Content Warning: Existential Horror 

              Sarah opened the creaky wooden door and stepped into the foyer. 

              The old house seemed different to Sarah, for while the faint echo of childhood memories still hung in the air, the house was bereft of the color and life that had always made her grandmother’s house special. Now that Gram was gone, though familiar furniture and knickknacks still occupied their old places, the house seemed as though it had already been cleared out.

              Sarah flipped the light switch, but the light did not help the house seem less haunted; the swirl of dust caught in the beam of light told Sarah that the house would never be the same again. Sarah tried to shrug off the feeling. She was the only one of her siblings able to take a sabbatical long enough to sort through her grandmother’s estate, and she had promised them she would do a thorough job. She could not tell her siblings the house was too creepy to face alone.  

              Instead, Sarah took out a notebook and tried to review the list of objects her siblings had requested she keep, but she could not concentrate. She put the list away and went back to her car to fetch the flattened cardboard boxes she had brought.

              Sarah’s job was to sort Gram’s belongings into keepsakes for Sarah and her siblings, items that could be sold to antiques dealers, and items to donate. She constructed a few boxes, laid out some bubble wrap and old newsprint, and then opened the first china cabinet in the foyer.

              Was it a trick of the light, or was the china cabinet much larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside? There were mirrors in the back of the cabinet, which might be responsible for making it seem bigger than it was. The mirrors were so old and warped, however, that Sarah could not see her own face. She ignored the momentary confusion and began sifting through the cups. 

              She was looking for a pink, rose-print cup she’d used when playing tea-party with her gram as a child, as it was the one keepsake she particularly wanted. She pulled out cup after cup, each more elaborate than the last, but after what seemed an hour there was still no sign of the pink cup. Sarah wanted to stop and look elsewhere, but there was something compelling about the cups- some with fine gold detail, some with elaborate landscapes painted on, and some even with rhinestones encrusted in the handles. Sarah could not bring herself to put any in the ‘sell’ box. Each cup seemed a treasure. 

              Sarah stopped herself and signed. 

              She was grieving, she was tired, and it was getting rather late. The sun was already setting, filling the foyer with a pale, rosy light. How long had she been sifting through teacups? She wrapped the last teacup and put it away. She would order some takeout, and then make herself a bed on the old sofa. She hoped that, with the TV on, she wouldn’t feel so alone in this old place, and she wouldn’t be subject to nightmares.

#

              Sarah was late for class again. 

              She was a senior now, just a few courses shy of getting her degree, but somehow those last few courses were impossible to keep up with. She never seemed to find the time to study- never seemed to be able to keep to her schedule. Classes and assignments and tests kept coming and going whether she was ready for them or not. 

              She was rushing, now, through the MCS (Math and Computer Science) building. Had it always been so labyrinthine, or was stress playing tricks on her mind? It was a cold building, with old fluorescent lights and walls covered in beige tiles, as though it were a toilet and not a university building. The lights at the end of the hallway flickered… flickered. She shivered- momentarily distracted from her quest to get to class by a feeling of foreboding. There was an unmarked door under the flickering light at the end of the hall, and she felt as though the door should not be approached, especially by a mere undergraduate such as herself. 

              She shook herself, turned sharply, and found herself in her class, which was already in progress. She tried to be quiet- to slip into a seat near the back of the hall- but her bag hit the ground with a sharp *thwack* and the room went suddenly silent. The professor turned from the board, gave her a withering glance, and then turned back, tapping some formulas out while his voice droned an explanation.

              Sarah took out a notebook and a pen- how had he written so much more in the time it took her to just open a notebook? Sarah began to copy the formulas- she could review them later- but numbers and symbols seemed to swim before her eyes. Was she copying them properly at all? They seemed to shift and change every time she looked away from the board. 

              Before she’d finished copying, the professor dismissed the class and swiped an eraser across the board. No one else seemed annoyed by this- they had all put away their notebooks and were standing, ready to flee the room. Sarah sighed and put away her own notebook and pencil. It would be fine; the formulas were in chapter eight- or chapter nine? She thought her professor had pulled from both, but she would go through the book and find them. If she still needed them explained after reading, she would go to the math lab. Would the math lab still be open after work? She’d figure it out. 

              She stood, and her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground as she made her way out of the oppressive building and into the afternoon sunshine. She had little time to study, let alone rest. But this had been the last class of the day. Perhaps, she thought, a quick catnap under the live oak in the courtyard would clear her mind. 

