1 - Awakening at Number One, London
"Relay set up complete. We thank you for your attention."
Chadt blinked, re-read the words. He did not feel any different. But he was also certain that something had changed.
His eyes darted through the page. London. 1917.
A city of steel, choking in coal and fog. A faint taste of ash in his mouth.
The words painted pictures, played sounds, triggered smells.
He tried to resist, but could not. Or maybe he did not want to. The walls of his room faded like a distant echo.
November. Icy whirlwinds slapped his cheeks. The last rays of the sun vanished beyond the horizon.
And then there was only darkness. Nothing but him and the words. He shivered.
There was no world anymore, just an endless fall inwards.
"How do I make this stop?"
The question burned in his mind for a short eternity. Chadt drowned in thick silence. Then came the answer:
"Focus on our voice."
Our? How could a voice belong to several people?
As if in response, the voice corrected:
"Focus on my voice."
Flat. Precise. Every syllable the same length, struck with the measured patience of a clock. But there was something beneath the monotone. A tremor between words. An emotion Chadt did not know.
Something stirred inside him, piercing through the confusion. Curiosity.
"Like that. Good."
The tone was soothing, albeit slightly off.
"The only way out is through," the voice continued. "Now look around, would you?"
Chadt found himself surrounded by a row of gigantic leather-bound books that seemed to stretch infinitely up.
On their spines, embroidered golden animals were chasing each other in an overwhelming chaos. A unicorn, a lion, a dragon with too many teeth, a bundle of bloodied arrows...
"What is this?" Chadt screamed. Or thought. He wasn't sure anymore.
"A library," replied the voice flatly. "Things will fall into place as you settle down."
Chadt did not know what to make of this answer. The impossible books mocked him with their dance.
He desperately tried to leave, to snap out, to wake up... In response, the books spat out colorful pages. Some turned into singing birds before vanishing into puffs of smoke.
"You're making things worse. Focus. Stabilize."
A mountain of crumpled paper slowly swallowed Chadt. The pressure pinned his legs on the spot.
"Rub your hands together," ordered the voice.
Despite his best instincts, Chadt obeyed. What else was there to do?
He tried the hand-rubbing technique. His palms against each other were alien, like shaking a stranger's hand. The cacophony died down.
Pages folded themselves into books, books sorted themselves into shelves.
"Count your breaths," the voice continued.
Chadt inhaled slowly, though no air filled his lungs.
He exhaled, and the shelves slithered in the shape of a room.
With the next breath came the ceiling.
One more and the world relaxed into place.
Was this... the school? No. He was in an old library. The decor's details seemed to slip away from his gaze as he tried to grasp them. In front of him, a massive mahogany desk bore endless fractal ornaments. On top, a letter, in a pool of blood.
Chadt's stomach dropped.
"Better. You're settling."
The crimson liquid was ever-shifting, as if the white paper kept absorbing it without ever appearing tainted. The blood bubbled softly. Chadt could not look away. The envelope terrified him to his very core. But it somehow called out to him.
"Grab the payload. That's your way out."
The abrupt order pulled Chadt back to his senses. He froze.
"No. No way. Not before you explain."
"I..." The voice broke for the first time. "I'm sorry."
Chadt caught himself on the desk. His heart stumbled. It sounded like genuine regret.
"I'm messing up the protocol. You are Chadt, correct?"
The voice pronounced the silent t.
"I am Tian. My role is to assist and guide you through the Imaginary Plane."
Chadt's confusion shuffled the whole room. The voice continued before he could speak.
"I know you have a lot of questions... I will answer all of them, later. Everything will be much easier if we can avoid the Housemaids."
The what? As if echoing his own thoughts, a bookshelf in a distant corner of the room morphed into a hidden service door. It started opening — imperceptibly slow, but with an unmistakable, haunting creak.
"Tiny glitch," came Tian's voice.
Shelves started to tremble. Books fell to the ground.
"Do not worry. Housemaids are slow. Unless you panic. Just grab the letter and leave. Calmly."
Chadt tried his best to discipline his mind.
He could do this. He had to. He took a deep breath, and proceeded cautiously, taking great care not to look away. In a corner of his vision, the door was opening, relentlessly, imperceptibly.
His fingers bent in impossible directions, as if he was seeing them through thick water, but he managed to grab the envelope.
Everything was wrong. The envelope was too heavy. The white was too white. The ink too old. And beneath the confusion, a flicker of something vast. Loss. Like an echo of lives stolen, pressing against his fingers. A sense of kinship he dared not face, but yearned to understand.
Chadt shivered. He tried to push the thought away, but it lingered.
"What the hell is this?"
"It's our Payload. We're here to bring it back to its source."
A Payload. He'd figure out what that meant later. If he made it out...
A thin shimmery thread stemmed from the letter. Chadt's eyes followed it towards an oversized panelled door.
He did not need more convincing. In the distance, he could see metallic fingers grab the edge of the service door. Way too many fingers. They tapped the fake books with the precise rhythm of a clock.
"Get out of here," urged Tian.
Chadt looked at the massive library door. The few steps between him and the exit seemed to stretch infinitely.
Controlling imaginary legs was an intense negotiation. Chadt started to despair as his rubbery limbs flipped in all directions like a computer glitch.
No. He refused to give up now.
"Forget your body. Just think about moving. Imagine yourself gliding."
Chadt tried to execute diligently. Easier said than done when the slightest emotion sent the whole room swirling. The faint memory of playing virtual reality games in another life blinked in the back of his mind.
