Grey.

Where did all the grey come from? One moment I was falling into a reality-sundering beam of light, feeling like my self was being ripped into tiny shreds, the next I see grey walls, grey floors - the light was grey too, but a very pale one. It was like the illumination wasn't actually light, just a more white overlay over the rest. How strange.

I took a step, and something moved against my hands, which I now realized held something - oh!

"Raven, are you alright?"

Naturally, the response wasn't verbal, but the bird still managed to nip my thumb enough that I let her go, at which point she fluttered onto my shoulder. Her feathers were very colorless, same as my hands, I noticed. She gripped onto my shoulder more tightly than usual, and her eyes darting all around.

My entire form was just shades of grey too, completely monochrome.

Weird.

***

I wandered away from the sealed, opaque door I found myself at, and through the opposite side of this "foyer" room, passing by a couple of empty benches and blank notice boards, entering into a hallway. It was small, and didn't hold many doors - perhaps four on each side, plus two on each end; the one opposite me was made of metal, though.

Where's Erci?

I searched for the mirror shard in my jacket, finding it quickly - only to see that it was non-transparent, just like the door. I still tried to whisper into it, receiving no response. Not sure why I was whispering.

One by one, I tried the doors - all of them offices, in a state of abandonment. Some looked like the occupant just stepped out for a coffee, others were empty save for cardboard boxes with an illegible script on them. Crouching down, I tried to make out the words, but it was of no use. The letters were curly, long symbols, and I couldn’t make out any sort of pattern or repeating letters. Just a jumble of incomprehension.

The signs by the doors were similar, being laid out like ordinary office name plaques, but holding the same incomprehensible language. There were images beside the signs, too, and those made the entire thing even more bizarre.

One had a realistic photograph of a lightning storm. The other held a stylized cartoon image of fire. Yet another was just an image of the same strange lettering from before. A floating tree. A set of gears.

As my hand hovered over the second-to-last door handle (the last was the strange metal door), this one’s sign holding a penrose triangle, I hesitated, not sure why.

A second later, I felt rather than heard it, like when someone's looking at you from behind - there was someone in there. I squatted down on my knees, ear to the keyhole, and heard... not what I expected to. There was a shuffling of paper, not speech, or breathing, or the crackle of electricity, just... paper.

I knocked on the door. The shuffling stopped.

The room was just silent now. Maybe I shouldn't have done that - Raven looks at me in an accusing way. Was I supposed to wait here for all eternity, you... you bird? I matched her stare with a quirked eyebrow.

Suddenly, a sound from within, like a key turning inside a lock. Another. Yet another. Seven clicks later, and the knob turns. The door opens.

***

Before me, I saw an office, like all the others, except for all the paper strewn within - but that's all. No human, or shuffling horror, or Erci, just... nothing, except for paper. And boxes.

I took a look at one of the papers, and it, too, was written in the same illegible script. Bugger.

Hesitantly taking a step forward, I scoured the office, looking into every corner, behind the desk, the slowly spinning chair, and the door.

Nothing.

The table was surprisingly organized, with three stacks of paper neatly in its center, as well as large desk lamps over two of them. The third wasn't illuminated, but it seemed to be fine - the other two were a bit singed on the edges, and one of them had a small, spinning symbol floating over it. It didn't look like any of the writing, more like an angular C with a dot in the middle.

I moved over to the desk, my hand reaching out to touch the floating symbol-

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." said a voice like shifting paper.

I froze.

The paper on the ground began to move, drawing itself across the ground and fluttering through the air in an unfelt wind, accumulating at a point behind me. I drew my sword, the motion practised by many hours of sitting next to the campfire. I may not be able to strike true, but at least I don't cut myself. Erci didn't understand why I insisted on having the sword strapped to my back, though, and my video game references didn't work on him.

Nonetheless, I held the blade high over the important-looking stack of paper with the symbol over it, because a bit of paper wasn't too hard to hit compared to a living being.

"By the Arbiter, girl, put down the sword! You're going to kill yourself!" whispered the voice as I turned toward it. I almost faltered as I saw the... vortex? Of paper?

What looked like a hand of origami shot out of the man-high mass of whirling paper, and wrenched the sword from my grip like it was nothing.

"A fey blade... interesting composition..."

As the... entity floated there, holding my sword with three origami-hands, several eyes made of papermaché detached from its head and started spinning around the dulled blade. It didn't shine like it used to, looking more like matte silver than the gleaming metal I was used to. Reflections don't work here, I realized quickly.

The fluttery mess of paper floated over, and I flinched back, wrenching my eyes shut, but no strike came. I cautiously opened my eyes, only to see several hands holding out the sword to me.

"A gesture of goodwill. We don't need to threaten each other, do we?"

Tenderly, I grabbed hold of the hilt, and slid the sword back into its scabbard.

