I am using this word carefully. The space — I cannot call it a corridor anymore — the space has a quality I can only describe as memory. Not my memory. The memory of the space itself. As if everything that has ever happened in it has left an impression, and the impression is visible to me now, very faintly, like breath on cold glass.
FRAGMENT · TYPE: SPATIAL ECHO
"A woman in a grey coat stands at the junction. She is writing in a small notebook. She does not look up. After a while she folds the notebook and continues deeper. Her footsteps make no sound."
FRAGMENT · TYPE: EARLIER PRESENCE
"A man, older, holds a lantern. The lantern uses a flame. He turns slowly, looking at the walls. He reaches out and traces one of the characters with his finger. He says something. There is no sound. He turns and walks back toward the surface."
FRAGMENT · TYPE: UNIDENTIFIED
"There is no person. There is only the corridor. It is doing something. I cannot describe what it is doing. It is — the word that comes to mind is 'waiting.' The corridor is waiting. It has been waiting for a very long time."
"I saw myself. A fragment, or an echo, or something I cannot name — a version of me standing very still in the centre of this space, looking at something I could not see. Looking toward the deeper levels. The version of me was not afraid. This is the most significant thing I have observed. She was not afraid at all." — C. Jiang
YOU WERE ALWAYS GOING TO COME HERE.
— written on the wall. I did not write this. The handwriting is mine.
// Time elapsed: my watch now shows 14:29. I entered at 14:30. The watch is going backward.
// Temperature: I cannot determine. My thermometer reads 4°C. I am not cold.
the fragments are real memories of real people who were here. the woman in the grey coat is Eleanor Whitmore, 1947. the man with the lantern is someone from much earlier. the unidentified fragment is the corridor's own memory. it is aware that it is being perceived.