The Black Door -- Prologue

Something rather interesting has been happening as I've continued to write this story. I've found that what I thought was the beginning was really more towards the middle. But, now I have the actual beginning, or at least the prologue, mostly finished. Here it is:

Prologue

One dark, rainy night in Moscow is much like another. This one was unusually cold, even for April, but it still looked the same as every storm that had come before it. The glistening streets were nearly empty, and, apart from the downtown area, there were few people to be seen. All of this was especially true on an unremarkable little road, several miles outside of Moscow proper, where the hills began to blend into the local mountain, and there were only trees and underbrush to be seen. The road itself didn’t go anywhere in particular, which is most likely why no one ever traveled on it. But, on this night, in this abandoned place, there seemed to be a peculiar kind of energy hovering around the hills and crackling through the trees. Combined with the rain and the darkness, the energy gave the impression that, if you valued your sanity, you’d best be staying far away from here. Which was why, when the laws of physics ceased to exist in a rather squarish shaped section of the forest, the only thing to notice was a solitary coyote, bolder than its brethren.

Without warning, the ground stretched and bent, and began to sink in a surprisingly non-random pattern. A driveway unraveled itself out of nothing and attached itself to the road, and was almost immediately covered over with brush. Then, with a quiet, anticlimactic ‘thwump,’ a large, Gothic-looking mansion appeared where the depression in the ground had been, settling in perfectly. All was quiet. From the road, it looked as if nothing had changed. Even the driveway entrance appeared not to be there, unless you looked very closely at exactly the right place. The rain continued to fall, and far away there could be heard the howls of a very frightened coyote.