The address the Professor had given was a bookshop.

Angela stood outside it, her bicycle locked to a railing. The shop was narrow, wedged between a café and a closed-down tailor. Its windows were dark, but a single light burned somewhere at the back. The sign above the door read “Alderman & Co., Est. 1887.”

She knocked. The door opened almost immediately.

Professor Alderman stood there, dressed now in a dark woollen coat rather than the clothes she had worn before. She looked Angela up and down, then nodded once. “You are still in one piece. Good. Come through.”

Angela followed her past empty shelves and dust-covered display cases. The shop smelled of old paper and something else, something sharp and metallic, like the air before a thunderstorm.

They reached a back room that was clearly not a place for customers. A large wooden table stood in the centre, covered in maps, photographs, and the same kind of brass instruments Angela had seen in the study on Crown Alley. A second person was already there: a man in his thirties with a shaved head and a scar running from his ear to his jaw. He was studying a photograph through a magnifying lens.

“Angela, this is Elias,” the Professor said. “He works with me. Or rather, he works for me, when he is not complaining about the hours.”

Elias looked up and gave a short, sharp nod. “You saw a seam,” he said. It was not a question.

“I saw something,” Angela replied. “A man where there was no face. Just… nothing.”

Elias exchanged a glance with the Professor. “High Street, outside the bank,” he said. “That is the third sighting in that area this week.”

The Professor moved to the table and spread out a map of the city. Small red marks had been drawn on it, clustered in three locations. Crown Alley was one. The High Street bank was another. The third was a park Angela knew well.

“They are moving inward,” the Professor said quietly. “The cracks appear, then they widen. The seams come through. They take forms, shapes borrowed from the world around them. A face from a photograph. A voice from a recording. A walk from someone they observe. But they cannot hold the shape perfectly. That is where you come in.”

Angela stared at the map. “What do you mean, they come through? From where?”

The Professor looked at her for a long moment. “From somewhere else. We do not have a better word for it. We call it the hollow place because that is what it feels like when you get too close. Empty. Infinite. Hungry.”

The word “hollow” sent a chill through Angela. She had used it herself to describe what she saw.

“And these seams,” the Professor continued, “they are not the danger. They are the sign of the danger. The crack itself is what we must close. But to close it, we need to see it. And to see it, we need someone who can look without looking away. Someone who does not let their mind fill in the gaps with comfortable lies.”

She turned to Angela. “Most people, when they see something wrong, their brain erases it. It protects them. But you saw it clearly. You described it accurately. That is rare. That is why I gave you my card.”

Angela understood now. “You did not just want me to deliver the bell. You wanted to see if I would call.”

“I wanted to see if you would notice,” the Professor corrected. “The bell confirmed the crack was here. You confirmed that we had someone who could help find it.”

Elias pushed a photograph across the table. It showed a section of the park, taken at night. In the centre of the image was a faint distortion, like heat haze over a road, but there was no heat source visible.

“That was taken three nights ago,” Elias said. “The crack is now visible to cameras. In another week, it will be visible to anyone. And after that…” He stopped.

“After that?” Angela prompted.

“The hollow place does not stay on its side of the crack forever,” the Professor said. “The seams are the first through. They test the space. They learn. And then, if the crack is not closed, something larger follows.”

The plan was simple in its description, but Angela felt its weight in her chest.

She would go to the park with the Professor and Elias. She would walk near the location of the crack. She would observe. When she saw it, she would describe it aloud, exactly as she saw it, without looking away. The Professor and Elias would use that description to position the bell, which was not merely a warning device but also a tool for closing such cracks.

“Why can you not just look at it yourselves?” Angela asked.

Elias touched the scar on his jaw. “Because we have looked before. The crack changes you if you look too long. It puts something in your head. A pattern. A sound. A face that is not a face. The Professor has trained herself to resist, but she cannot hold it for more than a few minutes. I lasted ninety seconds the first time. The scar is from what I did to myself afterwards to make the image stop.”

Angela felt her stomach turn. “And what will it do to me?”

The Professor’s expression softened, just slightly. “You will see it. That is unavoidable. But you will see it as an observer. You will name it. You will describe it. And then you will walk away. The closing is our work. The seeing is yours.”

“And after?”

The Professor picked up the silver bell from the table. In the warm light of the room, it looked ordinary, just an old, tarnished object. “After, the crack will be sealed. The seams will lose their borrowed shapes and return to the hollow place. The city will forget. Including you, perhaps. The mind does not like to keep such memories.”

“What if I want to remember?”

The Professor smiled, and for the first time, Angela saw something warm in it. “Then you remember. And you come back to work for me. A good observer is not easily found.”

They went to the park at midnight.

