It was the eve of my sixteenth birthday. After a restless night, I woke up in a room I did not recognize. The ceiling held a peculiar hatch, a taunt, daring me to notice. I wasn’t dragged here—I had ascended. The silence was unbearable, the room bare. No doors, no windows, just mocking walls.
Then, a lock appeared. Old, with a combination I couldn’t crack. I slept, woke to more locks—each one different. Keys, codes, symbols undecipherable. They multiplied, relentlessly.
With growing desperation, I built a tower to reach the hatch. Heartbeat reverberating, I shouldered it open.
Another room.