              She lay down, pillowed her head on her backpack, quickly remembered to set an alarm on her phone, and…

#

              Sarah woke up on the couch in her Gram’s house. 

              Her anxiety dreams about college were becoming more frequent. Sarah was a decade out of school, and though she’d struggled a little in the beginning, she had graduated with a solid B average. Yet she dreamed, almost nightly, that she was back in school, perpetually late for class, perpetually struggling to get from one class to another, sitting for tests she hadn’t studied for in classes she’d forgotten, all while the mysterious, forbidden room at the end of the dank hallway loomed at her. 

              Thank goodness, she thought, it was only a dream. 

              She had more grim work to do now, and her siblings would no doubt judge her as harshly as any college professor. She got up, made some coffee, and then wandered downstairs to the basement, where she could survey the junk that was in storage. 

              The old halogen bulb in the basement flickered as she pulled the light cord, and then the musty room was flooded in yellow light. There was an old ping-pong table that took up the center of the room, and around that were old boxes filled with Christmas decorations and towers of old board games. 

              Sarah sifted through the board games looking for Stratego- her favorite game to play with Gram- but the tower of games fell with a clatter, revealing a plain, wooden door. 

              Had that door always been there? Of course it had; Sarah vaguely remembered that there was a large storage closet in the basement. 

              Sarah opened the door and sure enough, there were more boxes with some of her grandfather’s forgotten tools and fishing tackle. Oddly enough, there was another door at the back of the closet. Was it the water heater? Sarah couldn’t remember where the water heater was stored, but this seemed like a logical place. 

              When Sarah opened the door, she found another hallway. There were three doors in this hallway. The two doors on each side of the hallway were open, and Sarah could see a comfortably furnished bedroom through each of them. At the end of the hallway, there was a closed door. 

              Sarah felt an odd tugging at her memory at the sight of the bedrooms. How could she have forgotten? There was always so much room at her gram’s house when they visited each summer. How comfortable it had felt, to know she could sleep in whatever room she wished. She’d never slept in the bedroom behind the closed door, however. The closed door stood dauntingly under a flickering light, and her childhood self had declared the room to be haunted. 

              Sarah turned away from the closed door that led to the haunted bedroom, and entered the first bedroom on the left, where she found three large bookcases filled with books. 

              Sarah walked closer and looked at the spines, and realized these were all of her favorite childhood books. She took a book from the shelf, and for a moment she was torn between reading it and sorting through the rest of the books as she ought. Well- the rest of the books weren’t going anywhere. She opened the book and lay down on the bed. 

              It didn’t take much time, however, before the words shifted and swam on the page, and Sarah’s eyelids grew heavy.

#

              “Wake up, Sarah.”

              Sarah opened her eyes and saw her friend, Kaitlyn, standing above her, framed in a beam of sunlight that sifted through the branches of the great live oak. 

              Sarah sat up, rubbing her neck where her backpack had dug into her. “What time… I thought I’d set my alarm.”

              “You probably put AM instead of PM. Again. Come on,” Kaitlyn reached down and helped Sarah stand. “We need to hurry if we want to get to work on time.”

              Kaitlyn, in addition to being Sarah’s best friend, was also her coworker at the campus café. They were lucky enough to work during the slow part of the day, where they could spend downtime studying. Recently, however, it seemed to Sarah that every time she really started to understand her work, a customer would inevitably interrupt to order a hazelnut macchiato.

              Sarah hoisted her backpack and the two friends set off across campus.

              “You’ve been sleeping a lot, lately,” Kaitlyn ventured as they stepped onto the red-brick sidewalk. “Does it help your brain fog?”

              Sarah shook her head. “I keep having this recurring dream, and it makes me restless.”

              “Oooh- I love dreams. Tell me about it.”

              Sarah stepped over the crack that separated the brick sidewalk from the cheaper, concrete sidewalk that led to the campus café. “It’s nothing special- one of those common recurring dreams. I’m at my gram’s house, going through her stuff, and I keep finding new hallways and new rooms and interesting trinkets and shelves full of books. It’s oddly satisfying, but at the same time, it’s disturbing, because there’s one room that feels haunted.”

              “I’ve never had that one- just the dream that I’m naked and I haven’t studied for my test.”

              Sarah winced, and Kaitlyn frowned. 

