Number 8438 stood at the cul-de-sac's end.

The woman smiled. "The address was the word. You read it. You came. That means you're real. Most people aren't, you know. Most people are just… echoes. But 8438 Zynthoril Street only finds the ones who answer ."

The map apps glitched. Her satellite view showed only a bruise-colored patch of high desert where coordinates 34°N, 106°W should have been.

A dirt road, then no road—only a trail of obsidian chips glittering under the dying sun. Her GPS spun like a compass near the pole. The radio dissolved into a single, repeating frequency: a low hum that felt less like sound and more like pressure behind her eyes.