I had been driving all day, chasing the horizon. The road was endless, a ribbon of asphalt twisting through a landscape that felt suspended in time. The trees leaned in close, their branches clawing at the grey sky. My car stuttered once, twice, then gave up entirely.

I stepped out. The world was still. An occasional flutter of birds broke the silence. Then, a faint hum of an engine in the distance.

She arrived suddenly, like a tear in the fabric of the moment—riding a black motorbike. Her red leather jacket shone against the evening’s muted tones, catching the light in flashes as she stopped before me.

“Lost?” she asked, tilting her head ever so slightly. Her eyes, partially obscured by the shadows cast on her helmet’s face shield, held a quiet intensity that made it hard to look away.

“My car’s dead,” I replied throwing a wistful look at the car. “And there’s no signal.”

She nodded, as though that explained everything. “The village isn’t far,” she said. “I’ll take you there.”

She didn’t wait for my reply, just shifted slightly indicating I should climb on behind her.

The motorbike roared to life, and we sped off, the wind tearing at my face. The road funnelled into a canopy of trees, their shapes elongating and warping in the blur of our swift passage.Time unraveled. I couldn’t tell if we’d been riding for minutes or hours when the landscape opened up.

Below us lay a village, its crooked rooftops and narrow streets clinging to the base of a hill. And at the top of that hill stood a house—a strange, fluid shape that seemed to move even as it stood still.

The house defied reason. Its three stories twisted and coiled as they’d been shaped by hands too impatient for straight lines. Metal and glass swept in curves, the façade reflecting the bruised sky in fragments. It felt alive, almost breathing in rhythm with the nature around it.

She stopped the bike at the edge of the village and turned to me. Her jacket glowed faintly in the dim light, as if it held some inner fire.

“I’m sure someone in the village can help you fix your car,” she said.

“Thanks. Sorry… but what’s that house up on the hill?” I asked, nodding toward the strange silhouette.

“The three-story house,” she replied, as if that explained everything, and before I could ask anything more, she started the engine and disappeared into the woods.

I wandered through the village streets, my eyes scanning the crooked signs and shuttered windows. I was looking for a garage, but my thoughts kept circling back to the house on the hill. Its outline stood sharp against the darkening sky, like a beacon—or perhaps a warning.
I tried to push the thought aside, but my feet carried me up the hill, pulled by an unseen force. Within minutes, I stood before the front door.
The house was well-lit, its windows casting a warm, golden glow. It didn’t feel abandoned, but neither did it feel lived in. I hesitated, the weight of unspoken questions keeping me rooted in place.

Was it a museum waiting for visitors? A piece of avant-garde architecture? Or something more utilitarian—a research facility, maybe? A laboratory of some kind?
And then there was the darker thought I couldn’t shake: was it someone’s private home? Was I trespassing, or worse, walking into something I shouldn’t?
For a moment, I almost turned back. But the house seemed to be waiting, its silence heavy and expectant. One last flicker of doubt crossed my mind, then I reached for the handle.

Ground floor

The door handled was cold under my hand, a smooth curve of metal that opened with a hiss. I stepped inside and felt the world shift.

The ground floor was a cavernous space of polished stone and glass, the walls lined with niches that seemed to hold fragments of life — a Roman vase, a pair of running shoes, a model spaceship— each bathed in its own pale light. I didn’t dare touch anything. Yet, as I stood there, an unexplainable connection coursed through me, something primal and elemental.

I moved cautiously to the second room of the floor: the library. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, crammed with books of every size and color. At the center of the room stood an armchair, its design old-world and inviting, paired incongruously with a plant crafted from living coral, delicate yet unyielding. A great glass window arced across one wall, framing the world outside as though it were a painting. The hills, the road—all of it was there, yet it seemed somehow distant, unreal.

Ahead of me a staircase spiralled upward, pulling me inexorably toward the first floor.

First floor

The air here was warmer, heavier. The walls were a patchwork of irregular metal sheets and mirror, bending and folding in ways that made the space impossible to map. Reflections fractured and reformed as I moved, glimpses of myself emerging from impossible angles.

Exhaustion weighed on me, and before I realised it, I had drifted into a hazy, dreamlike state, where reality blurred and my mind wandered freely.

I saw myself running through the rain, laughing. I saw myself alone in an empty room, staring at a clock that had stopped ticking. I saw myself at school. I saw myself dancing in the dark.

The whispers began as I reached the center of the room, faint voices overlapping, too many to follow but all achingly familiar. They spoke of choices not made, roads not taken, faces I’d forgotten but still somehow knew.

Attic

The final staircase felt endless, a ribbon of steel twisting into the sky. I started to climb, my legs burning, the air thinning with each step. When I reached the top, I stepped into a space that wasn’t a room at all.

The walls were gone, replaced by vast panes of glass that reached into the void. Above me, the stars blazed in impossible clarity, closer than I’d ever felt. On one side of the ceiling, the panels aligned to form a cross. As I stared at it, I realised it pointed toward the constellation Scorpius. It stirred a memory—a particular Saturday morning in November when my life reset, and everything began anew.

Below, the world fell away, folding into itself like an origami of earth and sky.

The house breathed around me, its rhythm matching my own. Time dissolved. I stood at the edge of something I couldn’t name, suspended between the infinite and the intimate.

I couldn’t tell how long I stayed there, watching the stars shift and swirl like ink in water.
I only knew that the house was holding me in place, as if it had paused time itself—just long enough for me to sense the vast, uncharted dimensions of my own existence, layers I had never imagined were there. For the first time, I felt the depth, the hidden folds of my life, and the echoes of possibilities I’d never dared to explore.

And then I found myself walking back down the hill towards the village, though I don’t remember leaving the house.

I stumbled upon the garage by chance. A man with a blue van drove me to my car and quietly fixed it.

I turned the key. The engine hummed to life.

The road stretched ahead of me, endless once more.