The Stepping Stone

Deep in the Oregon wilderness, a hidden staircase rises from the forest floor—seventeen ancient steps leading to the unknown.

When a young man, a professor, and his student from a nearby university investigate, they uncover a stunning secret: a working portal to another world.

Concerned over national security issues, one of the three notifies the NSA but before they can act, the other two are compelled by someone on the other side to step through.

On the other side, they find a society eerily similar to their own—only here, darkness has been disguised as light, and true freedom has been hidden from the masses.

Convinced to return and recruit the one person who holds the key to liberation, the travelers slip back through the portal. They return just as the NSA secures the site. The portal is slammed shut behind them and the truth is now revealed. Things are not as they seem.

Caught between two powerful factions, trapped by lies and half-truths, they must choose their allies carefully.

One mistake could doom them to permanent exile in a tightly controlled future.

The right move will lead them back home—but even then, the NSA is waiting.

The rebellion intensifies.

Survival hangs in the balance and decisions must be made.

Chapter One

Stairs in the Woods

The country’s political climate was becoming more toxic by the day. The controlling government continued to enact draconian policies that eroded citizens' constitutional rights. Freedom of speech was all but gone, and personal freedom of movement was being stripped away. Traveling outside state lines was increasingly difficult. Oregon's governor was playing hardball with its citizens, and they were beginning to fight back. Political unrest was escalating, with rioters burning and looting much of the city. Portland was turning into a hellhole.

John Hindle lived just outside of Portland. If the unrest expanded into the suburbs, he would grab his bug-out bag and hit the road.

He didn’t have a specific destination in mind, which was why he currently found himself deep in the woods of Oregon's Cascade mountain range. He was searching for a safe place to hunker down and hide out. For how long, he wasn’t sure—at least until some sense of normalcy returned... if it ever did.

He was familiar with the area he was hiking in. As he trekked along a seldom-used game trail, something caught the toe of his boot, causing him to stumble to the ground. Normally, he would have shrugged it off, picked himself up, and kept going. A root or rock would have been his first thought.

But from ground level, he could clearly see it was more than that. It was much larger than a root and didn’t resemble any normal rock. It was flat with a very straight edge, covered with a thick layer of moss, fallen limbs, and vines. Something felt off, and he wanted a better understanding of what he was looking at. He decided to take a closer look. A little effort to uncover the trip hazard revealed what lay hidden beneath.

As he moved some debris out of the way, confusion set in. A step was the furthest thing from his mind, yet what he had uncovered was exactly that. He continued to pull away the years of old vines and fallen debris from the step. To his surprise, there was more than one. His reason for being deep in the woods faded from his mind as he focused on uncovering what turned out to be an entire flight of stairs.

Continue Reading HERE

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