              “Sorry if that hit too close to home. Why don’t you try lucid dreaming? If you can recognize that you’re only dreaming, take control, then maybe the dreams won’t disturb you anymore.”

              Sarah could not reply, because they’d reached the café. She put on her apron and began cleaning some portafilters as Kaitlyn opened the register. After a half hour they came to a lull in their work, and Sarah picked up the conversation where they’d left off. 

              “I’ve never tried lucid dreaming before. It’s happened to me a couple of times, but never on purpose.” Sarah spotted another dirty filter. Hadn’t she cleaned it? She took it to the sink and Kaitlyn followed. 

              “There are some techniques that help you lucid dream on purpose. You need to make a habit of testing reality.”

              “My dreams tend to be very vivid. How can you tell the difference between a vivid dream and reality?”

              “You could try checking a clock. The numbers on clocks usually make no sense in dreams.”

              Kaitlyn put away the portafilter, and then noticed a dirty measuring scoop and a carafe had been left in the sink, as well. She began cleaning them. 

              “My hands are wet and my phone is in my pocket, so I can’t check the time. How else do I test reality?”

              “You can do the same thing with a book- the text in books is inconsistent in dreams, though I suppose you can’t do that now, either.”

              “Plus, my brain fog is the whole reason I’m doing this. I can’t concentrate on books. What else?”

              “You could try to fly. No- I’m serious. If you’re not dreaming, you’ll just jump a little and not disturb anything, and if you’re dreaming, you just fly away.”

              “I would look silly,” Sarah mumbled. There were two spoons and two dirty saucers under the carafe. Where were all these dishes coming from?

              “Just do the tests when you get the chance,” Kaitlyn advised before going back to the register. 

              Sarah continued to clean. Never seeming to reach the bottom of the dirty dishes. I should just jump.She thought to herself. It won’t hurt anything. I won’t actually fly. No one is around. I think I will jump now.

              The door chimed as a customer came in, and Sarah lost her nerve. She found another dish just as Kaitlyn put in the order. 

              “One hazelnut macchiato, please.”

              Sarah hardly knew how her shift flew by, but soon she found herself back in her dorm, staring at an open textbook. She opened her notes, found the page she’d copied in her notebook, and tried to focus as she checked the formulas against chapter eight. The formulas seemed to swim before her eyes, however, and then blur, and then…

#

              Sarah’s phone buzzed angrily against her thigh and she sat up, sending her grandmother’s book tumbling off the bed and onto the basement floor. 

              Sarah groped sleepily and answered her phone. “John, Is that you?”

              “Sarah- are you awake yet?” Sarah’s brother, John, demanded. 

              “Of course I am.” Sarah took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I’m just going through the books in the basement. Are there any you want?”

              “You can donate all of the books except for the ones in the bedroom at the end of the hall,” he said. “Those were the special ones.”

              They had been special, Sarah remembered. They were old, rare- some of them leatherbound. If John wanted those books, she would have to go into the haunted room.

              “Sarah? Are you still there?”

              “Yes, I am.”

              “Have you been sleeping alright? It must be strange to be in that big house all alone.”

              “I’m alright. If I can’t fall sleep I’ll just listen to a podcast, or something.”

              “You used to have terrible nightmares as a kid. Is there anyone who can stay there with you?”

              “No, but I’ll be okay. I have a lot of work to do.”

              “Okay. Don’t forget that Alicia wants Gram’s silver tea service, and her kids want Grandpa’s chess set, but all I really want are those books.”

              “I’ll remember. I’ve already sorted the china and the linens.”

              “That’s all? There’s a lot more to get through. Don’t forget the attic.”

              The attic. Sarah didn’t even say goodbye before discarding the phone. Had she ever been in the attic?

              Sarah slid off the bed and started toward the bedroom at the end of the hallway, but when she saw the imposing door under that flickering light, she found she couldn’t approach it. 

              Her head seemed to buzz with anxiety. Had she really been sleeping that poorly? She’d just had another anxiety dream that she was back in her old job at the campus café, washing an unending pile of dishes. Perhaps she should try lucid dreaming- nothing else had ever stopped her nightmares. 

              She vaguely recalled that the first step to lucid dreaming was to make a habit of testing reality. What were the usual tests? You could try looking at clocks, reading, or doing something impossible, like flying. 

              The ceiling was low here, but perhaps she could try to hover? She jumped up and fell. 

              Of course, she thought. This is reality. I jumped and fell again, as expected.

