I felt the spatial distortion the moment I opened the door to my bedroom.
Instead of finding my divan on the other side, I stepped into a cold and dark prison cell. The first thing I noticed was how heavy the air felt, thick with the scent of damp stone.
There was also a hint of some pungent, rotten-egg odor that my brain immediately associated with hydrogen sulfide.
The oppressive weight of the air wasn't just atmospheric. It carried a physical sensation that dampened my mind, making my thoughts sluggish and my movements lazy.
But as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized the most jarring thing wasn't even the darkness, but the contrast.
In the center of the filthy, soot-stained cell with sticky black bricks and a pungent smell sat a wide slab of pristine white marble.
The slab was so clean it looked like it had been carved from a single block of ivory, glowing with some sort of internal, sterile light that felt entirely out of place in this dungeon.
