The silence in the archives was like a graveyard; I could easily hear a pin drop. The air felt heavy and smelled of dust and metal from Mara's blood.
I looked at the book Mara held. My name, Ethan Thorne, was boldly written on it.
I reached out to grab it, but my hands flickered. I couldn't grasp it. The situation was getting worse. I could see the floorboards through my palm.
"Don't touch it yet," Mara said sharply, pulling the book away.
"You're not stable. If you touch your Record while you're flickering, you'll erase yourself. You'll disappear, and the fake Ethan in your apartment will be the only one left."
"How do I stop it?" I whispered.
The cold from the floor was creeping into my chest.
"You called me a 'Blank.' What does that mean?"
Mara sighed and leaned against a filing cabinet. It whispered when she touched it.
"Most people are 'Solid.' They have things that ground them, like family, jobs, and memories. But some people drift. They live on the edges."
"You were already fading before the Room found you, Ethan. That's why you could see the door. That's why the fake you chose you."
She was right.
I thought about my life in London. I hated my job. I hadn't called my friends in months.
I walked through the city like a ghost, even when I was 'alive.'
I had been a Blank long before I found Apartment 404.
"To stop the disappearing," Mara said, pulling a small silver needle from her belt,
"you have to bleed for it. You have to show the Marrow that you still matter."
"With a needle?" I asked.
"No. With a Binding," she corrected.
She grabbed my flickering hand. Her grip felt like ice.
"This will hurt. A lot."
She pushed the needle into the center of my palm.
I couldn't scream. The sound stuck in my throat.
Hot lightning shot up my arm. Everything turned white.
For a moment, I wasn't in the Archive.
I was in my third-grade classroom, then at my mom's funeral, then at the coffee shop from yesterday.
My memories weren't just thoughts anymore. They felt heavy, like real things I could hold.
"Don't let go!" Mara shouted through the static.
"The Marrow wants to take your memories. If you lose them, the book will be permanently blank!"
I gritted my teeth.
I reached into my mind. I held my mom's voice. I held the rain on my face.
I held the anger from seeing that gold-eyed thing in my kitchen.
I forced those memories into my palm, like pushing a nail into furniture.
Then the static stopped.
I gasped and fell to my knees.
I looked at my hand. The skin was solid again. A glowing scar shaped like a key sat in my palm.
"You did it," Mara whispered, sounding impressed.
"You're a Stabilized Blank. You're still a ghost, but now you have a weapon."
A loud noise came from the heavy Archive door. Something was hitting it.
This time, it wasn't the mindless scratching from before; these knocks were hard and steady.
It was a different kind of sound.
BOOM.
"Mara," I said. My voice sounded solid now.
"Kael is still out there."
"Kael can handle himself," she said, watching the door.
"The fake you is not just a shadow anymore. He sent something else. A Hunter."
Suddenly, a heavy sound came from the door.
It didn't just break; it exploded.
But no monster came through the dust.
It was a man in a sharp grey suit. He looked like a lawyer, except his skin was bruised purple, and his briefcase was made of bone.
"Ethan Thorne," the man said, giving a small bow.
"My client likes your apartment. But he thinks your being alive is a big mess."
The Hunter opened the briefcase, and black metal bugs poured out.
Their wings buzzed so loudly that it hurt my ears.
"Run," Mara whispered, lifting her flare gun.
"If they touch you, they'll rip your soul apart."
I ignored it.
I didn't run.
Not this time.
The glowing key in my palm felt hot.
I realized that as a Blank, the rules here were different for me.
If this world wasn't real, maybe I could change it.
I hit my palm against the floor.
"The Room isn't real!" I shouted.
Then, the floor exploded and transformed.
Wood turned into sharp glass spikes.
They shot up and pierced the bugs.
The Hunter stared.
"A Shaper?" the Hunter hissed.
"You didn't say he was a Shaper!"
"I'm the guy whose life you tried to steal," I said.
Power from the Marrow rushed through me.
"And I want my keys back."