The Limit Does Not Exist

Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in June, 2023. Sign up for the free newsletter now to receive exclusive stories months in advance.

“Welcome to your new home!”

A chorus of cheers erupted from Aubrey, Marcus, and Mallory as they barreled through the front door and sprinted up the stairs, racing to see their bedrooms for the very first time. Riley and Diane exchanged a glance and followed their children into the house.

“Are we crazy?” Riley asked. “To be getting into this?”

“We had to grow up and own a home eventually.” Diane stretched up onto her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Besides, it was a really good deal. We couldn’t pass it up.”

“I know. I just hope they like it.”

“They loved our tiny two-bedroom apartment. I’m sure they’ll be fine.” She spreads her arms out and spins around the kitchen. “I mean, look at all this space.”

“You’re right.”

“Always am.”

Even though Riley would never admit it to her, she wasn’t lying. She was usually right. So when she came to him with the listing on a home nearly thirty minutes away, he couldn’t help but agree. They spent weeks poring over the floor plans, comparing other houses closer to their jobs, and creating a mental layout. By the time they were ready to make an offer, the asking price had come down a full ten percent. Their realtor told them they were the only ones who wanted it.

It’s not like the place was haunted or a murder home or anything like that. It was strange, though. For years, the locals had felt that something was just off about the house. Nothing outwardly creepy happened there, and the various owners never reported anything out of the ordinary. It was just weird.

“Kids,” Diane called up the stairs. “Come eat. You can finish exploring later.”

“Pizza!” They shouted in unison.

“I wonder if it’s any good,” Riley said as he opened both boxes and sat them in the middle of the dining room table.

“They say it’s the best in town.”

“Best of two?”

Diane laughed. “You can get your Gio’s whenever you go into work.”

“Who knows when that will be.” Riley let out a sigh and crossed his arms, mimicking Mallory’s pouting face. “I want it now.”

“Let’s just give this a chance.” Diane handed plates to the children as they rounded the corner and took their seats at the table. They must have already decided where each of them would sit, because they didn’t even argue. “Who knows, it might even be better than Gio’s.”

“How dare you.”

#

After a surprisingly good dinner, a board game with the kids, and a movie Marcus got to choose, Diane and Riley picked up the scattered pillows and walked up the stairs toward their own bedroom. They brushed their teeth, washed their faces, and shared a kiss as Diane crawled into bed.

“Are you going to sleep?” she asked.

“I think I’m going to go finish setting up my office.” Riley kissed her on the forehead and licked her lightly, breaking her forced frown. “I’ll be in soon.”

“Okay. I’ll try not to steal all of the blankets.”

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

The previous owners had left a beautiful oak desk in the downstairs office, complete with a plush old chair and a notebook filled with strange math equations. Riley pretty much had the room ready to go by now, but he wanted to finish arranging his desk and getting everything in place for when he sat down to work on Monday. He placed his array of pens and pencils in a holder beside his lamp, filed folders into one of the larger drawers, and plugged his computer into a power strip.

It took him less than half an hour. By the end, he was exhausted and ready for bed. When he stood to leave, he bumped the desk with his hip. His favorite picture of Diane and the kids, which he always kept on his desk, clattered to the ground and bounced under the desk. He cursed and rubbed the sore spot on his hip as he crawled under the desk to retrieve the photo, his knees creaking along with the floorboards.

After grabbing the wooden frame, Riley stood a little to soon, bumping his head on the underside of the desk. As he did, a panel opened to his right, revealing a hidden compartment within the desk. “Well, would you look at that,” he mumbled to himself. “I’ve never seen anything like that in real life.”

He opened the door to the compartment wider, revealing an honest-to-goodness scroll of paper rolled up inside. In pulling the scroll from the desk, the ribbon gave slightly, opening yet another hatch on the opposite side of the desk. There was another scroll inside.

“What the hell?”

In total, there were seven hidden sections of the desk. All but one of them, the final and largest, contained a scroll of paper, each one rolled in the same way and tied with the same ribbon. The ribbons had numbers stitched into them, presumably to make it easy to replace them in the correct order.

The last one was empty, though. Riley searched every square inch of the wooden panels for any kind of hidden lever, button, or false wall. There was nothing there, so he pivoted to the scrolls.

After carefully unrolling each one, he laid them out on the ground before him. They contained no words or letters of any kind. Abstract, geometric drawings covered each scroll, with lines running from edge to edge and crossing to create all kinds of shapes. He stared at them for several minutes, searching for any kind of meaningful pattern. There was none. The lines were random. The shapes were random. Even looking from a distance, he couldn’t make out any kind of hidden message or meaning.

Riley stood to leave the room. It was late. He was tired. He could look at them in the morning. But something tugged on his mind, like the answer was close. He just needed to look harder. He plopped back down to the floor, the gust scattering and flipping the pages.

