“Even this late at night, we continue to report the news on the tragedy surrounding the well-known Doctor Arthur Fletch. A memorial is being built as we speak behind me.”

“Conspiracy, outrage, and disbelief surround the reality of the situation. Could a simple trip down the stairs truly alter the direction of the world? I will let you guys tell the rest as we show the statue being lifted in full.”

“Yes, thank you for your work out in the field. Things are hectic out there, the world is in turmoil, and disbelief spreads as people riot. Countless people are screaming it is impossible for a man like the Doctor to die from a fall down the stairs.”

“Coverage will continue until every soul in the world knows who the man Arthur Fletch was and the achievements he accrued in his lifetime.”

************

The dust of the man lay in a pile. Growing flatter by the shuffle of feet.

Barry and Giselle had no time to react.

“Hmm?”

There was a quiet sound from their left. It was the second door on the staircase. They saw a man poke his head through.

He stood tall with an unkempt beard and eyes that lacked the luster of youth despite his lack of wrinkles.

It was the man repeated, but different. Life had taken from him, that was clear. As he had the newspaper on the table, they knew. The Fletch family home was his, not his parents after their death.

“What is all this?”

Barry made a stumbling run, his mind a canvas without paint. He did not want to think.

His crawl backward brought him in front of the man, far more familiar than the one they just watched cease to exist.

“Doctor?” Barry said. It was a question; he knew the answer and did not want one. “I have to wake up.”

“Wake up? Who are you—why are you in my house?” The man said, adjusting his glasses. With his arms lifted, it was clear he was skinnier than before. His tie is a plain gray without glow or design.

He was not the complete picture of the man the two kids had in mind.

Giselle came marching down her head in half a swim. It had sunken deep. She was convinced she was living in illusion, but her feet were sore and it hurt when she gave herself a pinch.

“Sir, can you tell me about the paper on your table…” She asked a question that sought an answer, a way to distract.

“I don’t think that is appropriate as things stand, Young Lady.” The new Arther said.

“Please…” she mumbled, as her eyes grew softer.

The three sunk into thought, except Barry, who was bound to wonder.

In the mind of the Doctor, he started to debate.

It was Giselle’s mind that was making sense of the space. The book that the Doctor who lived in the first door at the top had a passage of perception. A theory of existence the world hated.

The world we live in is a trapping of the consciousness, only a place the mind could make. We live on the border between Chaos and Reality. It is not a dream, but a form of one. The consciousness is singular but many in the individuals such as ourselves. And for each individual, it can exist as this but once. In death, that is when our existence moves on, as nothing will exist without consciousness.

The Doctor of this door did not exist until the reporter from the one above had passed.

Though the worlds and people are different, they are of one mind, even if they experience all things in life differently.

Yet in the one lower in the plane of existence, not in quality, but just after. As it was the one above that had to not be for the one below to be.

The man broke her mind from her thought, a ramble in which she was nearly lost.

“I suppose I could say, but you will need to explain yourself or I will report you to the authorities. It’s a quiet town and I like it that way.”

Another different thing; Our town is impoverished. The teacher’s factory was the only thing left to give a job outside of menials and steam engineers…

“I was just reminiscing of a day that passed, my time of glory in a sense. But I am nothing anymore, a retired inventor who made and sold something to heal my wounds.” Arthur said, his hand on his head, his fingers finding a space beneath his glasses.

“What about Blue Gas or the classes?” Barry said, rolling to his side to stand. He was asking the question while looking down the stairs. Another door appeared in front of him.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“I do not know what that is. I have never taught anyone anything worthwhile,” Arthur said.

“Now it is your turn.”

Giselle looked up as she spoke, half-doubting her own words as she spoke. She told him of the situation, and the man in the door above. The passages in the book by his ‘other self’, she read; Believing the man could explain more.

“Stop. Stop, what you are suggesting is a type of quantum suicide or immortality. But such a thing could only exist if our world had folded. Realities layered upon realities.” Arthur said he was shaking his head when he started speaking, but nodding it as he went deeper.

