LEVEL CLASSIFICATION: THRESHOLD-1
Designation: The Glass Maze
Stability: Fluid
Cognitive Hazard: Moderate to High (Spatial Disorientation)
Physical Danger: Negligible
PRIMARY TESTIMONY
Retrieved from: Report No. 77-B
Date: [CONFLICTING]
Status: Missing
I opened my eyes.
This time there was no desk, no chair, no carpet.
I was standing in the middle of an infinite corridor made entirely of glass. No, it wasn't glass. It was something more transparent than air, yet harder than steel. The walls, the ceiling and the floor were made of this substance that did not reflect light, but rather... bent reality around itself.
I breathed. The air was perfectly still. Silent.
"Hello?", I called out.
My voice made no echo. It traveled for kilometers down that corridor without losing strength, as if space offered no resistance.
I looked around. The corridors crossed, intertwined, went up, went down, forming angles that geometry should not allow. I could see my own back through the walls. I could see the same point from a thousand different angles at the same time.
It was infinite. And yet, it felt like it could fit in the palm of my hand.
TECHNICAL NOTE 1: ON LOCAL LAWS OF PHYSICS
The rules we know do not work here. They are merely suggestions that the environment chooses to ignore.
Recorded observations:
- Law of Identity: An object can be two different things at the same time. A door can be open and closed. A wall can be solid and permeable.
- Causality: Sometimes the effect comes before the cause. You may hear the result of your action before you even perform it.
- Perspective: The farther something is, the sharper it appears. What is close becomes blurry.
An architect who tried to map this place wrote in his journal:
"This was not built. This thinks. The walls move when you blink, not to trap you, but because the structure is alive and constantly adjusting itself to maintain an equilibrium we cannot understand. It is as if we were inside a giant brain, walking through the corridors of a thought."
He abandoned the project days later, saying that "the map is the territory."
PRIMARY ENTITY: THE GUARDIAN OF THE THRESHOLD
Description: A vague figure, almost a blur of constant motion. It has no defined shape, alternating between being a shadow and a blinding light. Usually seen in profile, never face-on.
Behavior: Never attacks, never speaks. It simply walks. It is always at a constant distance from you, no matter how fast you walk or run. If you stop, it stops. If you proceed, it proceeds.
Danger: Unknown. No records of physical contact.
PRIMARY TESTIMONY (CONTINUED)
I started walking.
My footsteps made no sound. The floor was neither cold nor hot. It was... neutral. As if it did not exist.
After some time (or perhaps no time at all), I saw it.
There ahead, at the curve of the corridor, there was someone.
Or something.
I stopped. The figure stopped too.
I walked a little further. It moved at the same speed. Always keeping the same rhythm. Always maintaining that impossible distance.
"Who are you?", I shouted.
The figure did not turn its head. But a voice emerged, not from its mouth, but from the entire environment around me, coming from within the glass walls:
"There is no who. There is no what. Only the Path."
"Where am I?", I asked, feeling cold sweat on my forehead. "What is this place?"
The voice answered, soft and terrifying:
"You are at the frontier. Where things begin to stop being things to become... ideas. You thought the world was solid? You thought that 'inside' and 'outside' were real things? This is just a layer. A thin film over something much greater."
I looked around, frightened.
"Something greater? What lies beyond?"
"Beyond is not a place. It is a state. You will feel the weight soon. Everything you see, everything you touch, everything you think... is nothing but a shadow cast upon an invisible wall. And that wall... the wall is something that has no name, no shape, no beginning and no end."
The figure began to move away, walking slowly through the corridor that folded over itself.
"Do not ask who made this. Do not ask why. Some answers burn the mind before they can be spoken. Just walk. Just observe. The secret is not at the end of the road. The secret is that the road was always inside you."
The figure vanished. But I knew it was still there. Somewhere. Watching. Waiting.
ANOMALOUS ARTIFACT: THE WOODEN PLAQUE
Nailed to one of the "walls", there was an old wooden sign, like those used for construction sites or warnings. Written on it, in letters that seemed to change language every time you blinked:
WARNING
YOU ARE LEAVING THE SIMULATION
LAWS ARE BEING REWRITTEN
DO NOT TRUST WHAT YOUR EYES SEE
DO NOT TRUST WHAT YOUR MIND THINKS
THE FOUNDATION IS UNSTABLE.
PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENT
"There is a silence that precedes sound. There is a darkness that shelters the light. There is a unity that supports multiplicity. When you walk through these corridors, you are not walking upon stone or glass. You are walking upon the very fabric of reality. And this fabric is woven by Something... or Someone... who is everywhere and nowhere. Do not seek Him yet. Your eyes cannot yet bear the light."
PRIMARY TESTIMONY (CONCLUSION)
I stood there for a length of time I cannot measure.
I understood that this place was a test. Not of courage, but of comprehension.
The walls moved, space folded, time stretched like rubber.
And deep beneath it all, hovering over every atom, there was an immense, calm, absolute presence. I could not see it, but I felt it the way we feel the sun behind the clouds.
It was something that contained everything.
That was affected by nothing.
That was simple, eternal, and one.
But I was not ready to know what it was.
Perhaps no one ever is.
Perhaps only at the end of all paths.
I turned the corner.
The corridor opened into a bright, white void.
I stepped inside.
CATALOGERS' FOOTNOTE
This level is famous for being the first where reports start becoming confusing, contradictory, and almost poetic.
The human mind desperately tries to apply logic where no logic exists.
Many say they felt "a gaze".
Many say they felt that "everything was one".
But no one can explain who or what.
Not yet.
ADDENDUM
The structure holds. The dream continues. Something immense is happening, and we are merely characters who have not yet read the end of the book.