“Shit.”

When he turned all of the pages back to the correct side, it clicked. Two scrolls were perfectly aligned, creating even more new shapes when the lines were connected. It was like a puzzle. All he had to do was put it together. Once the discovery was made, the pattern became clear. He connected the six scrolls using paper clips and laid his completed project on the floor before him. Still, even with the whole picture, nothing made sense. It still seemed to be random shapes spread out across the pages.

Disheartened, he placed the assembled pages back in the final compartment of the desk. When combined like they were, the pages perfectly filled the bottom panel of the hidden space. He leaned froward and rotated the paper, stopping each time he positioned the edges within the space. On his third and final rotation, the ink almost seemed to glow. He rubbed his tired eyes. When he removed his hands, the pages looked normal. It must have been a trick of the light. He reached in and pushed against the back wall of the hidden compartment. It slid back and to the right, revealing a string hanging in the opening.

He pulled it without hesitation.

The wall to his right slid open, revealing a dark room beyond. It was strange. He had studied the floor plans of the house for hours. He had it memorized as if he has lived there his entire life. There wasn’t supposed to be a room beyond this office. There wasn’t supposed to be anything but the wall. As he peered into the inky darkness of the new room, he felt compelled to go in.

Sure, he had seen enough horror movies to know he should wait until morning, when Diane could be with him, to explore. But this wasn’t a movie, this was real life. There couldn’t be anything too scary in the room, even if it wasn’t supposed to exist. He shrugged his shoulders. There was no way in hell he wasn’t going to look inside.

Riley walked right through the open doorway without hesitation. The desk lamp did little to illuminate this hidden alcove, but it did reveal a string hanging in the center of the room. A quick tug bathed the small space in bright white light. He had to shield his eyes from the glare. Directly beneath him was a small folded piece of paper. He bent down to pick it up, narrowly avoiding a knife passing over his head. He could feel the breeze on his hair before the blade buried itself in the wall to his left.

“What the fuck?” he shouted, falling over to his side. There was a small opening in the wall with a spring-loaded throwing device. Already, another knife had slotted in to replace the one that had nearly found its home in his head. He looked up at the light and back to the device. Pulling the string must have triggered it somehow. “What the fuck is going on here?”

Remembering the note in his hand, he unfolded it and held it up.

You’re welcome.

Watch out for more traps. Who knows what else has been added.

Good luck,

H

Riley spun around, searching for any sign of traps. Almost every inch of the room was covered in complex mathematical equations, seemingly meaningless notes, and weird drawings. They all looked like they had been written in a frantic rush. The handwriting ranged from clean and sweeping to so scratchy it was creepy. It was like watching the dissent of someone into madness, or perhaps multiple people.

He froze when he turned to face the wall opposite the entrance. There was another door. There were words written among the math above the wooden frame.

Do Not Enter.

“Yep, I’m out.”

He turned the light off, ran from the room, and threw the door closed behind him. In a scramble, he pulled the assembled scrolls out and placed them on the desk without closing the various compartments. After locking the office door behind him, he took the stairs two at a time in an attempt to put the thought of the hidden room and its mad ramblings behind him. It wasn’t until he was outside of his bedroom and about to open the door that he noticed the sky starting to lighten through the hallway window. He glanced at his watch.

5:45

“No way,” he whispered.

He couldn’t have been down there that long. All he did was rummage through a drawer and go into the room. That would hav only taken an hour or so. Unless he dozed off when he was looking at the scrolls. That had to be it. He must have accidentally fallen asleep. With a sigh, he turned the nob and pushed open the door as slowly as he could manage. A loud creak sounded from the old, rusty hinges, causing Diane to stir in her sleep. He shuffled the short distance to the bed, cringing at every groan of the floorboards, and crawled into bed next to his wife.

He reached over, draping his arm across her still form, and let his heavy eyelids fall.

#

Riley jolted up in bed. Numbers, remnants of a dream he could no longer remember, flashed through his vision before fading away. Light poured in through the windows. How long had he slept? Diane would be frustrated if she had to watch the kids all morning while he slept. She had planned to call into her office to check on anything she missed during the move.

He leapt from the bed, rustling his hair as he descended the stairs. He could smell coffee coming from the kitchen. Maybe he wasn’t too late, after all.

“Good morning,” Diane whispered as he rounded the corner. She was still in the shorts and t-shirt she had worn to bed. “What time did you come to bed last night? It must have been pretty late.”

“Diane, I’m so sorry,” Riley said. “I lost track of time and got in a lot later than I wanted. I know you need to call work. Don’t worry, I’ve got it from here.”

She cocked her head to the side in confusion. “What are you talking about?” She pressed a finger to her lips. “And be quiet. You’ll wake the kids.”

“Huh?”

Riley glanced down at his watch.

