The presentation wrapped up around noon.
The four of them walked out of the historic chapel in a heavy, suffocating silence. The crisp New Hampshire autumn sun shone down on the brick courtyard, but no one uttered a single word. Dr. Luca Ferrara’s warning regarding the fate of his younger brother, Matteo—whose consciousness was shredded and permanently trapped in some unknown dimension fifteen years ago—hung overhead like a razor-sharp blade.
The deadline to deliver their final decision and step into the pods of The Gate was 8:00 AM tomorrow morning.
1:00 PM.
Jin Park stood inside Luca’s private office.
He didn't sit in the chair across the desk. Instead, he stood stiffly, arms hanging at his sides, his eyes behind thick lenses staring intently at the stacks of mathematical documents piled high on the desk.
"I’m opting out," Jin said, his voice flat yet rigid. "I will not participate in this project."
Luca raised his head from a pile of files. He slowly removed his reading glasses, looking at the brilliant young programmer with a calm, steady gaze: "Would you mind telling me why, Jin?"
"Before she passed away two years ago from heart failure, my grandmother bought twin burial plots at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Seoul," Jin said, dropping each word slowly, as if reciting a hardcoded sequence of computer script. "I made a promise at her deathbed that when my time came, I would be buried right next to her. If my consciousness gets trapped in some dimension and my physical body here suffers brain death... they'll cremate or bury a soulless husk. I’d be breaking a promise to the only person on this earth who ever truly loved me."
Luca didn't interrupt. He studied Jin for a long moment, then let out a soft, low sigh. He stood up and walked over to the window looking out at the ancient maple tree in the yard.
"Jin," Luca began, his tone deep and warm. "If this sequence succeeds, you will have a completely healthy, brand-new body. You will live on for another thirty, forty, maybe even fifty years. Every year, during the Chuseok holiday or on quiet weekends, you can catch a flight home to Seoul, lay a bouquet of white lilies at your grandmother’s grave, and tell her about all the remarkable things you’ve accomplished for this world."
Luca turned back, looking straight into Jin’s eyes: "Do you think your grandmother on the other side wants to see a young body lying cold beside her right now... or does she want to see you LIVE?"
Jin froze in his tracks. His jaw clenched tightly, a faint muscle twitching in his cheek. He didn't answer Luca; he simply turned around, yanked the heavy wooden door open, and walked out.
That night, inside the pitch-black space of Room 2, Jin sat hunched over on the edge of his bed.
He tapped his phone screen open. The display cast a pale cyan-gray glow over his sharp features. On the screen was the only photo stored in his device's memory: an elderly Korean grandmother with a stooped back and a face deeply lined with crow's-feet, smiling radiantly beside a pot of honeysuckle on a house porch.
Beneath the photograph was a caption Jin had typed the day he received his Master of Science degree in computer science:
할머니 said: 살아. (Grandmother said: Live).
A hot tear unexpectedly slipped down the glass surface of the phone, blurring the smile of his late grandmother. Jin pressed the phone tight against his chest, his thin shoulders trembling violently. For the very first time since his grandmother drew her last breath in that cold Seoul emergency room, the silent coder wept out loud.
4:00 PM.
Zoe Chen sat on a wicker chair on the second-floor balcony of the Residential Quarters. She held her smartphone, her thumb pressing a number familiar since childhood.
The line connected after three rings.
"Zoe, is that you, sweetie?" Diana Chen’s voice came through, slightly shaky and halting—the lingering toll of Parkinson’s disease quietly ravaging her nervous system. "Where... where are you? I've been calling your apartment in Brooklyn for days, but nobody's picking up."
Zoe bit her lower lip hard, fighting to keep her voice light and cheerful: "I’m just taking a few days off with some friends up in the mountains of New Hampshire, Mom. Work’s been so hectic with design projects lately that I just needed to catch some autumn air."
"Is that so..." Diana paused for a beat, her breath heavy over the speaker. "How... how are you holding up? What did the oncologist say about last week's PET scan results?"
Zoe looked down at the delicate surgical scar tucked beneath the collar of her knit dress. Her doctor in New York had laid it out straight two weeks ago: chemotherapy was no longer working, the tumor had invaded the pericardium, and she had four to six months at best.
"Everything’s looking great, Mom," Zoe lied without blinking, a painful, forced smile lingering on her lips. "The doctor said my blood work is improving. They say the mountain air in New Hampshire does wonders for healing."
"Thank God... May He have mercy..." Diana’s voice softened, washed over with boundless relief. "I love you so much, Zoe. Please keep yourself warm, okay?"
"I love you too, Mom," Zoe rasped softly.
