Arnold realized something was wrong with the building the moment he stepped inside.
Not because it was dark.
Darkness was normal.
This darkness was organized.
It pressed against him evenly, like a room designed by someone who understood fear but did not feel it. The door behind him closed without a sound. No click. No echo. Just absence, as if the idea of an exit had been politely withdrawn.
Arnold turned.
The door was still there.
But when he placed his hand on it, the surface felt wrong—too smooth, too cold, like touching the memory of metal instead of metal itself. He pushed.
Nothing happened.
His reflection stared back at him from the dark glass of the door, eyes a fraction too still.
"Great," Arnold muttered. "I'm hallucinating architecture now."
The hallway ahead stretched longer than the building should allow. Gray walls, evenly spaced lights that hummed softly, each bulb identical, each casting shadows that bent inward instead of outward.
Arnold took a step.
The floor pulsed.
Not visibly—emotionally. A faint pressure crawled up his spine, like the building acknowledging him.
He swallowed and walked forward.
---
Three floors below the city, Maizy Harlan watched a live feed that refused to stay live.
Arnold's image flickered across the screen, lagging behind itself by half a second.
"Timestamp mismatch," a technician reported. "Subject is desynced."
Maizy folded her hands behind her back. "By how much?"
"Hard to say. He's not late. He's… misaligned."
Captain Jack Rowen leaned against the console, jaw tight. "Meaning?"
"Meaning reality isn't sure when he is," the technician said quietly.
Silence followed.
Maizy's gaze never left the screen. "Confirm identity."
"Arnold Vale. Civilian. No prior clearance. No recorded anomalies—except…"
"Except what?" Jack asked.
The technician hesitated. "Except he appears in three deleted reports."
Jack straightened. "Deleted how?"
"Officially? They were never written."
Maizy exhaled slowly.
"So," she said, voice calm, "he's already gone."
---
The hallway ended at a reception desk.
A woman sat behind it.
She looked ordinary—mid-thirties, dark hair tied neatly back, glasses perched low on her nose. She was typing on a keyboard that wasn't connected to anything.
She didn't look up.
"Take a number," she said.
Arnold blinked. "What?"
She slid a small paper slip across the desk.
It was blank.
"There are no numbers," Arnold said.
"Exactly." She finally raised her eyes and smiled politely. "You're learning."
A chill ran through him. "Where am I?"
She tilted her head. "Officially? Nowhere. Functionally? Between the part of the world that notices and the part that pretends not to."
Arnold laughed nervously. "That doesn't make sense."
"Neither do you," she replied without malice. "Sit."
Against every instinct, Arnold sat.
The chair was warm.
That disturbed him more than anything else so far.
"You crossed a threshold," the woman continued. "Most people feel it and walk away. Some forget it happened. A few…" Her eyes flicked to his hands. "…bring things back with them."
Arnold clenched his fists. "You know about the blood."
She nodded. "You washed it off too easily."
His heart pounded. "What is this place?"
The woman leaned forward. "A filter."
"For what?"
"For people who shouldn't exist yet."
---
Elsewhere, a man named Eron Pike vomited into a trash bin.
He wiped his mouth with shaking hands and tried not to look at the body behind him.
The corpse was intact. No wounds. No blood.
Just empty.
Like someone had removed the idea of organs and left the skin behind as a courtesy.
"First mission," Jack said quietly beside him.
Eron nodded, eyes glassy. "Yes, sir."
"Rule one," Jack continued. "Don't ask why."
Eron swallowed. "Rule two?"
Jack looked at the corpse. "Don't remember too much."
---
Back in the building-that-wasn't, the woman slid a thin file toward Arnold.
His name was printed on the front.
Below it, a stamp burned into the paper:
STATUS: PENDING CORRECTION
Arnold's voice came out hoarse. "Correction… of what?"
The woman met his gaze.
"Of you."
The lights dimmed.
Somewhere above them, reality hesitated.
And for the first time in his life, Arnold understood something deeply, instinctively true:
He was not in danger because he had entered this place.
He was in danger because the world had noticed him.
---