Monument Valley Series

Sixteen hours, twelve minutes, forty-five seconds.

I jam the scratched pocket-watch into our shared duffel bag and try to fall asleep on the cold, rocky ground. That’s how long we’ve been out here, separated from the others like a pair of magnets ripped apart and thrown across a room.

Except here, the room is all of Monument Valley.

Our three-day-long journey began two days ago, at the crack of dawn. Invited by a group of avid hikers to join them on an introductory expedition through mountains and across rocky terrain, me and my sister Ember had set off into the inky dark mystery of the mountains loaded down with food, water, and spare clothes.

Now, the duffel bag containing our supplies was almost empty. Because, according to my trusty pocket-watch, we should have been back home by now. When we were separated, we had been well into our final day in the Valley. Obviously, we hadn’t planned to be out in the wilderness for longer than three days.

Treading lightly to avoid waking Ember, who sleeps on a patch of moss next to the duffel bag under a platter of leaves and sticks, I case our surroundings. The rest of the group vanished the previous evening, and finding out where exactly we were had been virtually impossible until about an hour ago, when the sun had began to light up the sky, gradually and slowly like a patchwork quilt coming to life.

Both of us had seen more than enough of Monument Valley during the first two days of our journey. If you deepened the Grand Canyon by about a third, grew grass in it, planted trees at regular intervals, and added some streams, you would get Monument Valley. We spent most of our expedition walking in the deepest, lowest parts of it, rather than up on its sides or attempting to keep our balance along its steep walls. I have no idea where we are now, but it had better not be on the edge of a cliff.

Walking in circles helps me think. Plodding over the same patch of grass so many times that a small rut appears in the dirt, I think hard. The separation had happened suddenly, like someone had whisked the rest of our group away into the wind. We had been walking up a steep slope towards a barren plateau, one of the highest points in the valley, when the tip of the plateau seemed to extend, reaching out towards the towering walls of the canyon like they had somehow been originally connected. Ember had noticed, too. When I tilted my head or looked at the plateau from a different angle, it went back to being a regular old patch of barren land.

I’d barely had time to process this oddity when the group of ten hikers in front of us had rapidly picked up their pace, leaving us behind, and disappeared over the edge of the plateau leaving no trace. It was almost as if they’d seen something over the edge, waiting in the low-lying valley below…

Well, neither of us will ever know now. I try to stay focused, try to brainstorm ways that we could get out of here and back to civilization, try to figure out where the hell we are. With each step I feel like I’m walking towards a solution, but with each step in the opposite direction it feels like I’m treading away from it. And since I can’t continue walking in the same direction forever, I’ll probably never come to a solution.

So . . . what, then? We’ll just be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere forever? No chance of returning home?

Something shiny catches my eye as I make another pass around our desolate excuse for a campground. I falter mid-step, turn around, bend down to examine what has accomplished the Herculean feat of getting my attention during this hellish time. I crawl towards our duffel bag, where I recall seeing the flash. The culprit appears to be the identifying keychain that dangles from a zipper on the bag, announcing both of our names to anyone who might come across it: “Phoenix and Ember Hanai”.

There is nothing the keychain can do to help us now, at least not if there’s no one around to locate us and bring us back to safety. The cold night wind, like so many icy daggers, cuts into the back of my neck as I let go of the keychain, letting it flop stupidly against the ripped bag.

It was late December—winter break—when we left on the hike. In the grand scheme of things, barely any time has passed since we first stepped out of the group van, stepped foot on the rocky ground of Monument Valley. But it feels like we’ve crossed over from August to January in a matter of days. Why the hell is it so cold?

Seeking any form of warmth, anything better than the meager protection offered by my tattered T-shirt, I scrounge in the brush for large tree branches or blankets of moss to use, like my partner Ember is using now to ease her sleep. She has been dozing for almost three hours, according to my pocket-watch. Her breaths are soft and slow, exhausted even, as I scour the freezing ground for anything I could use to make the lingering cold in the air more tolerable, like a frenzied beaver on the verge of starvation. Maybe that’s how I need to start thinking—like I’m simply a fixture of nature, a denizen of this infertile landscape who has learned to adapt to the harsh conditions. It still would be nice to get rescued, though.

Stop thinking like that, Phoenix, I tell myself. Tough, hardy wild animals don’t need to get rescued.

The familiar sinking of the heart and stomach accompanies my realization that my logic is flawed, and I keep searching, letting nothing—not a baying wolf or a crying flock of geese overhead—distract me. But maybe something is wrong here. I look up for a moment, risking a peek over the deserted treetops on the ring of plateaus to the north. The sky is gradually brightening, its dull black tint morphing into a pleasing twilight-grey that will soon usher in the first rays of sunlight. Yet my teeth chatter uncontrollably; my legs are mere bowling pins that someone is smacking together over and over again—they are lacking in muscle and control, and are just as pale. It feels like I’ve been dropped a thousand feet into the arctic waters surrounding the North Pole, plunged deep into the icy abyss with no way to get back to the surface. It should be getting warmer, not colder.

