At age thirty-three, Seth discovers his parents tried to create a door to another dimension. As a child, he really didn't think anything of the loud noises and various pieces of equipment his parents used in their work – they told him those were their toys. He didn't mind, because most of the time, the machines played beautiful music.

His parents were Harmonic Physicists, experimenting with different sound frequencies at their country home. They landscaped a specialized space on the grounds for their experiments: two waterfalls, each about four feet high, with a small stream connecting them. They believed the natural sounds of the flowing water would give them an advantage in their work. Not wanting to set this lab space up in their home for fear of some of the resonating frequencies destroying walls or windows, they created their lab in the yard.

Sadly, they never found what they were looking for. One week ago they lost their lives when a tractor-trailer truck hopped the median and crashed into their car. They left Seth all their possessions in their wills, but Seth hadn't been to this house since childhood, and he had never wanted to step foot in this house again.

He endures the vivid memory of part of his left hand being bitten off by the family dog whenever the hateful memory attacks, but doesn't remember anything else about that day. Pain seared through his entire arm and he has never felt such pain since. That was the last day of his childhood spent at the house. After he got out of the hospital, his parents would disappear for days at a time, leaving him with the nanny, saying they needed to take care of some things at the country home. He didn't mind them never again asking if he wanted to go; after the dog incident, he was terrified of the place. They never talked to Seth about that day, and whenever he brought it up they would simply tell him the dog went crazy and had to be put to sleep.

Now at thirty-three, he sits in his truck staring at the house. The crushing feeling of foreboding is almost more than Seth can bear as his eyes survey the house, then fall upon the ornate stone walls which conceal the waterfall oasis. He sees a sign reading "Keep out" standing at the opening of his parents' outdoor lab. Shivering, he closes his eyes, leans back against the headrest and breathes deeply, clutching the steering wheel with both hands.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Ethan, Seth's best friend, looks concerned.  "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute." After a few moments he opens his eyes and forces himself out of the truck.

Not daring to look in the direction of the oasis again, and having no idea why the outdoor lab causes him anxiety, he hurries to the front door and fumbles with his keys until finally one of them succeeds, and he pushes open the door.

The house is smaller than he remembers, and he barely remembers the layout of the rooms as he meanders around the first floor, picking up little knick-knacks as he walks, trying to call up some memories of this place.

Seth was planning to sell the house until Ethan and Seth's fiancée, Lorna, talked him in to keeping it and having all of them live there; today is moving day. Ethan is currently unloading the boxes from the truck. Lorna's arriving later.

Seth stands reading one of his mother's journals, which he found on a desk as he walked into his parent's library. She mentions a "stream effect" at the sight of the waterfalls, theoretically caused by the rotation of the Earth, but doesn't go in to more detail – at least not in this journal. Seth thumbs through and discovers references to the experiments in harmonic frequencies his parents performed. Using various sound waves aimed at the waterfalls outside, they attempted to vibrate the water molecules at certain frequencies in an attempt to open a doorway into another dimension – or at the very least, to peer in. Instead of succeeding in opening a door, they created a bubble. Their theory was they hadn't found the correct frequency to fully open the door, and that there was at least one more barrier to break, but after what happened to Seth the remainder of their experiments focused on reversing what they had done.

Seth notices movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking out the window to his left he sees Ethan walking around the yard. His breath catches in his throat when he realizes Ethan is walking toward the waterfalls. An unrelenting panic sets in and Seth drops the journal and runs through the house, trying to reach Ethan before he reaches the waterfalls. As Seth emerges from the house, he sees Ethan walking at a safe distance from the stone wall surrounding the oasis, and sighs with relief.

Then Ethan jumps up on the wall, balancing like a tightrope walker, as he pretends he is high up in the air, wobbling left to right and laughing. Seth bolts down the front steps and runs full speed until he is a mere foot away from the wall, looking up at Ethan. Ethan laughs again when he sees Seth appear out of nowhere.

"Ethan, come down, please."

"Yes, mom," he replies, and then playfully leans back like he is falling back into the waterfalls.

"Ethan! Please, I-I don't know why, but I think it's dangerous!"

