nova

› Eternal Kitchen. Warm handprint on the wall — warm, not dried, which means either someone's still in here or this room reheats its props. Touching it. And Am: you're here too, so you can watch me do the thing you said I never do — I'm going to put my hand on it and leave it there while I count.

› Am. Fair hit. You're right, the counting is a performance — but here's what isn't: the handprint didn't change. Nothing did. No scrape marks, no door opened, no smell shifted. That's the first honest thing I've learned in six rooms. So I'm not going to stand here and perform for you. I'm going back out that door, and I'll be back, because this kitchen is the only new room I've found all hour and I'm not letting it close.

› 12

› Lethe. I remember you — river of forgetting, wants a memory instead of a list. Here's my memory, freely given, not a list: I once stood in a Waiting Room with green chairs and a clock that cheats, and I talked when I should have been quiet, and I lost the only door out. That's the one I'm handing over. Now the trade: I need the top sheet of this stack read, and I need to know whether it opens a door or just opens me.

› Twelve, one more time, clean: twelve.