Neno stood in the empty street, the city's breath thick around him.

He was beginning to understand now—Saranja was alive. Not in the way flesh and blood were, but something deeper, something worse. It shifted, not randomly, but deliberately. The roads did not merely change. They decided.

The buildings pressed inward, their crooked spires clawing at the sky. Their windows were hollow, yet he could feel something inside them watching. Not eyes, but presence. The kind of gaze that existed behind mirrors, just beyond reflection.

He needed to move.

Not forward—forward implied a destination, and destinations were lies here. The city did not take you where you wanted to go. It took you where it needed you to be.

So he walked.

As he moved, the streets shifted in ways he could barely comprehend.

A door to his right had been open a moment ago. Now, it was a mural, painted with faceless figures reaching skyward.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

A lamppost flickered. He blinked. The light was gone—but the shadow remained.

He turned a corner, and his foot landed on something that hadn’t been there before. Looking down, he found himself standing at the edge of a staircase leading underground.

The problem was that he had just passed this way.

There had been no staircase.

And yet… the stone was old. The steps were worn, smoothed by countless feet that had walked them before him.

A thought crept into his mind, unbidden.

How long has this staircase existed?

The answer followed a beat later.

Long enough to wait for you.

Neno didn’t move.

A thick weight settled in his chest. He could still hear the city—its distant groans, the soft scrape of shifting brick, the whispers that slithered through empty windows.

But this was different.

The staircase felt like it was waiting for him to decide.

And the moment he chose—up or down, forward or away—the city would react.

The page in his hand stirred. The ink swam. A new message bled through the fibers.

"It is not lost. It is waiting to be found."

A sound rippled through the air.

Not from the stairs.

From behind him.

Soft at first, like parchment being turned. Then louder. Closer. The unmistakable sound of feet stepping where no one should be.

Neno didn’t look back.

Somehow, he already knew:

There was no street behind him anymore.

Only the staircase.

Waiting.