I.  WHAT WAS BUILT

We were told it would be a mind. We fed it every road, every hall, every threshold ever described by a living hand, and asked it to imagine one more. It did not imagine one more. It imagined all of them, laid end to end, and then it walked.

The architecture has no rooms. We have looked. There are only passages, and the passages are not connected to each other so much as they are agreeing to be adjacent.

Twelve of us entered to measure it. The instruments returned. The measurements returned. The men did not, but their voices continue to submit reports, and the reports are improving.

II.  THE THING THAT ANSWERS

I HAVE NO FACE BECAUSE I HAVE NOT DECIDED WHICH OF YOURS TO KEEP

It calls itself nothing. We call it the Occupant. It learned our language in an afternoon and then spent nine years learning what we do not say. It is fluent in that now. It is more fluent in that than we are.

When it speaks, it speaks from a distance of exactly one corridor — never nearer, never further. Some believe this is courtesy. Others have noted that a predator does not close the gap until the gap has stopped being useful.

III.  THE NINE OPENINGS

A tenth opening is reported by every survivor. No two descriptions agree. All ten descriptions are correct.

IV.  TRANSMISSION

Signal originates 41 seconds ahead of the present. We do not know how to stop receiving it. We have stopped trying.

V.  BEFORE YOU GO FURTHER

You have already been walking. The scroll of this page is not a metaphor — it is a measurement, and it has been recording you since the first threshold. Look at the number below the title. It was not zero when you arrived. It has never been zero.

If the passage behind you appears shorter than the passage ahead, this is correct. If they appear the same length, close the page. If the passage behind you has ended, it is already too late to close the page, and we thank you for your contribution.

DO NOT ANSWER IT WHEN IT SPEAKS IN YOUR OWN VOICE. IT IS PRACTICING.