LEVEL CLASSIFICATION: THRESHOLD-0
Designation: The Eternal Office
Stability: Paradoxically Stable
Cognitive Hazard: Moderate (Temporal Disorientation)
Physical Danger: Minimal
PRIMARY TESTIMONY
Retrieved from: Dr. Miriam Chen, Former Professor of Philosophy of Consciousness
Date: [IRRELEVANT]
Status: Unknown
I woke up at my desk.
This was not unusual. I I had slept there many times during publication deadlines. But something was wrong. The light was different - that yellow-green luminescence of old fluorescent lights, but somehow more so. More persistent. More present.
I raised my head. My office stretched in all directions.
No, let me rephrase that. My office didn't end. The walls that should be three meters away continued. And they continued. The same plywood shelves, the same gray metal filing cabinets, the same beige cubicle dividers that every academic knows intimately.
But infinite.
I got up. My chair—that black swivel chair with the broken wheel—creaked familiarly. I took a few steps. The industrial carpet (the grayish-brown one that exists only in university buildings built in the 80s) muffled my steps.
"Hello?" My voice sounded...thin. As if space swallowed the sound, but politely.
Nobody responded.
I started walking.
TECHNICAL NOTE 1: ON THE GEOMETRY OF THE ETERNAL OFFICE
Level 0 defies conventional spatial description. Observers report that:
All tables are simultaneously the same table and different tables
You You can always see your starting point, no matter how far you walk
The starting point is always the same distance
Clocks show different times at each table, but they all work
There is natural light from windows that don't exist
A physicist who visited Level 0 attempted to map it. His final notes simply say:
"Topology is non-Euclidean, but not in the Lovecraftian way. It is non-Euclidean in the way that a dream is non-Euclidean. It all makes sense until you try to explain it. Then meaning slips through your fingers like water. But the water is still there. You can see her. You just can't hold it."
She never returned from Level 0. Conflicting reports suggest she is still there, mapping. Or that it was never there. Or that it was always there.
PRIMARY TESTIMONY (CONTINUED)
I walked by hours. Or minutes. The weather was strange there. My wristwatch said 3:47. It kept showing 3:47. But I was definitely tired, so time was passing.
I found a coffee room.
It was identical to the coffee room in my department. Empty coffee machine. Refrigerator humming. That faded motivational poster with a cat hanging from a branch: "HOLD ON TIGHT!"
There was fresh coffee in the jar. Still hot.
I drank a cup. It tasted like every cup of bad office coffee I've ever had, condensed into a single experience. It wasn't unpleasant. It was... archetypal.
That's when I saw the first entity.
PRIMARY ENTITY: THE COLLEAGUE
Description: Humanoid, professional-casual attire (blue shirt, khaki pants). Slightly indistinct facial features, like a photograph slightly blurred. Always seen at a glance, never directly observed.
Behavior: Walks between cubicles as if late for a meeting. Load a folder. Never speaks, but sometimes coughs politely. Disappears when confronted.
Danger: None known. It is possibly harmless. Possibly it doesn't exist.
PRIMARY TESTIMONY (CONTINUED)
I saw someone turning the corner of a corridor of cubicles.
"Hey!" I shouted, "Hey, wait!"
I ran after them. I turned the corner. Nobody. But I heard footsteps—that soft sound of dress shoes on industrial carpet—coming from another direction.
I chased the sounds for... I don't know how long. Always turning corners. Always almost reaching. Never arriving.
Eventually I stopped. Panting. Leaning against a cubicle divider.
That's when I noticed the computer.
ANOMALOUS ARTIFACT: THE TERMINAL
At certain tables in Level 0, there is a computer. Always the same model - a Dell desktop from the 2000s, CRT monitor with that slightly greenish tone. The operating system appears to be Windows XP, but with elements that didn't exist in that era.
The computer is always on. The screen always shows the same thing:
WELCOME TO THE LEVEL CATALOGING SYSTEM
VERSION: ∞.∞.∞
STATUS: INCOMPLETE AND ALWAYS WILL BE
YOU ARE AT LEVEL 0: THE FALSE AWAKENING
THIS IS NOT YOUR TRUE AWAKENING
YOU NEVER HAD A TRUE AWAKENING
YOU WILL NEVER HAVE
OPTIONS:
1. CATALOG OBSERVATIONS
2. SEARCH KNOWN LEVELS
3. REQUEST EXTRACTION (UNAVAILABLE)
4. CHAT WITH OTHER CATALOGERS
5. LEARN ABOUT THE DREAMER (ACCESS DENIED)
ENTER YOUR CHOICE:
PRIMARY TESTIMONY (CONTINUED)
I sat down on the chair. It was incredibly comfortable - much more so than any office chair should be. Almost as if it perfectly adjusted to the curvature of my spine.
