Clark tried to catch his breath, then lifted his eyes to the wall clock and saw that the hands pointed to eight in the morning, while Max was still sunk in a deep sleep.
He sat on the edge of his bed for a moment, as though trying to shake the remnants of that strange dream from his head and gather up the silence that had been disturbed inside him.
Outside, the rain had stopped, and thin shafts of sunlight slipped timidly through the clouds, as if the night that had passed had left behind nothing worth remembering.
At the Grand University of New York, Guanda was seated in the lecture hall among the other students as Professor Nicholas began his new lecture.
Her attention never wavered.
Her eyes followed him without interruption, as though she were ready to catch every word before it could vanish into the air of the room.
In front of them stood a simple wooden door ordinary at a glance, unremarkable in every visible way, giving no hint that it deserved a second look.
Then, suddenly, one of the students rushed into the hall, and Nicholas stopped him with a calm smile.
“Take it easy, man.
What’s the rush?” he said.
“Come on, you’ll be my assistant today while I give the lecture, John.”
John nodded eagerly, then stepped up onto the platform and took his place in front of the door, while the rest of the students settled into their seats and their gazes slowly began to drift toward him.
Nicholas took the microphone and said, “All right, everyone.
Today’s lecture is fairly simple.
We’ll be talking about wormhole theory, but I’ll explain it today through John alone, so I hope you’ll stay focused with me.”
The hall fell strikingly quiet, and every eye turned toward the door.
Guanda thought to herself, “Wormhole theory…
I’ve heard of it before, but I never studied it in detail.”
Nicholas looked at John, then pointed to the door and said, “At first glance, you’d think it’s just an ordinary door, wouldn’t you?
A brass handle, oak panels, and hinges that give off that irritating squeak.”
He paused for a moment, then a faint smile appeared on his face.
“But what if I told you physics doesn’t recognize the word ‘ordinary’ quite so easily?”
John smiled.
“You’ve surprised me, Professor Nicholas.
Since when has anything you say been ordinary?”
Nicholas gave a low laugh, then continued.
“Listen to me, John.
Physicists call the idea I’m about to explain today an Einstein-Rosen bridge, or what we more simply know as a wormhole.”
He pointed to the door again.
“According to the theoretical model, spacetime can bend in a way that creates a shortcut between two extremely distant regions.
Scientifically speaking, spacetime itself is a structure capable of curvature and distortion.
This door is not merely wood; it is, under this assumption, a wormhole that has folded spacetime’s structure in order to connect two separate regions of the universe and perhaps even our universe to an entirely different one.”
Some of the students widened their eyes, while John remained standing in front of the door as though waiting for something only he could see.
Then he smirked, reached for the handle, opened the door, closed it, and opened it again.
Nicholas raised an eyebrow.
“Mocking me, are you?”
John smiled.
“Not at all, Professor Nicholas.
But where’s the other dimension?
I was hoping to jump into a more interesting universe than this boring one.”
A few soft laughs rippled through the room.
Nicholas smiled, though he did not laugh this time.
“And that,” he said, “is where the problem begins.”
The laughter gradually faded.
He went on, “Theoretically speaking, wormholes are not magical portals we can open and close whenever we please.
If they exist at all, they are expected to be highly unstable and may collapse before anything can pass through them.”
He glanced at the door once more.
“So if we assume this door truly represents a stable wormhole…
then there must be something preserving its structure and preventing it from collapsing.”
He paused, then added, “Negative energy…
exotic matter…”
Then he smiled, trying to continue the joke the students had started.
“Or some other entity…
one whose very existence we don’t even know how to explain.”
Laughter rose again in the hall, before one of the students, a boy named Jeff, said, “An entity?
Ha!
Great joke, Professor.
If I ever found a being like that, I’d put a bullet right through its head and call it a day.”
Nicholas laughed, then said in the same teasing tone, “Not that easy, Jeff.
An entity of that kind, at worst, might be capable of…”
He stopped for a moment, then let a strange smile part his lips.
“Destroying this galaxy.”
Silence hung in the hall for a few brief seconds, only to be shattered almost immediately under another wave of laughter, as though the students had decided his words were not worth taking seriously.
…
After the lecture ended, Guanda left the hall with her notebook in her hands.
She had written down the most important points Nicholas mentioned, especially those concerning wormholes and their stability.
