They walked in silence, their footsteps muffled by centuries of dust and discarded parchment.

  Eugene's mind wandered—not to the bizarre world around him, but to the beige walls of his Cincinnati apartment. To the smell of his microwave dinners, to the hum of the broken fridge that buzzed just loud enough to keep him awake at night. He thought of his job, where his presence registered no more than a login on a spreadsheet, and where he returned the indifference in kind. The friends he had weren't really friends. Drinking buddies. Occasional texts. People who didn’t ask questions because they didn’t want to be asked any either.

  He didn’t miss it. But he did feel the shape of its absence.

  He had experienced more real emotion at the centaurs' ceremony than he had in decades of Earth life. Even though he hadn’t known them long, he was immediately drawn to their sense of purpose and their inextinguishable hope. It stirred something in him he hadn’t felt since he was young—like belief, or at least the wish for it.

  The room ahead felt like a scream that had run out of breath.

  Paper hung in tatters from the ceiling. Paintings curled like dead leaves. Scrolls leaked ink across the floor in little weeping pools. Somewhere overhead, a chandelier made from broken quills rotated slowly, creaking like an old swing.

  Eugene stepped cautiously past a spine-split tome that bled glitter. Wobewt walked beside him with a stiffness Eugene hadn’t seen before.

  “If she speaks,” Wobewt murmured, “leave huh the silence she wants. If she asks, buttew huh up. If she weeps, flattuh huh. Gods hewp us if she waughs.”

  “You mean She-Who-Wasn’t?”

  “Do not call huh that,” Wobewt hissed, just as the air shimmered.

  She descended like a wedding dress dropped from a roof. Translucent, pale, and over-accessorized.

  Her robes were a collage of stolen things: a velvet bookmark pressed flat and brittle with age, a faded watercolor of a centaur's face on crinkled parchment, and a long strip of brocade embroidered with archaic symbols and sun-bleached thread. It resembled a sash from a beauty pageant on Earth. The hem dragged across the floor like she expected someone to rush forward and lift it for her. Nobody did.

  Her body was like condensed candle smoke in the shape of a woman. Her face was hidden behind an ivory mask, too smooth, too round, with exaggerated painted lashes and a smeared pink mouth that tried to smile. It failed.

  “Ughhh, FINALLY,” she groaned, arms outstretched like Eugene was a prize she’d waited far too long to collect. “Do you even know how hard it is to get visitors on this floor? Like, no offense, but the centaurs are not exactly good conversation. One of them gave me a spoon once and then ran away.”

  She floated closer.

  “And you, my squishy little mortal peanut, are a secret factory, aren’t you? I can smell it. Like fear, but delicious.”

  Eugene opened his mouth.

  “Don’t say it,” she snapped. “If you call me that name, the bad one, I swear I will unravel your tongue and repurpose it as a bookmark.”

  Wobewt raised a hand to warn Eugene again, but Eugene simply nodded. “Okay. Sorry.”

  She instantly softened.

  “Mmm. That’s better. Good boy.”

  Her gaze flicked downward, catching sight of the lantern in Eugene’s grip. She went still.

  “Oh... well now. That’s not just a torch, is it?” she purred. “Three Jennies, all in one staff? I haven’t seen a Jennie since before I came to this awful scrapbook of a floor. And never three at once.”

  She leaned closer, squinting at the lantern with theatrical suspicion. “What in the stars’ tangled guts are you, exactly?”

  Eugene just gulped, afraid to say the wrong thing.

  She circled Eugene like she was appraising a piece of fruit at a market stall. "You must've come down here to hear stories about me, right?" she chirped. "I mean, honestly, what else would even be worth hearing about? I'm sure this whole floor spends most of their sad little days just talking about me."

  She turned slightly and winked at Wobewt. "Even the centaurs, though I doubt they can say much with those adorable little speech impediments of theirs. It's like watching a mule try to sing opera."