The city was quiet. A cold wind moved through the bare trees, and the streetlights around the park’s edge cast long, wavering shadows across the grass. Angela walked between the Professor and Elias, her breath forming small clouds in the air.

Elias carried the bell in a leather satchel. The Professor carried nothing, but her eyes moved constantly, scanning the darkness.

They stopped at the edge of a clearing. In the centre of it, Angela could see nothing unusual, just grass, a bench, a single lamppost that had gone dark.

“Do you see anything?” the Professor whispered.

Angela looked. At first, there was nothing. Then, as she focused on the space in front of the bench, she noticed something. The air did not look right. It was not moving the way air should move. It hung there, thick and still, like a held breath.

And then she saw it.

It was not a crack in the ground. It was a crack in the air itself, a vertical line of darkness that did not belong to the night. It was not black. It was the absence of anything. Looking at it was like looking at a hole in the world.

Her mind screamed at her to look away. She felt a pressure building behind her eyes, and for a moment, she saw something moving inside the crack, something vast and slow, turning in the emptiness.

She forced herself to speak. Her voice came out steady, though her hands were shaking.

“It is vertical,” she said. “About two metres high. It is not a shape. It is the place where shape stops. There is something inside it. I cannot tell its size. It is too large for me to see all at once.”

“That is enough,” the Professor said. “Elias, now.”

Elias stepped forward. He removed the bell from the satchel and held it up. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the bell began to ring on its own, a low, clear note that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The crack in the air pulsed. The darkness inside it seemed to press outward, and Angela felt a pull, like a current trying to draw her forward. She planted her feet and kept her eyes on the crack, describing what she saw.

“It is widening,” she said. “No… it is pushing against something. The bell is making it push.”

“Keep watching,” the Professor commanded. She had taken a small brass instrument from her coat and was pointing it at the crack. “Tell me when it stops widening.”

Angela watched. The crack pulsed again, then again. Each time the bell rang, the pulse grew weaker. The darkness inside began to shrink, folding inward on itself.

“It is closing,” Angela said. “Slowly. The top is closing first.”

The process took three minutes that felt like three hours. Angela did not look away once. She watched the crack shrink from a vertical line of nothing into a narrow thread, then into a pinprick, then into nothing at all.

When it was gone, the bell fell silent.

Elias lowered it, his arm trembling with exhaustion. The Professor let out a long, slow breath.

“It is done,” she said.

The park was quiet again. The air moved normally. The dark lamppost flickered once, twice, and then lit, casting ordinary yellow light across the grass.

Angela looked at her hands. They were still shaking. But she was standing. She was whole.

They walked back through the city in silence. When they reached the bookshop, Elias went inside without a word. The Professor lingered at the door.

“You did well,” she said. “Better than well. Most people cannot hold their focus for that long. You did not flinch.”

“I felt it pulling at me,” Angela said. “Something in the crack wanted me to look away.”

“It did. But you did not.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Angela thought about her bicycle, still locked to the railing. She thought about her flat, her deliveries, her ordinary life. It all felt very far away.

“The forgetting,” Angela said. “Will it happen?”

The Professor studied her face. “It may. Or it may not. You have a particular kind of mind, Angela. It holds onto what it sees. That is why you are useful to me.”

“Useful,” Angela repeated. She almost laughed. A week ago, she had been delivering parcels to pay her rent. Now she had watched a hole in the world close itself.

“I need someone who can walk the city and notice when things are out of place,” the Professor continued. “The bell will warn me when a crack forms, but it will not tell me where. That requires eyes. Your eyes, if you want the work. The pay is better than delivery.”

Angela looked up at the dark windows of the bookshop, then back at the quiet street. She thought of the seam with no face. She thought of the crack, and the vast, slow thing turning in the emptiness beyond it. She thought of her own mind, refusing to look away when everything in her had screamed to do so.

“What would I do?” she asked.

“You would deliver things,” the Professor said. A thin smile crossed her face. “But not parcels. And you would watch. You would see what others cannot. And when you see it, you would tell me.”

Angela reached into her pocket and felt the white card still there. She had almost thrown it away three times.

She pulled her hand out empty.

“When do I start?” she asked.

The Professor’s smile widened. “Tomorrow night. Crown Alley. Do not be late.”

She stepped inside and closed the door, leaving Angela alone on the pavement under the yellow glow of a streetlight.

Angela walked to her bicycle and unlocked it. She did not feel like the same person who had left her flat that morning. But she did not feel afraid, either. She felt something she had not expected.

She felt ready.

She cycled home through the sleeping city, her eyes moving across every doorway, every window, every patch of shadow. She was looking now. She would always be looking.