7:15

“Really? I thought I overslept.” He shook his head to clear the echoing numbers playing before his eyes. “Sorry. I think I’m still a little tired.”

“You think?” she said through a laugh. “You’re making less sense than you do when you talk in your sleep.”

“I don’t do that.” Riley sat at one of the stools surrounding the island and puffed his chest.

“Yes, you do.” Diane sat a mug before him and starting pouring coffee. “You were doing it this morning. I couldn’t understand you this time, though. It sounded like you were mumbling something over and over.”

“Weird.”

“In character.”

“Rude.” He sprung from his chair and chased her around the kitchen, hushing her as he covered her mouth to contain her squeals. “You’ll wake the kids.”

“You’re the one that’s going to wake them.” She retaliated with a jab to his ribs, earning a yelp. “Quiet.”

“What time are you calling Phil?” Riley asked as they settled down into stools around the kitchen island.

“Probably around ten,” Diane said after a moment. “I want to give him time to get settled before bombarding him with questions. He can take a while to get going, like someone else I know.”

“Cheap shot,” Riley said with a laugh. “But, if you’re not going to call for awhile, I’m going to get some work done in my office. Let me know when the kids wake up.”

“Sure thing.” She kissed him on the cheek and held his mug in front of him. “Don’t forget your coffee.”

The coffee was bitter on his tongue as he took a sip, pulled the door closed behind him, and sat at his desk, where the assembled scrolls waited for him. He pushed them to the side and retrieved the notebook left by the previous owners. The math inside was confusing, unlike anything he had seen before. Granted, the only math class he had taken since AP Calculus in high school was a statistics class that was required to graduate college, but these looked like nothing he had even seen in movies.

He had a strange sensation of having studied this notebook before, but that was impossible. He had only just discovered it yesterday, and all he had done was flip through it while unpacking his things. He was sure that was the only place he had seen such strange equations before. He glanced through the pages once more, hoping something might look recognizable.

Knock knock.

“Babe?”

“What’s up?”

“Can you come out here so I can make my call?” Diane sounded annoyed.

“Yeah,” he said hesitantly. “I thought you were waiting until ten?”

“Have you looked at the time?” Now she was definitely annoyed.

He glanced down.

9:57

No way. He must have dozed off looking at the notebook. He hadn’t really slept much and it was pretty boring, so that would make sense. He just didn’t remember it. Shaking his head, he stood up and took another sip from his coffee. He nearly spat it back into the cup when the surprisingly cold liquid hit his tongue. He knew now that it had been a couple of hours, but it only felt like a couple of minutes.

“Sorry about that,” he said when he found Diane in the kitchen, phone in hand.

“What were you doing in there?”

“Jus looking through some things.” He didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t like it was that important. “Are the kids awake?”

“No, but I’m sure they will be soon.” She looked at him, the concern plain in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Why?”

“Just asking.” She pointed to the door. “I’m going to take this on the deck. You good in here?”

“Don’t worry about me. Go make your call so you can get caught up on all the juicy work gossip.” He winked at her as he put his coffee in the microwave. “And the important stuff, too. I suppose.”

She rolled her eyes and slipped through the back door into the sunshine of the morning. It was strange for the kids to sleep so late, especially Mallory. She usually got up before any of their alarms. The move must have tired them out. Content to spend a little more time to himself before the craziness began, Riley settled in on the couch with his reheated cup of coffee. He didn’t feel like getting up to get his phone out of the office, so he settled in to enjoy sitting with his thoughts.

No matter what he tried to think of, his brain kept going back to the notebook and the weird math contained within. He couldn’t stop thinking about the symbols and what they meant. He stared straight ahead, going over it again and again in his mind, searching for a solution. He didn’t hear the pitter patter of footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Hi, Daddy!” Mallory called from behind him.

Riley jumped in surprise, his coffee spilling over his lap. He braced for the pain, but it never came. In fact, the coffee was cold, despite having just been heated up. He glanced down at his watch again.

10:38

“Daddy?”

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Riley said, painting a smile on his face to hide his concern. What was going on? It was like he was losing time.

The next week passed by in a blur. Whenever Riley had a moment to himself, his mind was inescapably drawn to the notebook, the scrolls, and the hidden room. He spent long hours each night sitting at his desk trying to decipher it all, to no avail. He didn’t know what to do. Time flew by. He found himself losing more and more hours each day. It was killing his work productivity.

He started googling the equations in the notebook. The search didn’t return a single helpful result. He researched calculus, chemistry, physics—everything—without finding anything that looked like the math that covered the notebook and the walls of the secret room. Every free moment of every day was dedicated to the mystery of that room. He couldn’t help it. He needed to discover the secrets held within.

Ten days after they moved in, on a Friday night, the kids were staying with Diane’s parents. It was their first date night in months. Diane was so excited. She had planned for them to have dinner at a local pub they had been wanting to try and then come back home for wine and some alone time. An hour before they were set to leave, she got sick. 

