Chương 5: Chapter 4: Old Stories

The final page arrived sooner than I expected. I lingered over the last paragraph, letting the familiar words settle before quietly reading the final sentence aloud.

"Ilen nor aveth. Soren nor ilath. Silence settled over the room once more. I smiled faintly as I closed the worn cover and ran my thumb along the cracked leather binding. The story had fascinated me as a child. It was a fantasy novel set in the reign of an emperor whose empire stretched across most of the known world. As a kid, I'd loved the illustrations. Floating cities. Strange machines. Creatures that looked as if they had been sketched by someone who'd actually seen them.

The emperor himself had surprised me when I read it again years later. He wasn't some larger-than-life hero destined to save the world. He spent as much time settling disputes, worrying about harvests and arguing with nobles as he did leading armies. He felt... human. Somewhere around the middle of the story, people began disappearing. Entire provinces emptied overnight. The story never explained what happened to them. It simply carried on. Councils still met. Harvests were still gathered. Life went on.

The world simply became a little emptier with every chapter. The emperor adapted. The people adapted. As a child, I'd assumed it was just part of the setting. As I grew older, it was the mystery that kept drawing me back. The book itself wasn't any less mysterious. My mother had started reading it to me long before I was old enough to understand the symbols covering its pages. Eventually, she taught me to read them myself. I never questioned it.

Children rarely question the things their parents treat as perfectly normal. Only years later did I realize I'd never seen that language anywhere else. Not in another book. Not on the internet. Not carved into monuments. Not in a dictionary. Nowhere. I still remembered the day I'd finally asked where she'd found it.

"Who wrote it?" She'd smiled without looking up from the page.

"A friend." I could still remember how excited I'd been.

"Really? Can I meet him?" Her smile had faded, just a little.

"I'm afraid not."

"Why?"

"He passed away not long after we settled into this city." At the time, that had been enough of an answer. I'd simply gone back to listening to the story. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.... Just like the people in this book, mom disappeared three years ago. The police searched. Volunteers searched. Neighbors searched. Nothing. No witnesses. No trail. No explanation. Eventually, the investigation slowed. Then stopped.

Legally, she was still considered missing. Realistically... Everyone had accepted she wasn't coming back. I hadn't. Not completely. I looked toward the window. Two suns still illuminated the world outside. Maybe... Maybe she'd ended up somewhere like this. After all, if my house could appear here... Why not hers? The idea lingered for only a moment. Then reality caught up with it. If time really flowed differently... Three years back home might not be three years here. It might be decades. Centuries.

Even if she'd survived... Even if she'd somehow found food. Shelter. Safety. She would have grown old a very, very long time ago. I closed my eyes.

"..." No. She was missing. So was I. That was all I actually knew. Speculation wouldn't help either of us. Yato shifted on my lap, stretched lazily, then settled down again with the sort of complete confidence only an elderly cat could possess. I scratched absentmindedly behind his ears.

"... There's still something I haven't tried." The phone. It still had a signal. I'd been so distracted by everything else that I'd never actually tried using it. Maybe the clocks were broken. Maybe the internet was acting strangely. Maybe... Maybe someone could still hear me. Carefully, trying not to disturb Yato too much, I reached into my pocket and unlocked the screen. 3: 01 AM. Of course. I opened my contacts. My thumb hovered for only a second before stopping on a familiar name. Bill.

We'd known each other since primary school. If anyone answered at three in the morning with, "Hey, I think my house got teleported into another world," it would probably be him. I pressed Call. Calling... For several long seconds, nothing happened. Then the screen changed. Couldn't connect.

"..." I frowned and tried again. Exactly the same. Maybe Bill's phone was off. I selected another contact. Calling... Couldn't connect. Another. Couldn't connect. Another. The result never changed. Not once.

"Come on..." I opened Messages instead. A quick text. Need help. Please call me as soon as you see this. Send. The small circle spun. And spun. And spun. Eventually, the notification appeared. Failed to send message.

"... Seriously?" Yato gave me an annoyed look as I carefully stood up, forcing him to abandon what had clearly been the perfect nap. He answered the injustice with a disapproving mrrp before hopping onto the sofa cushion I'd just vacated.

"I know." He blinked once. Judgment had been delivered. I crossed the office and settled in front of my desk. The monitor woke with a slight movement of the mouse. 3: 01 AM. Still. I ignored the clock and opened my messaging application. Bill. Type. Send. The icon spun for nearly a minute. Then quietly informed me: The message couldn't be delivered. Retry. Same result. Email. Couldn't reach server. Different messaging platform. Failed to send. I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my forehead.

"This makes no sense." The internet was loading pages. Slowly. Painfully slowly. But it was loading them. Maybe something was wrong with the messaging services. Maybe... I opened my browser. The homepage appeared after nearly thirty seconds. I typed the first thing that came to mind. Speed test. The search itself seemed determined to test my patience. Search results finally appeared one by one. I clicked the first link. The page loaded. Eventually. The test began. The download indicator crawled upward. One percent.

Three. Seven. Twenty. Minutes passed... Long enough that I considered giving up more than once. Finally, the results appeared. Download: 987 Mbps. Upload: 992 Mbps. Almost exactly what my fiber connection usually delivered. I stared at the screen.

"... What?" That couldn't be right. If my connection was working... Why couldn't I reach anyone? Why did every message fail? Why wouldn't calls connect? I refreshed the page. The browser spent nearly a full minute thinking about it. Outside... The trees quietly began to move. Not swaying in the wind. Not bending beneath a storm. One by one, ancient trunks shifted across the forest floor with impossible silence, roots slipping through the earth as though the soil were water. Branches intertwined. Clearings vanished.

New paths appeared where none had existed before. Inside the house, completely unaware that the landscape beyond my walls was quietly rearranging itself, I waited for a webpage to finish loading.