"Not one for words? Or perhaps you are simply in awe of my skills. ha, ha."

The laughter sounded like the edge of two papers rubbing together. I suppressed a shiver.

"Ehm... sir?... madam? Where exactly am I? What is this place?"

"Not so dumbstruck then? Goood!" he... it drew out the 'o' to extreme lengths. "You are currently within Management."

"Management?"

"Management! We used to manage your world."

"Manage my world?"

"Are you one of those birds, a... parott? The one who repeats everything said? Do those even exist? I was never responsible for that kind of thing."

I shake myself out of my stupor.

"No, not a parrot... sorry, this is just so weird. You... managed my world? What do you mean by that? Were you controlling all of the humans, or something?"

"Oh no, nothing like that! We simply monitored, and corrected things that shouldn't logically happen. Drift of physical constants, temporal instability, that sort of thing. Did you know that c had a wobble in it? Damn thing shifted by around 5 meters per second every thousand years. What a pain."

"No, I didn't know that... listen, where am I? Why am I here?"

"How am I supposed to know? I was busy trying to keep your world from collapsing... Wait a second, was that your doing?"

"What, the collapse? No. I have no idea what happened, one second I fell unconscious, the next I wake up any everyone else is gone. Do you know how terrifying that was? And the monster! What the fuck? Did you 'manage' that as well?"

I fell silent. The swirling had slowed down during some part of my rant, and the voice that broke the silence was frigid.

"Monster?"

"The shadow thing? The giant snake made of, like, ice or something?"

The whirling became fast, hectic, and the being shifted toward one of the boxes, its paper body exploding in one location and reconstituting in another, spewing a rapid string of harsh-sounding words all the while. I didn't know the language, but it sounded suspiciously like a stream of curses. It dug through the box, throwing folders, trinkets, little knick-knacks all over the place, before finding something else, and shifting back.

A square of metal slammed onto the desk before me, not disturbing the stacks of paper in any way, and I jumped.

"Describe what you saw in detail. Appearance, powers, that sort of thing. Whatever you can think of."

"Jesus, don't startle me like that! Alright. So obviously it was large, and dark... like really, really dark. A cloud of shadow, almost. It looked at me once, and I saw a bunch of white points of light. I trapped it inside a ring of lamps during one night, and it was gone by day, screaming all the while." I shivered at the memory, "But it came back. It... It destroyed an entire city. Leveled the place. I saw it grind buildings into dust."

The metal plate had symbols etched into its rim, stretching all around, and there was a shimmering on it, growing stronger with every word of mine.

"I thought I escaped it in the fey realm, but it showed up there, too. We held it off until we could escape, and I think it was caught in the explosion."

"So that was you..." The vortex whispered.

"Don't know if it's actually dead, though. It was right behind us as we tore a hole into the universe, and it might have come into the void with us. That's the last I saw of it, though."

The being took back the slate, and stared at it.

"I wondered what happened... but if they instigated... no, it can't be... they wouldn't..." It was mumbling to itself, one eye floating over the slate, reading whatever was written there.

"What's going on? What was that... thing?"

"Human, I am... so sorry. Their actions... they're unforgiveable. You have my deepest sympathies...."

"What do you mean, the-"

A sharp pain in my arm interrupted me, and I clapped a hand onto it.

One of the being's hands shot out, and rolled up my sleeve, while one of its eyes floated over and looked at it. It gasped.

"Oh no, no, no, this isn't good..."

"What do you... what's going on?"

It seemed to go into full-blown panic mode.

"This shouldn't have happened... oh you idiot! Think, think..."

"Hey!"

I tried to snap the fingers of my left hand, but noticed that it was numb - then I used my right hand.

"Hey! What's going on?!"

"Oh human, you stupid, brave human... Come with me. No time for idle chit-chat... Should have considered it before."

It swept out of its office.

When I got outside, it was stand- floating before the metal door, and a keypad had slid out of the wall next to it. Glancing over, I noticed that there were 16 buttons instead of the customary nine, and it quickly began punching in a code too quick to follow.

Then, the door opened with a hiss, into a metal corridor.

"Follow me. We haven't much time."

And it whirled inside.

***

A few doors later, we were standing in another room, this one far stranger than the rest.

In this room, there was a color.

An iridescent emerald green - emanating from a small orb, suspended at the center of the room between two spires, strutting from the floor and the ceiling. There were a bunch of wires connecting the rods to the ground, and even more snaking along the floor toward the walls, where a number of consoles and monitors displayed incomprehensible technical info. I saw a few sine-waves and even a frequency-monitor, but there were graphics and readouts and statistics all labeled in the same strange language that was everywhere in this ‘office’.

My eyes were drawn toward the orb, however. It was entrancing, and looked incredibly out of place with its green glow. As I stood, my eyes glued to the sight, one of the monitors blinked, and its readout suddenly shot up, only for the orb to pulse, and the sine wave to return.