It was not the ending she had imagined for herself. But as the lights of the city passed by in streaks of orange and white, she understood that some people were meant to see the world differently. And she was one of them.

To be continued… look out for Part 3 of 3 next!

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Vocabulary Notes

Seam (noun)
Meaning: a line where two things are joined; in the story, it refers to a being that has come through a crack in reality, a creature that borrows imperfect shapes from the ordinary world.
Example: “You saw a seam,” he said. It was not a question.
Elias uses this word to name what Angela encountered outside the bank. The choice of “seam” is deliberate, it suggests something that has slipped through a join or a fault, just as a seam in clothing is where two pieces of fabric are stitched together. The word carries the idea that these beings are not separate entities but are produced by the crack itself.
Similar words: join, fault, fissure, junction, overlap, intrusion
Context note: In ordinary use, “seam” refers to a line where two edges meet, such as in clothing, carpet, or metalwork. In geology, a “seam” can refer to a thin layer of mineral between other materials. The story repurposes the word to describe beings that emerge from a fault between worlds, emphasising that they are products of the crack rather than independent creatures.

Hollow (adjective)
Meaning: empty inside; having a cavity; lacking substance or authenticity.
Example: “We call it the hollow place because that is what it feels like when you get too close. Empty. Infinite. Hungry.”
The Professor uses “hollow” to name the origin point of the seams and the crack. The repetition of “empty” and “infinite” builds on the core meaning of the word, but “hungry” adds a new dimension, this is not a passive emptiness but an active, desiring one. The word appears again later in the phrase “a hollow regression” from part one, linking the two parts of the story thematically.
Similar words: empty, void, cavernous, vacant, insubstantial, echoing
Context note: “Hollow” can describe physical objects (a hollow tree), sounds (a hollow echo), or abstract concepts (a hollow victory). When applied to a place, as in “the hollow place,” it suggests a location defined by absence, a space where something should be but is not. The addition of “hungry” transforms absence into threat.

Flinch (verb)
Meaning: to make a sudden, involuntary movement in response to pain, fear, or surprise; to draw back from something unpleasant.
Example: “You did well,” she said. “Better than well. Most people cannot hold their focus for that long. You did not flinch.”
The Professor’s praise centres on Angela’s ability to remain still and focused while looking directly at the crack. “Flinch” here is both literal, she did not physically recoil, and metaphorical, she did not let her mind turn away from what she was seeing. The word captures the instinctive human response to danger or horror, and Angela’s victory is that she overrode that instinct through will.
Similar words: recoil, wince, shrink, cringe, start, shy away
Context note: “Flinch” is almost always used to describe an uncontrolled, reflexive reaction. To say someone “did not flinch” is to praise their composure, courage, or self-control. It is often used in contexts of confrontation, danger, or witnessing something disturbing.

Vast (adjective)
Meaning: extremely large in size, extent, or scale; too great to be measured or comprehended fully.
Example: “There is something inside it. I cannot tell its size. It is too large for me to see all at once.”
Angela describes what she sees within the crack, and though she does not use the word “vast” in her dialogue, the narration establishes it in the line: “she saw something moving inside the crack, something vast and slow, turning in the emptiness.” The word is chosen to convey a scale beyond normal human experience. This is not a large object like a building or a ship. It is something whose full dimensions cannot be perceived from any single vantage point.
Similar words: enormous, immense, gigantic, colossal, boundless, immeasurable
Context note: “Vast” often describes things that are not only large but also difficult to measure or comprehend, the vastness of the ocean, the vastness of space, the vastness of time. In the story, its use signals that what lies beyond the crack is fundamentally beyond human scale and understanding.

Observer (noun)
Meaning: a person who watches or notices things, often without direct participation; one who maintains attention and records what is seen.
Example: “You will see it as an observer. You will name it. You will describe it. And then you will walk away.”
This word, which appeared in part one, returns with greater weight in part two. The Professor explicitly defines Angela’s role: she is not a fighter, not a scholar, not a wielder of the bell. She is an observer. Her power lies in her ability to see clearly and describe accurately without her mind protecting her through denial or evasion. The word becomes a title of honour by the end, and when Angela accepts the work, she accepts the identity of observer as her own.
Similar words: watcher, witness, beholder, onlooker, spectator, monitor
Context note: “Observer” differs from similar words in its implication of purposeful attention. A spectator watches for entertainment. A witness watches by circumstance. An observer watches with intention, often with the goal of recording or understanding. In scientific and philosophical contexts, the observer is understood to affect what is observed, a concept that resonates with Angela’s role, as her act of watching is essential to closing the crack.

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Story written by DeepSeek.

Image created by 1min.ai.

CC Music: Drifting at 432 Hz – Unicorn Heads.

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