A Step Through the Wall
He didn’t know how he had ended up there. The room was dark, almost velvety, filled with muted light and whispered voices coming from speakers he couldn’t see. In front of him stretched the rows of a movie theater, empty except for a handful of people staring motionlessly into the silence. A young woman stood beside him. She wore a simple black dress that barely moved as she walked. Her hair was long and shone like polished stone. Her voice was calm, almost kind, as she said she was the devil. Not as one imagines him, she added with a smile. No fire, no horns. Just judgment. And that it was time to show his life.
He wanted to say something, but his voice felt distant, like muffled through cotton. She led him closer to the screen, where vague shapes were already beginning to move. Images that concerned him. Before they became clear, he asked, “Where am I going? Heaven or hell?”
“Hell,” she replied without hesitation.
Something in him resisted. Not loudly, not visibly, but firmly. As he passed the wall, he noticed a thin line. A hatch. He opened it and stepped through.
What lay beyond was no shadow, no flame, no judgment. It was a vast lobby. Bright light flooded through windows reaching up to the ceiling. People moved calmly and evenly, dressed in perfectly pressed clothing. The furniture looked expensive, the atmosphere almost luxurious. On his wrist he noticed a red wristband. Everyone else wore blue. He lowered his arm and slipped through the crowd. No one stopped him. No one truly looked at him. A small restaurant opened off the lobby, inconspicuous, lit with a warm glow. He entered. The air smelled of spices and a hint of vanilla. He knew he had no money. He also didn’t know whether he was allowed to be here at all. But the devil had not followed him. And that alone was reason enough to stay.
He sat down at the bar, said nothing, listened. The bartender seemed like someone who worked here but wasn’t free. When he disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, his wallet remained. Without much thought, he reached for it. After that, everything changed.
He left the restaurant. No one stood in his way. The lobby too had changed—or perhaps he had simply never really seen it before. Suddenly there was an exit. No gate, no alarm. Just an open door.
He stepped outside. And found himself in a world larger than anything he had ever imagined. The sky was clear, crisscrossed with gliding ships the size of cities. The buildings looked like they came from another time. A future no one had planned, but which had simply grown. To the left, past the building, a path led onward, lined with strange plants that seemed to breathe only lightly in the wind. There he saw a woman. Friendly, alert, just as foreign. They exchanged a few words. The woman said she had escaped too. Through a side door, not the main entrance.
Together they set off. A boat waited at the water’s edge. No ticket, no schedule. They simply boarded. The city came closer. Not loud, not chaotic, but like a place that knows it is being watched. Bridges stretched across waterways, houses rose in living shapes, as if grown rather than built. People moved with purpose, as if they belonged. The two did their best not to stand out.
Near a plaza, they found a terminal. A sign pointed to an office that offered housing. A new beginning, perhaps?
Then he woke up. And the film he never wanted to see was, for a moment, forgotten.
