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  Chapter 8: Another Door Opens

  The Den was too still, the kind of quiet that made a man aware of his own heartbeat. Walls cradled the chamber in a living hush, and the dim light that filtered from the window seemed more decorative than useful. A bed. A table. A potted plant. No lock on the door, but no real sense of freedom either.

  Sam sat on the edge of the bed, hunched forward, his fingers laced together. He stared blankly at the low wooden table where his dinner tray still sat; clean, but for the thin square of parchment he’d found beneath it, now peeking out at the edge.

  Knock. A pause. Then two more knocks, crisp and deliberate.

  Sam startled; not at the noise, but at the timing. He rose too fast, his breath catching. His eyes locked on the parchment. Whatever it was, he didn’t want anyone else seeing it. He crossed the room in two quick strides and slipped the paper into his coat, smoothing the table’s surface with a swipe of his hand.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” a voice called from behind the door; rich, warm, unnervingly pleasant. “I brought tea.” No name. No waiting, as the door opened.

  A tall man stepped in carrying a silver tray, steam curling gently from the squat black kettle resting atop it. A teapot and two pale-green cups clinked lightly as he moved. He smiled; wide, easy, practiced. “Thought we might share a cup.”

  The stranger shut the door gently behind him, the tray balanced effortlessly in his hands. He moved like water; fluid, slow, deliberate; and Sam didn’t like that he couldn’t hear the man’s footsteps on the floor.

  He set the tray on the table next to his dinner tray without asking, then straightened, hands folding politely in front of him.

  “I hope the Den’s been… comfortable,” he said softly, like he was asking after a guest in a manor and not a man held under watch. “The bedding’s crude, I know, but the mattress is fresh-stitched moss. Breathes well, they say.”

  Sam didn’t answer at first. He studied the man; the fine layers of his robe, the sheen of sweatless skin, the unsettling calm in his eyes. “It’s quiet,” Sam said finally, voice flat. “Who are you?”

  “Quiet can be good,” the man replied, reaching for the kettle. “Quiet makes room for thought. For clarity.” Steam whispered up as he uncorked the spout, the scent of something faintly floral rising with it. “My name is Ruwan, a pleasure to meet you.” He tilted his head, eyes flicking over Sam’s face. “Have your thoughts grown clearer since arriving, Sam?”

  The man didn’t sit. He remained by the table, steam rising between them in delicate curls as he placed the kettle down and glanced back at Sam.

  “You appeared near the Sacred Tree,” he said, voice still smooth but sharpened now with curiosity. “That doesn’t just happen…ever.” He slid one of the steaming cups toward Sam with deliberate ease. “Where exactly did you come from?”

  Sam hesitated. The stranger’s question, no… Ruwan's question lingered in the air like a splinter. He exhaled slowly, gaze drifting toward the steaming tea cup.

  “I’m not even sure how to begin,” he said quietly. He glanced up, catching his attentive expression, patient but unreadable. “I was in a museum. Back home. A quiet, half-forgotten place. I used to study ancient history, archaeology, that kind of thing; before everything sort of... unraveled.”

  He shifted on the bed, the words loosening with momentum. “There was this room. Dark. Empty. I saw this Orb; small, carved, humming like it was alive. And when I touched it... something happened. It pulled me. Not physically, not at first. He paused, searching for the right words. “Then the world folded. I didn’t fall. I was... ripped. Like roots tearing out of the ground. One moment I was there; and the next, I woke up on the ground near that tree. That’s all I have. No warning. No explanation.”

  Sam’s gaze dropped to the table again. “I don’t even know what I stole. I just knew it was meant for me, I could feel it in my heart that the Orb was mine.”

  Ruwan's brow furrowed as he lowered himself onto the chair across from Sam, steam beginning to curl lazily from the spout of the kettle. He spoke aloud, more to the room than to Sam at first.

  “A Root-Rip…” he said slowly, tasting the words. “That’s how you arrived, then? Hmm.” His gaze drifted toward the teapot as it began to hiss, the first sharp note of readiness piercing the quiet.

  “Usually, the Root draws from the layer just beneath,” he continued, fingers tapping absently on the low table. “The realms stack like an onion, you see. Layer upon layer. One bleeding into the next. A Root-Rip typically pulls from the realm just below; a descent through bark and soil, into the next shell of reality.” He looked up sharply, fixing Sam with a curious, probing stare. “But you… You feel further. Displaced. Like a root pulled upwards instead of down. Regardless, I can tell you are not from the Lust Layer.”