“Such a thing could only exist if Reality had a fluidity, ‘a flex’ to it. Reality can only be a reality, the physical and spiritual two planes, perhaps at most. Unless this world was influenced by another thing. A twin to such a reality, if you will. A Chaos, more primordial than we would like to imagine.”

The man named Arthur began to shed tears.

“Doctor… What is it, is there something worse?”

“For such a thing to happen, we would have had to be forgotten or never existed under the umbrella of the entity that gives direction. It only influences us as the Chaos does. I see… Haha.” Arthur began to laugh madly.

“The only way life has purpose is if the universe has direction… This, this place, does not. Therefore, we are purposeless. Is that why we are stuck in the search for purpose, individuality but a cloud of dust!” He said.

His eyes landed on Barry. “Who am I to you?”

Barry spoke and stood and backed away, already tired and full of fear; His words were an unsteady slope of babble.

“Blue Gas, what is it telling me, if I have more, then at least I have something…” Arthur said.

“You are not the Doctor…” Giselle said.

The sentence made the eyes of the man go mad to look up at the girl, the light from his room shining on her. The face of the boy stumbling away next to her shares a similar opinion in his eyes.

Hair dyed a pale blonde and skin an unnatural bronze. Jeans that were too tight for the night raid they planned, and a blue dress shirt that blended with the moonlight that was no longer there.

The boy who fell backward as if a worm crawling away was the opposite, dressed poorly, with baggy clothing and hair a brown like oak bark. He wore a similar blue motif; How else could hide in the blue light of the moon during the night?

“Who are you to determine who I am!”

The Arthur in front of them said, dashing forward at Giselle.

He raised his hands to strike the woman, who was far faster than him. But Barry was faster than them both, running to the next door down the stairs.

Giselle threw out a hand, crushing the glasses on the man’s face glass going into his eyes.

He shouted as he reached for her with his eyes closed, finding her hair, he pulled at it, gasping like he was a horse in the race of its life.

“I won’t be nothing, I won’t be unmade. I should be something more,” he said.

Spluttering blood that ran down his cheeks with his words, coating the girl he could not see.

“Barry!” Giselle shouted. Again, she struck him as he tried to grapple.

The door that he entered from closing behind his back. “You are just the cat in the box!” he said, his mouth warping.

His mouth opened to say but the sound of a handle turning filled the ever-winding, brightening corridor of stairs.

Giselle was covered in ash. Even the blood on her clothing and face crystallized, falling away, the white dust of the nonexistent.

The new door that was open was quickly broken through. Arthur with a gun in two hands, a creature with scales standing tall, pushing him out.

“Who…” new Arthur said, stopped by a hand to his stomach.

The scaled creature swung its tail, the door slamming shut as Arthur took a shot, a blue gas arc going through its head.

Arthur turned and pointed his gun at Barry, who ran to the next door in a panic.

He opened it, leaving his sister to once again run through the ash of the people created from the door.

“Barry stop!”

The purple-brown light grew brighter at every door until it took up the entire room; changing the color of the stairs.

The bottom seemed nothing special except for the source of the light. It was empty, with a single door remaining.

Barry did not hesitate; he had no reason to any longer.

A man was already there looking at the two Giselle catching up to her brother.

An old man with a thinning beard, his hair had long gone. He was tall with a painterly nightgown.

He had no confusion as he looked at the two.

“Have I seen you before?” he said, stepping out into the room on the basement floor. “Odd… how odd; I swear there were stairs here before. I covered the door a while ago, but is that something I would forget?”

His hand pulled his beard; “How odd can you turn that light off, one of you two?”

“Sir, Doctor, it’s time to wake up.” A voice came from the door. The old man kept just his foot in the door’s frame.

“Ah, indeed I suppose it is. I thought I woke up early, but it seems I am having a dream. The lovely nurse still calls. It was nice to see you again, even if you have forgotten about me or I forgot you.” He said, turning back towards the door and taking slow steps as he reached for the knob behind him.

“I should have ignored that mad fortune teller all those years ago. He told me I would be a great man before dying in tragedy while young. For some reason today felt like that day, but I am old now… Yes, well, it is all just a dream after all…” he said, closing the door to his shoulder and latching it shut.