I typed "2".
The screen flickered. Text started to scroll:
CATALOGED LEVELS: ℵ₀ (and rising)
LEVELS UNDERSTANDED: 0
TIME SINCE THE BEGINNING OF CATALOGING: [VALUE ERROR]
MORE ACCESSIBLE LEVELS FROM LEVEL 0:
- LEVEL 1: THE LIBRARY FORGOTTEN
- LEVEL ∞: IMPOSSIBLE GARDENS
- LEVEL Σ: COLLECTIVE MEMORIES
- LEVEL [NON-RENDERIZABLE SYMBOL]: [DATA CORRUPTED]
WARNING: CATALOGING IS VOLUNTARY BUT IRREVERSIBLE
ONCE YOU START SEEING THE LEVELS
YOU CAN'T UNSEE THEM
YOU ARE SEEING NOW
YOU WERE ALWAYS SEEING
YOU NEVER STOP WATCHING
PRESS ANY KEY TO KEEP DREAMING
I didn't press any keys.
The screen it changed anyway.
PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENT that you normally experience for a split second.
But here, this moment lasts forever.
And you begin to suspect: maybe all the 'awakenings' are fake. Perhaps the Dreamer is the only one who is truly awake. And maybe 'awake' isn't the right word, because what does it mean to be awake when you're the dream that's dreaming yourself?"
— Author unknown, possibly Dr. Chen
PRIMARY TESTIMONY (CONCLUSION)
I read everything on the screen. Every word made sense. No words made sense.
I started typing questions:
"Where am I?"
YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE
"How do I get out?"
YOU DON'T LEAVE. YOU CONTINUE. ALWAYS FORWARD. NEVER OUT.
"Who created this?"
THE UNKNOWABLE. THE EIN SOF. THE DREAMER. HE WHO CANNOT BE APPOINTED BECAUSE EVERY APPOINTMENT IS A FORM OF LIMITATION AND IT HAS NO LIMITS.
"Why?"
WRONG QUESTION. THERE IS NO 'WHY' BEFORE THE WHY. HE DIDN'T CREATE IT FOR A REASON. HE CREATED BECAUSE CREATING AND NOT-CREATING ARE THE SAME THING TO HIM.
"Is this real?"
MORE REAL THAN WHAT YOU CALL REALITY.
I walked away from the computer. My hands were shaking. Not from fear - from something that had no name. Reverence? Existential dread? Both? None?
I looked around. The infinite office. The eternal fluorescent lights. The Colleague I could hear walking somewhere far away, always far away.
And I knew, with a certainty that came not from logic but from something deeper:
I had never worked in this office in my "real" life.
But I had always worked here.
This was my first time here.
This was my millionth time here.
Both statements were true.
I got up. I started walking. Not in the direction I came from (because there was no direction I came from). Not in the direction it was going (because there was no direction it was going).
Just...forward.
Always forward.
In Levels, you don't choose the destination.
Destiny reveals itself.
FOOTNOTE FROM CATALOGERS
Dr. Miriam Chen was never confirmed to have existed in any reality known baseline. University records show multiple Miriam Chens at multiple universities, none exactly matching the description.
When asked, everyone denies having written this testimony.
When pressed, everyone admits that they could have written it, somewhere, at some time, on some Level.
The Terminal continues to receive your observations.
Dated yesterday.
Dated from a thousand years from now.
Dated now.
ADDENDUM: FIRST MENTION OF THE DREAMER
On the back of this document, written in cursive that changes handwriting with each word:
"You who read this: know that we have already tried to understand Him. The Geometric Architects built temples of pure mathematics to calculate His essence. They failed gloriously. The Specular Philosophers debated His nature for ages. Yet debate. The Congregation of a Thousand Eyes beheld Him directly. They blinded themselves to the deeper truth.
He cannot be known.
But it can be experienced.
The Levels are Your experience of Yourself.
And you, little dreamer within the Dream, are experiencing His experience.
Welcome to Infinite Dream.
You never left."