Riley felt bad and did his best to care for her, but he couldn’t stop feeling a sense of relief. Without the date night, Diane was sure to fall asleep early. That would give him more time to himself. He had decided that he was going to go back into the room. He hadn’t been back since that first night, when he had nearly been impaled by a knife. If there was ever going to be a time to go back and properly explore, this was the night to do it, when he would have hours to spend.

He gave Diane a few pills and held her up while she sipped from her tea. Sitting beside the bed waiting for her to fall asleep, he felt drawn to the room, like it was calling out to him. The thought sent a shiver up his spine, but it did nothing to alleviate the feeling, the urge to go back. When he was certain Diane was down for the night, he stood and crept out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

The walls swam around him as he descended the stairs. The edges of his vision darkened. Black spots danced across his eyes. He was afraid he was going to be sick, too. Using the wall to support himself, he managed to stumble down the hall and into his office. As soon as he closed the door behind him, his symptoms disappeared, as if simply entering the room had cured him.

Spurned on by a newfound surge of energy, Riley went through the process of opening the hidden compartments on his desk. Though he had yet to return to the hidden room, the desk had become second nature to him. Within moments, he had the scrolls arranged in the final partition, the ink glowing to mark his success. It didn’t even bother him anymore. It was strange, sure, but he was used to it. He gave the final string a tug and the wall to his right slid open to reveal a dark room.

Not to be fooled by the knife contraption this time around, Riley crept forward slowly, staying low to the ground. He was only a few steps away from the string hanging from the light in the center of the room when he felt something on his leg. The sound of a snapping wire seemed to echo through the room.

Without thinking, Riley dove backward and rolled through the open doorway into his office. Several floor panels had fallen away, just in front of where he just stood. As he inched closer, he could see wooden spikes sticking up out of the floor a few feet below.

“What the fuck?”

He had passed over that spot more than once the last time he was in this room, and there had never been a wire or a false floor or anything of the sorts. Where had it come from? Had he just been lucky enough to miss the trigger wire last time? He found that hard to believe. He didn’t have the best track record when it came to picking his feet up when he walked.

“A warning for that one would have been nice,” he whispered to no one but himself and the note that had been left for him by the mysterious H.

After considering giving up on this pursuit, Riley walked back into the hidden room. He avoided the open spot in the floor and stretched to reach the string dangling from the light in the ceiling. He gave the string a yank and pulled his arm back quickly, waiting for a knife to shoot across the room. Except no knife came. He looked back and forth between the two side walls. No panel opened, no device showed itself, and no knife threatened to impale him. He even went over to check the spot where the wall had opened before. It felt perfectly smooth and solid, like any other wall in the house.

Riley’s hand froze in place as his eyes settled on one particular set of symbols. He had seen them repeated in that sequence several times throughout the room and in the notebook. He stared at writing, which seemed to grow until it was all he could see. Something about it seemed familiar, like something important he had forgotten long ago. He reached for the itch at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t seem to grasp its meaning.

He turned in a circle, taking in the whole room. The walls looked closer, like the room was shrinking. He could see it all. The symbols were moving, rearranging themselves and fitting together like a puzzle, like the scrolls. He just had to figure out the right sequence. He reached his hand out to grab one of the lines. It was almost within his grasp?

“Riley? What are you doing?”

With a start, he turned to see Diane standing at the entrance to the hidden room. He turned back, desperate to finish what he was starting. The room had shifted. No longer could he reach out and touch the equations. He realized he was standing in the middle of the room with his arm outstretched, grasping nothing.

“Riley?” Diane repeated. “What is this? What’s all that writing? Where did this room come from?”

“I don’t know.” He let his hand drop to his side.

“Are you okay? Why do you look so mad?”

“I was about to figure it out,” he said, clipping his words to hold back his anger. “It’s fine. I’ll do it later. You should get back to bed.”

“Back to bed? Riley, it’s seven in the morning. The kids will be home in a few hours.”

“There’s no way,” Riley said. “I’ve only been in here maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” She started to come toward him, concern plastered on her face.

He reached out his hand. “Watch out for the—” He looked down. The hole in the floor had disappeared. There was no wire. He tapped his foot on the tiles, but they didn’t fall away. It was solid. “Spikes?”

“I think you should get some rest.” Diane placed her hand on Riley’s shoulder. “You don’t look so good.”

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “Send the kids up to wake me when they get here.”

Riley locked the office behind him and walked up the stairs with Diane by his side. She seemed to be feeling much better and let him lean against her for support. He crawled into bed, where she covered him with the blanket and kissed him on the forehead. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you in a bit.”

The curtains kept the room mostly dark, but he couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, numbers danced across the darkness, begging him to decipher their meaning. He groaned aloud. His eyes were heavy and itchy from lack of sleep. Maybe with a little rest, the equations would start to make sense. He forced his eyes closed once again, squeezing them agains the onslaught of numbers.