              She reached for a nearby book to read. Just then, her phone rang. 

              She answered the phone before she had a chance to look at the time. Ah well- she’d check it later. 

              “Sarah? It’s Alicia. John told me that you haven’t started sorting Gram’s stuff, yet.” 

              “Hello, Alicia. It’s nice to speak with you, too.”

              “Sorry. Hi. Why haven’t you started sorting Gram’s things? We don’t have much time.”

              “I have already sorted the china and the linens. I’m working on the books in the basement, now.”

              “That’s easy- just put all of the books from the lefthand bedroom in the donation box, and we’ll keep the ones in the far bedroom. I also want you to check the-” Alicia’s voice broke into static. 

              “Alicia?”

              Sarah’s phone went dead. 

              Sarah groaned in frustration and then ran upstairs to find her charger, glad to be out of the basement. 

              She put her phone on the charger, and then climbed the steps to the attic, where she promptly got lost in another satisfying labyrinth of hidden rooms. 

#

              Sarah sat outside her Information Security class, her book open on her lap, studying for the test she was about to take. None of the material looked familiar. 

              She’d tried to test reality in her dream, last night, and each time the dream had either passed the test, or there had been some excuse why she could not conduct the test. When she’d tried to fly, she’d simply jumped into the air and fallen, as she expected. When she’d tried to read a book or a clock, she’d been interrupted. Her mind already knew about the tests, and so it was able to get around them. 

              What about yesterday at work? She’d been unable to conduct any tests then, either. Of course, she knew that this was reality. 

              Resolutely, she held up her book and read a sentence. 

              Data integrity and authentication are concepts central to information security. Information that cannot be robustly verified isn’t secure. 

The sentence made sense. If you aren’t sure that data hasn’t been altered, and you can’t verify the data’s source, then it isn’t secure. You need mechanisms to do so. See, Sarah thought. I can understand this. It isn’t slipping through my mind like sand. It is as real as the tile on the wall across from me.

Sarah looked up at the wall, and back to the book. She should find and read the sentence again, to make sure it hadn’t altered. No- she should continue to review. She had a test to take, after all. 

When it was time to go in to take the test, Sarah pressed her hand against the doorway to verify it was solid. Then she went inside and sat down on a solid chair. 

         The test was difficult. Sarah was so tired that the questions seemed to blur together, and she wasn’t sure her answers were coherent. Much of the material was still unfamiliar, but she was able to fake her way through answers. Why had she missed so much class? She couldn’t even remember, now.

         Afterward, Sarah went back into the hallway to review. She sat on the ground with the text in her lap, but was distracted by the flickering light down the hall, which hung over that forbidden door. The Information Security classroom was closer to the forbidden door than her Calculus class had been, and so the flickering light was much brighter. What was in there, she wondered. Why did it keep distracting her? She leaned her heavy head against the cold tile wall and closed her eyes…

#

         Sarah woke up on her Gram’s couch. She’d cleared the attic the day before. Now she decided to clear the kitchen, which was a safe distance from the mysterious basement hallway and the haunted bedroom.

         She’d had another anxiety dream the night before- that she was taking a test for a class she’d forgotten to attend all semester. In the dream she’d dutifully tested reality several times, but each time the dream had passed the test, or else her mind concocted a reason she could not perform the test. 

         Of course she could not outsmart her own mind. She should have known the concept of ‘lucid dreaming’ was so much bunk. She doubted there was any scientific evidence it could help with nightmares or anxiety dreams, anyway. She could look it up later; now she had a kitchen to clean.

There were still dirty dishes left soaking in the sink. Sarah recoiled, at first, from touching the dishes- the last her Gram had ever used- but her siblings were counting on her to sort everything out. 

Sarah took a deep breath, and then reached into the sink.

#

       “You still aren’t done cleaning those mugs?” Kaitlyn asked after the last customer left for the night. “Would you like any help?”

       “You wash. I’ll dry,” Sarah said. 

       Kaitlyn grabbed a dishtowel and reached for a clean mug. 

       “So- did you try lucid dreaming?”

       “Yes, and it doesn’t work. As soon as I know I’m testing reality, my brain has already fixed the test.”  

       “Hmm- that would be a problem,” Kaitlyn said. “But you’ve lucid dreamed before, haven’t you?”

