They discovered that sound could not cross the blank in a straight line. A word sent forward returned reversed. A sentence sent loudly shattered into punctuation.

Eli whispered, “Tell me something small.”

Lin answered, “I am afraid of thunder.”

The blank returned, “I keep thunder.”

At the deepest step: “Thunder.”

It was a poor translator, but a faithful echo. So they spoke in short steps, placing each new line a little nearer the middle.

ELI: I collect lost buttons.
  LIN: I name the raindrops.
    ELI: This one is difficult.
      LIN: Call it Not Yet.
        ELI: Not Yet.
          LIN: Not Yet.

For seven days they built a staircase out of ordinary things: burnt toast, wet socks, the smell of old libraries, a blue cup chipped at the lip. The steps held because none of these things was important enough to frighten the page.

On the eighth night, Lin asked the dangerous question.

“If we reach the middle, what happens?”

“We meet.”

Or we become the same sentence.

One sentence, with one person missing.

The staircase trembled. Below them, every harmless word they had shared began to fall upward.

button                button
  rain              rain
    blue          blue
      ·          ·
          NOT YET

Eli reached for Lin. Between their fingers remained exactly one empty line.