Time after returning from New Hampshire was no longer measured by Archie in calendars or construction deadlines. It flowed like a slow-moving, silent, frozen glacier.
Archie lived his remaining days strictly according to his original plan: a rhythm stripped down to the absolute bare minimum. Every morning, he brewed a cup of hot tea, taking a short two-thousand-step walk around the park near his basement apartment in Somerville. He sat under the trees slowly losing their leaves, watching squirrels leap between branches before returning to his room to draw. Meals consisted solely of bland vegetable soup and a few slices of bread. He re-read classic architectural texts, occasionally drifting off right in his fabric-upholstered armchair.
The pleural cancer progressed along its relentless biological trajectory.
The coughing fits grew frequent, each episode a violent spasm tearing at his chest. His weight plummeted, his eyes sank deep into hollow sockets, and his skin turned the dull, pale gray of wood ash. The dosage of opioid painkillers prescribed by Dr. Vance steadily climbed—from one pill a day to three, then four—just to suppress the suffocating sensation of sand being poured into his lungs.
The third month.
Amidst a heavy winter snowfall in Boston, Archie opened the rusted iron mailbox outside his basement door.
Among circular ads and old utility bills lay a simple postcard. The card featured a red maple forest bathed in sunset light—the iconic backdrop of Hanover, New Hampshire.
The iconic autumn landscape of Hanover, New Hampshire.
No postage stamp, no return address, no postmark.
Archie turned it over. On the slightly yellowed white backing was a single line written in a slender, slanted, elegant script:
"We made it in. Wishing you peace. — Z."
Archie stood frozen in the bone-chilling air of the basement hallway. He stared at those words for a long time. His thin, calloused thumb gently traced the dried black ink.
He brought the postcard inside, placing it in the most honored spot on his pine kitchen counter—right beside the ceramic dish holding his 2B pencils. Every time he sat down to sketch or eat, his eyes involuntarily drifted over those brief words.
The eighth month.
One night in the middle of spring, a sudden, violent wave of breathlessness hit him, turning Archie’s chest into a pressureless vacuum. He collapsed onto the kitchen floor, his hand falling short of the pill bottle. A upstairs neighbor heard the frantic thumping against the floorboards and called 911.
Archie woke up in the stark white space of Massachusetts General Hospital.
The steady, cold chime of the heart monitor beeped rhythmically. A young nurse stood by his bedside holding a medical chart, gently leaning down to look at him:
"Mr. Moran, you’re out of immediate danger. But we need emergency contact information. Is there any family or friend you’d like us to notify?"
Archie lay on the white linens, an oxygen mask covering half of his gaunt face. He slowly rolled his eyes up to the concrete ceiling, then out toward the glass window, where spring rain trickled down in crooked streaks.
"No," Archie rasped softly from beneath the clear plastic mask. "There’s no one."
The nurse let out a faint sigh, quietly noting a line on his chart before stepping out.
For the very first time in eight months, lying in the absolute solitude of the ER bay, Archie asked himself: Did they succeed?
The doorway of The Gate had opened. That colossal machine had swallowed those three people whole into boundless dimensions. Did Zoe navigate all five Trials to win back a healthy body? Did she make it back to New York in time to hold her sick mother? Was Venn still dancing on his new leg? And Jin... did he get his chance to live another fifty years and visit his grandmother’s grave?
Archie had no answers. He simply watched the raindrops cling to the glass, feeling the bittersweet relief of the choice he had made.
The twelfth month.
Archie could no longer return to his basement studio in Somerville. He was permanently admitted to a bed in the palliative care unit.
His body was little more than a skin-draped skeleton, weightless and fragile. The light in his gray eyes had dimmed significantly, leaving only a tiny, stubborn flicker like a candle in the wind.
Dr. Vance walked into the room, checked his vitals monitor, and gently took hold of his gaunt hand: "Archie... you’ve done so well. There won't be any more pain."
Archie offered a faint nod.
Using the last remaining ounce of his strength, he reached out with a trembling hand for the leather sketchbook on his nightstand. He opened to a blank page. But his fingers were far too weak; the pencil slipped from his grip, clicking rhythmically as it rolled across the floor tiles. He couldn't draw a single line anymore.
Archie looked to the side. Zoe’s postcard sat squared on the table, brought with him from home to the ward.
He picked up the postcard. With shaking hands, he grabbed a fine-tip marker from the tray, turning over the picture of the New Hampshire maple forest. Beneath Zoe’s line "We made it in. Wishing you peace. — Z.", Archie slowly traced out scrawled, deliberate letters:
"I hope you made it."
Archie dropped the pen. He clutched the postcard against his thin chest and closed his eyes.
The pale autumn afternoon sun of Boston filtered through the window, draping a warm, golden halo across the quiet hospital room.
Archie Moran smiled softly. He felt no more pain. He felt no more suffocation. He drew his final breath in the peace, solitude, and complete wholeness of a man who had chosen his own ending.
