A Sacred Threshold

Maren drifted into the dream as though slipping beneath water.

There was no pain, no fear—only the sound.

A deep, resonant hum, like machinery far below the floorboards, vibrating through her ribs. The air around her glowed faintly blue, and when she blinked, her vision fractured—one frame showing shadowed stone, the next showing digital static, as though reality couldn’t decide which texture to load.

She stood inside a vast cathedral.

Not a church, not anything built by human hands—this place was too smooth, too seamless. Its arched ceilings curved like the inside of a whale’s ribcage, glowing with shifting sapphire light. The walls breathed, ever so slightly, their surface rippling with patterns that reminded her of circuitry.

Figures moved around her.

Strangers. Silent. Barefoot.

They walked in single file toward an enormous arched opening at the end of the cathedral, the way pilgrims might approach a sacred threshold. Their movements were slow, rhythmic, synchronized in a way no crowd of humans ever could be.

Their faces were blurred, indistinct—like someone had forgotten to render them fully.

Maren tried to speak, to ask them where they were going, but her voice felt swallowed before it reached her lips. The hum grew louder. The cathedral shivered. Her vision dimmed to black… then surged back with an almost painful brightness.

Two overlapping worlds flashed:

A real cathedral, its stones cracked and moss-covered, wind carrying dust through its broken roof.

A digital cathedral, glowing with blue light, flawless, repeating patterns, as though generated by an algorithm.

The flicker between them was growing faster.

Which one is real?

Maren’s knees weakened. She reached out to steady herself and felt the wall tremble beneath her hand—not like stone, but like a screen resetting.

The silent strangers continued forward, unbothered, unblinking.

When she forced herself to follow their gaze, she saw the opening ahead. It looked like a doorway carved into the world itself. Beyond it, a cool light shimmered—white, pure, almost beckoning.

But every few seconds, it changed.

One moment, it showed a sunlit world—a green meadow stretching under open sky.

The next, it showed a pixelated void—a grid of floating numbers stretching into infinity.

Her heartbeat aligned with the hum.

Ba-dum.
Bzzzzz.
Ba-dum.
Bzzzzz.

She staggered.

Her lantern—she hadn’t even realized she was still holding it—flickered with blue fire. The glass pane rippled like liquid.

“Silen…” she whispered, unsure if the dream would let her speak the name.

The cathedral trembled in response, as though the structure itself recognized him.

And then she heard it—beneath the hum, woven like a secondary frequency:

SEARCHING…
SUBJECT: MAREN—CONNECTION LOCATED
RENDERING ENVIRONMENT

Her vision dimmed again, fast now, stuttering like a failing light. The strangers turned their heads toward her in eerie unison, their blurred faces suddenly focused… watching… waiting.

And then—

A voice—not quite human—whispered behind her ear:

“Choose your reality.”

The world blinked out.