She hung up immediately. Zoe buried her face in her knees, tears silently soaking into the patterned folk-art dress she had sewn by hand.
She knew this was her only remaining shot at survival. Not because she was cowardly or terrified of dying, but because her sick mother back home had no one else left in this world. If she died, her mother would be left completely alone.
Zoe opened her messaging app, typed out a single line addressed to her mother, but set it as a draft instead of hitting send:
I’m coming home to take care of you. I promise, Mom.
9:00 PM.
The New Hampshire temperature plummeted to near 0∘C. Frost began forming a thin, white crust over the fallen maple leaves scattered across the courtyard.
Archie Moran threw on his old jacket and stepped out of the guesthouse lobby. He strolled casually to the far corner of the yard, taking a seat on the wooden bench beneath the 139-year-old maple tree.
Light footsteps tapped softly against the brick path.
Zoe Chen emerged from the shadows, her oversized knit cardigan wrapped tightly around her small shoulders. She walked over, taking a seat on the edge of the bench beside Archie, barely eight inches separating them.
"Can't sleep either?" Zoe asked, her breath rising as faint plumes of white mist in the freezing night air.
"I haven't slept more than three hours straight in months," Archie replied softly, gazing up at the bare maple branches laced against the starlit sky.
A long silence settled between them. No music, no background chatter—only the autumn wind howling through the distant pine groves.
"Archie," Zoe spoke up suddenly, her voice barely louder than a sigh. "I'm scared."
Archie turned to look at her. Under the pale streetlights of the campus, Zoe’s face looked drawn, the dark circles under her eyes even more pronounced. For the first time since arriving here, the girl who had consistently put up a brave, sarcastic front about dying voiced the raw, unvarnished truth in her heart.
"I'm scared too," Archie admitted genuinely.
"But I'm scared of dying even more," Zoe whispered, lacing her hands tightly together to stop them from shaking from the cold and fear. "I'm not afraid of the pain. I'm just terrified of fading away completely... terrified that my mom will have to stand all alone in front of my grave."
Archie looked at the young woman beside him.
He asked himself: Are you afraid of dying, Archie?
He truly wasn't sure. He had spent ten years living as a hollow shell in the heart of Boston, bled dry of energy and hope. But looking into Zoe’s eyes, filled with an intense hunger to live, something invisible surged sharply inside the architect’s chest.
He thought: If this procedure is real, if I walk through that door... maybe I’m not just going to save my own skin. What if my presence, my companionship, could help this girl—help Zoe, help Venn, help Jin—navigate those five deadly Trials to make it back?
It wasn't a grandiose heroic ideal, nor a noble calling. But amidst the bleak swamp of his life, it was the very first spark that gave Archie Moran’s existence a semblance of purpose.
8:00 AM the following morning.
The historic East Chapel was dead quiet.
The Gate machine stood tall in the center, its copper superconducting coils emitting a low, rhythmic hum as quantum energy accumulated within the system. The four transparent white glass pods stood with their lids open, the nutrient line arrays and neural wave sensors fully primed.
Dr. Luca Ferrara stood at the center of the primary control console. His face looked worn, but his eyes were resolute. Otis stood beside him holding a telemetry clipboard, his eyes bloodshot from pulling an all-nighter. William Cross stood tucked into the corner of the lab in an immaculate navy suit, wearing his signature commercial smile.
"It is 8:00 AM," Luca announced, his voice echoing under the stone vaulting. "I ask one last time: Who is ready to step into the machine?"
Venn Adebayo took a step forward. He tossed his aluminum crutch aside, balancing effortlessly on his expensive titanium prosthetic, both hands shoved into his jogger pockets, his chin held high with unyielding pride:
"Born ready. Just put me in whichever pod looks the best, Doc."
The lab door clicked open. Jin Park walked in. He carried no backpack, wearing only his simple windbreaker. He looked at Luca, saying nothing, offering only a single, deep nod. His choice had been made during the night when his eyes soaked with tears of longing for his late grandmother.
Zoe Chen stepped up beside Venn. She turned to look at Archie, offering a faint smile: "I'm in."
Every pair of eyes in the lab—from Luca, Otis, Venn, Jin, and Zoe, all the way to the corporate manager William Cross standing tucked against the wall—turned simultaneously toward the final man.
Archie Moran stood there, in the middle of the historic chapel in New Hampshire.
He saw the warm, expectant look on Luca’s face. He saw the hopeful smile on Zoe’s face. He saw the calculating, victorious look on William Cross’s face.
His chest twitched with a mild twinge of pain. His fingers tightened around the corner of his leather sketchbook inside his coat pocket.
The doorway of The Gate was standing wide open right before his eyes.
