The room was chaos. Shelves lined every wall, crammed with objects that had no business being together. A porcelain cat sat next to a rusted bicycle chain. A snow globe filled with sand. A lamp shaped like a flamingo, its bulb flickering orange. Seventeen identical coffee mugs, all chipped in the same place.

  A sign hung crooked on the nearest shelf. It read: YOU AGAIN.

  Charlie didn't know what that meant.

  Charlie stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly. He was alone. No Merlose, Teddy, or Harwick. No dreamer to accidentally offend. Just him and a collection of impossible things.

  He hoped Teddy was okay; he hoped they all were, but there was nothing he could do about it from here. He didn’t even know where here was.

  A snow globe sat on the nearest shelf. Inside it, instead of a tiny house or a winter scene, there was a miniature version of the room he was standing in. Charlie could see a tiny figure in the center of it. A boy endlessly turning.

  He picked it up and shook it.

  The room shook.

  Not violently, just a shudder, as if the walls had sneezed. When it settled, something had changed. A lamp that had been on his left was now on his right. A stack of books had moved from the floor to a shelf.

  Charlie shook it again.

  Another shudder. The ceiling lowered by a foot. A door appeared in the corner, then vanished.

  He shook it a third time, watching carefully this time.

  There. The door flickered into existence for half a second before disappearing again. It was trying to exist. It just couldn't hold.

  Charlie held the snow globe still and focused. Not on shaking it. On the door. On what a door looked like, felt like, meant. A way from one room to the next. He remembered every door he'd ever walked through. His grandfather's front door with the squeaky hinge. His bedroom door had the poster he'd taped over the crack. The refrigerator door that Merlose had used to leave the birthday party.

  He shook one last time. Inside the snow globe, a tiny door appeared in the tiny room. It stayed.

  Charlie looked up. A real door now stood in the corner of the room. It was made of the same wood as his grandfather's front door. It even had the squeaky hinge when he tested it.

  But it didn't open onto anything. Just a wall of static, like a television with no signal.

  Not ready yet.

  He set down the snow globe and moved deeper into the room.

  He scanned the room looking for the next puzzle. He wasn't sure how he knew what a puzzle was versus what was clutter. Something in him just... recognized it.

  He moved a few objects, but nothing spoke to him. That's when he looked up and spotted the birdcage.

  It was large, brass, and hanging from a giant hook that looked like an anchor. He had to stack a few books and knick-knacks to reach, but he eventually got it off its hook. Inside the cage was a bird made of paper. Origami, folded with sharp precision, wings creased at perfect angles.

  The bird wasn't moving.

  Charlie opened the cage door and reached in. The paper was cold and stiff. He cupped the bird in his hands and felt nothing. No flutter or warmth. Just dead weight.

  It was a bird, and birds were supposed to fly.

  He thought about what flying felt like. Not the mechanics, not the physics, but the sensation. That dream he'd had where he'd jumped off the porch and just kept going up. He told himself it wasn't a dream, it was real, and laughed as he soared past clouds. That one hurt to wake up from.

  He found his hands refolding the paper. New creases on the wings, with different angles and shapes. He was careful not to tear the paper.

  The paper bird twitched.

  Its wings unfolded slightly. Charlie kept thinking about flight and the freedom he had felt. About the way air feels when you're moving fast enough to forget you have a body.

  The bird shuddered, then exploded into motion. It launched out of his hands, circled the room three times, and flew directly into the static behind the door.

  The static rippled. Began to clear. Charlie could almost see something on the other side. Not a doorway, but something was in there. His hand passed through it harmlessly, but he could see a boxy shape.

  The third puzzle was a mirror.

  It hung on a wall that Charlie was certain hadn't been there a moment ago. The frame was tarnished silver, ornate, the kind of thing you'd find in an antique shop that smelled like dust and regret.

  His reflection was wrong.

  Not distorted or monstrous, but obviously wrong. The Charlie in the mirror was smiling, but Charlie wasn't smiling. The Charlie in the mirror had his hands in his pockets, but Charlie's hands were at his sides.