  Eugene could hear Wobewt grinding his teeth in anger, but neither of them dared say a word.

  “So here’s the deal, cupcake: I give you something you shouldn’t know. The kind of thing no one talks about because they don’t know to talk about it. Like, say, how to get to the next floor. And in exchange, you give me...”

  She paused dramatically. A scroll popped behind her.

  “...a secret. A real one. Not a sob story. Not a dream. Not a truth you've shared with a mirror. I want something you have never told anyone. Ever.”

  She flicked her wrist, and a needle appeared—a long, glassy thing that shimmered with gold thread through its eye. It hovered expectantly, pulsing.

  “Whisper it,” she cooed. “I’ll know if it’s fake.”

  Eugene swallowed.

  A few candidates flickered through his mind. The time he cheated on a test in high school and never got caught. The time he ghosted a friend who was going through a hard time because he just didn’t have the energy to care. The way he sometimes fantasized about just disappearing, even before all this.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  No. None of that would fly. Not with her.

  He knew something mundane wasn’t going to cut it. Not a half-forgotten dream or a childhood embarrassment. It had to be juicy. Raw. Something still wet at the edges.

  For the first time in his life, Eugene was grateful that he’d never been close enough to anyone to share the ugliest parts of himself. There were still secrets curled up tight inside him, untouched. And that realization brought with it a quiet sadness.

  He hadn’t hidden them because they were precious. Just because no one had ever asked.

  The chamber went silent.

  He leaned in.

  He whispered.

  Wobewt would never admit it, but he attempted to hear Eugene. All he could catch were the words "pinnacle" and "zombies".

  The mask didn’t move, but she gasped. One hand clutched her chest; the other flailed dramatically behind her.

  “Ohhh my gods,” she moaned. “That is so SAD. I love it.”

  The needle zipped forward and stitched the secret into her robes, threading it between a torn nursery rhyme and a scribbled drawing of a mushroom. The thread glowed, then dimmed.

  Eugene blinked.

  His stomach dropped.

  “What... what did I just tell you?”

  She-Who-Wasn’t tilted her head.

  “Aww. You forgot? That happens.”

  Her voice dipped lower.

  “It was a real one, too. That hollow feeling? That’s the space where your secret used to live. But don’t worry. I’ll take such good care of it.”

  Her mask tilted slightly. The painted smile now looked almost smug.

  “Now then. Because you were such a good little whisperer, let me leave you with this: the door you want is in the Feeding Room.”

  Eugene blinked. “That sounds... inviting.”

  Wobewt’s face went pale. “The Feedin’ Woom?”

  She-Who-Wasn’t grinned beneath her mask. “Oh yes. It feeds on the brave. Or the dumb. Hard to tell which. If I were you, I'd just stay here and keep giving me secrets.”

  She giggled, the sound too high, too long.

  “Bye bestie!” she called as Wobewt tugged Eugene away. “Tell Krungus he still owes me a date! And a better name!!”

  They passed under the chandelier of broken quills. One fell and pierced the floor beside Eugene’s foot.

  Wobewt muttered under his breath: “I hate huh so much.”

  Eugene didn’t answer. He was too busy wondering what he used to know.

  They walked in silence again, deeper now into the belly of Syzzyzzy.

  “Wobewt,” Eugene said, glancing sideways. “What exactly is the Feeding Room?”

  Wobewt’s jaw tightened. “Nobody weally knows, but... I’ve heawd things. Stowies. Whispews.”

  “About what?”

  “It’s not a weguwaw woom,” Wobewt said. “The whole place is... awive. Not wit a heawt o' nothing, but like... it waits. When someone goes in, if it likes the way they move, ow smell, ow maybe theiw magic—doesn’t mattuh—it twies to kill 'em. Fast. Then it... it dissolves 'em. Eats 'em down to bone, ow sometimes not even that.”

  “Like a Venus flytrap?”

  Wobewt nodded grimly. “Yeah. But the size of a chapel, and smartew than you'd like.”

