Chen sniffed, and wiped a tear from her cheek. She hugged herself and looked around the dark, empty little room.

  “We gotta get out of here”, she said.

  I looked around.

  “Yeah. Let’s try the elavator”, I suggested. We pushed the button, but no light. No ding. No exit that way.

  It was tempting to go over and at least look through the door where Ross had left, but Chen wasn’t keen. I looked around again. Nothing.

  “At least let me give this boy some dignity”, she said, casting a home-spun quilt over the still form of the boy.

  As her quilt spread out over him, and come down, it was as though he vanished.

  “Chen”, I said with awe in my voice. “Do you have… the force?”

  She guffawed. “What do you mean? Lol.”

  “That was one hundred percent Obi-Wan”, I said, grinning.

  She smiled back.

  “Thanks, Peterson.”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Making me smile. Staying.”

  I smiled again.

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. You got me out of that well.”

  “Yeah, well… all’s well that ends well”, she said.

  “No. Please tell me you did not just say that? That is the worst pun I have ever heard.” We both laughed.

  “I wish Kendrick was here”, she said, sniffling a little more.

  “Yeah, me too”, I said.

  I looked around the room again, walking across to the other side. I put my hand up against the concrete wall. I don’t know why I did that. It was cold, but when I pulled away I noticed a faint, glowing blue imprint.

  “Chen, come look at this”, I said. She came over and stood next to me. I pressed my hand against the wall again, holding it longer this time. When I pulled away, it was even more clear than last time – a clear, glowing blue handprint.

  “What do you think it means?” she said.

  “I don’t know. Let’s try going longer.”

  I put my hand on the wall a third time, this time I held it there.

  The blue glow began to spread out from my hand. It was pulsing, pushing out, and then retreating a little, before pushing out even further on the next pulse.

  I kept my hand in place, watching the pulse spread out more and more onto the black, cold, concrete wall.

  I started to feel the pulse. Almost like I could hear it, but not quite. I could definitely feel it.

  Whumph…. Whumph….whumph….whumph.

  My hand began to glow as well.

  “What’s it doing?” Chen asked, just a hint of alarm in her voice.

  “I don’t know. Take my hand, let’s not get separated.” She took my hand.

  WHUMPH….WHUMPH….WHUMPH….WHUMPH….

  “I can feel it” she said.

  She reached out and touched the wall with her finger tips. Immediately a bright, rosy purple light spilled out and intersected with my blue pulse. It radiated across the entire room – walls, floor, roof. The light surrounded us, like… like a million dollars worth of Christmas lights on someone’s front lawn.

  I stumbled forward a step, the wall gave way beneath the pressure of my push. A door opened up in front of us. It was a double door. Chen reached out and pushed the other one forward as well. It was dark inside. She cast a torch, and the beam ran forward into a plain, black tunnel.

  “Should we go forward?” she asked, looking across at me.

  “I don’t know. Guess so. Let’s try it.” I cast a torch as well, adding to her light, and we started walking forward.

  I kept my torch ahead, the beam bouncing over the black walls alongside hers.

  “Do you think,” she said, “that maybe this tunnel… isn’t just a random tunnel?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like… maybe it’s more like… a thought, or maybe that somewhere deep down, our soul knows where we need to go?”

  I chuckled. “Soul? What even is a soul? Are we stepping on neurons disguised as cement? Or is this something else?”

  “I don’t know”, she said, “But it has to be part of us. This technology is a nothing by itself. Like the desert we stepped in to way back at the start. That pulsing light back there, it’s part of us, isn’t it? It didn’t exist before we touched it, and somehow, we created it, just like we’re creating this tunnel.”

  As her foot touched down, another bright purple ripple of light spread out from beneath her. Blue began to echo out from my feet too. The light spilled out gently like rippling water onto the floor of the tunnel around us as we moved forward. It was like we were walking on water.

  I shrugged. “Does it even matter?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think it does. Ross was wrong. This isn’t just a game. Somehow, it’s the shape of our souls, and it also shapes our souls.”

  I let the silence hang a beat.

  “So… if the tunnel’s part of us, why can’t we get out of this place? Maybe we don’t need to find a portal, like Winsford was trying to do. Maybe we need to make a portal?”

  Chen smiled faintly. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  We kept walking.

  “Wait”, I said, “I think I can see something up ahead.”

  As we approached, the black floor gave way to plain concrete. The light from our feet lapped up against it, but stopped where the concrete started. It led up to a three-step rise, and… a door. A normal, painted, brass handled front door. There was a natural light coming through the glass panels of the door.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “I know this door”, I said.

  Chen looked at me with concern on her face.

  “What does it mean?” she asked.

  “It’s where I grew up. This was my front door”, I said, turning to look at her.

  “Do you want to go in?” she asked.

  I looked back at the door.

  “I… don’t know. Yes. I think so. I don’t see any other options right now.”

  “Maybe we should try something else? Somewhere else? If this is your door, then…”, she began, “I don’t want to lose you too, that’s all.”

  I smiled a half smile. Simon was partly right. There was no escaping it.