  A pause. “What Layer are you from, Sam Faeloc?” Sam hesitated, eyes flicking from the steam rising in spirals to the expectant face across from him.

  “My Layer…” he began slowly, the words strange in his mouth. “Ear… It’s… loud. Always moving. Everything built on top of itself; concrete over earth, steel over stone. We’ve forgotten how to listen. To trees, to silence, and to the old things that truly matter.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “We chase time. Everything’s about speed, efficiency, growth. But we’re tired. Everyone’s tired, a world-wide pandemic will do that to you. No one says it out loud, but you can feel it. Like we’ve lost something and don’t even remember what it was.”

  He glanced up at Ruwan. “There’s no magic. At least, not anymore. Just memory. Stories. Fossils buried in the ground that we study like they’ll explain who we are.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He paused, then added quietly, “We don’t believe in other realms. Or trees that rip through the fabric of them. Hell, I am still expecting all of this to be one big prank.”

  Sam’s fingers curled loosely around the warm ceramic of the teacup, though he hadn’t yet taken a sip. He stared into the steam, searching for the right words.

  “My world feels… disconnected,” he said slowly. “Not just from magic, or nature; though we are; but from each other. We live in boxes. Work in bigger boxes stacked on top of one another. Our feet never touch soil unless we go looking for it. The stars are drowned in city light. We’ve paved over the night.”

  He glanced up, his eyes distant. “People move fast, always looking down. With the phones in their hands. We talk through machines. Forget how to sit in silence with someone and just be.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched.

  “Everything’s loud; cars, ads, crowds; and yet somehow… unbearably quiet. You can be surrounded by thousands and feel more alone than if you were in a cave.”

  He exhaled sharply through his nose. “We call it progress. But it feels like forgetting. Like we’ve cut the roots that used to hold us to the earth, and now we just… drift.” He looked at Ruwan. “I didn’t even know how lost I was. Not until I arrived here.”

  Ruwan’s fingers curled around his own cup as he studied Sam, the flickering hearthlight casting soft shadows across his face. The teapot between them hissed faintly, steam curling like a breath from something ancient and alive.

  “You speak of phones and voices passed through machines,” Ruwan murmured, thoughtful. “You say you’ve cut the roots, yet… you survive. Thrive, in some sense.”

  He leaned forward, eyes sharp with interest. “Tell me more. These machines; how far do they reach? What can they do? Do your people fly? Shape fire without touching it? Is your world bound by seasons, or do you twist them to your will?”

  A flicker of amusement touched his lips, though his gaze was intent. He tapped his fingers lightly against the wooden table, as if mapping thoughts in rhythm. “Indulge an old scholar; what sort of wonders did your people build to replace the roots you cut?”

  Both men lifted their cups in near-unison, the silence stretching between them like a held breath. The tea was fragrant, herbal; sweet at first, but with a bitterness that lingered faintly on the tongue. Sam took a slow sip, letting the warmth anchor him. Ruwan drank as well, his eyes never quite leaving Sam.

  The pause deepened. Firelight danced in the corners of the Sacred Den, casting slow-moving shadows along the bark-covered walls. Somewhere behind them, water dripped in steady rhythm from a moss-lined ledge.

  Ruwan’s gaze had shifted. Gone was the overt curiosity, replaced by something quieter, calculating. His eyes moved not with emotion, but with measurement. As if taking stock. As if Sam were now part of a much larger sum.

  Sam, still holding his cup, glanced at the teapot. Something about it nagged at the edge of his memory. The shape. The color. The faint designs etched into its side; twisting, repeating patterns like some kind of fractal vinework. He'd seen something like it before. Not in person, but on a screen; an old documentary about prehistoric vessels discovered deep in remote tundra caves. The resemblance was uncanny.

  He shifted in his seat, the warmth from the tea now curling oddly in his chest.

  “I… I used to get home late,” he said suddenly, voice quieter now. “Most days, I barely noticed the sun had gone down. Just me, the bus, my apartment. Microwave meals. Stacks of mail I never opened. And books; always books, piled around me like bones from a life I meant to live.”

  He gave a faint, self-deprecating huff. “I’d spend hours watching old history specials, telling myself it was research. But really, I think I just liked remembering what it felt like to believe in something.”

