Luna, wondering why the door stood open when Pink was so careful about being sure to lock it, looked out into the deserted hallway to see another door, further down the hall, also standing open.

She was not, generally, a very curious child, but then she had few opportunities to see things to be curious about. As of late though, thanks to her widened worldview with internet access, she’d gained more interest in the supernatural. Previously, she’d assumed there was at least some reality to it because how else could there be so many movies and shows about something that wasn’t real at all?, and this moment fit the bill too well for her to let it pass.

For some reason, she’d never thought she would be witness to a supernatural event. She’d assumed that if it would happen, it would have happened. She’d stayed in motels for as long as she could remember and surely there’d been murders in a few of the rooms, yet not once had she heard the cries of the damned or knocks on the ceiling. She hadn’t heard anything of the kind here either, except for the banging when she was crying, but this open door leading to another open door was boarding on the phantasmal.

She looked both ways before she left, pulled the door shut behind her, and quickly moved to the other room. She didn't make a sound as she went and each door she passed was as silent as her own. She knew there were other children, but she never heard them laugh or play. Of course, she didn’t do those things either so she didn’t think it very strange. She happened to see them sometimes, by chance, when Pink opened or closed the door.

Another girl lived across the hall. She had a doll.

The room that was open was not occupied though it was an explosion of stuff. Full to the brim. Luna had never seen anything like it. Sheer curtains hung down from the ceiling, purple and gold. There was a crystal ball on the wooden table. The bed was a mattress, but it was full of pillows with tassels and smooth red blankets. Plants were everywhere in painted pots, growing across the floor and walls and countertops.

The whole wide world seemed to be silent.

The room didn’t feel right. It was unlike any place she’d ever seen before, not materially but on a different level that Luna couldn’t describe. She’d never remembered her dreams while awake before, but now she did and when she went to look out the window she saw, rather than an overview of the parking lot and concrete wall with wire fence entrance gate, the universe. She thought she had fallen asleep again, yet knew she hadn’t. When she turned to look back, she could still see the hallway.

This was a room that wasn’t.

“What did you do, Ink Pen?” she asked, working hard to push the window up. “I know it was you.”

Do you miss it?

“Miss what?”

See?

Ink Pen spoke in questions in her head. Outside the window she could see that she was on the train again, pushing against Ink Pen forever.

But he was chatty and that wasn’t right. He hardly ever had anything to say and when he did it wasn’t about things. When Ink Pen spoke, it was to entice her to disembark so he could win. He was desperate to win even though Luna knew there was nothing to win so he must know it, too. He was trying to end himself, but he had to take everything else with him to do it.

She didn’t know what Ink Pen was. A thing on the border of the boundary between what existed and what didn’t. Ink Pen almost wasn’t, but he was and because he was, there would come an end to him as all things were destined to end.

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But not you.

“What?” she asked, flatly. She didn’t want an answer and thankfully didn’t receive one. It was bad enough that Ink Pen was making conversation. That’d never happened in any dream she’d had before, she hoped it never happened again, and she couldn’t think it was a good thing.

The window closed again by her hand and Luna looked around the room once more, this time no longer dazzled by the glitter of it all, and noticed a painted, tiled bookcase. It wasn’t tall, rather wide, and held a single book that looked totally out of place. While the rest of the room was bright it was brown. Flimsy in front and back, whatever was inside was too wafer-thin to be called paper.

It was hardly a book at all, held together by holes strung with twine, and the symbols between the covers were unknown to her. They weren’t the alphabet that she knew, no A’s or Z’s for miles. Still, she couldn’t put it down, couldn’t put it back from whence it came. Not because of some magical draw that forced her to keep it in greed, but because the bookcase was gone. She looked around the room once more and it was completely changed.

Gone were the colors, the pillows, and the plants. In their place was nothing much. This room was now, she suspected, the same as all the rest. A bed like the one she had, the same cheap table by the window. Particulates on the floor and sill and a last look out the window proved to show the usual view of the city.

Honestly, she didn’t understand what happened, but in her heart of hearts she knew it had something to do with Ink Pen and she didn’t appreciate it.

Back to her own room, to look at the book some more while she waited for Pink to make another brief appearance, Luna saw not a soul in the hall. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought there was no one in the building but she and Pink. Every day was quiet as the night, if not even more so because at least at night she could hear crickets outside. There was little grass to be seen, but cracks in the asphalt did see green peeking through and she supposed the bugs could make a home anywhere.

When she thought about it, nighttime was more active than the day. She’d taken to staring out the window because her eyes got blurry if she spent too much time looking at the phone. Especially in the dark.

At night there were sirens and sometimes people running past the building on the other side of the street. There’d been fires around lately. She saw smoke once and heard the trucks. She wasn’t sure how long they’d lived in this place, it felt like forever though she knew it couldn’t have been, but three fires seemed like a lot. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. What would she know about it? She’d never seen one at all before they came here.

When Pink returned this time, to stick around for as few minutes as possible, she brought with her a backpack. Small and pink plastic. The bag was placed on top of the refrigerator and Luna was told not to mess with it. She had no desire to anyway. Not when she had the book that wasn’t a book.

With Pink gone again, Luna moved back to the window. No matter how long she stood, though, she couldn’t see the whole of the city and a city it must be. There were no trees and tall buildings loomed imposing in the distance, taller than the crumbling, broken things nearby. In the daylight they gleamed reflection and steel, at night they showed shimmering lights. She wondered if there were big apartments at the top, if rich people lived there with little dogs but no children allowed. Their streets were sure to be cleaner than the ones here; there were several trash bags within her line of sight, drooling cans and spyglass bottles. Stray cats wandered, hiding under abandoned cars when it rained and nosing in black plastic for scraps or mice.

Luna wondered if she was like a cat, a black cat because her hair was black. A black cat with blue eyes. She didn’t think she could see as well as a cat, though. In the dark, she couldn’t see anything at all. If she could, then she could see Ink Pen. Maybe cats couldn’t see him either though.

“If Ink Pen was a cat,” she said, “maybe he wouldn’t try so hard to win.”

Cats were lazy and took care of themselves. Ink Pen was not lazy, but Luna was. She knew this about herself and accepted it. Someday she wouldn’t be lazy anymore, but that day was not today and why do today what you could put off until tomorrow?

She would still be lazy tomorrow, too.

As for Ink Pen, even though he wasn't lazy and she was, he still couldn’t win and she didn’t understand why. Ink Pen tried so hard to finish the game and she wasn’t trying at all, except to stay at the back of the unending train and she couldn’t have been there since the beginning, so who was first? Who kept him back before she was born?

She looked at the book, but there were no answers to be found. Drawings and scribbles on the few pieces of material held inside. It looked below elementary level. It was worse than the artwork she’d seen on a program featuring preschool children.

This book wasn’t a book at all.