With a loud bang, the iron door slammed shut, falling into complete silence for a brief second. There were no sounds of rushing feet. The only sounds I could hear were my own heavy breathing, and the smell of ozone lingered in the air.
"Don't press against any metal," Silas warned in a harsh, low voice. "The Wardens can't open the lock, but they can 'echo' through iron. They will use that echo to make your heart vibrate to the point that it stops. Move!"
I pushed off the door. My legs felt as though they had melted onto the ground.
The bowl of crystal I kept tightly against my chest contained that which had been stolen from me—the violet stone had been the one piece that had been frozen in time.
Each time the stone pulsed with my heart, the shadows on the wall came to life and twisted into all sorts of shapes.
The stairway changed from stone to compressed dust as we moved downward with muted footfalls. As we descended deeper into the storage area, the temperature kept decreasing until it eventually reached what could only be described as ice cold. However, it was different from the icy coldness experienced during winter; it had reached the point where a room was devoid of anything for a minimum of one thousand years.
We finally reached the last step and stepped out into the Deep Storage Facility.
This room had thousands of square miles of clear glass walls that extended into perpetual darkness, consisting of thousands—perhaps millions—of clear glass shelf pieces, each about an inch thick and three feet high, filled with millions—perhaps billions—of clear glass cubes and table-sized cubes approximately one to two feet wide. Some were illuminated, while others blinked on and off.
Silas told me not to look at a glass cube, but I could not help glancing at one. Inside it was my mother's face, laughing while seated at a table with an older gentleman who had a full head of silver hair.
In the background behind my mother was another version of me, playing the piano in a way I would never be able to duplicate. Nevertheless, to anyone listening, my playing would have sounded as though it were performed with perfect timing.
"This is the cemetery of 'what-ifs,'" Silas growled, pulling me along; everything anyone could have chosen not to do exists here in this graveyard. If you study the graveyard for too long you may actually start to believe the illusion and want to crawl inside the glass and remain alive until there is nothing left but your dust.
In the middle of the graveyard was a circular workshop. Above us was no ceiling—only a swirling vortex of black ink and white paper. The man who sat at the stone desk was pale and hard with ink etchings all over him, like a map. He held a diamond-tipped pen that shone brightly; it hurt my eyes to look at it.
"Architect," Silas said, bowing his head to the man; "This is the reason we brought him."
The Architect looked at the man at the stone desk. His two eyes were not really eyes at all; they were two black hole-like swirling whirlpools of ink. "Ethan, Home!! For nineteen years you have believed in a Home that has never belonged to you. You weren't 'deleted' because you were a mistake. You were deleted because you were the draft."
Behind us, the heavy vault doors of the chamber creaked open. The Wardens had found us, and they flooded into the room, not attacking, but instead forming two straight lines with their heads bowed as one figure stepped down the middle of the two rows.
This Warden was dressed in white armor, with golden etchings on the surface, and he moved with a familiar gait—a slight limp in his left leg, which I remembered from childhood days. He lifted his hand and removed his helmet.
"Dad?" I whispered in disbelief. The syllable felt like it came from ashes in my mouth.
This man had my father's eyes, though they were cold, unemotional, and filled with static, lifting my horror to a new level.
"Subject Thorne," he said in a flat, robotic tone. "Your narrative has concluded. Surrender the Shaper essence."
"Your father was actually the first to be 'edited'," the Architect said while slowly revealing his shameful demeanor — the very respect he once had was now lost in his extreme cruelty. "He was just another blackstone for the Council to control."
There were no words that could fully describe the devastation when I realised what he had done to my father; I had lived through so much loss in such a short time.
"Ethan, I have Shaper blood," the Architect continued, with venomous light coming from his eyes. "I have a Diamond Pen; the Council is no more needed; I am now out of your control."
Then he pointed to the iron cuff around my wrist, and the diamond pen's point touched it. Instead of breaking the cuff, it opened up into thousands of thin, razor-like ribbons of paper that were wrapped tightly around my arm and drew blood while my life-long 'weight' was absorbed into the diamond pen.
"You wanted to see the Door That Doesn't Exist?" The Architect chuckled as he pointed the pen toward a frame of grey mist. "It is a door between worlds where I am the sole Author, and you are merely the character being written out."
Little by little, he flicked his wrist, and a torrent of black ink struck me and sent me flying backward. I did not crash into any wall. Instead, I fell into the mist.
Silas screamed my name as I slipped through the air, fully clothed in silk, cold against my skin.
I came to my bed in London.
The sun was shining through the window. I could hear bacon sizzling. My arm was light, as my cuffs had finally come off and my scars had completely healed.
"Ethan! Get going already!" My mom's voice drifted up the staircase.
As I stood up, my heart was racing. This could not be real. Surely, it had to be a figment of my imagination?
I made my way into the kitchen. My mom was flipping pancakes as Sophie played on the floor with her blocks. Everything was absolutely perfect.
Too perfect to be real!
My bite of pancake was hollow—absolutely bland, tasting like wet cardboard in my mouth.
When I looked up at Sophie, she smiled and said, "A tower, Ethan! An enormous tower with all my friends!"
The words made my heart feel as though it would explode inside my chest.
No more than five seconds later, she picked up another block and looked at me again.
"A tower, Ethan! A big tower for all my friends!"
I slowly turned toward my mom, who was still flipping a pancake at the stove.
"Mom?" I said. "What was the last thing Dad said to me before he died?"
"He told me that you were a really good boy and that he loved you," she said flatly, never turning from the stove.
"No... that can't be right! He died in a car accident. He didn't say anything!"
The words barely came out of my mouth, but I still hoped she would respond—anything that might make me feel better.
Turning around, I found her face flaking away to reveal green code beneath, the smile still intact even as her jaw disintegrated.
"He loves you."
I ran to the front door and yanked it open.
There was no street outside—only an infinite expanse of white paper. My home sat alone in the middle of the endless void.
I looked down at my notepad. Every page was marked with the same words:
[STAY IN THE LINE]
"No!" I screamed. "None of this is real!"
I reached for the weight of my home. The walls felt less like wood and more like words.
I seized the word house and twisted it.
The air around me cracked apart, and through the fractures I saw the destroyed workshop, Silas lying on the floor, and the White Warden—the thing wearing my father's face—holding a spear aimed at Silas's heart.
Dad! STOP!" I roared.
I reached through the crack in reality, my bare fingers clawing at the edges of the fake world.
I wasn't just breaking out of a room.
I was tearing the story apart.