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taken, not just misplaced. An electric buzz in the room makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my stomach drop. I walk back to Azael, letting my hand skim across the plain white walls.
    “It shouldn’t be empty.” I can’t stop repeating myself. It should be a memory. It shouldn’t be empty. There are no more coherent thoughts that form in my mind other than these. My head hurts as it spins in circles, trying to find a logical explanation for the nothingness.
    “So, what happened?”
    “I don’t know.” I run my hand anxiously through my hair, my fingers tripping on tangles. “We have to try another door.”
    I grab Azael by his arm and lead him back out of the room, across the hallway, and to another door. I twist the knob and lean into the room.
    Empty, again.
    Wrong. This is wrong.
    We go down the hallway, trying each door and finding each room empty.
    Empty and bright.
    Empty and bright.
    Always empty, and always bright.
    The more rooms we find empty, the farther my stomach falls. “It’s not supposed to be like this. This doesn’t happen!”
    “Relax, Pen,” Azael says, placing a hand on my shoulder. “They were crazy. Maybe they literally lost their mind.”
    “It doesn’t matter. The memory would still be here.” The mind goes insane and the mind can forget, but not the soul. The hardware fails, not the software.
    Frantically, I try another door, but the handle sticks. I shake the handle harder and try to force the door in with my shoulder, but it’s locked.
    “Azael!”
    He runs up next to me and grabs the handle, trying it for himself.
    “It’s locked,” I say.
    “Oh really Pen? Do you think?” he asks sarcastically. “Get back and I’ll kick it in.”
    I silently move away from the door. Azael steps back and kicks out at the handle with a violent force. The polished surface of the door cracks slightly, but it remains stuck. He steps back again and delivers a second blow. This time, the wood splinters. A third hit of his sturdy boot sends the door swinging in.
    Azael holds out his arm and theatrically gestures into the room. “After you.”
    I move towards the door and feel my amulet pulsate eagerly around my throat. I clutch the chain and nod to Azael. “Is your pendant…?”
    “Yeah,” he says, pulling at the smooth, black stone that hangs around his own neck. “Is that a good sign?”
    “I guess we’ll find out.”
    I tuck the necklace back under my collar and step carefully into the room. Only the small patch of light that filters in from the door offers any illumination. Azael is silhouetted in the doorframe, his dark figure rimmed in the bright light from the hallway. He pulls the door closed behind him, extinguishing the last of the light and immediately plunging us into a darkness so absolute that I can’t discern any shadows.
    I squeeze my eyes closed and reopen them, but the blackness remains. I feel, more than see, Az move forward. He grabs my hand and, together, we continue to walk deeper into the darkness. The farther we get from the door, the quieter our footsteps become.
    “It’s not nothing, right?” His voice sounds hushed, as if it is being smothered by the dark.
    “It’s—I’m not sure what it is,” I answer in a whisper, afraid to break the silence. “I can’t see anything.”
    “You’re pendant is glowing.”
    I look down at my chest and notice a faint purple glow through the thin cotton of my t-shirt. “Not exactly the best flashlight.” I grip the dark chain and bring the jagged stone over my head. I hold it out in front of me so I can use it to guide us through the darkness. “Shall we?” I ask, stepping forward.
    But Azael stops me short, pulling back on my hand so I am next to him again. The glowing purple stone sways erratically back and forth in my fist.
    “Wait,” he says under his breath. “Do you hear that?”
    I stay very still and focus on finding a noise in the silence. I’m about to tell Azael that I don’t hear