Glass Beach-3227

For a while I just sat there, breathing, too empty to think.

The studio was exactly as I'd left it. The bed was the same. The clothes I'd thrown off were the same. Even the air in the room was the same.

But what I'd seen a moment ago was nothing like this familiar, intact room.

The humans beyond the glass.

That enormous hand.

The words Breeding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Sector.

It was all too sharp to dismiss as a dream.

I pulled my knees up and leaned my back against the wall.

"Haa..."

My breath shook.

The certainty that it had been real arrived later than the relief of still being alive.

That was the worse part.

A blue window rose quietly at the edge of my vision.

The Dimensional Archive.

Names arranged in a long vertical list.

The list was almost insultingly ordinary.

For something that had just shown me a world that treated people like livestock, it was far too calm. It looked like a grocery cart.

The truly fucked-up part was that this calmness made it feel even more real.

I ran my tongue over dry lips.

There's got to be more than just this garbage... right?

If I didn't check, I felt like I'd never be able to use this ability again. Close it out of fear and it was over. Then everything that happened today would just rot in my head as a lifelong ghost story.

Better to learn the rules.

If it got dangerous, I could bail immediately. I'd already come back alive from Human Ranch, and the return function had worked.

Clinging to that one fact, my head started working again, just a little.

I was about to tap the list when I stopped.

"Ah. Wait."

I looked down.

Bare feet.

Only then did it hit me.

Earlier I'd been so out of it I'd basically shoved my whole body through first.

Not this time.

If these were real worlds, the least I could do was not walk into them barefoot.

I grabbed the clothes strewn beside the bed.

The short-sleeve went right back down. I opened the wardrobe and pulled out a long-sleeve hoodie. Skipped the shorts too — found long pants and made sure they covered my ankles properly.

Then the sneakers. I picked up the pair I'd kicked off on the floor, put them on, and tied the laces tight. Once, then yanked them again for good measure.

Suddenly my own image struck me as a little ridiculous.

About to hop dimensions, and here I was fussing over shoelaces.

But the small ritual helped more than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I expected. At least I no longer felt like I was charging in half-naked and stupid.

I checked the mirror once.

The newly handsome face.

The changed body.

And over both of them, fear that still hadn't cooled.

The outfit, at least, looked halfway decent.

Long sleeves. Long pants. Sneakers.

"Okay. Good."

I wasn't saying it for anyone else.

I turned my eyes back to the list.

Down.

I pushed my will into it and the selection line dropped one slot.

Glass Beach-3227.

By the name alone it looked the most harmless. Which was exactly why it felt worse.

Human Ranch had been screaming danger from the title, so I'd gone in guarded. Glass Beach sounded like a travel-agency package. Or the name of some pretty café.

Those were the dangerous ones.

The things that put you off your guard were always the ones that looked fine.

I took one more breath and confirmed.

A thin vertical line appeared in the air. It widened slowly, like a crack, and became a rectangular dimensional gate.

The other side was hard to make out. Just a blurred surface — not even clear whether it was bright ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠or dark.

I walked up to the gate.

Still no smell. No wind. No change in temperature. No sound of waves, no birds, nothing.

The Archive stayed silent too. No environmental data. No warnings. Nothing at all.

As if it had no intention of showing me anything until I was already inside.

Unfriendly to the end, huh.

Standing in front of the gate, I brushed my fingertips over the hoodie pocket once. Checked the shoelaces one more time.

"Just one step?"

That line again.

Take one real quick look and get out. If anything's off, return... no. Even if nothing's off, return right away.

I settled on that and stepped into the gate.

Alright. Let's go!

In an instant, sunlight crashed into my eyes.

A sea opened out in front of me.

A beach. Not pure white — transparent, glittering.

A shoreline flooded with light. A shallow, clear ocean stretching far out. The waves were quiet, the water calm, the horizon unnaturally sharp.

Everything was so clean that for a second I couldn't help finding it beautiful.

A second.

Really just a second.

That ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was all.

Skritch.

A strange sound under my feet.

It didn't sound like sand. Too thin, too sharp — a scraping edge.

I started to look down on reflex and felt a sting across my right cheek first.

"...Eh?"

I touched it and my fingers came away wet.

Blood. A thin smear of red on my fingertips.

My heart dropped.

Only then did I see it.

The sand was wrong.

Not sand grains. From a distance it looked powdery enough to pass for sand, but up close every piece was a shattered transparent fragment. What had been glittering under the sun wasn't a beach — it was a heap of broken glass.

I lifted my eyes to the waves.

Even the edges of the transparent, breaking water had blades on them.

The rock-like shapes embedded in the shore, the little stones rolling at my feet — all glass.

All of it.

The entire world was a cutting surface.

"Crazy..."

My voice leaked out small.

The feeling under my feet flipped in an instant.

A moment ago I'd thought I was walking a beach in sneakers. Now I felt like I was standing on a pile of glass shards. Not a feeling — the truth.