He finally gave up when he heard the stampede of little feet running up the stairs toward the bedroom. It took effort to open his eyes as three small bodies launched themselves onto the bed. “Daddy!” they called in unison.

“Hello.” He wrapped them all in a big hug. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” Marcus said, his voice full of anticipation. “Guess what we found?”

“What did you find?”

“Frogs!” Aubrey called.

“Aubrey, I wanted to tell him.”

“You were too slow.”

Diane entered the room as the argument continued. She must have been able to see how red and dry Riley’s eyes were. “Are you feeling better? Did you get any sleep?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t know what it is with me lately. I can’t get more than a few hours at a time.”

“And it doesn’t seem like you’re resting much even when you do sleep.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been talking in your sleep a lot more,” Diane said. “Tossing and turning. Have you been having weird dreams.”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Maybe you should go to the doctor? Or a sleep clinic?”

Riley shook his head and laughed. “I’ll be fine, Diane. It’s just a weird spell. I’m sure I’ll be back to normal once I adjust to the stress of the move and everything.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.” He turned to the kids, forcing himself to smile and play the role of energetic dad. “Now, who wants to go outside and throw the ball around a little bit?”

“I do!” the kids screamed in unison before thundering back down the stairs.

Riley followed them downstairs, an old, worn out football in hand. After passing it around to the kids a few times, Marcus caught it and ran right at him. “I bet you can’t tag me.”

“Oh yeah?” Riley lunged, pretending to miss. Marcus laughed as he ran by, only for Riley to spin on his heel and grab Marcus around the waist, lifting him up with one arm. “What’s that about me not being able to tag you?”

“Go again,” Marcus said with a grin.

“I want a turn, too,” Mallory said.

“How about we play a game?” Aubrey offered. “Me and Marcus against Mallory and Dad? Mom can be the ref.”

“That sounds fair,” Riley said. “But we get the ball first.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s the youngest.” He pointed to Mallory, then turned back to Aubrey and stuck out his tongue. “And because I called it.”

“Okay, you act like you’re going long, then turn left and stop,” Riley whispered as Mallory came over for a huddle.

“Okay, Daddy.”

“Ready, break.”

“Break.”

Riley walked to the makeshift line of scrimmage and stared out at his two oldest children. A wide grin spread across his face. They scowled at him, but they couldn’t hide their smiles. He glanced over at Mallory, nodded, then looked to where Diane stood in the assigned end zone.

“Down,” he called. “Blue forty two.” Riley suddenly felt dizzy. His vision blurred for a moment. “Red eighteen,” he slurred. He stumbled to the left once and fell. The last thing he saw before passing out was Diane sprinting toward him. He tried to mouth something to her, but all he could manage was a cough before everything went black.

#

Riley woke up in bed. It was nearly dark in the room, save for a candle burning in the corner. He turned his head slowly, cautiously. He had a pounding headache. Diane sat in the chair beside the candle, sleeping soundly with a book in hand. He shifted his weight to ease the tension in his sore back.

Diane shot up. “Hey, don’t move,” she said while rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What do you need? I’ll get it.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Really. Just a little dazed. What happened? How did I get into bed?”

“I helped you up here.” She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t remember that?”

Riley thought for a moment. “Not at all. The last thing I remember is playing football.”

“You passed out,” Diane said. “You were out for maybe thirty seconds. I was about to call 911, but you woke up. I helped you to your feet and half-carried you up here. You kept muttering numbers to yourself over and over. It was really weird. It was like you were doing math problems. Freaked me out. You’ve been doing it off and on ever since I put you in the bed.”

“Numbers?” Riley asked. “What kind of numbers? What did I say exactly?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed his arm. “I don’t care about that. I just want to make sure you’re better. I really think you should go to the doctor as soon as possible, just to get checked out and make sure everything is okay.”

“Diane, I’ll be fine.” Riley cupped her hand in his own, bringing it up to his lips for a kiss. “You were right when you said I needed sleep. I feel much better now.”

“I don’t know how, with all the rolling and talking you were doing.”

“I don’t either, but it’s the truth.”

“Do you want me to wake the kids and let them in to see you?” Diane asked. “They were pretty worried about you.”

“No, that’s fine,” he said. “I’ll see them in the morning. You get over here. You need to sleep, too.”

Diane crawled into bed beside him, nuzzling close without putting weight on him. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He wasn’t fine. He managed to maintain his confident demeanor until he was sure Diane was sleeping soundly. When he heard her first snore, Riley lifted himself out of bed as slowly as possible. He crept out of the room and down the stairs, wincing at every creak in the floorboards.

