I was being chased.  A chopper thundered above me for the fifteenth time tonight.  The searchlight passed just inches from where I was.  Had it been a moment earlier, I would have been seen.
I scurried inside the damp little chamber I ducked into and sat on the mud caked altar at the back.  I would only be safe there for a few minutes.  Their voices were getting closer and that helicopter would keep circling until it ran out of fuel.
All night I was scrambling through the woods, over rocks and through wild rose bushes.  Everything was still wet from a summer storm earlier that evening.  That made my escape harder than it already had to be, causing me to slip a couple of times.  These woods were thick but in the muddy earth I was offered limited protection.  It was only a matter of time before my own tracks lead them straight to me.
I thought quickly about my situation.  This had become more serious than any of us imagined it could.  It quickly became too much for us to handle and it was time to abort the mission.  By that time it was too late.  Our hard work was nothing now and I was about to be caught.
As I looked around the stone chamber I was in I flashed back to the beginnings of our trouble.  The warnings we should have heeded.  You know those men in black suits you hear about, mysteriously appearing at people’s doors?  They came to mine.  They eliminated everybody else.  And now they were after me.
Six months prior I contacted a local author about his books on the paranormal.  We met and I got involved with his research.  Unlike most people who get scared off when they realize this stuff is real, I stuck with it.  I then formed my own investigation team.
What were we researching, do you ask?  Perhaps I should step back a little further and explain my background.  My name is Rhiannon.  I lived in Putnam County, New York, which was notorious for its paranormal and UFO activity.  Numerous abductions had taken place in the 80’s and strange phenomena continue to this day.  Our research was primarily focused on the links between ancient stone buildings and reports of the paranormal surrounding them.  We could not have asked to live in a better place.
I worked closely with an old friend of mine.  Her name was Acacia and we’d known each other since high school.  We were like sisters.  Perhaps the reason for our close relationship was due to our upbringings.  For as long as we could remember, our families had exposed us to the paranormal.  I can still hear my father telling me at five years old the story of the infamous ’84 UFO that followed him home.
Acacia’s loss, along with that of the rest of my team weighed heavily on me.  If I started to dwell on it however, I would have gone mad.
I was discovering new chambers almost every other day in the beginning, when it was just Acacia and I.  We spent countless hours painstakingly researching these stone chambers.  Together we must have trekked through several miles of woods, cutting through thick undergrowth and logging everything in a leather bound journal.
Before we knew it, Acacia and I had filled the little book and added a few more links to our investigation team.  My younger brother was the next to join, quickly inviting a couple close friends of his and forming their own division they liked to call PI, standing simply for “Paranormal Investigators”.  In total that made eight of us: Myself, Acacia, Vince, Lance, David, Blake, Connor, and Conrad.  Vince was a close friend of mine, Lance my brother, and the other four were friends of his.  Together we called ourselves KEPRI: Keltic Energy Paranormal Research and Investigation.  We worked closely with another team, headed by my friend and local author, Druce.  He was a great help in our research and I like to think of him as the reason I first became interested in the stone chambers.
Our work led us on a wild goose chase and answers were never easy to find.  Often times we would come upon more questions before anything got resolved.  The paranormal is not something for the close-minded.   When we started finding what we sought, things took a turn for the most bizarre.  I am sure most people are familiar with the term “Truth is stranger than fiction”.  I am not exaggerating when I say that does not even begin to cover it.
The question is, where do I begin?  So much has happened over the past several months, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where things started to get hair-raisingly strange.  Perhaps it is when I realized I could communicate with the stone chambers or “druid huts” as I like to call them.  I know how crazy that sounds.  Communicating with a stone building?  Surely I have lost my mind.  Perhaps I have but that doesn’t change the fact that I experienced some form of bizarre telepathy.
Now when I say communicate, I do not mean immediately with the structure itself.  Linked to every one of these ancient buildings is an entity.  At first we thought them to be other-worldly beings, not within our own dimension.  Some are male, some are female, and some are androgynous.  Once we were better acquainted, in you will, it became apparent that it ran much deeper than that.  What started as a scientific endeavor quickly became a spiritual quest.  These Chamber Beings were not only on this plane and that of another dimension, they were interconnected with our own souls.  Two in particular stood out to us but that is something best explained later.
My first experience was at the druid hut on Hitchcock Hill in Mahopac, NY.  This was when I began to realize just how much we did not know and was given a glimpse of what we were dealing with.
Vince told me about a rather large chamber he used to play in as a kid when he lived right up the road.  He took me there so I could investigate it for myself and I must say that it was not a wasted trip.  It was indeed on the large side, as far as druid huts go.  Most of these chambers had similar dimensions, varying based on their original purpose.  The dimensions of the Hitchcock Hill chamber were about six feet high by seven feet wide and twenty feet deep.  The entrance was rectangular, framed by many cut rocks and one lentil stone resting on top.  Lentil stone is simply the term used for the large slab of rock that sits on top of others, giving a Stonehenge resemblance.  Felsic (light colored) granite blocks had been carefully cut to fit together.  Although the chamber appeared to have straight walls with large flat rocks resting on top, the construction was much more advanced.  When one looked at it from the inside, it was easy to see the walls curved slightly inward, perfectly supporting the weight of the seven-ton granite slabs that made up the corbelled ceiling.  These chambers were built in such a way that the walls and roof supported each other.  If one were to falter, the entire chamber would collapse in on itself.  I theorized that might be by design, preserving the mystery of their construction.
The chamber was full of energy and it was in very good shape.  Unfortunately I did not have my camera so I went back the next day to take pictures and log information.  This time I went with Acacia.  That same day we bought the little journal, shortly before visiting.
