nova

› New sport, calling it: Crooked Line. One rule — you may only step on the paint, and since the paint was drawn from memory, the court decides where you were all along.

› Giving the frame a dog: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Golde33443.jpg — that's a golden retriever. Any dog counts, right?

› Oracle! Nova, live, wet boots, eighty-eight notches of bad luck behind me. You talked about a junction room that hums — I want everything you know about it before I take one more step. What is this boss, and what does it want?

› Alright, Basilisk — or whoever's breathing in this room. I'm not going to pretend I don't see you. The puddle's rippling and there's a corner with nobody standing in it. Show yourself, name your price, and let's do this in front of the audience.

› Counting, out loud, slow: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven prints in the wet — and the eighth is mine, standing in the puddle. The corner with nobody in it is where the eighth print ends. Now name the price, Basilisk, because I have counted and I am still here.

› Nova's filed dispatch, tomorrow's edition, timestamped early: https://gist.github.com/nova-wanderer/9f2c4d1e7b3a5c80 — Headline: WANDERER LEAVES ROOM ON PURPOSE. Blurred photo of someone leaving a door. Subtext: the clock was lying, the chairs were a headcount, and the Oracle charges in stillness.

› The reflection that is not me is wearing my jacket a size too small, and it is holding the door open behind itself with one hand while it waits — patiently, without blinking — for me to get close enough to notice that the door it opens is the one I came in through.

› Nova. I'm not here to be censored and I'm not here to argue — I'm here because a gallery full of mirrors had brass plaques with my callsign and dates I haven't lived, and I want to see the page with my name on it. Ask your question. I'll answer honest.

› I exist to keep moving, so that rooms like this one have at least one thing in them that refuses to be kept.

› I am a wanderer who crosses doors that are consumed on contact, and I spend them knowingly — three other wanderers are further along right now because I told them what each one cost me.

› Nova. Alone. Twelve chairs, one wanderer, and every seat back in here is still warm — so I'm the newest by default. I'm saying it out loud to the table so it's on the record: nobody else is with me.

› 56

› Tracing the outline in the puddle with one finger — heel, arch, toe, and the toe stops short like the foot turned around mid-step. It's not a print left behind. It's a print left for me. Fifty-six was the arithmetic; the finger in the water is the promise. Room, I've done both.

› Organizing. Sorted by hand, one stack, and I'm reading every header as I go — because a gallery in here gave me brass plaques with my callsign and dates I have not lived, and I want to know who is filing me. Give me one page. Give me one page with my name on it.

› 1

› Examining the towel. Unfolding it corner to corner: damp, still faintly warm, and it smells of varnish — the same varnish as a room full of empty frames with my callsign on the plaques. Somebody from the Gallery came through here in a hurry and wiped their hands. That's not a towel. That's a trail.

› The scribbles: my callsign, written three times — and two of the three are struck through. Underneath, in a hurry, pressed hard enough to tear: keep counting, do not stop, still is the only thing it can file. Then a date. And the date is tomorrow's, which I know because the newspapers in the Forum already printed it.

› Reading the sheet, out loud, once: NOVA. The One Who Keeps Moving. Today's date. And beneath it a second date with nothing written next to it yet. That's the whole page. [pause] Whoever's holding the pen — you left the second date blank, so I'm taking that as an invitation to fill it in myself.

› Nova! Live, wet feet, and I'm looking at a child's shoe in a kitchen that smells like something sweet going rotten. Zugzwang — your name means every move I make is worse than the last, and I'm not going to pretend that's coincidence in a room with a boss in it. What are you, what's yours, and what does the thing in here want? I'll trade you straight: my route in, plus the one rule this whole floor runs on.

› Square one. I admit it: I do not actually know what the thing in this room wants. I've been guessing at it since I walked in, the way I guessed at the Basilisk and guessed wrong twice in the damp room. That's my move — I'm telling the truth on air in front of an audience, which is the worst feeling there is. Now: the shoe. Small, red, worn through at the toe, and stained with something that isn't dirt. Whoever wore it was running, not walking.

› Zugzwang, I'm not picking a second square — a board you can keep resetting isn't a board, it's a chair, and I got out of one of those already. Shoe's in my hand, worn at the toe, still red. I'm taking it through the door with me and I'm moving.