"What is this?" I asked the being next to me.

"This is yours." it said.

"Mine? What?" I responded, eyes still on the orb.

"You are the last living beings in this world. Without you, it doesn't have a purpose."

"What is it?"

"It is your Worldstone. The source of all your species has ever known. Your world, your people, everything. Even this office."

"Why is it mine? Doesn't it belong to who placed it here?"

"No. It is yours. By right of birth. Take it."

"Wait, if this is powering this place, what happens if I take it?"

"Well, it will collapse, of course."

"Collapse? What about you?"

"I will move on, a manager is never jobless. Take the orb, it will lead you to safety."

I moved toward the orb, but flinched back. My left arm was burning.

"Oh fuck, this hurts!"

"Yes. I'm sorry, I should have realized it sooner - you used the Query to escape your world, didn't you?"

"We did, yes, but my blood circle vanished. I fell into the beam."

"A blood circle? Interesting component... but hmm, yes, I can see how that would happen, especially considering your friend there..." Raven shot the being a look, but it didn’t seem fazed.

"That's why I'm here, isn't it? Erci made it out, because his circle held, but I ended up here?"

"Indeed. You have to realize, human, that this place was not meant to accommodate your kind of life. It's a miracle that you survived this long, perhaps because of the Worldstone's proximity."

"Is that why my arm hurts?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, but I think it's gone Pale."

"Pale? What does that mean?"

"It's somewhat like scurvy, a human disease caused by a deficiency of the vitamine... B? A? One of those pesky ones. Your body was never meant to be here, but it still had... elements of the Things you need to survive inside of it. At least until those are used up by continuing to exist. Becoming Pale means that your body acclimates to an environment around you, and becomes like it. That's why your arm hurts when nearing the Stone, because it emits some of the Things your body is missing. That is also why it is numb."

"If I take the Stone, will it heal?"

"I cannot say. But the longer you delay, the smaller the chance of recovery will be. Take the Stone, ignore the pain."

"Alright."

I took a deep breath, and took a step forward, ignoring the burning pain in my left arm. Another step, and I gritted my teeth as the pain intensified.

I stretched out my hand, and the burn became an inferno.

I cried out, and my hand closed around the Stone.

I fell to my knees, screaming.

The burn in my right arm holding the stone was almost as bad as the one in my left arm.

It was as though molten iron was running through my veins, originating in my right hand, but it was clenched so tightly around the Stone I couldn't let go.

The molten pain was running upward, toward my heart, and the room began to shake.

"Good luck, Amelia," said the entity - then it faded away, leaving behind scraps of paper slowly spiraling toward the ground.

In a monumental effort, I rose to shaking knees, the liquid fire in my veins only fuelling a burning anger. Anger at the world, and the shadow-monster, at myself, at Erci, at Raven, at the being of paper-

***

On shaky legs, occasionally crying out when my numb left arm hit some wall because of a tremor robbing my feet of purchase, I stumbled through the corridor, past the metal doors, the paper-being's office, the rest of the offices, and finally into the foyer.

Grey wallpaper was peeling off the walls, revealing grey bricks and grey mortar, grey dust was crumbling down from a grey ceiling, and an opaque grey door was before me.

I reared my right hand, the Worldstone's rays shining from between my fingers, and struck the door. Something cracked. I screamed.

Another strike, the metal frame bent, and I cried out.

One more strike, and the door broke apart, both me and the metal giving way. I fell backwards on my ass, and the door fell away into a swirling spiral of debris, shadow, light and darkness, all accompanied by a deafening noise.

I stood up, shook the dust out of my eyes, and with a running start, leaped toward the spiralling center - where a multicolored star shone brightly.

Outside the door, gravity ceased, and I shot toward the glowing spot like a cannonball, the light growing brighter and brighter, the vortex flowing tighter and tighter.

I chanced a look back, and saw an opening floating in midair, the foyer crumbling beyond, but none of the office visible from outside. Then, the door winked out, and an empty frame of metal joined the jumbling vortex as debris.

Soon, the light took up everything I saw - turning back around, I saw that the vortex behind me was shrinking down and down, compressing inward in a way that space should not.

And then, when everything was squished down into a single point, it winked out as well, and I was drifting in the light.

***

I don't know how long I spent in the light, suspended in a fetal position, the burning ache of the Worldstone in one hand, the icy numbness of my Paled extremity in the other, and a little black bird sandwiched between everything. It was as though time itself had ceased to exist, leaving behind not a linear progression, but a state of existence, and I simply… was.

After some indeterminate amount of time, I suddenly felt movement once again - wrenching open my eyes, previously closed to shield them from the blazing light, and saw something other than that light - a dark surface.

I hit it hard and lay still, shivering.

"By all the gods!" came a shout in a very familiar voice, and I lost consciousness.