10:00 p.m. - At The Living Room, Home.
Ryan opened his eyes and the world hit him like warm coffee—real, sharp, oddly comforting. The fabric of his orange T‑shirt rubbed against his shoulder. The pale cream walls stood where they always did. The couch sagged in the same place, the rug still frayed at one corner. The fridge hummed in the kitchen like a small engine, steady and ordinary.
(This is my house. And it is not my house.)
He sat up slowly, chest tight with some left-over fear. His left arm—his arm—twitched under the sheet. It was whole. No blood. No jagged scar. The memory of a blade and a wall felt like a movie stuck in his head. He flexed his fingers, testing reality. They moved. No phantom weight hung from his sleeve.
Ryan (muttering): "What the hell."
He swung his feet to the floor. The wood creaked familiar complaints. Gravity held him like a hand on the shoulder—normal, friend‑like. That small steadiness mattered more than it should. He stood and walked into the living room without thinking.
The bay window, though, stole his breath.
Beyond the glass there was no street, no sky with clouds, no neighbor's porch lights. There was black—deep and flat—scattered with stars so close and bright they looked like a ceiling of glass lamps. Far off, more like a bruise than a star, a darker twist of nothing sat against the lights. It didn't swallow or move. It just was: an enormous dark spot that felt both terrifying and oddly polite.
(Stars. Like space. But the house is still standing where a house belongs. How does that make sense?)
Ryan (soft): "Okay. Breathe."
He pressed his palm to the glass. The cold there was honest. He could see his reflection, glasses and messy hair and the bright jacket laid across a chair. For a moment he let himself lean into the reflection, into the small normalities: the hum of the fridge, the fan turning overhead, the smell of detergent on a towel—tiny things that said home.
He took a step toward the door, thinking of fresh air. He needed it—some clean thing to clear the edges of shock. He reached for the handle and stepped out onto the porch.
The floor beneath his foot moved like a small trick. Not a real quake—more like the sensation of stepping off a curb and realizing your ankle didn't quite work. The step became a drop. He felt his stomach fall away as if someone had pulled out the ground.
Ryan (sharp): "Whoa!"
Instinct kicked in; years of being careful, of never trusting sudden promises, gave him that quick, animal energy. He grabbed the door frame, hands slipping on paint in a panic, and hauled himself up—embarrassingly and uselessly—like he was a kid climbing a fence. He ended in the doorway like an idiot, knees hugging his chest, breath loud in his ears.
(That almost counted as falling into space. I nearly went out for a breath and into the void.)
He pulled himself back fully into the living room and shut the door, which clicked like an ordinary door. He pressed both hands against his heart for a second, feeling the thud, feeling the laugh that wanted to come out because that was the sane thing to do.
Ryan (bitter laugh): "Of course. Of course this happens when I try to go out for air."
He crossed the room and stood at the window again. Where Mrs. Larkin's crooked mailbox used to be—where he'd waved at the old woman with a rolling cart some mornings—was nothing but stars. The lawn he'd mowed last summer, the blue hydrangea, the cracked sidewalk—gone. The house hung in a calm sphere of normal inside wood and plaster, while the outside refused to behave like a backyard.
(Black hole far away. Not sucking me in. Gravity feels like home. This... this is the Space House. The Mystery House. A safe place that is not safe in the usual sense.)
Ryan (to himself): "Space House. Call it Mystery House if it makes you feel poetic."
He named it aloud because naming made things smaller. Saying the name felt like holding a label in his hand—negligible power, but enough to anchor thought.
He moved to the dining table where his PC glowed. The monitors hummed with that specific soft blue that made his eyes relax. On one screen a window blinked like an HR page.
```Mail Form
Job Application: Reality Parameters
Status: Update Scripts
Next Cycle Begins in: 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes
Submit To: [email protected]
Safety Protocols Available:
Safe from Wounds
Safe from Legendary Beasts
Safe from War
```
All three boxes empty, waiting.
The developer part of him—always hungry for the neat, the logical, the quantifiable—leaned forward. He read the text like a spec sheet.
