The stairs beneath the trapdoor led them deeper than they thought possible.
Down past the server walls.Past wires like roots.Past time itself.
And when they stepped out — they weren't in the observatory anymore.
They were in a hallway.
Carpeted. Floral wallpaper. A faint scent of oranges and dust.
"This is…" Mara blinked. "My grandmother's house."
"No way," Theo whispered. "This was my house."
They turned to each other.
It was both. And neither.
The hallway split — two doors side by side.
One bore Mara's childhood handwriting: "Don't open unless you miss her."
The other had Theo's: "Danger. Do Not Remember."
They hesitated.
"We shouldn't split up," Theo said.
"Then we don't," Mara replied.
She reached for her door. It creaked open like it had been waiting.
Inside: a warm kitchen. A ticking clock. The hum of an old refrigerator.
And sitting at the table was her mother.
Alive. Smiling. Stirring tea.
"Sweetheart," her mother said. "You've grown up so fast."
Mara froze.
"You're dead," she whispered.
"Am I?" her mother replied. "Or did you just forget me too soon?"
Theo tried to speak, but the room fought him.
His skin prickled. A high-frequency sound pressed against his skull. Behind him, his door cracked open on its own.
Inside: a hospital room. Machines. Beeping. His childhood self curled in a bed.
A man sat beside the bed.
His father. Or something like him.
"We warned you not to come back here," the man said, voice low and heavy.
"I didn't come back," Theo replied. "You dragged us here."
"Not us," the man said. "You. You built all of this. Every wall. Every lie."
Mara staggered out of her kitchen.
Her hands were covered in ink.
"What is this?" she gasped. "My mother was… reciting numbers."
"Mine said I made the lie."
The floor groaned.
Lights flickered.
Then came the chorus — hundreds of voices chanting in unison:
"This is your cradle. This is your cage. This is your choice."
The hallway stretched, pulling like elastic.
Doors appeared and vanished.
One door showed Mara and Theo holding hands as children, drawing stars on a ceiling. Another showed them screaming at each other. Another… kissing in the rain.
"None of this is real," Mara said, panting.
"No," Theo said, "but the pain is."
"So is the love."
She looked at him, eyes shining.
"What if this is the loop? Not the world outside — this. The part of us we couldn't let go?"
"Then maybe the way out isn't forward…"
He touched the door to the moment they first met.
"Maybe it's through."
Mara reached into her pocket.
A letter. One she'd never written.
The envelope read:
"To the version of me who still believes."
She opened it.
Inside was a single sentence:
"Let go."
And with that, the hallway collapsed.
Reality peeled away like wet paper.
They fell — not into darkness, but into light.
End of Chapter 13