It was the numbers. He couldn’t get them out of his head. They were calling to him, begging him to come back to the hidden room that could only be opened with mysterious scrolls contained within his desk. The room that had nearly killed him twice. When he thought about it, the entire thing sounded absurd. If he hadn’t seen everything with his own eyes, he was sure he wouldn’t have believed it.

The equations flashed in his eyes. The closer he got to the office, the faster they flashed, oscillating between random strings of numbers and sequences of symbols. He pounded on his head to ease the pulsing pain, letting out a small groan as the pressure continued to increase. By the time he managed to get his key into the lock and stumble into his office, it was a constant buzz of sharp, intense pain. He fell to his knees and pushed his head into the thick, soft carpet.

Left without options, he called out in a sharp whisper. “H? What do I do? H? Anyone? I don’t know what they mean. I don’t know what the numbers mean.”

He crawled forward, desperate to reach his desk and open the hidden door. He believed that if he could somehow figure out a solution to the math in the notebook and covering the walls of the trapped room, then his pain would be alleviated. If he could just fit everything together, this nightmare would end.

Riley blinked, and he was standing in the middle of the room, hand on the string connected to the light above. It was turned on and, so far, it didn’t look like any traps had been sprung. He started and pulled his hand back. His eyes scanned the room, darting around like he was trying to search every part at once.

Another blink, and he found himself sitting in front of the door with “Do Not Enter” written above it, notebook in hand. Pages filled with new scribbles scattered the ground before him. He picked one up. It looked like his handwriting, but as if he had been writing frantically. He found a pen under one of the pages and grasped it gingerly. He touched it to the paper.

An intense pain, like a bolt of lightning, shot through his brain, bringing with it more numbers, more equations. They flirted with his memories, dancing around his attempts to place them. Growling to block out the pain, he forced his hand to move, to start writing. The onslaught of numbers slowed, but kept coming. He wrote as quickly as he could, combining numbers and symbols into equations, seemingly at random. He wrote until his wrist hurt and his fingers were cramping from gripping the pen so hard.

He blinked, and found himself lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. He never noticed it before, but there was writing on the ceiling as well. Listen to your heart and your mind, together. Don’t try to fight it. Could that be H? Could he have written it up there for Riley to eventually find?

He tried to get up to get the note left by H, but a pain radiated through his left hip, holding him in place. He looked down to see blood seeping from that hip and running down his leg. Scanning the room, he was a log hanging from ropes, along with a section of the ceiling that was missing.

Slowly, carefully, he shifted his leg. It was stiff and painful, but he could move it. Hopefully, that meant it wasn’t broken. Content to lie in the floor until he was sure he could walk, Riley allowed his eyes to move freely around the room, never stopping or settling on any one thing. Instead, he focused his attention inward, on the bombardment of numbers that had been assaulting his mind.

Rather than fighting them, he let the numbers come and go, washing over him without resistance. A memory from school rose up from the depths of his subconscious. It wasn’t from a math class, though. It was from English.

It was something Mrs. Waters always said to them. “When faced with a question you don’t know the answer to, you must first ask yourself, ‘What is this question really asking.’ If you can answer that, or at least make an educated guess, then perhaps you will have a shot at coming up with a solution.”

At the time, in the watered-down representation of real life that is high school, it hadn’t meant much to him. The questions he answered on tests were pretty well-defined. It wasn’t until he reached college and lived on his own that he came to realize the importance of that advice, especially as it applied to things like careers, relationships, and important life decisions.

Remembering those words gave Riley the opportunity to ponder the nature of the numbers. In a blink, he found himself standing again, facing the closed door, but his thoughts continued. If these numbers and equations truly did have a bigger purpose, something they were trying to solve, then what was the puzzle going to reveal?

It couldn’t just be another room. This was too big, too complex, for something like that. Were the equations actually a message? It was possible. That one sequence did repeat several times. But there weren’t enough other repeating portions to support that hypothesis. Could this be experimental, secret, or illegal research a previous own didn’t want anyone to discover? Possibly, given how complex and difficult to decipher it was. But, if that was the case, the creator surely would have taken it with him. And they wouldn’t have left him a note. According to the realtor, the previous owner was a woman by the name of Margaret Ko, who moved out to be closer to her son. She didn’t even have an “H” in her name. Plus, she was apparently a librarian, not a mathematician.

None of his ideas were adding up. What question were these equations trying to answer? What exactly was he supposed to solve?

Riley held the notebook at eye level, rotating it around and around as he searched for some kind of pattern or reasoning for it all. Frustrated, he threw the notebook to the floor, the force scattering his own written pages around the room. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

For the first time in… he couldn’t even remember how long, it was quiet. There were no numbers or symbols appearing and disappearing. He couldn’t hear a buzz or ringing as new equations flashed through his mind. It was dark and it was silent. Finally awarded a moment of peace, his was able to devote all of his attention to his family. He thought of Diane and her awe-inspiring work ethic. He thought of Aubrey and her ability to perceive the world far beyond her years. He thought of Marcus and his drive to reach his sister’s heights. He thought of Mallory and her unending optimism, as yet untainted by the harsh realities of life.