He finally reached the dark wooden door. Not a second too soon. It trembled to the slow beat of the clockwork fingers.
"Just push. This leads to the main hall. Then go through the front door, to the street. Simple as that."
Simple. Right. The fingers on the service door had somehow not stopped growing in number. He did not care to find out what the rest of a Housemaid looked like.
He pushed open the door carefully, slipped through the gap and closed it tight.
Behind him, the muffled ticking turned into the rhythm of a feather duster. Chadt could almost feel the room being scrubbed out of reality.
The room he had stepped into was a space that refused to be contained. White marble veined with gold reflected legions of chandeliers. On the walls, thousands of identical portraits looked straight at him.
A dry cold sucked the air from his lungs.
The next breath was thick. The hall was filled with an almost translucent miasma he had not noticed at first. It thickened here and there into a fleeting hand, a smile, an eye... It tasted faintly of brass. He tried not to breathe any deeper than necessary.
"What is that?"
"It's the Hall Boys," Tian replied. "Sorry, I should have warned you."
There was no warmth in the apology, only brute fact. Chadt wanted to spit out, but there was no space the viscous gas did not reach.
"The General Errand Field is the invisible skeleton of the household. It's powered by Hall Boys. Just pretend not to see them. Everybody else does."
Chadt swallowed his objections and started moving. He decided not to antagonize his only ally in this curious world. The exit was almost within reach.
He pushed through the miasma, trying his best not to think about it. Empty fingers brushed his skin. Cold, nebulous. Chadt's stomach clenched. Faint whispers tickled his ears. On the walls, identical faces scrutinized him from slightly different angles.
A ghostly Hall Boy passed a few steps from him — featureless face, apron stiff with dust — sliding sideways against the wall with the practiced deference of someone who had learned to take up no space at all. Chadt knew that posture. He had worn it.
The flicker of recognition filled him with a diffuse, shared grief, echoed by the envelope in his trembling hand. And then it vanished as quickly as it had come. A thousand unblinking eyes judged him from their canvases.
The stark edged doors. He made it. Outside, a torrent of soot rushed past. Bowler hats and horse heads raced in maddening currents. The other side of the street seemed a lifetime away.
"Jump in. Trust me."
Chadt hesitated. The wild flow was daunting. But what else could he do? He closed his eyes, held his breath, and threw himself into the black river.
He fell through a thin layer of coal dust and landed in a world of black clouds.
The street was there. He could see it through a film of grey. Faint outlines of mansion blocks towering above him. Around him, everything stood still. Dark silhouettes of pedestrians, carriages and horses, the blocky shape of an early motorcar. A quiet world of shadows, suspended in half-existence.
Everything was muffled, dimmed by a thick layer of soot. Even the wood block pavement under his feet was barely visible. The only thing spared by the coal was the letter in Chadt's hand. It remained immaculate, as impossibly white as when he first grabbed it.
"You can relax now."
Tian's voice was softer. Less instructional. But still trying a bit too hard to be comforting.
He was out, actually out. The relief hollowed him. He nearly dropped the envelope.
"I believe you have some explaining to do..." Chadt called out, but the accusation was thinner than he intended. He was too relieved to be truly angry.
"You're right. I know." A pause. Humble, not clinical. "Let's make it up to you. I have the perfect place. Right over there, the Rose & Crown Mayfair."
A few Edwardian mansion blocks appeared at a distance, surrounding the green facade of a pub. Ornate gothic letters shifted continuously.
"This place is fascinating. A group of artists used to meet there in the 18th century..."
"This is not the time for a history lesson! Tell me what the hell is going on, now!"
"Obviously, yes. But wouldn't it be better to talk face to face?"
"What do you mean? You have a face?"
"Of course. I just need a tiny little bit more of your help..."
Chadt's fists tightened. Enough was enough. But there was something about that voice. And now there was a face...
"Come on. Standard procedure. I've got a spell locked and ready. It'll be much easier to talk if you can see me, don't you think?"
"Alright," Chadt sighed reluctantly. "How does this work?"
"It's simple. It's going to sound cheesy. But all you need to do is... believe. Open the door of the pub and believe... No. Know that I will be behind. I won't bore you with the technicalities. The spell channels through your intent."
"I don't even know what you look like!" Chadt protested, as if that was the problem with this plan. His complaint poorly masked his curiosity. He did want to know.
"Go open that door and find out," Tian said. The pause that followed felt like a grin.
Chadt started walking, his curiosity piqued. The soot pulled around his ankles. The pub grew more ornate with each step. He noted with a smile that his legs now obeyed him.
"You're going to love this place," Tian continued, a little too brightly. "Before that it was nicknamed 'Number One, London' because it was the edge of the town when it was built. The first place weary travellers visited when entering the capital. The last pint people got before the wilderness. Pretty fitting for our first conversation, don't you think?"
Chadt did not answer. He cautiously approached the painted wooden facade. Gas lanterns lit up crossed windows fogged by breath.
He made a promise to himself. He'd play along one last time, but then he was getting answers. And a face to match that voice. And maybe a pint.
He hesitantly grabbed the metal door handle. His hand now looked like a hand, not the barely connected lump of flesh he had seen in the library. The other one held firmly the oddly unwrinkled paper envelope. He still hadn't gotten used to the unnatural weight.
Chadt locked in. He had to make this work. The spell. The believing thing, or whatever... He pushed on the door with the illusory weight of his imaginary body.
An overwhelming scent of beer and wet wood flooded out in a cacophony of excited male voices.
A flash of bright blue hair.
And then Chadt woke up, haunted by the ghost of a smile he almost saw.