The blue light was not leading him to the stairs this time.
He left his old room, and found himself in a long corridor, white as well, but its doors were many, extending on both sides without a clear end. Each door looked exactly like the other, no numbers, no signs, only light wood and cold metal handles.
He stopped in the middle, looking right then left.
"Okay," he said, and his voice echoed in the empty corridor in a way that bothered him. "This is not promising."
He walked toward the nearest door, put his hand on the handle, then stopped. He did not know what awaited him behind it, and his enthusiasm was not of the kind that makes him open every door without thinking after what he saw in the previous room.
He opened it anyway.
A classroom, empty seats except for one in the middle, sitting on it a boy about twelve years old, staring at a notebook in front of him without writing anything. He recognized him immediately. Himself, at a younger age, before the accident.
He did not enter. He stood at the threshold watching.
The boy raised his head suddenly, and looked directly at Loki, as if he sees him even though this makes no sense.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" the boy asked, in a childish voice that does not resemble any voice that came out of Loki’s mouth for a long time.
Loki did not answer immediately. "I do not know," he said finally, honest to a degree that surprised him.
"You will save her, right?" the boy asked, and the notebook in front of him suddenly became empty of any writing that was on it. "The truck. You will save her anyway."
"I know what will happen," Loki said with more sharpness than he intended. "I do not need someone to remind me."
The boy laughed, a laugh that does not suit his apparent age. "I will not remind you of something you do not know. I will only ask you: would you do it again?"
The question was not innocent as it seemed. Loki closed the door without answering.
He stood in the corridor breathing a little heavily, as if answering a question he did not say was heavier than any fight he had fought until now.
He opened another door.
This time it was a living room, similar to their old living room but with a slightly different arrangement, as if the memory was no longer completely sure of the details. His sister sitting on the floor, older than she was in his last memory, maybe older by two or three years, playing with a toy he did not recognize.
He approached her cautiously. She did not raise her head.
"Hello," he said.
She did not answer. She continued playing, as if he did not exist at all.
He sat in front of her on the floor, at a distance he left intentionally. "You do not remember me, do you?"
She continued playing.
He extended his hand slowly, not to touch her, only to see if she would interact with the movement. She did not. His hand passed through the air beside her, and she did not look at him.
He sat there for a long minute, doing nothing, until he felt something strange in his chest, a tightness he did not know exactly how to name, it was not pure sadness, nor pure anger, something between them with no clear name.
He finally stood up, and left, and closed the door.
The corridor seemed longer than before, or perhaps he was the one who began to feel tired from the many doors. He sat on the floor for a minute, his back to one of the walls, and took out his waterskin which was now completely empty, drank an imaginary sip more out of habit than need, then remembered it was empty and put it aside.
"How many doors are left?" he asked the corridor, without expecting an answer.
No answer came. As usual.
He opened a third door, this time without much thinking, because he began to feel that long thinking does not change anything in the nature of what awaits him behind each door.
It was the doctor’s room. A man in a white coat, standing next to an X ray image hanging on a bright screen, doing his analysis.
"The injury is final," the doctor said, to an invisible person in the room. "No chance of recovery, no matter how long."
Loki stood at the door, watching his old face reflected in the glass of the bright screen. He did not scream when he heard the news, did not cry. He only remembered how his features froze at that exact moment, and how he pressed his lips until they turned white, pretending indifference while he was collapsing inside.
He closed the door quietly this time, not violently as he did with the previous ones.
He sat on the floor again, this time for a longer period. He did not open another door for some time, just sat, looking at the doors lined up in front of him.
"They are not random," he said to himself finally, in a low voice, then fell silent while looking at the white extension.
He finally stood up, and opened a fourth door, different from the rest this time.
It was not a room. It was a kitchen, and his mother standing in front of the stove, her back to him, moving a spoon in a pot that emits no smell, as if this illusion did not bother to add sensory details to a scene it does not consider important.
"Mother?"
She turned slowly. Her face was not angry or sad, just empty, more like a mask trying to imitate a mother’s features without understanding how a mother really looks.
"You are here again," she said, in the same cold tone.
"I am not returning," Loki said, and felt a sudden anger seeping into his voice. "You are the one who appears, in every door, in every"
"Go back to your bed, Loki," she interrupted him, and smiled a short smile that does not reach her eyes. "You only tire us with this running."
The speech stopped in his throat.
"Do you hate me?" she asked him suddenly, and the spoon still in her hand, moving the empty pot with an automatic slowness.
He thought about the question for long seconds, longer than he expected to need. "I do not know," he said finally. "I think I... stopped thinking about it a long time ago."
"This is much easier," she said, calmly like a passing observation before turning her back toward the stove.
He closed the door with his hand slightly trembling this time, and leaned his back against it from outside, breathing with a difficulty that did not suit a conversation that did not include any real physical effort.
He remained there for long minutes.
When he opened his eyes, he noticed something he had not noticed before. The doors were not all identical as they seemed at first. Some were slightly narrower, some with a slightly darker color by a barely noticeable degree. He did not understand if this was important, or just a meaningless detail in a place that seems to be creating itself as he walks in it.
He tried a door slightly darker than the rest.
Behind it, it was not exactly a memory. It was a completely empty room, without furniture, without windows, and in its middle three empty chairs, arranged as if waiting to be sat on.
He stood at the threshold, not sure if he should enter.
He did not feel pressure pushing him inside this time, nor a voice calling him. Only the silence of the empty room, and its three empty chairs, waiting.
He closed the door without entering, feeling he was not ready for what this scene means yet, even though he was not exactly sure what it means at all.
He walked away from the doors, to the end of the corridor that did not exist a short while ago, or perhaps it did and he did not notice it. A white wall, without a door, without anything.
He leaned against it, and slid to sit on the floor.
"I just want to get out," he said in a tired voice, not addressing anyone in particular. "I do not need to understand everything now."
Nothing happened. No new door appeared, no voice answered him.
He sat there, his head between his knees for a minute, then raised it and looked at the row of doors extending in front of him again.
He thought of the three empty chairs, and felt something like cold certainty forming somewhere deep inside him, something he was not yet ready to name out loud, but it was there, waiting, like those chairs, with a patience that does not resemble his patience at all.
He finally stood up, and walked toward a new door, any door, just to get away from the idea of the chairs before it completes in his head.