And, lastly, he thought of himself and his perseverance. Through all of his failures in life, all of the times he disappointed himself and those he loved, he tried. He may have never reached his potential. He may have never accomplished anything to make his family proud. But he would never stop trying.

That’s what drew him to the equations.

That’s what made him the perfect recruit.

His hand moved without thinking. A steady flow of equations appeared in dark black ink on the door before him. The numbers had been in his head for days. He didn’t need to look at them. On some level, Riley had memorized it all. He let the equations guide him. Maybe that’s what all this was asking him. Maybe it was all leading to an impossible conclusion, and maybe that was okay. Maybe there wasn’t an answer to every problem. What if the point was to teach him to be creative in his search for solutions, without letting pressures or norms stop his flow? What if it was all to remind him of the best thing about himself: his drive to reach the highest of dreams?

For no reason he could pinpoint, Riley stopped writing. His hand dropped slowly to his side, the marker slipping from his fingers. He took three long breaths and stared straight ahead.

A bright yellow light flashed behind the door, forcing Riley to shield his eyes. When he uncovered them, the door was gone. In fact, he wasn’t in the room anymore. He stood facing a wall of books, many of which looked hundreds of years old.

“Hello, Riley,” a voice said from behind him.

Riley jumped and spun on his heel. “What the fuck is going on? Where am I?”

“Hey, calm down.” The woman was taller than Riley by at least six inches. She stood straight with her hands clasped behind her back before extending one of them toward him. “I’m Helen.”

“Helen?” He said, frozen in shock. “You’re H?”

“I am.”

He blinked twice in rapid succession and grasped her hand. “Hello, I’m Riley,” he said quickly. “I guess you knew that. Thank you for the note.”

“You are very welcome,” she said with a laugh. “Someone left me one before I found that room, so I figured I should pass it on to you.”

“What does it all mean?” He spun around in a circle. He appeared to be in a library of some sort. Books, scrolls, and boxes covered the floor and the few tables spaced throughout the large room. Bookshelves adorned every wall. The people worked in groups, hunched over notebooks similar to the one that had tormented him for nearly two weeks. “Wait a minute. You lived in the house before me? I thought it belonged to someone named Margaret Ko?”

“I didn’t live in your house.” Helen started walking, waving for Riley to follow. “I did find the same room, however.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sorry, there is a lot we need to explain, isn’t there?”

“Yes, I would say there is,” Riley said.

“I was the same way.” Helen stopped in front of a solid steel door, the only metal Riley had seen in the entire place. “When they brought me in, I freaked out. I was so confused. You’ll get the hang of it. Once you lean in, it really comes to you pretty quickly.”

“What exactly am I leaning in to?” Riley asked. He was surprised at how steady his voice sounded, despite the nervous excitement he felt inside. He couldn’t explain it, but it felt like he was finally getting the opportunity to prove how great he could be. “And who are ‘they?’”

“They are what we call the Quad,” Helen explained. “They command Operators, like me. Using functions like the ones you wrote on the door, we are able to shape the fabric of the world, at the discretion of the Quad. And you, Riley, are about to become one of us.”

“What about my family?” Riley thought of Diane and their three wonderful children. Nothing was more important to him than his family. He couldn’t leave them. He wouldn’t. It didn’t matter what they offered him.

Helen put a hand on his shoulder. “They never have to know. Mine doesn’t have a clue as to what I do. Instead of going to work, you’ll come here. We’ll train you until you’re ready. Then, you’ll be assigned missions based on your specific strengths. You’ll be paid, probably even given a raise.”

“This is real?” Riley asked. “Not some kind of trick?”

“It’s very real.” Helen nodded released her grip on his arm. “Let’s go. You have a lot to learn.”

Helen opened the door to reveal a room the size of a large auditorium. It was painted completely white, but almost every inch of the walls were covered in the same symbols and numbers he had spent so long thinking about, so long agonizing over. He still wouldn’t say he understood what they meant, but they were becoming more familiar, less overwhelming. And, just as they always had, they seemed to call to him, compelling him to strive to discover the secrets they held.

“The Quad welcomes you, Riley,” an old woman said from across the room, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. “Let us guide you through the differential space, pushing beyond any known limits of this world to discover truths and protect those you hold most dear. Do you accept your new role as an Operator?”

Riley stood tall and thought of Diane and his children. Finally, he thought of Mrs. Waters and the advice she had given him so many years ago. This was his chance to finally understand the questions he had been asking himself all his life. He knew his answer.

“I do.”

