The word hangs in the air between us. The stranger's unnervingly blue eyes widen, a flicker of... not surprise, but something else. Understanding? Respect?
"Fault," he repeats, a slow, raspy whisper. "That's the one." He turns and scans the towering bookshelves, his gaze moving with a new urgency. "The lie that absolves others of responsibility. That's always the big one."
I'm not...
Sure how to react to the book, or the thing that it said. I don't know how I feel about any of this, but the afterlife - or whatever it is- doesn't seem like the most appropriate place for therapy.
Especially not a room that has some kind of time limit to it.
I turn my gaze back to the books, scanning them.
Somehow...
It's a book that's identical to the book on the dias. But they're all identical to it. It's a book hidden in a lie I tell myself. And that lie is...
Supposedly it's...
What kind of a location would that even be?
"Here." The voice of the man cuts into the suffocating silence between us.
I turn to see him holding a book that looks like all the others. The only difference is a crack running through the spine, as if it's been opened too far and too often in the past. "The books are all damaged in little ways. It's just a matter of finding the one that matches the lie you tell."
I stare at him a moment, then at the book.
It's just...
A crack.
Is it supposed to be a faultline?
Something like that?
How did he even reason that out?
"How do you know it's my fault and not yours?"
"...Don't remember any of the lies I told." he says. "Must have known it last time I was here, though. Unless you're just a figment." His blue eyes stare right through me. "Not much point in worrying about that." His gaze falls upon the book. "Just take it."
I move forward and take the book from him. My fingers brush against his. His skin is cold, unnervingly so. The book is heavier than it should be. I look at the cracked spine. The break is clean, a perfect fissure running down the center.
A fault.
It's a ridiculously simple, elegant solution to a ridiculously impossible problem. A pun, in a place that seems to have no room for them. The absurdity of it is a brief, sharp spike of pain in my temple. This whole place is a riddle wrapped in a joke wrapped in a nightmare.
I walk toward the pedestal, my bare feet leaving faint tracks in the thick dust. The book on the pedestal, the original twin, seems to watch me approach. The light above pulses faster, a frantic, dying heartbeat. The room feels smaller, the walls of bookshelves closing in.
I place the book with the cracked spine on the pedestal next to the pristine one.
The effect is immediate and violent.
The single lightbulb in the center of the room explodes in a shower of glass, plunging the library into absolute darkness.
I hear a gasp from beside me—it might be my own, it might be the stranger's.
Then, a grinding sound echoes through the blackness. The stone pedestal in the center of the room begins to sink into the floor with a groan of ancient rock. As it lowers, a new light source is revealed beneath it—a soft, pulsing blue glow.
It's the interface. The same one that appeared in the hallway, but this one is different. It's brighter, more detailed. Words scroll across the blue surface.
PUZZLE SOLVED: THE LIBRARY
TRUTH ACKNOWLEDGED: FAULT
REWARD: 100 EXP
LEVEL UP!
CURRENT LEVEL: 2
ATTRIBUTES INCREASED:
STRENGTH +1
AGILITY +1
WILLPOWER +1
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: [COLD RAGE]
COLD RAGE: A state of heightened focus and pain suppression triggered by intense emotional resolve. Physical prowess temporarily increased. Duration: 2 minutes. Cooldown: 1 hour.
[Note that skills may be deactivated in rooms]
"Don't gawk. Move to the light." The stranger's voice is a rough rasp beside me, cutting through the mental fog. He grabs my arm, his grip just as iron-clad as before. "The door opens now. We have a minute before the room resets."
He pulls me forward, into the center of the blue light. As we step onto the space where the pedestal used to be, a section of the bookshelf directly opposite us slides open with a soft hiss, revealing a short, dark corridor. The blue light from the floor is our only guide, painting the walls in an ethereal, ghostly glow.
We step through the doorway into a space that feels completely different.
It's a hallway again, but not the yellow corridor. This one is made of rough, unfinished concrete. The floor is covered in a fine layer of sand, and the walls are damp, weeping moisture. There's no hum of lights here. The only illumination comes from a series of bare, exposed wires running along the ceiling, sparking intermittently, casting flickering, jagged shadows. The air is cold, smelling of wet stone and ozone.
The stranger lets go of my arm. "You're Level 2 now. Congratulations." He doesn't sound impressed. "You got a skill. What is it?"
"I'm not sure." I answer, my eyes still adjusting to the dim light. "Cold Rage."
He lets out a short, sharp bark of laughter. "Fitting." He looks at me, a strange glint in his blue eyes. "Useful. In a fight, it can save your life. Just don't rely on it. The cooldown will get you killed if you're not careful."
The corridor branches ahead, splitting into two paths. The left path slopes downwards, into what looks like an old service tunnel. The right path leads to a heavy steel door, like the one we just came through.
"The door's a trap," the stranger says, not even glancing at it. "The system likes to give you easy choices that are wrong. The tunnel's the way. Down is always the way."
He starts down the left path, his feet making soft crunching sounds on the sandy floor. I hesitate, looking at the steel door. There's no sign, no marking. It could be the way forward. It could be safety. But the stranger's confidence is unnerving.
"Isn't it supposed to go up...?" I ask, watching him in the dim light. "Down is Floor 0."
"Did you go up stairs to get up to Floor 1?" he asks, not stopping. "No. It doesn't work like that. The floors don't need to make sense." He pauses at the edge of the darkness, turning back. His face is a pale, sharp-edged mask in the intermittent light. "Come on. Or stay and see what's behind the door. I don't care. I've seen it."
The casual threat is enough. I follow him into the downward-sloping tunnel. The air grows colder, the smell of wet stone and stagnant water stronger. The sparking wires above become less frequent, plunging us into longer stretches of darkness. My bare feet are numb with cold, and every step on the gritty sand is a fresh, small misery.
The silence in the tunnel is a physical presence. The stranger's footsteps are the only sound, a steady, unnerving rhythm. He moves with a complete lack of fear, as if he owns this place. As if this is his world, and I am just a temporary visitor.
"You never said your name," I say, my voice echoing slightly in the confined space.
He stops. The darkness is so complete I can only see the faint outline of his silhouette. "Doesn't matter. The people who used it are dead."
I can feel a shift in the air. A tension. The brief camaraderie of solving the puzzle has evaporated, replaced by a wary distance.
"I told you mine," I press, my pipe held ready.
"Did I ask?" he rasps, and then he starts walking again. "Names are baggage. They're a connection to a life that's over. A weakness you can't afford here."
"Floor 100...it's a second chance, isn't it?" The words are out before I can stop them. "A wish."
He stops again, and this time he turns. I can't see his face, but I can feel the weight of his stare. "You think a place that makes those monsters will give you a wish just for playing its game?"
...I.
Don't have an answer.
I don't get a chance to even try to give an answer, either, before we make it to a grimy, wooden door. The only break in the endless stone tunnel. There's no handle. Just a small, sliding panel at eye level.
"This is it," he says, his voice a low murmur. "Floor 2. Through that door."