  He stepped closer. The reflection stepped closer too, but a half-second late. Like it was deciding whether to follow.

  "Hello," the reflection said.

  Charlie jumped back. The reflection didn't.

  "You're not supposed to talk," Charlie said.

  "You're not supposed to be here." The reflection shrugged. "We're both breaking rules."

  "What do you want?"

  "Same thing you want. Out." The reflection gestured at the mirror's frame. "But only one of us can leave. That's how it works."

  Charlie studied the reflection. It looked like him. Sounded like him, but there was something hungry behind its eyes. Something waiting.

  "You're not me," Charlie said.

  "I'm exactly you. I'm every version of you that you decided not to be. Every word you didn't say. Every choice you didn't make." The reflection pressed its hand against the glass from the inside. "Let me out. I'll do all the things you're too afraid to do."

  Charlie thought about it. Really thought about it.

  Then he reached out and turned the mirror to face the wall.

  "Hey!" The reflection's voice was muffled now. "That's not fair. That's not how you solve this. You're supposed to choose!"

  "I did choose," Charlie said. "I chose not to play."

  The mirror shuddered once, then went still. When Charlie turned it back around, it was a watercolor painting of him. He was smiling and holding something gray.

  The space behind the door finally formed. As Charlie had thought, it wasn't a doorway but a cupboard. Sitting on its shelf was a gray, boxy piece of plastic. Charlie picked it up and held it in his hands.

  GAME BOY.

  Charlie had one of these in his toy chest. His Grandpa had told him it had once belonged to his father. Charlie tried to play it from time to time, but the games on it were black and white and hard to see.

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  He turned it over and flicked the power switch on, but a blank bar appeared. He flicked the switch on and off again, but the same result. He turned the little toy over and opened the battery hatch. He saw four AA batteries and assumed the thing turning on meant they were properly seated.

  That's when he noticed the opening at the top. No game was in the system. He looked back into the cupboard and noticed an endless supply of games that went up past the room and below the floor.

  He would have to pick one.

  His hand moved up and down the list. Some he knew from recent games, but others were foreign. Some were colorful, and others were plain gray. He scanned the never-ending games and wasn't sure if the room had made some of these up to fill in the roster. Or maybe his own mind did.

  None of them felt right until his eyes settled on the one that had been in the Game Boy when Charlie first turned it on.

  Tecmo Bowl.

  It had been the last game his father had played on the machine. Before he had left, before Charlie never got to know him.

  He inserted the cartridge and booted it up. A familiar set of screens started, and then the screen went static once again. Before Charlie knew what was happening, he was falling into the screen.

  He landed hard on his butt and looked up. The static opening was gone, and in its place was darkness. Not empty darkness, but the kind of darkness that hid things.

  That's when the first lightning cracked across the sky, and Charlie saw that the darkness was hiding a raging storm.

  The rain began to fall around him, but it felt funny. It was heavier than water. Something that reminded him of the static he had just passed through.

  From then on, the lightning never stopped.

  It cracked across the sky in constant, branching forks. White and purple and blue, illuminating everything in stuttering flashes. Charlie could see a landscape in the strobe. Flat, broken ground with no trees or buildings. Just endless nothing in every direction.

  Except for a man walking toward him.

  He stood maybe fifty feet away. The lightning made him flicker in and out of visibility, but certain details stayed constant between flashes. A suit, a mustache, and hands clasped behind his back. He was facing Charlie, but it was impossible to tell if he was looking at him. The lightning was too bright, the darkness between too complete.

  The strobe only revealed the man in flashes, but to Charlie, each movement was a still. It was eerie knowing the man approached even as he didn't move.

  Neither did Charlie.

  The rain pounded down. The lightning cracked and cracked and cracked. The man's mustache was dark and neat, the kind that took effort to maintain. His suit was old-fashioned and in three pieces. A watch chain at his vest.

  A watch.