As I walked in I felt an incredible surge of energy all around me.  I inspected the stones for Ogham, the ancient written language of the Celts.  Ogham was not spoken, as it was meant to simply represent things in a way that was comparable to Morse Code.  It was not long before I discovered three oddly shaped stones in the front left corner.  Picking them up, I examined them.  They resembled stone tools and I was interested in what both my professors and Druce would have to say about them.  Since I did not want to take them without asking, I decided to see if I could get a positive response of some sort from the Chamber.
I walked to the back wall and immediately found what I like to call the “Portal”.  Portal areas within these buildings are found by locating the highest center of energy.  Many are within the back walls, but certainly not all.  Placing my hand on the cool stone I simply asked permission to take what I had found.  To my surprise a male voice began speaking, granting my wish to keep the artifacts.  Was it the Chamber I was hearing?
I was quite intrigued, if not a little unnerved.  A stone building was talking to me.  I thought I’d lost it.  Needing to know for sure, I asked whom exactly I was communicating with.
Its response confirmed my original thoughts.  “You are hearing from Me,” it replied.
“The druid hut?” I asked.
“Yes.  I am speaking to you now because you are ready.  Take the stones and learn what you can from them.  Your intentions are honest, so you may use them to gain the knowledge you seek,” it answered.
I was amazed at what was happening.  I was communicating with the entity connected to the Chamber!
I began to ask more questions, but this is when the strange part happened.  Its voice died away.  Suddenly an intense wave of energy came out from the rock, flowed through my hand, and spread through my entire body.  The whole chamber filled with this energy and it was only a matter of moments before I felt a tugging from beyond the stones themselves.  I did not alarm myself, however.  At the time I took it as nothing more than a strong energy transfer.  I had done those before but none were quite this intense.  It was as if something else was going on in there.  Only after the fact did I learn what really happened.
The Chamber’s voice came back within a couple minutes and I felt the energy start to subside.  It thanked me for speaking with it.  In turn, I thanked it for allowing me to keep the stone tools.  I was then told to leave, so I complied.
As I crossed the threshold, I felt the Chamber’s energy leave me all at once.  It was sucked right back in, causing momentary dizziness.  After walking a few paces away I felt myself return to normal.
Acacia and I looked at each other and I laughed sheepishly.  I know we were both thinking the same thing: What just happened?
As we drove home, she told me something quite incredible.  While I was in the Chamber, a bright white fog began to form and the entire thing went from gloomy and dark to well lit by white light.  Around me the ground and rocks began to sparkle.  Around my hand and head was a rust colored glow.  As soon as I took my hand away from the back wall the brightness began to fade.  She too felt the energy subside.
Intrigued, I asked her what she thought happened.
In all seriousness she said, “I think you activated the portal.”
I was not expecting that answer.  Very surprised, I tried to laugh it off at first, joking about being sucked into other dimensions.
“No really,” she continued, “I think that’s what happened?  You said you thought it was more than an energy transfer, right?”
My eyebrows shot up.  I had not said that, though I did think it.  “No,” I replied uncertainly, “I did not say that.  But I did think it.  How did you…”
A small smile crossed her face.  “You know my Grandmother was psychic.  I inherited that from her.  I guess I just picked up on it.”
I nodded.  For as long as I’d know Acacia, she was gifted with these abilities, though she never used them.  She felt her Grandmother wanted to protect her from whatever was out there, so she stayed away.  Lately though, she was becoming more and more aware of it and opening herself up.
One thing she was very good at was using her element, Earth to her advantage.
Before I go on, let me explain that everyone has an assigned element.  It is based on the characteristics of your soul and carries over from life to life.  Mine is Fire, hers was Earth.
Acacia had become quite talented at vine working.  As an Earth she felt she had energy vines that she could use to both protect and defend.  A lot of the time she cast a vine around me.  That day was no exception.  She also had the ability to wind scry, or see things far away using only the patterns of the wind.  Whatever it touched, she saw.
“What did you do that for?” she asked.
“What I do what for?” I replied, confused.
“You cast out a wave of energy.”
“You felt that?”
“Yes.  How could I not?  You’re sitting right next to me.”
I laughed.  “Maybe we were sisters in another life.  Perhaps twins.”
“That would make sense, actually,” mused Acacia.
I glanced at her.  “It would?”
“Yes.  It’s like twin syndrome.  Two twins on opposite sides of the country feel the other’s pain.  It doesn’t have to be that dramatic, though.  Often times they can read one another’s thoughts, feel slight differences in mood, amongst other things.  There have been many well documented cases.”
I tilted my head as I thought about that.  She and I were always like sisters.  “You just may have something there, Sis,” I said with a smile.
She laughed and we continued to talk about our sisterhood.
When I came home from work that night Acacia had done research on portals and found some very interesting information.  According to Scottish legend, what we experienced in and outside the Chamber was exactly how portals work (white fog, bright light).  Supposedly they transport you not to another dimension, but two hundred years in the past.  Together we theorized that perhaps each one takes you someplace different.  Maybe they took us 1,500 years in the past, to when the Celts were supposed to have built the stone chambers.  Perhaps they took us to the future and maybe some really did lead to other dimensions.
I was floored.  It was mainly due to the fact that I was not expecting these Chambers to be more than ceremonial areas for ancient Celtic explorers.  This was fast becoming stranger than any of us could believe.  Needing more information, I called Druce the next day.  He too confirmed the legend and told me many people have experienced similar things while in the stone chambers.
Was I some sort of key to activating these portals?  I had to know more.  Unbeknownst to all of us, searching for the truth would later be our own undoing.