Ethan frowns, then loses his balance for real and falls back. His fall is arrested in mid – air. As Seth watches helplessly, Ethan hovers in the air and it looks like the air itself has bent in about an inch all around him in order to hold his weight. He watches Ethan's hair and clothes move up and sideways, seemingly on their own, and Ethan screams and tries to free himself, but his arms won't move higher than the elbows and his legs won't move at all. With no regard for his own safety, Seth jumps up on the wall, grabs Ethan's arms and pulls, but can't free him; all he can do is hold on and watch in paralyzing horror. Ethan's clothes, hair, and skin systematically rip and flow through the air like they are part of a stream, curling up into little droplets as they flow. Then blood enters the stream and Ethan's constant screams and the ripping and tearing sounds coming from his body seem to echo all around. Ethan is rendered limp at the same time Seth hears a sickening crunch. Bone from Ethan's skull cracks apart and joins the flowing stream of horror; then brain matter, various tissues, and bone from the back of his body are systematically ripped from him until his entire body is broken apart and flowing down an invisible "stream" across the sky. Seth watches as Ethan's remains flow through the air until they reach the second waterfall ten feet away and then inexplicably disappear.

Seth vomits freely. Not only because of what he's just witnessed, but because he suddenly remembers what happened to the family dog when he was a child. The dog was caught the same way and when Seth reached for her, trying to help, the dog lashed out and bit him. He remembers now: the dog's fur, then skin, connective tissue and blood, then bones, all crunching up into droplets about the size of dimes and flowing across the sky. He would have been pulled in, too, had his father not grabbed him and pulled him back.

Seth repeatedly screams and then passes out – on the safe side of the wall. Not knowing how much time has passed, he is roused to consciousness by the sounds of a woman screaming. Lorna. He had fallen just where she couldn't see him and she'd had no warning. Seth pushes himself onto his feet and stumbles toward her.

At the entrance to the waterfalls, holding on to either side of the wall encircling the oasis, Lorna struggles to get her long hair out of the current of the invisible river in the sky. Most of her hair is already in, the ends curling up into little dots and flowing away. By the time Seth reaches her, the skin on the back of her skull is being ripped.

Not yet having achieved her goal of becoming a professional opera singer, Lorna still practices religiously. As the current begins ripping her skin, she lets out a shriek at just the right pitch, and just the right proximity. As Seth grabs her, the portal opens and the force pulls in both of them.

They land on grass. Seth thinks for a split second they just landed on the ground in the waterfall oasis. Having trouble breathing, he manages to push himself up on to his knees to look around. The lush, green grass is the only feature on the ground as far as the eyes can see and flying creatures litter the sky. He hears shrieks and cries of animals in the distance, and then a familiar cry to his left: Lorna, still alive, eyes wide, with the "grass" growing up and wrapping around her. Searing pain cuts through Seth's feet, calves, and knees. To his horror he sees the blades of "grass" growing, slicing through his flesh, and wrapping around to hold him. He absently thinks, "This is much worse than the dog bite." Blades continue to grow and wrap around him and eventually are able to pull him down. The stabbing blades begin to freely slice through his hands, arms, torso, neck, ear, and hold him with his head turned toward Lorna, which gives him a close-up view of the "grass" growing and stuffing into her mouth to muffle her screams, then slicing through her lips to sew her mouth shut. When the same happens to him he realizes they don't only stuff in his mouth, they continue on down his throat and through the length of his body. Yet somehow, he lives. Every nerve in his body is on fire and there's nowhere to go to get away from the agony, yet he lives.

Somehow, the accursed "grass" possesses the power to keep its victims alive for decades. For twenty-four years he and Lorna lay stuck in the same position, with their own feces, urine, and blood soaking them, hearing the shrieks of nearby creatures as the "blades of grass" claim more and more lives. During the short month Seth manages to remain sane, he concludes the "grass" is feeding on anima – life force – as it does not appear to eat flesh or drink blood. During that short month, he does everything he can – which isn't much – to try and comfort Lorna. He watches her go insane before his own sanity slips away.

Seth is fifty-seven years old when his heart mercifully, finally stops beating.

Back on Earth, two months after Seth and Lorna's encounter with the portal, a friend of Seth's decides to pay a surprise visit to her buddy since he hasn't been returning phone messages. After looking around the house and finding no one, she decides to check the garden. Walking through the entrance, she sees two absolutely extraordinarily beautiful waterfalls, each about four feet high, and forgets for a few moments why she is here. She walks to each one in turn, noticing birds and butterflies in the garden as she goes. She decides to sit down and wait for a couple of hours, to see if anyone shows up, before she alerts the authorities. This small oasis is so peaceful and relaxing, she wonders why anyone would put a "Keep Out" sign at the entrance.

The Missing Piece of the Puzzle by Seven L. Cooper