  “I think”, I said, turning to her again, “that even if we try something else, every path will lead us to this door. Or at least, will lead me to this door. Or something like it, one way or another.”

  “Why?” she said.

  “It’s like you were saying, this place is part of us. It’s the shape of our souls. All we can do is see what we find. Ready?”

  She looked at the door, then back at me.

  “I really hope Kendrick was right about this. I’m ready.”

  I turned the handle, and opened the door.

  As it swung open silently, there was a hallway in front of us. It was like my old hallway, but also… it wasn’t. We stepped inside, a once luxurious carpet now well-worn and homely beneath our feet. Just like I remembered.

  Our old umbrella stand was just inside the front door, right next to the coat hanger. There were polished wooden floor boards beneath the hallway rug. I could even detect the faint smell of pasta and tomato sauce. I tried to push back the memories. I didn’t look at the hallway door as we passed.

  The great, round mirror was down the end of the passage as we walked past. I paused as we got to it, because I couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t a mirror I was looking into.

  The mirror was dim and cloudy, obscure with no reflections. I could see a shape inside, vaguely mirroring my movements, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I didn’t really want to stay to find out.

  We turned right at the end of the hallway. It was our old living room. Long and wide, with the open kitchen at the other end, and the back door out on to the yard.

  I didn’t stop to pay attention to the room though. Not the family photos. Not Grandma’s old water colour painting. Not the family desk, none of it. I was too shocked to look at any of that, because what I saw was… me.

  It was me.

  Sitting down in the couch, playing a video game on the screen that we used to have in our wall.

  “Cailin?”, Chen said, uncertainty all over her voice. “What… what do you think this is?”

  “I don’t know”, I said.

  My doppleganger didn’t even seem to notice us. He just played. The screen was covered in a thousand tiny screens, almost too small to recognise, all flashing images of… games I’d played. Games I’d made.

  I walked slowly around the couch, seeing if I could catch my doppleganger’s attention. There was nothing. Not a flicker of the eye. He just stared straight ahead, eyes a little droopy, face expressionless. I waved my hand in front of his face. Nothing.

  “He doesn’t know you’re here”, I heard a voice say, “He doesn’t know much of anything these days.”

  Chen and I turned back to the door we’d just come through to see a woman standing in the doorway.

  My face flushed.

  Oh no.

  Please God… please not in front of Chen.

  But there she was. And she wasn’t exactly… appropriate.

  I’d cast her way back in normal thought-casting space. When we’d had free access to experiment with the technology. I should’ve realised that this could have been a risk.

  What an idiot.

  “C’mon, Peterson”, she said, with a sultry pout on her lips, “Aren’t you glad to see me again?”

  “I… I….”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Don’t worry”, she said, with a knowing insider’s smile at Chen, “I tend to have this effect on boys.”

  “I guess”, she said, walking slowly around the room, “you’re wondering what this is all about?”

  “Who are you?” Chen said. I don’t know what her expression was. I couldn’t even look at her.

  “Come now, I think we all know the answer to that question”, she said in response.

  “I am Cailin’s wildest fantasy come to life. I am everything he thinks about and wants. Just like every other man-boy on the planet too scared to get a real woman.”

  I do not have words to narrate how I was feeling in that moment. I wanted to shrink down to the size of an ant and slip through the floorboards.

  “Look at me Peterson”, she said. “Look at me like you did last time we were together. You want to know what this is all about? I’ll tell you.”

  “You’re spending your life building game worlds for little boys just like you. You’re twenty-nine and you sleep in a room that smells like yesterday. You hide behind screens and fantasies, and you spill yourself out into the nothing, accomplishing nothing. You achieve nothing. And somewhere, deep down, you already know the truth: you’re not even a real man. Just a little boy. You hate yourself, and in spite of everything, you still… want… me.”

  She smiled and turned, looking over her shoulder, swaying as she walked. I did hate myself. And I hated myself even more because in that moment I still wanted to look at her.

  “The truth is, Peterson, this is not really about anything. Everett. Simon. Winsford. Ross. They got dragged down by their demons. I don’t need to drag you down, because the truth is…” she paused at the doorway, looking one last time suggestively over her shoulder, “I’ve already got you. I’ve had you for a long time.”

  And with that, she walked on through the door and out of sight.

  “See you soon, baby”, her voice echoed back down the hallway.

  I looked at my doppleganger. He was still playing, just staring at the screen.

  I looked down at the floor.

  She was right.

  I heard Chen’s soft footsteps, slowly moving around the couch toward me. I didn’t look up. I felt a tear run down my cheek.

  Her footsteps moved slowly closer, until she stood right in front of me.

  I didn’t look up.

  I felt her hands on either side of my face, gently inviting me to look up at her face.

  “Cailin?” she said.

  I looked up, right into her eyes.

  “You don’t have to explain anything. I’m still your friend.”

  She gave me a small smile. I looked down again.

  “Whatever’s behind you, it doesn’t have to define what you do next. I learned that the hard way.”

  I looked up again. It was the same smile that grounded those stones beneath my feet last time.

  “C’mon, let’s go through to the backyard and see what we can see.”