Max jammed the key into his car's ignition. The engine coughed and roared to life, and the city's skyline receded in his rearview mirror as he sped towards the suburbs. He had no idea what he was hoping to see, but the coordinates in his father's journal had brought him here, to what felt like a forgotten pocket of time.

  The highway forward became less known, the noise of the city giving way to the silence of an industrial wasteland. Desolate factories, corroding fences, and vacant parking lots lay before him for miles. The farther he drove, the lonelier it grew. Max couldn't shake the sense of increasing unease spreading up his back.

  A couple more miles down the road, he stopped at a big, old rundown building. The iron gates rusted and creaked in the breeze, and weeds had consumed what must have been a bustling operation at one time.

  Max's hands clenched around the steering wheel. "This is it," he murmured to himself, though uncertainty remained. "What the devil is my father involved in?" The building appeared deserted, like it hadn't been lived in for years. But something within him told him that something important was tucked away here, just waiting to be discovered.

  First Impression

  Max pulled up his car as close as he could to the back of the building. The only sound in the otherwise quiet space was the crunch of tires on gravel. He got out of the car and felt the cold air despite the sunlight in the afternoon. The building towered above him, still and menacing.

  Max crept along the rim, his heart pounding with every step. There was something about this place—something that stood the hairs on the back of his neck on end. The silence was unnatural, as if the world around him was keeping its breath.

  He stopped at the rear of the structure, scanning the area for a sign of an entrance that might be concealed. The wall was ivy-covered and encased in layers of grime. Max saw a small rusty door, half concealed behind a tangle of wild plants. It was as if the building were attempting to bury its secret.

  Max crept up slowly, his breathing shallow. "This is crazy," he said to himself. "Why would he keep it here?" The door was ancient, its metal scratched and layered with dirt. A sequence of numbers, lightly etched into the metal, caught his eye. Max scowled. He knew the pattern from his father's journal.

  A shiver of understanding coursed through him. He had discovered it—the entrance his father had described. The point where it had all begun. And yet, Max couldn't help but have the feeling that this was merely the start. The door had lain in wait, concealed from curious eyes, and now he was the one to reveal the truth.

  Discovering the Entrance

  Max's boots scratched quietly against the gravel as he walked around the old factory building, his gaze slipping into every corner, every inch of the abandoned building. The site seemed forgotten, like a lost fragment of history buried in plain sight. He had never been a believer in luck, but today, for the first time in a long time, he couldn't help but hope that this could be his break.

  His fingers wrapped tightly around the journal, the creased pages offering only cryptic hints that seemed to taunt him with their obscurity. It had been hours of pouring over the strange symbols, the broken notes in his father's scrawl, but something in the coordinates, the angles, the odd reference to "the entrance beneath" made Max think this was where he had come.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Sighing, Max dropped to his haunches beside a little clump of tangled ivy that had been hugging the building's wall. He felt the heaviness of the moment on his chest. "This must be it," he muttered aloud to himself, as much as to the memory of his dad, who seemed always to have some clue of what he was doing.

  He shoved aside the heavy veils of green, his hand passing over something hard and metallic. "Gotcha." His pulse pounded, a flame of victory burning in his chest.

  There, beneath the vines and earth, lay a rusty metal hatch. The lines were dimly visible, but the trapdoor had evidently been closed solid for decades. Max traced his fingers over the surface, looking for a latch or handle, and there it was—a complex series of notches. His father's handwriting in the journal came back to him: "Unlock the path through pressure and rotation." Max looked at the hatch, trying to figure out how much his father had planned ahead.

  He set his hands upon the door and pressed down into the notches, turning them individually according to his father's mysterious directions. The hatch creaked, a noise that felt ages old, as if an ancient beast was stirring from prolonged sleep. Max's heart pounded.

  The creaking increased, and then, with a protesting squeak, the door swung open, letting in the darkness outside. A chill gust of air swept up from the tunnel below, bringing with it the faint smell of dust and rust. Max stepped back, not knowing if it was fear or wonder that caused his knees to tremble.

  "I'm actually doing this," he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. His words floated in the air, a confirmation of all that had brought him here, and yet, at the same time, a question he wasn't sure he had an answer to. What if he was wrong? What if this was some sort of elaborate trick his father had left for him, a puzzle he couldn't figure out?

  But no. He couldn't back down now.

  Taking a deep breath, Max leaned forward and looked into the void. The tunnel went on forever beyond his sight, an endless emptiness that made his heart pound. It was cold, too cold, and the silence was heavy, as if the walls were waiting, listening for what he would do next. He took his flashlight out of his bag, turning it on, the beam of light slicing through the darkness like a knife.

  Max made his way down the stairs, the muffled scraping of his shoes on stone the only noise in the thick silence. The air chilled with each step, the passageway curving deeper into the earth. His breathing was shallow and rapid, the air fleeting from his lips, and he could feel the thud of his heart against his ribcage. The further down he went, the heavier the burden of this secret.

  As he climbed down, Max couldn't help but consider his dad—Dr. Alexander Cole—how certain he had ever been. How each choice, each direction had appeared charted out in his brain with deliberateness.

  Max stopped, his foot on the step below. "I wish I knew how you did it, Dad," he grumbled, staring down at the flashlight in his hand. "How did you always know the right thing to do? How did you keep going forward when everything else around you was so unsure?"

  Max's mind reeled as he considered the way his father had been so completely in control, so laser-focused. Even amidst chaos, Dr. Cole had been a man of action. A man of determination. Max, by contrast, had always been… lost. His inventions were all that had kept him grounded, but they never quite performed as he envisioned. He never felt as confident as his father.

  "I'm not you, Dad," Max whispered quietly, his voice infused with frustration. Every step brought him closer to the burden of his father's legacy. "I'm not even close."

  The lower Max fell, the wider the hole inside him appeared to get. His father had bequeathed to him a riddle, a heritage that had guided and limited him. Max lacked the confidence, the same single-minded dedication. He couldn't be certain of anything, unlike his father. He always questioned whether or not his father ever had questioned himself.

  But now, as he stood on the brink of what his father had concealed, Max knew one thing for certain—he could not risk doubting himself anymore. He had made it this far, and he had to stay the course.

  "I'll get to the bottom of this, Dad. I swear," he whispered, resolve firming in his tone.

  Taking another step into the shadows, Max prepared to confront whatever lay ahead in the secret lab below.