  The words hung in the air.

  Ruwan studied him for a moment longer, the barest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You say your world is loud,” Ruwan finally said. “Yet I hear quiet in your footsteps. The kind that comes not from peace; but from being unseen. Forgotten, perhaps.”

  Sam didn’t answer at first. He looked back down at the teacup, tilting it slightly. Watching the surface ripple. That aftertaste; was it stronger now? Or had it always been there? His fingers tightened slightly on the ceramic.

  Sam turned the cup in his hands again, his eyes drifting to the teapot resting between them. There was something odd about it; not just the shape, but the texture. The clay was smooth and glazed, the spout thin and precise, the lid resting with almost imperceptible symmetry.

  A strange déjà vu twisted in his chest. “I’ve seen that before,” he murmured, almost to himself. Ruwan looked up, polite interest masking something quieter, something dangerous in his gaze. “Seen what?”

  Sam hesitated. “The teapot. I think… yeah. I watched this documentary once; some antique collector went on about these Chinese teapots. Handmade. Yixing clay. But this one; it’s not quite the same. The shape’s more… antique. Still, I swear I’ve seen this style before.”

  Ruwan made a quiet sound. “LiangXin.”

  Sam blinked.

  “The maker,” Ruwan continued, setting his cup down. “I discovered this particular teapot in some ruins a few years ago.”

  The warmth in Sam’s chest grew too sudden. A flush, not from embarrassment or heat. A thrum. The tea lingered sharp on his tongue, metallic beneath the sweetness. He swallowed and glanced down into the cup, suspicion finally blooming.

  But Ruwan was already moving on. “You said you studied history from your world,” he said. “Tell me; what did your days look like before all this? The Root-Rip, appearing in Ichi City.”

  Sam’s gaze flicked back to him. Ruwan’s expression was attentive. Calculating. Disarming. And now, Sam realized, deliberately distracting.

  Ruwan already asked me that question.

  Sam set the cup down, slower than before. “My days?” Sam said. “Mostly quiet. I worked from an office. Laptop. Books. Streaming documentaries late into the night.”

  Sam shifted in his seat. A slow pulse had begun behind his eyes; not quite a headache, but something tight and creeping, like pressure pushing outward from the base of his skull. His thoughts, once crisp, began to blur at the edges, like ink bleeding into paper.

  He blinked slowly. Once. Twice.

  Ruwan kept speaking, his tone calm and steady, but Sam found it harder to follow the thread. Each word seemed to drag a little longer in the air, too dense to grasp.

  His mouth felt dry. The tea had tasted pleasant at first; light, earthy, with a faint floral note; but now there was a trace of something else, bitter and metallic, coating the back of his throat.

  A vague unease settled in Sam’s gut.

  He looked down at the cup, then at the teapot, and something clicked in his mind. Not recognition, exactly; more like memory surfacing from a deep well.

  LiangXin…

  He’d seen that name before. A documentary; something about rare Chinese teapots, how they were prized for craftsmanship and heat retention. But one line stuck out now, as if dredged up by instinct:

  "Some antique variants were once used to poison warlords."

  His chest tightened. The warmth in his limbs no longer felt comforting;it felt drugged. Across from him, Ruwan’s gaze lingered, calm and unreadable. The man lifted his own cup and took a measured sip. Sam’s hand tightened on the ceramic.

  He tried to swallow, to think through the haze gathering behind his eyes, but his thoughts kept slipping; scattering like leaves in wind.

  The room swayed slightly. Sam blinked, but his vision didn’t clear. The edges of the room began to darken, like shadows seeping in from the corners. He reached out a hand to steady himself against the table, but even that small movement felt sluggish, disconnected.

  Ruwan’s voice grew muffled, distant, as though speaking through layers of water. “…you were saying… day-to-day?”

  Sam opened his mouth, but the words didn’t come. His tongue felt heavy, uncooperative. He turned his gaze toward the teapot again; LiangXin; and realization struck with the clarity of a scream in a dream.

  His heart thudded once. Hard.

  And then everything started to fade.

  A numbing warmth overtook his limbs, spreading inward, like he was sinking into a thick, velvet dark. The room tilted further. His vision tunneled.

  Voices; unfamiliar ones; murmured at the edges of hearing. And then, through the growing silence, Ruwan's voice, crisp and cold: "Quick, grab him and go. I'll take care of the evidence."

  Then; nothing.