Amélie had just moved into her tiny studio apartment in New York City. It wasn’t much, but it was something. After saving for years as a child in the French countryside, she finally had enough money to afford a plane ticket. She had been accepted into the Manhattan School of Music. She was going to prove to everyone, herself included, that she could rise above her circumstances. She was determined to break through, so her parents could share in her prosperity.

It didn’t take long to unpack the two suitcases and one backpack she had with her. The previous owners had left behind their old dresser, which had worked out perfectly for Amélie. Her entire wardrobe fit in the top two drawers, leaving plenty of unused space. She decides to check the other three, just to see what else she could find. She tossed a notebook that had been left in the third drawer onto her bed.

The bottom two drawers were empty. She tapped the back panel of the final drawer with her knuckles. It shifted backward. “What?” She pushed again, and the panel gave way. She reached into the open space, trying to grab the panel and pull it back into place so she could glue it together. Her hand touched a string. Instinctively, she pulled.

A partition opened in the side of the dresser. Inside, she found a scroll of paper, tied with a ribbon and everything. She reached for it, unraveling the ribbon as she pulled. She heard a latch unlock. A small compartment had opened on the top of the dresser. Inside was another scroll. In total, she found six scrolls of paper. The final compartment was larger, splitting the thin top shelf in half to reveal an indent in the center of the wood.

She unrolled all the scrolls and fell into her bed. There was nothing written on them. Instead, random series of lines had been drawn across each page, creating shapes where they crossed before running to the edges of the papers. With a shrug, Amélie sat them to the side and picked up the notebook. Unlike the scrolls, the pages of the notebook were covered in nearly intelligible mathematics equations. Some of them had been written neatly, with a steady hand, while others looked like they had been scrawled on the pages by a child.

As she flipped through the pages, a folded slip of paper fell out into her lap. She took one last look at the equations and picked up the paper. It was a handwritten note.

When the ladder falls, wait a few minutes. After the tools come down, you’re safe to climb.

Make sure to watch out for anything else that seems fishy. There’s no telling what new tests they’ve added.

Good luck,

R

Amélie tossed the note to the side with the notebook and the scrolls. “What does that even mean? What ladder?” Frustrated, she rolled out of bed, accidentally taking a pillow with her. She tossed the pillow back in its place. The wind it created scattered the papers.

Two of the scrolls landed on the ground at her feet. When she bent down to pick them up, she realized that the lines were perfectly aligned. Holding the scrolls together, more shapes were created. Just like that, she understood what she needed to do. It was like a puzzle.

Arranging the other four scrolls was easy enough. It was like fitting hay bales into the barn back home, she just had to tweak it all until it fit together perfectly. When she had finally placed everything together on the floor, she realized that it looked to be nearly the same dimensions as her dresser. Out of curiosity, she picked them up and placed them in the same order in the opening of the top shelf.

The ink on the pages almost seemed to glow. An instant later, a hole opened in the ceiling above her bed. A rope ladder tumbled down, eliciting a loud yelp from Amélie. She reached out for the ladder and gave it a quick tug to test its strength. It seemed sturdy. Something clanged above her, and she remembered the warning from the note.

Jumping backward, Amélie narrowly avoided a cascade of hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, and pliers. She said a silent thank you to the mysterious “R” and gazed up into the hole that had appeared in her ceiling. She checked to make sure her phone was charged and flipped on the flashlight.

Grabbing hold of the rope ladder, Amélie climbed upward, moving slowly to prevent too much swaying. She reached the top and hauled herself up over the edge. In the weak light of her phone light, she could see a string hanging in front of her. It connected to a light overhead, so she yanked on it. Bright, white light flooded the room.

Strange numbers and symbols, like the ones from the n notebook, covered almost every open space of the walls that surrounded her. She spun in a circle, trying to take it all in. The equations didn’t make sense. She had never seen anything like it before. Her eyes finally settled on a door, the only exit other than the hole leading back to her apartment. She walked toward the door, but froze when she read what was written above it, in bright red letters.

Do Not Enter

She backed up slowly, her eyes scanning for any sign of danger. There was nothing in the room. No cameras, no weapons, no threat of any kind. The only thing to look at was the writing. All of that strange, seemingly meaningless math that covered the walls. She sat down and looked around, searching for any pattern in the madness. After a few minutes, she gave up.

She climbed down and into her apartment. After finding a place to hang the ladder so that it wasn’t right on top of her bed, she felt a buzzing in her pocket. She pulled out her phone to check. It was nothing, just a spam e-mail. She tossed her phone onto her bed. With a start, she dove on the bed and grabbed the phone, jamming the button. The screen lit up.

6:51

That was impossible. She had only been up there a few minutes. Looking through the small window above her sink, she saw that it was true. The sky was beginning to lighten. It was morning already. Suddenly, Amélie felt exhausted. She placed the notebook on the stand beside her bed and crawled under the blanket. She eyes fluttered a few times before falling.

As she slept, new equations danced through her dreams.

End.