The same room again.
When I came back, I was lying down — my back against the thin soft surface, the ceiling white above me, the light white and even, the quiet holding only my own breathing. I stayed looking at the ceiling for a while, then slowly sat up and took in the space.
White walls. White floor. The machine. The control panel.
The same. Still here.
Noah was sitting in the chair in the corner, watching me. He was relaxed in the way of someone who'd been waiting long enough to settle — one leg slightly crossed, as if time had given him room to take up space. When I sat up, he didn't move immediately. Just waited.
I looked at him. Said nothing.
"Aren't you tired," he said first. His voice was level, as if he were asking about something mundane.
I didn't answer.
"All that pushing back. All that running. All the searching." He paused. "Aren't you tired."
"I am," I said. My voice came out rough. "So what."
He looked at me. "Then why not stop. Everything you want is here. Your mother is here — you can see her any time you want. You don't have to keep losing her. You don't have to keep waking up and remembering she's gone. What is it that outside can give you that this place can't?"
"Outside is real."
"What does real give you," he said — not a question, an actual statement. "Real took her from you. Here is different. Here you get to choose what you hold on to."
"This wasn't a choice," I said. "I had no chance to choose. I've been trapped inside this."
He was quiet for a moment. "You came here yourself."
"I didn't know I couldn't leave. And you knew that."
He said nothing. Just looked at me.
"The things you told me — do you actually believe any of it. Or was it just something you said to me."
He paused. "I believe it. Because I've been through something like it."
"What?"
"Nine years old," he said. His voice didn't change, but it slowed slightly. "She was nine years old when she left. Afterwards my father spent years on this machine. He told me it was for science, for research into human perception. But eventually I understood what it was actually for. He wanted me to be able to see her again. Even just once, inside the dream. He wanted me to not have to carry that absence."
He looked at me. "So I understand what you feel. Better than anyone. Every morning, that one second when you wake up and think she's still there, and then you remember she isn't. I know that."
The room held its quiet.
"So you trapped me inside this," I said. "And you use that to try to convince me to stay."
He didn't answer.
"Noah," I said. "From the beginning, you told me that walking through the exit would bring me back to reality. That was a lie, wasn't it. Walking through the door doesn't bring you back. It just sends you into the next dream."
His head was down. He said nothing.
That silence was its own answer.
"You had no right to decide for me whether I stayed here or not," I said. "Whatever you thought you were doing."
He still didn't speak.
Then, from outside the door, a sound.
"Noah. Go shower and get ready — we're going out soon."
A man's voice. Coming through the door, clear through the wall. I paused. That voice. I knew it. I'd heard it somewhere, but the placement wouldn't come immediately.
Noah stood up, glanced toward the door. "Coming." Then he turned back to me, and his voice shifted — the tone of someone putting down what they'd been holding and picking up something else. Clearer. "I'll be gone for a while. Listen carefully. This is a test. If you're still in this room when I come back, I'll let you actually leave the dream. But if you leave this room before that—" He stopped. "You won't be able to get out again. Every time you think you're out, you'll still be inside."
I looked at him. Didn't speak.
"Noah." The voice from outside again, edged with impatience. "Hurry up."
"Remember — this is a test." He looked at me one last time, then walked to the door, pushed it open, and went out.
The door didn't close completely. A thin gap remained — corridor light seeping through, and from beyond it, sounds. Movement. The sound of a television, low. The sounds of a home that was lived in.
I sat on the machine and looked at the gap.
That voice.
I'd heard it before. I turned it over, following it back.
The auditorium. The talk. A man in a plain suit standing on the stage, his voice steady, saying: the reason we keep moving forward is because we never stop questioning.
Dr. William Hale.
Noah's father.
I came off the machine slowly and walked to the door. I brought my eye to the gap and looked through.
A corridor, opening into a living room. A couch. A low table. A television on, not loud. And on the couch — a man, middle-aged, hair beginning to grey, glasses, a newspaper in his hands. He was reading, unhurried, his posture the particular looseness of someone settled into a space they knew. He turned a page. Turned back. Looked more closely at something.
Dr. William Hale, sitting in the living room, reading his newspaper.
He had no idea I was here.