(It's an interface. The Choice Mandate. Two from three, the Domain rules. I've seen the space house forms before in head-theories. It's a tool. It's dangerous. But also... wow.)
Ryan (chuckling): "A job application to fix reality. Great. HR as a deity."
He laughed, a short burst that tasted like relief and shock tangled together. The sound echoed in the living room and felt oddly cinematic—like the first scene in a movie where the hero discovers he has more than he was told. He spun in his chair once, the RGB lights painting the walls in colors that made everything feel heightened.
(Excitement. This is it. A protagonist? This is crazy.)
He sat, fingers hovering over the keyboard as if at a console for a spaceship. Part of him wanted to check everything, to become that smug player in a sandbox who turns on godmode and watches chaos unfold. Another part—small, careful—remembered the rules he'd picked up in a flurry when he first woke: the Mandate is binary, choices are permanent, cooldowns exist. The Space House is safe but not without cost. One wrong submit could erase options forever.
Ryan (murmur): "Alright, two options. Think like a dev. Think edge cases."
He looked away and tested other things. The TV responded to the remote. A late-night host smiled at him like a distant friend. The sound was fine, channels normal. He pulled his phone from his pocket—one bar and Wi‑Fi. He opened a browser; web pages loaded like relics from his old life. A cat video played, ridiculous and grounding.
He walked to the kitchen. The fridge opened with a sigh. Milk, eggs, a six-pack of apple juice—comfort food from a college era that had never left his diet. He pulled a carton free with the practiced motion of someone who has handled too many convenience items at three in the morning. He popped the straw, punctured the foil, and drank. It tasted exactly like it should: sharp and sweet, nothing mystical.
He tossed the empty toward the bin. It landed with a soft rustle.
Then, because his brain insisted on testing rules, he looked back. Another six‑pack sat in the same spot, perfect. The trash bin looked empty when he checked. The house had a reset quality—small items refreshed, trash never stayed. He swallowed a laugh.
(It's a sandbox. Infinite food, empty trash. The Silent Witness thing—every object records me. The Space House knows me and watches.)
Ryan (softly): "Chef's kiss. Infinite snacks. Remind me to never break the fridge."
He moved back to the screen and sat. The light made his face pale. He read the three options again. The developer logic and the survivor instinct fought for the same hand on the mouse.
(Safe from Wounds first. My arm—if that had been permanent I wouldn't be standing. Safe from Legendary Beasts second. The Umbrathorax... I don't want to be dragon food. Safe from War... big moral move, but is it mine to make? Choices have weight.)
Ryan (breathing out): "No more missing limbs. No more getting chewed by things that aren't supposed to exist."
He clicked the first box. A soft chime filled the room and the checkbox filled.
Safe from Wounds — CHECK.
His pulse slowed a touch, like oxygen finding a stale room. Then, thinking of those jagged fractal scales and the way those molten-gold eyes had looked at him like a specimen, he clicked the second.
Safe from Legendary Beasts — CHECK.
The third sat blank. He scrolled down and found the small print he had missed earlier.
Note: Select 2 out of 3 options to define reality.
(Only two. Of course. Limitations make decisions meaningful. Or painful.)
He stared at the empty box labeled Safe from War and felt a small cold prickle run through his neck. The war in Eryndral had been a brutal, loud thing. Villages burned. Men and women fought and died. He remembered screaming steel and the taste of fear like metal. He also remembered the politics, the fragile ways power bent people.
(Stopping war sounds good. It sounds like peace. But this isn't a novel I can rewrite on a whim. Removing war could break everything: economies, purpose for soldiers, survival for some villages. Stories change. People change. Is that my job? To police history?)
Ryan (quiet): "Not my problem. Not... not tonight."
He clicked Submit with a hand that didn't feel small but wasn't steady heroic either. The loading bar moved like a progress bar in a program he used to run at 2 a.m.
5%... 35%... 72%... Submission Complete.
Silence followed—not triumphant, not ominous. Just a quiet room where the air tasted like detergent and old coffee. The stars outside didn't blink. The black hole didn't ripple. The Space House hummed, indifferent and solid.