  Charlie's stomach dropped.

  The man smiled as he approached. Charlie couldn't see it between lightning strikes, but he knew. He could feel it across the distance. A smile that knew things. That had been waiting.

  The lightning flashed again, brighter than before, and Charlie suddenly wished he had never solved the room.

  The man stopped ten feet away.

  Up close, he was less frightening. The lightning still strobed, the rain still pounded, but the man himself seemed untouched by any of it. His suit was dry. His mustache was perfect. He stood in the middle of the storm like it was happening to someone else.

  "You must be Charlie," he said.

  His voice was warm. Not threatening. The kind of voice that belonged to a favorite uncle or a teacher who actually liked kids.

  "How do you know my name?"

  "I know everyone's name, eventually." Bartleby smiled. "I am everyone and no one. I can be whoever you need me to be." He tilted his head, studying Charlie the way someone might study a puzzle. "Who do you miss the most, Charlie?"

  The question hit somewhere soft. Charlie didn't mean to answer, but the words came out anyway.

  "My mom."

  "Ah." Something flickered across Bartleby's face. Genuine sympathy, or a perfect imitation of it. "Is your mom not around anymore either?"

  "She died. When I was eight."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, I can't be your mother. I didn’t know her in life, and the dead stay dead, even for us. But the living..." He spread his hands. "The living don't have to be alone."

  "I saw you fall through the sky there," Bartleby continued. "I was just minding my own business and saying goodbye to a new friend, when suddenly, you come tumbling down to terra firma. No SCA door, no elaborate subconscious crossing." He studied Charlie with open curiosity. "How did you do it?"

  "I don't know. I just... did."

  "Fascinating." His eyes were warm, but something behind them was taking notes. "You're special, Charlie. I suspect you don't hear that often. Not in a way that feels true."

  Bartleby paused. His head tilted slightly, like a dog catching a distant sound. For a moment his expression flickered with something almost like recognition, or longing, though Charlie couldn't say for what.

  Then it passed, and the smile returned.

  "You feel out of step, don't you?" Bartleby crouched down to be eye level with Charlie. "Like everyone else got a manual you never received. You watch people talk and wonder how they make it look so easy. How they know when to laugh, what to say, when a joke is a joke."

  Charlie didn't answer. He didn't have to.

  "I know what it costs you," Bartleby said. "Every single day. The effort of pretending. The exhaustion of translating. The loneliness of being surrounded by people who will never quite understand you." He spread his hands. "What if you didn't have to do that anymore?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, there's a place where you wouldn't have to guess. Where you could just know what people mean, and they could know what you mean. No subtext or hidden rules. No more wondering if someone is laughing with you or at you." Bartleby's smile was kind. Genuinely kind. "Just connection, a real connection. The kind you've been looking for your whole life."

  Charlie thought about school. The lunch table where he sat alone. The jokes he laughed at wrong, and the conversations that moved too fast for him to follow. The friends he was never sure were really his friends.

  "That sounds..."

  "It sounds like relief," Bartleby finished. "Because it is."

  "How?"

  Bartleby extended his hand. Palm up and open. It reminded him of Merlose the night before.

  "Come with me. I'll show you."

  Charlie looked at the hand and considered. If Bartleby were being honest, it would be so amazing not to have to worry about that anymore. To be fully understood and to understand. To finally be himself without worrying every second of every day if he was standing out.

  His hand started to rise.

  "GET AWAY FROM HIM, CHARLIE!"

  The voice cut through the storm. Charlie spun around.

  Merlose was running toward them across the broken ground, her sensible shoes in one hand. Her hair was wild, her shirt was torn, and she looked like she'd fought through a dozen nightmares to get here.

  Bartleby's expression didn't change. If anything, his smile grew wider.

  "Ah. The SCA. Always interrupting."

  "Get away from him."

  "I'm not holding him. He's free to leave whenever he likes." Bartleby turned back to Charlie. "Aren't you? No one is forcing you to do anything. That's the difference between us and them. We ask. They take."

