Charlotte followed closely behind me as I slowly hacked my way through the green thickness of the forest. Everywhere I stepped, small insects either scurried out of our way or flew at our faces. We waved scores of biting, stinging mosquitoes out of our faces but we were not deterred. The mystery of this blue island had to be solved. What was the structure we had seen? Who had made it?

It seemed to take hours to cover even the shortest distance, but finally we made it into an opening and what we saw made the effort worthwhile. In front of us, glittering in the sunlight, was the lower part of one of the tendrils of the almost organic-looking structure that continued far above us. The slope which had been gentle at first was now rather steep and this branch of the building was reaching down what could only be described as a mountainside. The rocky surface would be dangerous and difficult to climb for any man, but impossible for a woman.

I almost despaired when Charlotte pointed out that there was a set of stairs starting just behind a particularly nasty looking bush full of thorns and red berries. This time Charlotte took point and led me up the staircase into the strange structure itself.

If it was hot and humid outside, the insides of the building were even worse. On both sides of the stairs, glass windows let the sun in, but none of the heat out. The walls could be described as some sort of wood. But the wood was alive and covered with bark, not dead and carved into planks. It was like climbing a stairwell inside the enormous root of the larges tree there ever was.

We stopped once or twice on our journey up the mountainside, both to catch our breaths and to watch the spectacular view. We were now far above the tree tops and were able to see the beach. I even imagined I could see the trunk, which also felt reassuring. But every step I took, made me more and more worried. Excitement increased in the same manner and soon the tension of what we would find once we reached the top of the mountain almost unbearable.

That was when we made our second grizzly discovery. Charlotte gasped, but the brave girl did not scream this time.

"My God." she said. "Another one. Poor soul."

At first she held on to me, but then she let go and knelt down to see if the poor fellow lying on the stairs in front of us was dead or alive. Alas it was far to late to save his life. He had a similar wound to his chest and another in his neck. The large pool of blood around his head, coagulated and blackening, told a gruesome tale. He had lain here and bled out, without anyone to help him.

Charlotte looked at me.

"Something horrible has happened her, Nathaniel, I can feel it. I think we brought something with us."

"Don't be silly, girl. This has nothing to do with us. These people were killed in some god awful war between some primitive tribes. That is a spear-wound I bet."

Charlotte became utterly agitated by this.

"Fool! Does this look like the work of primitives to you?" she indicated the stairs and the walls. "This was built by sophisticated people with knowledge of the workings of nature." she knelt down suddenly, indicating something she had found on the ground by the body. It was something shiny.

"Look at this." she picked it out, it was bent out of shape and covered in blood but the object was unmistakable. "This is a bullet."

"My good maker, you are right. Do you think that we have brought someone with us? But how? How could we possibly?"

My legs gave way underneath me and I sat down hard on the steps just below the body. "Has this man somehow died because of us?"

"Get up, Nathaniel." Charlotte dragged me to my feet. "Let us continue up the stairs, but keep that gun handy. We might just need it."

She started again, walking up the stone steps, lined with flowers and plants and I continued after her in a daze. Chock had beaten sense out of me and I was unable to think clearly. Thoughts swirled in my head and I have no recollection of my actions before we reached the top of the stairs and a wooden door, covered in what at first appeared to be vegetation but which on closer inspection turned out to be decoration.

My daze disappeared as I studied the intricacy of the carvings.

"Fabulous." I intoned, entranced by the rotating shapes. "I think this is some sort of writing."

Then the door opened and we were both faced with our first live encounter since our journey into this paraverse.

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