Ryan (half laughing): "No trumpet. No fireworks. No system reboot. Of course."
He ran a hand through his hair and let his shoulders drop. The thrill was still there—an almost childish joy of having power and being allowed to hold it for a moment. For an introvert who had never wanted a spotlight, the idea of being a hidden author behind rules was intoxicating.
(Feel good. It's thrilling. Nostalgia hits like a warm filter. Like I'm playing god in a sandbox, but also like someone handing me a remote for a cinema I always wanted to make.)
He wandered to the bathroom and turned the shower to hot. The steam fogged the mirror and softened his face into a stranger who looked like him. He splashed water on his cheeks and felt the normal sting of life. He closed his eyes and let the warm water drum on his shoulders for a minute longer than needed.
(When you're alone, you talk. When you're around people, you shut up. Same as always. Being alone in the Space House means talking to yourself a lot. Good. It helps think.)
Ryan (to his steamed reflection): "You okay, Mercer? You made a choice. Try not to break anything."
He towelled off and, almost ritualistically, flexed the left arm again. It was whole. The memory of pain sat like a scar on the inside, but the body didn't match the memory. That contradiction made him feel both grateful and unreal.
He went back to the desk and opened a text file—one of the tools he'd learned to rely on. He typed fast, a list of questions that felt more like a checklist for surviving a world that offered choices like software patches.
(Choice Mandate. Two-of-three rule. One week cooldown. Domain safe inside the Space House. Silent Witness records. Objects refresh. No way to post to the outside internet from inside. Everything has a cost. Remember that.)
Ryan (writing aloud as he typed): "Choice Mandate—2/3. Cooldown 7 days. Space House = Mystery House. No permanent reversals."
He saved the file in three places. Habit. Backup. Old instincts die hard. He stood up and walked slowly to the window again. The stars seemed to lift and rearrange like a background someone had painted carefully. The black hole stared back, distant and strange, more a threat in name than in behavior. It felt like a movie set where the danger was real but obeyed stage directions.
(It's all so stylized. But style doesn't change the risk.)
Ryan (murmur): "Feels like being in a film where the main actor gets to rewrite the script."
He sat back down and let the weight of the day wrap around him. The earlier fear had softened into a weighted excitement. He had authority. He had a house that behaved like a server room with detergent. He had the memory of a battlefield and the taste of apple juice in his mouth.
(I'm an introvert. I don't want to be a leader in a crowd. But in the quiet, I can be whatever I like. I can be smart, careful, cowardly, brave. For now I'll be careful.)
Ryan (soft): "Okay. Sleep. Let the Space House do its thing."
He turned off the main light and let the PC's soft glow be the last thing before sleep. He lay down and felt the mattress take him the way it always had, like a small welcome back. The ceiling fan made lazy circles above him. He watched the light from the monitor etch patterns on the curtain before his eyes finally closed.
(One decision made. Two protections locked. One variable left unchecked. The Space House keeps time differently. One month here is one second out there. I have time. Use it. Learn. Plan. Don't be an idiot.)
Ryan (half-smile as he drifted): "I wonder if it worked."
Sleep came with the kind of slow permission that only deep fatigue and adrenaline could buy. Outside, the stars stayed calm, and the black hole kept its distance. The house remained a strange island of normalcy bolted into a strange outside world.
He dreamed, briefly, of the Umbrathorax's teeth and then of code running perfectly. He woke once and made a note in his head to check the Silent Witness recordings in the morning—if the objects recorded, the fridge, the towel, the monitor would replay his first hours in the Space House like a CCTV of a man learning to be a god.
(For now, the Mystery House waits. The black hole doesn't pull, the stars don't close. The form sits in the monitor like a file saved. I have time.)
Ryan (murmur into the dark): "Goodnight, Mystery House. See you in the morning."
He rolled onto his side and let sleep take him, holding the small private truth that for the first time since arriving in Eryndral he felt—strangely and dangerously—like he had power and a place to hide while he learned to use it.