  Merlose grabbed Charlie's arm. "Don't listen to him."

  "Why not? He seems…nice."

  Something flickered across Merlose's face. Pain, maybe, or pity. Charlie couldn't quite parse it.

  "Charlie, whatever he told you is not the whole story."

  "She's right," Bartleby agreed. "It's not. I’m giving you a choice. To stop being alone. To feel connection over isolation." He looked at Merlose. "Is that so terrible?"

  "You absorbed people, Charlie. He’s the living embodiment of bleed."

  "Bleed." Bartleby touched his chest. "Such an ugly word for peace."

  Charlie looked between them. Merlose's grip on his arm was tight. Bartleby's hand was still extended, patient.

  "Charlie," Merlose said. "I need you to trust me."

  "Why should I?"

  "Because I've thrown you out a window and chased you through more dreams than I can count. Because I'm standing in a lightning storm arguing with something that could absorb me in a heartbeat." She met his eyes. "I swore on my kids' heads, and by all that exists in this world and the waking one, they are still attached. Please, Charlie."

  Bartleby sighed. "She doesn't understand you, Charlie. She can't. Her mind works differently. She sees you as a problem to be solved. I see you as a person to be welcomed."

  "That's not true," Merlose said. "I see you as a kid who keeps touching things he shouldn't and making my job impossible."

  Charlie blinked. "Was that a joke?"

  "Yes, Charlie. That was a joke."

  "Okay. I'll remember that one."

  Bartleby's smile faltered. Just slightly.

  Merlose pulled something from her pocket. It was a pink toy flashlight with cartoon bears on the side. She turned it on and nothing happened. She slapped the side with her palm, twice, and the beam shot straight up. The clouds above turned from black to all the colors of the rainbow before falling away in jigsaw puzzle pieces that had the same cartoon bears on them.

  Bartleby stepped back.

  "You can't hurt me," he said, but his voice had lost some of its warmth.

  "I can slow you down." Merlose swept the light in an arc between them on the ground. Where it passed, the ground fell away in the same colorful rainbow. The falling jigsaw pieces left a massive chasm. The rain stopped overhead. A barrier of stillness carved through the storm. "Charlie. Move. Now."

  "But…”

  "Move!"

  She grabbed his wrist and ran.

  The storm raged around them, but Merlose seemed to know where she was going. She shone the light in the path behind them, and the rainbow ground continued to fall away into nothingness. She dragged Charlie through the lightning and the static-rain, toward something he couldn't see.

  Behind them, Bartleby's voice echoed through the thunder.

  "This isn't over, Charlie. When you're ready, I'll be here. I'll find you, or you'll find me. Serendipity."

  Merlose found a crack in the air, a seam that shouldn't have existed, and tore it open with her bare hands.

  "Through. Now."

  Charlie dove through the opening.

  He landed on soft grass. The storm and lightning were gone. Bartleby was gone.

  They were in a garden. Roses the size of dinner plates swayed in a breeze that smelled like honey and something sadder. A fountain burbled nearby, but the water flowed upward instead of down.

  Someone's peaceful dream. For now.

  Merlose stumbled through after him. The seam closed behind her, and she bent over, hands on her knees, breathing hard.

  "What was that?" Charlie asked.

  She held up one finger.

  “Just… gimme a moment.“

  She took a few heavy breaths, then straightened. Looked at him and adjusted her shirt.

  “That was the Waste, Charlie. Raw, unclaimed subconscious. The most dangerous place in here. It has the same encryption as Terminal Hypnos to keep it separated from the dreamers, and you just tunneled through it.”

  She pressed her lips and stared at him for a beat that made Charlie uncomfortable. Then she put back on her shoes and reset her hair. Her expression was somewhere between furious and exhausted.

  "Ok, we’re about as far as we can get, but if we make good time, we can make it back to Terminal Hypnos before we wake up.” She grabbed his hand. “This time," she said, "stay close and don't touch anything."