  Eugene’s stomach twisted. He gripped the lantern a little tighter. He was reminded of boss fights in the various tabletop campaigns he had run.

  “Should we prepare?” he asked. “Maybe get some more centaurs? Or, I don’t know, healing potions or something?”

  Wobewt shook his head. “I won't lead my fwiends into a place like that. Not unless we have to. I wouldn’t ask 'em to die for it.”

  “And the potions?”

  “We don't have those. Not weally. Not any that would wowk in time.”

  Eugene exhaled and looked down at the lantern. “Alright. Then... will you hold this for a second?”

  Wobewt blinked. “The staff?”

  “Yeah,” Eugene said, handing it over. “I need to talk to the Jennies.”

  He closed his eyes.

  The outside world fell away.

  Inside the lantern, it was dim and soft, like stepping into the back of a dream. The air shimmered faintly, full of floating motes that glowed with unspoken ideas.

  Cozimia was already waiting, perched on a floating settee made of embroidered napkins. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite lost lamb,” she said, dabbing her cheeks as if she’d just been crying, though her eyes were dry.

  The Jennie of Potential stood nearby, silent as always. Her glasslike form pulsed with slow, shifting colors—today, deep violets and flashes of amber. She nodded at Eugene without speaking.

  Hazel Fortuna, the Jennie of Coincidence, was upside down, reading cards while swinging lazily from an invisible thread. “Oooh. Someone’s scared,” she sing-songed. “You’re about to do something deliciously stupid, aren’t you?”

  “I need advice,” Eugene said, stepping forward. “There’s a room. They call it the Feeding Room. Apparently, it’s alive. It eats people. Fast.”

  Cozimia stood up. “You are not going in there alone.”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  Hazel fluttered down and landed on his shoulder, whispering, “You always have a choice. You just don’t always like them.”

  The Jennie of Potential tilted her head. A single shard drifted forward and hovered before Eugene’s face. It showed a flickering image: Eugene standing in the room, still alive, barely.

  “She thinks I can survive it,” Eugene said quietly.

  Cozimia gave him a long, pained look. “Then go in knowing this: We can’t pull you out. This place—it obeys different rules. If you want our help, you have to use what we’ve already given you.”

  Hazel tapped his forehead. “And trust that we gave you more than you know.”

  Eugene hesitated. “Have any of you ever seen a sentient room before?”

  Cozimia winced. “Yes. Once. It didn’t go well.”

  Hazel blew a raspberry. “I try not to go anywhere with teeth in the architecture, darling.”

  He nodded slowly. “And… do you know anything about how to get to the next floor?”

  The Jennie of Potential remained still, but her colors shifted to a dull red. She raised one arm and pointed—straight upward.

  Eugene looked at the others. “That’s it? Just… up?”

  Cozimia shrugged. “Up is rarely just up in Syzzyzzy, it appears. But if that’s the way, then it’s the only way.”

  Eugene took a breath and let it out slowly.

  He thought back on the fights he'd won so far—the ones that mattered. Every time, it had come down to more than just force or planning. It had come down to coincidence. Things had gone right when he’d stopped gripping them so tightly. When he let go. When he stopped trying to control everything and just... allowed things to happen.

  That had been the key. Letting go.

  He sat down on the soft floor of the lantern-realm and crossed his legs. He wasn’t a Buddhist or anything—had never even been much for yoga—but he remembered enough to know that they cleared their minds when they meditated. That sounded useful right now.

  He closed his eyes again, for real this time, and just breathed. In. Out. In again.

  At first, it felt silly. But slowly, something shifted. A hum in the air around him. A faint warmth rising from the floor and circling him like steam.

  He felt... calmer. Not strong, not ready, but clearer. Like his thoughts were finally standing in line instead of shouting over one another.

  If he still had his interface, he thought, this would probably be the part where a new Jennie ability unlocked.

  He smiled to himself, still breathing deep. Then he stood up, steadier than before.