NULL's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Null watches the stranger for hours, or maybe minutes. Time doesn't work right in here. The stranger doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just sits beside the bed with that glowing rod, waiting for something Null can't name. The silence between them feels heavier than the walls. Null reaches out toward the stranger's shoulder. Not to hurt. Not to erase. Just to see if they're real. The stranger doesn't pull away. Null's fingers hover inches from their skin, trembling. Then the bed flickers. The stranger's outline blurs like smoke. The glowing rod dims and vanishes. Null's hand closes on empty air. The cell stretches wide and boundless around them now, walls gone, ceiling dissolved into nothing. Just endless open space in every direction. No stranger. No bed. No proof anyone was ever here. Null stands alone in a place too big to be a prison, their hand still reaching for something that's already gone.