<Θ>
You immediately regret giving them the go-ahead. Your eyes regret it, and then your brain regrets having to interpret the input from your eyes.
The space between them and the wall contracts and you nearly trip over as the room lurches. It’s like being dizzy, and then they reach their hands out, and part the wall like a curtain. Shadows writhe across the floor, as if they’re confused about where they should be.
Wait, no. That isn’t right. They hold out their hands, and the wall obliges by not being where they ask it not to be. Or maybe it just… wasn’t ever there, because Archivist deemed it so.
ARCHIVIST: “Now, breaking parts of the Voidwall would be dangerous, so I’ve merely circumvented it. Step through the presented aperture. Please avoid thinking about the physics of the situation. Experience has told me that, without a thourough background in differential geometry and higher-dimensional topology, that’ll just hurt your head.”
DANIEL: “I still can’t tell what I’m looking at.”
ARCHIVIST: “Good! That’ll make the not-getting-a-headache easier. Or not-harder.”
ASH: “Why do you keep doing weird things? Like, surely there’s an easier way to do this. None of our powers break brains to watch.”
ARCHIVIST: “Aheheh, well, this is the easy way. Or, at least, the way that’s least damaging to the systems without drawing the attention of my siblings. Er. Hmm. Well, I guess I was kinda being overdramatic? You’re the first audience I’ve had in a while, and I wanted to make a good impression.”
ASH: “By hurting our heads and scaring us?”
ARCHIVIST: “My previous audience was slightly more used to it, I must admit. And you were scared? That’s terrible, and I apologise unreservedly!”
ASH: “Er, um. Thanks? I was more alarmed than, er, scared though.”
ARCHIVIST: “Hm. You’re mildly alexithymic, I think, looking a bit closer at your neurochemistry.”
ASH: “What?”
DANIEL: “Can we stop getting lost in tangents and digressions? Who or what are your ‘siblings’, why do you look like that thing in the coffin back in… where the hell ever in this stupid hellmaze? Where are we? Why are we here?” And who even are you?
SAM: “Well, they told us some of that.”