little hills rising on two sides of the open space, a quiet sandy beach, the sand a strange mix of green and golden. The birds sang nearby and the stream gurgled with a constant cadence. My heart soared with excitement as I thought, oh my gods, this is a perfect campsite.

I was curious where the main path led, of course, but this felt like my own secret place.

It took me some time to realize something that had been nagging at the back of my mind: there were no airplanes flying overhead, no sounds of chainsaws or construction, no cars puttering by, no voices to despoil the perfect quiet of nature. The forest might well have gone on forever.

The feelings inside overwhelmed me, and I had no idea how to process it or let it out. I shook my hands quietly, as if I could shake some of it out, but it didn't do much. I settled instead for setting my pack down against a rock and pacing around the clearing.

The Clearing, I thought. Nice, simple name.

I sat down on the rock next to my pack and pulled out a sketch journal and a pencil. The skritch-skritch of my pencil on the paper added a unique compliment to the gurgling of the stream. I wrote about my experiences with this new place. I drew simple pictures of plant life I'd seen, the moons in the sky. I captioned each of these with simple English names where it seemed appropriate, and noted strangeness where I saw it (purple moss?).

Eventually, even I'd had enough of peace, and my stomach sounded a cry of war.

As I chewed on some beef jerky, I reflected on the porous nature of a human being. I'd been breathing this rarified air for hours, incorporating it into myself. In a very literal sense, I was not entirely an Earth-standard human anymore. I was part... something else. The idea could've scared me, but instead, it excited me. I wanted more.

I'd planned for the eventuality that I'd run out of my bottled water, of course. I had a little hand pump that would pull in potentially contaminated water from a stream or lake and remove the impurities. I went over to the little stream, feeling an excited kind of trepidation. I had no idea if the pump would filter out troubles from the Clearing, but I wanted it. I wanted more of this beautiful place in me. To be changed, to be rarified like the air itself.

It was a new sort of feeling, but I let it take me and started working the pump.

I had two bottles, one of which was empty, so I pointed the spout of the pump into that one. The water coming out looked clean. Of course, that doesn't mean a whole lot, but I opted to put my trust in the filter and the kindness of the place.

Welp, I thought. I took a sip.

The water was good; I don't know if it was my expectation or an objective reality, but it felt nourishing, the icy stream flooding my throat, cold sliding all the way down to my stomach. It held a mineral taste not quite like any I'd experienced before. I could imagine the water molecules spreading out inside me, replacing my own one at a time, until I was no longer a creature of Earth.

I had no idea why that place inspired such feelings, but I couldn't deny them, either. I filled my bottle the rest of the way to take some with me.

As the sky started to shift toward sunset, I pulled my phone out of my pack and took a look.

No network.

Yeah, no shit.

The phone's internal clock showed a little after eight in the evening. I needed to get back, or my parents would start freaking out, since I'd said I was coming back for Sunday night.

So, reluctantly, I packed up again, making sure I'd left no trace, and headed back up the path toward the Gate.

I turned around before I reached the Gate itself, taking one more look at the twilight land before me. Something like an aurora streamed overhead, and I could see pastel colouration on the two moons. With no artificial illumination, the sky was a spray of light and colour, a canvas for uncountable stars. I recognized none of the constellations, further implying that it was a whole separate world, one way or another.

With the sky darker than last time, I could see something else strange and different: the canopy of trees glowed very slightly purple. Perhaps some of that moss I'd seen was iridescent?

I kissed the tip of my fingers and blew it outward.

I'll be back.

I blurred back out of the Gate on the Earth side to an unwelcome surprise: it was perhaps early morning, and the sudden light blinded me, my eyes hurting from the overload.

What the heck?

I looked again at my phone, just in time for it to grab a network connection. The network flashed from "--" to "Big3", and simultaneously, the time flashed from 9:05pm to 8:27am.

I just stared at it for a moment, not understanding. And then, a beginning to understanding.

Inside the Gate, my phone had no signal, so it couldn't get time from the network. All it could do is count the seconds as they passed by. And then, as soon as I stepped back out, the phone picked up network time again, as Earth knew it. I should've seen this after the first trip through the Gate, when it seemed like it was a different time of day.

Time passes differently on that side.

That added a whole new complication to going there, but I wasn't planning to stop. Looking at the date on my phone, it was still Sunday. So just an hour or so had passed on Earth for an entire day in the Clearing. I had still time to go back in for several days on that side. But it didn't really feel right, having said goodbye already; I'd also not brought any camping gear.

I did the math in my head, though, and it was staggering: about 10 days per 24 hours on the Earth side. A full overnight weekend, with time to drive and hike there and back, could net a little over two weeks. A long weekend would be even more.

Feeling this way after just two visits, some kind of quiet alarm bells seemed to be ringing in my head, but I wanted to see more.