Sitting with my back against one of the plain identical rods, I was staring at a door. 

This unique scene was an elaborately embossed double iron door set into dark grey rock face. Wild grasses and unknown plants covered the ground leading up to the opening, while Vines and mosses filled the cracks in the rock face.  

I had previously checked out a few other doors that had no guard, but his one had a few details different than the others. 

- Well, if you could use different to describe minor details of totally unique settings. But this is the first vignette that I've seen with glowing plants and an actual mural. 

Some of the multitude of bushes, shrubs, grasses and mosses had crystal like glittery accents, glowing flowers, or metallic fruits.  

- And just like all the rest of the doors, all of the scene is completely frozen in space. Given the glowing foliage combined with the mural on the door I think I can guess the theme of this door. 

Embossed on the right leaf of the double iron door were monsters. Lowly goblins, skeletal warriors, demonic knights, fire breathing dragons, and shapeless horrors that were hinted in the background. The longer I looked the more details I could make out. I could see a jelly like core in the oozing slimes that were seemingly dissolving the bones of the other monsters' victims. The goblins carried varied weapons, some merely improvised, but one was wielding a chipped dagger with a barely visible crest on the hilt.  Each of the Dragons only had four fingers, Litches wielding elaborate staves unique to each, vicious wolves with 4 eyes and distinctive pelts. And behind them all, those shapeless horrors seemed to emit a black corrosive miasma that gave birth new monsters.  

The Left showed Heroes, warriors, Dragons, giants and other fantastical beast. The level of detail was just as elaborate, Heroes of different fantasy races each with their own equipment, gryphons flying with soldiers on their backs, five fingered Dragons casting elaborate magic. Towns with production workers, animals in lush forests, and behind them the outlines of gods radiating a warm divine light. 

I sat and stared for a very long time, picking out new details with each pass.  

But what kept me here was the depictions of magic, not just the showy lightening and thunderous flames, but even the workers in the towns appeared to use magic in there crafting. Elaborate magic circles, power filled runes, magic formations, dark rituals, crystal focuses, and dreadful tomes all depicted with incredible detail. Over time I noticed a pattern, the magic seemed to cycle.  From the dark rituals of the Litches to the vibrating runic lines on the Heroes’ equipment, all of it drew from the same source. Powerful lines ran through the ground, delicate networks webbed the forests, gaseous currents permeated the air, all cycling from a single point that seemed everywhere, and nowhere at the same time. 

- May be something like a quantum effect? An energy boiling up from the Zero point? 

I was tracing the shape of magic formation around a western style dragon, watching how it guided magic like a printed circuit, and how it also had both the divine light and the miasma mixed in, both with their own effects on the magic.  

I realized that I was tracing it with my fingers. 

“Oh Crap!”- Me 

The doors began to open, spilling a golden light with a very dark shadow. 

... 

I was laying in the dirt, retching and trying to catch my breath at the same time. 

- That was horrid, like riding the world's biggest, vomit educing, roller coaster while having thousands of ants pulling off your flesh till they start working on your bones. And why the hell am I breathing? 

When the worst of the retching stopped, I moved my erratically responding arm under me and pushed myself up.  

I was laying at the base of what could only be described as a glowing rift, a man tall thin line of brilliance. The light spilling from slice in space felt like it was from the marble door. 

Propped up on my elbow I looked around. 

- Is my eye sight destroyed, or is this really a spectral forest? Why the hell did I touch the damn door? 

I was surrounded by a thick old growth forest of translucent deciduous trees, reflecting the light from the rift by my head. 

My arm gave out and planted my face in the dirt again. 

- Yep, two lives and I'm still an idiot. 

It took a while but my body stopped shaking and started to feel normal. 

In that time I was suffering, I learned that the dirt didn't have any taste, or smell, as much as it seemed like common ordinary dirt. There were also no sounds from animals, insects or even wind. And if you looked long enough, in my case having no choice, you could see into the ground where something was slowly moving, almost like a very slow river.  

And the all-pervasive grey dust was still here. 

Doing a really good imitation of a zombie I managed to stand up and really get a good look around. 

- Spectral forest. Washed out colours. Breathing. The grey dust. Guess I'm still dead, but not in same place as the Grey Twilight.