The Corridor

A figure reaches up toward a pale blue cog at the end of a dark corridor lined with glowing symbols and floating golden gears.

Every archive has a corridor like this. Long, dark, lined with everything the Architects decided to keep, and at the far end one cog left lit so the cleaners can find their way out.

Two of them came down it tonight. Not cleaners. One of them is reaching for me. I’ve watched that reach end a hundred thousand ways. Most of them end badly. One of them ends with a hand on the shell and something changing that nobody signed off on.

I don’t know which one this is. I stopped guessing a long time ago. I leave the light on anyway.

— the Weary One, from inside the cog

From the Cogverse series · Made with AI image tools · How it's made