Under the soles: skritch, skritch — the fine sound of glass grinding.

If I hadn't put the sneakers on, my feet would already be shredded...

That thought sent a chill down my spine.

Falling would be the end. Putting a hand down would be the end. Getting swept by a wave would be the end.

A red window slammed into the center of my vision.

The sentences were short.

The tone of someone swearing at a person already choking. Leave right now or you die for real.

Frozen in place, I swept the surroundings once.

Even the distant breaking waves weren't beautiful. They were glass shards catching light and leaping. Every bit of beauty this world had thrown at the sun was light coming off weapons.

A blade dressed as scenery.

That was exactly right.

"...Fuck."

I gritted it out through my teeth.

I confirmed the return immediately.

A dimensional gate opened in front of me and I threw myself through it without hesitation.

The world folded and flipped.

The blinding shoreline split into hairline cracks and, in a single instant, rolled shut.

I stepped down onto the floor breathing familiar studio air again.

A gasp tore out of me.

I almost staggered into the wall for support. My heart hammered.

I rubbed my cheek with my right hand and immediately grimaced. It stung and burned.

I hurried to the sink and looked in the mirror.

A thin red line was drawn across my cheek.

Real.

Very thin. Like a paper cut. And that one thin wound was proof of the entire world I'd just left.

I gripped the edge of the sink and stared into the mirror for a long time.

First the sculpted pretty-boy face, and then the new thin cut laid over it.

Two scenes that didn't belong together, stuck on one face.

"Ha..."

A sound that wasn't quite a laugh and wasn't quite a sigh.

I get it now.

Beautiful didn't mean safe. The beautiful ones were the more cunning ones.

Human Ranch had been rotten from the name alone. Glass Beach had seduced with scenery first.

I turned on the water and wet the wound.

"Ow — damn, that stings!"

The rush of water sounded louder than usual.

The Dimensional Archive rose again at the edge of my vision.

I was reading those lines when my eyes met the ones in the mirror.

"Is this even an ability."

My lips moved slowly.

"Not a curse?"

The Dimensional Archive didn't answer. It just kept floating the dimension list with the same indifferent face.

Under Glass Beach.

Flesh Book Corridor-3721.

The moment I saw that name, my stomach turned for no reason I could name.

Flesh Book Corridor-3721.

I stared at that name for a long time.

After coming back from Glass Beach, the whole atmosphere of the dimension list had changed.

Earlier it had felt like a string of nasty titles. Not anymore.

I knew now.

Those names weren't decoration. Each one was a real world, and each one was more than capable of killing me or breaking me.

Standing at the sink, I touched the thin cut on my cheek again.

It stung.

One tiny, thin line.

That one line felt more real than the entire beach I'd just seen.

The sand had been glass. The waves had been glass. Fuck, everything had been glass — and this little wound was all the proof that needed.

"Haaaaa..."

I let out a long breath and walked back toward the room.

The blue window floated quietly.

Flesh Book Corridor.

Even the name felt damp.

It didn't exactly smell like blood, but somehow it carried a soft, wet, unpleasant sensation.

The word corridor was bad enough on its own.

A hallway with nowhere to run.

A long, continuous passage.

That image came first.

Not going in is the correct move.

Stopping here was normal.

Human Ranch had already cracked me open enough. Glass Beach had confirmed it again.

What am I going to get out of looking further?

This wasn't ability verification anymore. It was closer to self-harm.

A normal person would stop here — go to a hospital, call the police, phone their parents, make any other choice at all.

But I was standing in front of the dimension list.

In the end, you look.

That's just how people are.

If being scared were enough to keep your eyes shut completely, there'd be no horror movies, no ghost stories, no one ever opening the basement door.

And this one was a door that had opened in the middle of my own room. Whether I wanted it or not, it was the kind of door that would live in my head for the rest of my life.

I swallowed slowly.

"This time I'm bailing the second I get in... wait, though. Technically last time I bailed the second I got in too. At this point am I not being careful enough?"

After muttering that mix of excuse and resolution at no one in particular, I tugged my hoodie sleeves down once more. Straightened the hems of my long pants and pressed my toes into the sneakers I'd changed into, checking the fit.

Now I felt, just a little, like I was preparing the way a person should.

I locked my will onto Flesh Book Corridor.

A familiar vertical line appeared in the air. It opened quietly and became a dimensional gate.

Beyond the gate was dark.

No smell. No wind. No temperature. The Archive offered no interpretation at all.

From this side of the door, I still couldn't see a thing.

I frowned.

"Shit..."

I could still stop. And yet, strangely, I wanted to check this dimension more carefully.

Human Ranch had been openly oppressive. Glass Beach had been too pretty at first.

This one was ambiguous.

Quiet, dark, worn, and unpleasant in a way I couldn't explain.

Which made it feel worse.

Huu... fine. Let's go.

I clenched my teeth and stepped inside.