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The Great Egress

Into a forest.

It was day. It had rained. The air was humid and stuck to them like wallpaper. Somewhere, a songbird babbled. A squirrel scurried away.

The door behind them, a door hanging in the middle of the air at a cockeyed angle, snapped shut—

And disappeared.

Their luggage sat around them.

This was where they had entered the staircase. But now that staircase was gone, as was the doorway.

They had escaped the house.

Though it, perhaps, had not escaped them.