She slipped the notebook into her bag, then took out her phone and sent White and Nerv a message:
“When you go to Clark’s house this afternoon, can you stop by and pick me up on the way?”
She closed her phone, then prepared to head home.
She took a taxi back to her place and sat by the window, watching the wet streets slide past the glass, cold and quiet in a way that made the night seem like nothing more than a passing dream.
After a while, she took her notebook from her bag and opened it to a blank page.
She began sketching the door Professor Nicholas had spoken about, trying to trap in lines the details that still clung to her memory, then wrote a few neat notes beneath the drawing in her orderly handwriting.
She stared at the page for a moment, then whispered, “This is incredibly strange…”
She ran a finger along the edge of the paper, then added with a dreamy smile, “How I wish the world were a little more magical…
or something like that, instead of matter and its laws controlling everything.”
She closed the notebook slightly, then looked out of the window and said, “In the end, I fully believe in ghosts and strange phenomena…
at least.”
Suddenly, Guanda sneezed.
“Achoo!”
And in the blink of an eye, she caught sight of the door.
It was not entirely clear, as though it had reflected for an instant on a glass surface and then vanished, yet Guanda was still able to distinguish strange geometric symbols across its face—precise beyond measure.
She blinked several times, but there was nothing there.
The taxi driver glanced at her in the mirror and said, “Bless you.”
Guanda remained silent for a few moments, staring into the empty space where the door had appeared, her brow furrowed in pure confusion.
She was certain she had seen it.
But she could not find any logical explanation for what had happened.
At last, she smiled and shook her head inwardly.
“Looks like staying up too late and not getting enough sleep really got to me…
haha.”
She closed her notebook, not knowing that what she had seen was no illusion after all.
That was the material world: the world of planets and galaxies, of matter and energy, of time and space, governed by the physical laws humanity had known for centuries.
It was not a fantasy world, nor a distorted version of reality, but one that matched their real world exactly—from quantum mechanics and relativity to gravity and electromagnetism, and every law governing the smallest particles and the greatest galaxies.
Everything in it was as it should be…
down to the last atom.
Elsewhere, Ben was running through the streets as he always did each morning, trying to shake off the heaviness of a long night and recover his energy.
There was unmistakable cheer on his face.
He even smiled to himself and said, “I ordered seven meals from McDonald’s on my own tab!
When we get together at Clark’s place, it’s going to be an amazing night.”
He quickened his pace, then added with enthusiasm, “And at least we’ll forget life’s worries for a while and ease a little of this burden off each other.”
Then he slowed for a moment, before deciding to call Clark to check on him and ask how he was doing.
He took out his phone and called.
No answer.
He waited a few seconds, then called again.
The signal was fine, the phone rang normally, but Clark still did not pick up.
The ringing went on for a long time, with no answer coming through.
Ben frowned in confusion and stared at his screen for several moments.
“Strange…”
There was nothing to worry about, and yet he felt uneasy, as though Clark’s silence this time was not something that could be brushed aside.
Before he could call again, he spotted a taxi stopping on the other side of the street.
Guanda stepped out of it, and Ben turned toward her, slipped his phone into his pocket, and walked over.
He shook her hand, then took out some cash and paid the taxi driver without Guanda noticing what he had done.
Guanda took out her own money, ready to pay the fare, but the driver shook his head and said, “No need.
That young man already paid.”
Guanda looked toward Ben in surprise as the taxi drove away.
She smiled at him and said, “Thank you.
That was very considerate of you.
I’ll pay you back later, don’t worry.”
Ben smiled.
“No problem at all.”
But she noticed that his smile did not last long, and that the look of irritation had returned to his face.
She furrowed her brows and asked him, and Ben sighed before saying, “I don’t know…
but Clark hasn’t answered my calls for a while.
I’m afraid something may have happened to him.”
Guanda’s expression changed at once.
“Clark?
I tried messaging him earlier too, but he didn’t reply to my texts.”
The two exchanged a brief look.
This time, it no longer felt normal.
“Then let’s go to his place and make sure he’s all right.”
Guanda nodded, then took out her phone and called White and Nerv, asking them to come immediately.
“Come to my place now…
something’s wrong.
No one can reach Clark.
We’re afraid something may have happened to him.”