Chapter XXII: Tension at the Y-Axis
The flat was still. Too still.
Nathaniel Cross sat motionless on the couch, sweat cooling on his temples, his wrench slipping from his fingers to the carpet. The notebook still lay open a few feet away, its words glaring up at him with merciless clarity.
WE OPEN SOON.
The scar on his chest pulsed in rhythm, a heartbeat not his own. It hurt less like a wound now, more like an engine trying to start.
He wanted to scream again, but even that felt stolen. His throat ached, his body empty. Only the sound of his own shallow breathing reminded him he was alive.
And then he noticed.
The clock had stopped.
Its hands frozen at 3:12 a.m.
The radiator no longer ticked. The fridge hummed no more. The entire flat held its breath, a silence so total it pressed against his skull.
Nathaniel stood slowly, his knees trembling. His own breath sounded wrong—too loud, too sharp, cutting through the air like a blade.
He whispered to himself: "Don't look. Don't—"
Knock. Knock.
The sound didn't come from the door.
It came from inside his chest.
He dropped to his knees with a strangled cry, clutching at his shirt. His scar writhed beneath his skin, glowing faintly through the fabric. Two sharp pulses echoed through his ribs, rattling his teeth.
The flat blurred. Shadows thickened. The notebook slammed shut on its own.
And the knocking came again.
Knock. Knock.
Not just from within him now. From every wall. Every surface. The table. The windows. The floor beneath his knees.
It was all knocking.
The wallpaper peeled back in strips, curling away like burnt paper. Beneath it, there wasn't plaster. There wasn't brick. There was only black.
A black so deep it seemed to breathe.
Nathaniel stumbled backward, knocking over the lamp. The room dissolved piece by piece—walls shedding, the ceiling sagging, the floor giving way to a dark horizon that stretched endlessly in all directions. His flat was gone. He was standing in a void, the remnants of his furniture floating like wreckage around him.
And then came the voices.
Not the humming. Not the choir.
Whispers.
Sharp. Clear. Spoken in English.
"Bridge."
"Rehearsal."
"Soon."
"Open."
The words circled him, coming from everywhere and nowhere. He clamped his hands over his ears, but the whispers were inside him, bypassing flesh and bone.
Then something tore through the dark.
A hand.
It wasn't human. Its fingers were too long, joints bending in impossible angles, flesh shimmering like static. It gripped the air and pulled, peeling open a slit in the void. Light spilled through—gray and violent, like storm clouds breaking.
Nathaniel's stomach lurched. That light felt hungry.
He scrambled for the wrench, gripping it like salvation. "Stay back!"
The hand froze. Then, slowly, it withdrew. The slit sealed itself with a sound like tearing paper reversed. The whispers fell silent.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but silence again.
Then a voice spoke. Singular. Low.
"Do not fight us, Nathaniel Cross."
He spun.
A man stood a few feet away.
Not faceless. Not blurred. A man. Middle-aged, tall, wearing a gray coat that seemed to ripple like smoke. His face was pale but sharp, his eyes bottomless.
Nathaniel raised the wrench. "Who the hell are you?"
The man tilted his head, almost amused. "Not hell. Not heaven. A threshold."
"Answer me!"
The man stepped closer, hands visible, empty. His voice was steady, human—and yet every word carried an echo, like ten others whispered it a fraction of a second later.
"You should not fear the knocking. It is not them that knocks. It is you."
Nathaniel's grip faltered. "What are you talking about?"
The man's gaze dropped to his chest. "The scar. Do you think it was given to you? No. It is you. A mark of what you are becoming."
Nathaniel's stomach turned cold. "Becoming what?"
The man smiled faintly. It was not kind. "The bridge."
Nathaniel staggered back, shaking his head violently. "No. You're wrong. I'm human. I'm—I'm just—"
"An engineering student?" the man interrupted. "A boy trying to stitch equations to keep the world rational?" He stepped closer, voice dropping. "Tell me, Nathaniel—when the lamps hummed your name, when the rain froze in air, when every reflection sang your end—did you truly believe you were still only human?"
The void pulsed with his words. The whispers returned, chanting softly:
"Human. Not human. Bridge. Bridge. Bridge."
Nathaniel pressed the wrench to his forehead like a talisman, teeth chattering. "Why me? Why any of this?"
The man stopped inches from him. His eyes gleamed with something ancient.
"Because doors require hinges."
The world cracked.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Lines of white split the void around them, jagged fractures tearing across the black horizon. Through the cracks, Nathaniel glimpsed flashes of other places—London streets frozen in time, classrooms empty of people, mirrors filled with wrong reflections.
And hands.
Hundreds of them. Clawing, pulling, trying to widen the cracks.
The man's voice thundered over the chaos: "They come, whether you will it or not. The choice is not theirs. The choice is yours."
Nathaniel's knees buckled. "Choice? What choice?"
"To resist—and shatter." The man's face was inches from his now, eyes burning. "Or to open—and survive."
The scar blazed, flooding his chest with fire. The knocking grew deafening, rattling the very air. His body convulsed, the wrench slipping from his grasp.
The cracks widened. The void began to collapse.
Nathaniel screamed—
And woke.
He was back on the couch.
The clock ticked again. The radiator hissed. The fridge hummed. The lamp lay shattered on the floor.
For a moment, he thought it had been another dream.
Until he saw the floor.
The carpet was torn in two long cracks. Perfectly straight. White light still glowed faintly inside them, like embers waiting to reignite.
Nathaniel crawled back, pressing himself against the wall, eyes wide with horror. His scar throbbed once, hard, in agreement.
And then his phone buzzed.
A message. From an unknown number.
He hesitated, then unlocked it.
The message contained no greeting. No name. Only three words.
"You rehearsed well."
That night, Nathaniel didn't sleep.
Every shadow seemed alive. Every knock of pipes in the wall sent him trembling. He sat hunched on the couch, watching the cracks glow faintly, listening to the hum of the city outside like it was breathing with him.
When dawn finally bled gray across the curtains, he thought he might be safe. Daylight always softened the edges of nightmares.
But when he stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water onto his face, the mirror betrayed him.
His reflection didn't follow.
It leaned closer instead, pressing a hand to the glass. Its lips moved without sound, eyes hollow silver.
And then, faint but unmistakable, it mouthed the words:
Knock. Knock.