       “Never on purpose. But- don’t you see, we gather information from our senses, but it’s all processedin our brains. Nothing we experience can be independently verified. I can ask you if you see everything in my dream, but you’re in my dream, too. You can say anything my mind makes you say.”

       “You aren’t becoming a solipsist, are you?”

       “Solipsism isn’t a useful philosophy, but apparently, the entire concept of ‘testing reality’ isn’t useful, either. Information that cannot be robustly verified isn’t secure, but we can’t verify reality.”

“ That means reality isn’t secure,” Kaitlyn said with a laugh. 

Sarah thought about the forbidden classroom, and she couldn’t laugh. Why did her mind keep coming back to the forbidden classroom?

#

Why did Sarah keep thinking of the haunted bedroom? She’d have to clear it out eventually. And where did all of these dishes keep coming from, she thought to herself after pulling yet another coffee mug out of Gram’s sink.

#

“There’s one way to tell reality from a dream,” Kaitlyn said. “You just have to wake up.”

                   “That won’t help you lucid dream,” Sarah replied, handing Kaitlyn another mug. 

                   “No, but even so, if the dream is disturbing, you should just wake up.”

                  “Even trying to wake up won’t guarantee you go back to reality. How many times have you dreamed that you woke up, took a shower, got dressed, got ready for school, and then your alarm woke you up for real? I even dreamed once that I was swimming in the sea, and woke up in a kiddy pool, and then woke up in a bathtub, and then woke up in bed. Your mind can fake waking up as well as it can fake tests. It can just throw you into another dream.”

                  “Still, you should WAKE UP.”

#

         Had Sarah really been tired enough to nod off in the kitchen? She looked around. She had boxed up most of the dishes. There was time for a nap before tackling the books. She went back to the basement and lay down in the safe bedroom. 

         The haunted bedroom, just down the hall, tugged at her mind. 

         Why was she so afraid of that room? Haunted rooms weren’t real. 

         But she thought as she slid into sleep. Hadn’t she learned that reality wasn’t secure?

#

         Sarah woke up. She was still in the hallway outside her Information Security classroom. The forbidden room at the end of the hallway loomed under the flashing light. Hadn’t the light only been flickering before? Now it was flashing, brighter and brighter.

         This was ridiculous. She’d never get rid of her nightmares if she couldn’t face her fears. The room was probably just storage. No one would expel her if she tried to take a peek.

#

         The basement bedroom wasn’t haunted. Sarah would never get rid of her nightmares if she couldn’t face her fears. She slipped out of bed and walked down the hall.

#

         Sarah stood up and walked down the hall, toward the forbidden room.

#

         The basement light was flickering.

#

         The hallway light was flashing.

#

         Sarah touched the doorknob.

#

She opened the door. 

#

         She looked into the darkness, trembling with anticipation. 

#

           Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and two roads- pale at first, and then shimmering bright as silver- stretched out before her. She followed the paths with her eyes, and could see ahead where each road forked, and each of the forks forked again, until she found herself staring into a web of silver that stretched out into the eternal darkness, as intricate as a pattern of neurons, as delicate as a spider’s web, and as infinite as all the stars that shone in all the galaxies. For a moment she stared, transfixed at the sight. 

            Then she chose a road, and began to walk. 

                                                                        #

         “I’m glad you made it,” John said, reaching out to shake Kaitlyn’s hand. 

         Kaitlyn shook John’s hand, noticing that it was icy and pale. She imagined she looked just as terrible as John. She’d thrown on the only black dress she owned, and it was a little too small for her, now. She hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup. But then, Sarah wouldn’t have cared. 

         The church reception hall was small, but crowded. Sarah’s numerous siblings, her nieces and nephews, her friend and coworkers, and even some people Kaitlyn remembered from their college days had all come to say goodbye. There were card tables set up around the periphery of the room, and the air was thick with the scent of casseroles and pies and funeral-baked meats.

         “You were Sarah’s best friend. I’m glad you had a chance to say goodbye,” John murmured in a low, gruff voice.  

         “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye- not really. She was so restless in her final days, tossing and turning her in sleep, calling out in her dreams. I don’t think she could hear me, let alone recognize my voice. It was so awful to watch that, I admit, I yelled at her to wake up.”

         “Did she? Even for a moment?”

         “No- she was already gone, I think.”

         John sighed and looked up at the flickering fluorescents on the church hall ceiling. 

         “At least now-” he began, and then seemed to choke on tears. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and spoke again. 

         “At least now she can rest.”