The corridor returned us without protest.
No resistance.
No warning.
That should have reassured me.
It didn't.
Reality felt… off. Not broken. Not distorted. Just slightly misaligned, like a picture frame hanging a fraction too low. The kind of thing you don't notice until someone points it out—and then you can't stop seeing it.
My companion slowed beside me. "Do you feel that?"
"Yes."
The key in my pocket was cold again.
Not dormant.
Withdrawing.
We stepped through the exit, back into what should have been the ordinary world. The city greeted us with its familiar sounds—distant traffic, murmured conversations, footsteps against pavement.
Everything looked normal.
That was the problem.
A man crossed the street ahead of us. Halfway across, he hesitated. Looked down at the ground as if searching for something he'd dropped.
Then he continued walking.
But the hesitation lingered in the air, like an echo.
"That wasn't an anomaly," my companion said. "Was it?"
"No," I replied slowly. "It was… almost one."
We moved on.
A woman stood outside a café, staring at the door as though she'd forgotten why she came. She shook her head, laughed quietly at herself, and walked away.
Again—that hesitation.
Noticing was becoming easier.
Too easy.
"It's spreading," I murmured.
She glanced at me sharply. "Because you didn't open the door."
The realization settled heavily in my chest.
The divergence the voice had mentioned hadn't vanished.
It had leaked.
Anamnex wasn't forcing a choice.
It was showing me the cost of delay.
We reached an intersection where the traffic light flickered—not red to green, but green to green again. No one reacted. Cars waited anyway, uncertain.
Seconds passed too long.
Then the light corrected itself.
People moved on.
But something had shifted.
"This isn't collapse," my companion said quietly. "It's instability."
I nodded. "Unresolved possibilities brushing against reality."
She looked at me. "How many of those can the world handle?"
Before I could answer, the voice returned—fainter than before, stretched thin across distance.
"Deferred choices create residue."
I stopped walking.
"So this is because of me."
"Yes."
No judgment. No accusation.
Just fact.
"You said choice remains," I said. "You didn't say waiting would hurt anyone."
"Waiting is also a choice," the voice replied.
The city around us seemed to breathe—subtly, uneasily. People moved through their routines, unaware of the fine cracks threading through their moments of hesitation.
None of it was dramatic.
That was what frightened me most.
This wasn't destruction.
It was erosion.
My companion exhaled slowly. "If this continues, people won't copy anything dangerous. They won't even know something's wrong."
"That makes it worse," I said. "Because no one will know what to fix."
The key warmed slightly.
Not approval.
A reminder.
Somewhere, far from here, the door waited.
Unopened.
Watching.
And now I understood the truth Anamnex had been circling around since the beginning.
Not choosing didn't preserve the world.
It slowly unbalanced it.
I clenched my fist. "Next time I see that door," I said, "I won't walk away."
My companion met my gaze. "Then we prepare. Together."
The voice lingered one last moment.
"Acknowledged."
Then it was gone.
The city resumed its rhythm—but I could still see the pauses, the almost-moments, the near-mistakes.
Reality wasn't breaking yet.
But it was waiting for me to decide how it would bend.