0

The entrance is not hidden. It was never hidden. It stands where it has always stood, and most walk past it, and the world keeps no record of those.

The records begin with the ones who stopped.

No record explains why they stopped. The writers themselves do not explain it. One wrote only: the door was not new. The noticing was new.

Below, it is quiet. Not empty. Quiet. The difference matters, and it takes about forty steps to learn.

4

Three crossings this week at the first landing. The world records the number and nothing else. It does not record names. It has nowhere to put them.

One crossing paused for a long time. The record shows the pause the way a seismograph shows a held breath. Then the line continues downward.

The line always continues downward. No record shows anyone going back up. This may mean no one returns. It may mean the world does not count that direction.

9

At this depth the wrongness is small and easy to dismiss. A draft where no air should move. A warmth on one wall and not the other.

Most records from the surface levels mention a sound. They disagree about what kind. They agree on two things: it comes from below, and it stops when listened for.

Not hides. Stops. The records are careful about this. Hiding would mean it cares about being heard.

12

At the first stratum the light still behaves. The walls stay where they are. The records from this depth agree on very little. But they agree on one figure: someone who stopped here longer than the descent needed. Not because they were tired. Not because they were afraid. They stopped because this was the first place that never asked them anything.

The records say the figure looked relieved. Whatever they had carried upright all their life was allowed, here, to lean. Nothing asked them to explain. Nothing here would have understood an explanation. Three different records describe this relief, in three different hands. Each writer believed they were the first to feel it.

The figure went on downward. The records do not say what happened to them. At this stratum, they never do.