“Barry stop, you’re acting mindless,” Gisselle said, reaching out to her brother who was already walking to another place.

As they turned away from the last door, they saw the purple glow on the far wall—only one thing between them and the mass that tore apart space.

A wooden desk with weapons, paper, and candles burnt to their base.

Barry fell to his knees in front of the desk, Giselle held his head in one of her hands—looking at the desk in the shine of the purple light.

There was a note in its center, on top of the paper piles, that reached above Barry’s head in his whimpering kneel.

It was addressed to “those who find this,” leaving a short message to them.

“Congratulations and condolences. You now know a piece of this world. It was never a full truth as we thought; As we are between the named and unnamed, and even on less abstract concepts, humanity can not agree. We exist between their tug of war, Primordial Chaos, and All. But we’re inconsequential to either, and so we do as we must.”

“You now have all I once had, do as you please. If those who regulate in the absence of that which to be and it are kind, they will let you join them as they have I. Maintain this world abandoned, layered, and offended.”

Giselle read the whole thing out, holding the head of her brother tight. When she was done with the letter, she picked up another thing that caught her eye.

She slid to the front edge of the desk, a weapon, a gun of some type with a blue glow in its barrel.

“Blue Gas…” she said, finally getting a response from her brother.

Barry did not respond to her, but a small blast of air grazed his lowered hands. The sound of footsteps and tearing cloth in his ears.

The purple glow began to flicker, bright and cold, warping, a sound like static getting loud before turning to silence in a snap; two others stepped from a plane unknown to all who exist in a place inside the doors.

“We are doing this again, huh? Whose legacy is it?” The voice was like a bear tired from the hunting of spring.

“I think it is a few kids left behind by little Arthur.” a woman’s voice, rough but nasally, and sharp to the ears, pulling attention like it belonged on her.

“Fletch? It’s a shame, but everyone on the border loses their status as a singular, eventually. Except for that one and those who walk in freely from outside. Still, all his non-potential incarnations died off quickly, no?”

“Now isn’t the time for it.”

Barry stood fast, grabbing the gun from under his sister’s hands, and pointed it out as the purple glow faded. The faint sparks of brown remained like the purple was only gone for a rest.

“Oh, this one…” the man said.

“Relax, there is no need to be on guard. You wouldn’t win as you are now anyway, kiddo.” The woman said, shifting her fit and putting her hands on her hips. “So you are some of Fletch’s students? What do you think?”

“The boy’s mind is being swallowed by the world, but he acts without hesitation, even in such a state. He is not bad,” the man said.

“Alright, you take him. The girl… I think it’s time I take a disciple too. She is calm despite being trapped in a collapse. She could be a learner or a sage. I will have to test her combat skills later,” she said.

“Wait, who are you?” Giselle asked. She relied on Barry for the first time in her life as he stood steady, the gun in his hands lifted.

“There is nothing you won’t understand in time, but if I had to say; A… um, universe patrol,” she said.

“Yep, we make sure there are a few things kept in order, some rules. We ensure they stay as they should and regulate the power of great individuals. We managed to stop all of them… Except for a few damned Nine-Worlds Alchemist.” The man said, showing a sore spot that made him grind down his teeth it seemed.

“Hey don’t mention that name. Anyway, you heard him. If you wish to know more, you could only learn in Centralis.”

“Don’t call it that anymore; It is Arezeckia after the first tower was… Never mind, call it whatever, just don’t call it ‘Isekai Patrol’ like these people that wear cat ears and scream profane cheers at little girls.” The man said, letting his jaw hang as he turned to the brown glow on the wall.

He began to tinker, and the purple glow returned.

“Why even bring it up? They aren’t allowed to work in the field anymore…” the woman said.

“What do you want from us?” Giselle asked, her hand moving to Barry’s shoulder. She could support him if he decided to shoot.

“Recruit you, haven’t you heard?”

“Help us maintain the Border of Consciousness and fight injustice, bringing perfection to this forgotten corner of the Universes,” she said.

Her words got to Barry, waking him, but he held the gun steady. “Sis, who exactly was Doctor Fletch?”