Having been appallingly unsuccessful in my search for warm blankets of moss and the like, I struggle to my feet and return to Ember’s side, where she still reposes. Since sleep is an obvious lost cause, I attempt to humor myself with familiar memories of life before the separation. What warmth feels like. What safety, shelter, means to us. I could go on, but I don’t want to be too distracted when Ember wakes up.

Instead, I zero in on familiar memories. Me and Ember both attend the same high school, of course. The group of hikers who offered us an opportunity to join them also did, but their invitation mostly had to do with the fact that we had been struggling in physical education lately, often times meeting the wrath of the P.E. coach more than three times per day due to our ineptitude when it came to the difficult forced marches and exercise routines we were forced to endure. My guess was that the group of hikers, who always excelled in the P.E. activities, had taken pity on us and invited us to join them on a hiking trip to increase our physical ability. If I had known what would transpire on our journey, I would never have accepted the invitation.

At first I had even been a little reluctant to engage on such an arduous journey, since I, like any other reasonable high school student, had wanted to stay home over winter break, hang out with friends, and play video games. But Ember was excited, claiming she needed the exercise and couldn’t stand to be yelled at and humiliated once more in P.E. class. On the contrary, I saw the hike as a punishment issued by the other group of students, who correctly saw us as inept and stupid when it came to physical activities, and wanted to make us suffer and embarrass us for three days. It hadn’t been until one of them had offered to let us participate for free that I had finally given in.

A sharp sniffle and a rustling of brush reclaims my undivided attention, and I turn towards the source of the sound: Ember. Throwing broken branches and leaves off her front and back sides as she attempts to get to her feet, she realizes a little too soon that I’m standing over her and yelps in surprise.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to, uh, startle you.” I stretch out a hand apologetically.

Still trying to recover from the surprise, she whips her head back and forth rapidly, a nervous habit of hers. “Too late.”

Thus far, Ember has been relatively unenthusiastic about our predicament. Whereas I have been constantly complaining, expressing worry about our increasingly-slim chances of getting back to civilization, Ember has been trying to make the most of our situation. Instead of a “separation”, we are simply participating in an extended hike, an additional chance to get our muscles moving and be extra prepared when school resumes in January.

Ember has been trying to sell the “extended hike” idea to me for the past sixteen hours, thirty-nine minutes, and eighteen seconds. And every time she has brought it up, our expected date of return has morphed from “tomorrow” to “day after next” to “next week” to “the day before break ends”.

Pretty sure she’s going to run out of ideas eventually.

“Soo . . . whatcha doing?” Ember asks me.

“Nothing much,” I grumble, tossing aside the handful of branches I had managed to find during my unsuccessful search for moss blankets. “Just trying to make the most of what we have.” I muster a jaunty smile, trying to channel some of Ember’s earlier enthusiasm.

But it seems now that she, too, is beginning to see the true reality of our dire situation. “There’s not much to work with here. Pretty much all Monument Valley is is just a pile of rocks and trees on some grass.” Her body shudders. “Also, why is it so damn cold?”

“Exactly what I was thinking earlier,” I reply. Then I point to her moss blanket, which is currently draped across her lap–the same position it’s been in for the past three hours. I figure her blanket cuddle time is over by now, so I extend a hand and say ,”I could use some moss right now.”

Ember looks at me curiously, and I realize I probably should have phrased my request differently. But she hands over the moss pad and I wrap it around my shoulders like a towel, wishing it was longer and covered my legs.

But even the lackluster warmth provided by the moss pad doesn’t seem to be enough insulation against the biting cold, which seems to have increased tenfold from half an hour ago. I’m just about to throw the stupid thing down when a glint of light appears in my peripheral vision. The sun’s coming up.

“Finally,” I say, just in time to be blinded by the sharp, white corona of the sun, like you would see in a total solar eclipse.

“What the hell?” Ember demands of the fiery white outline hovering in the sky above the valley.

The corona enlarges, balloons in size like it’s burping. (Gross). Rising over the shadowy plateaus and jagged peaks of the mountains ringing Monument Valley, it stops at the point where it seems to be directly across from a particular plateau….

“Isn’t that the plateau where the hikers disappeared?” Ember wonders. She points to the tall, craggy structure that seems to lead into the corona. Turns out she’s right. I remember the abject lack of trees, the wispy, tall grass covering it. That’s the plateau, all right.

I nod to Ember. “Something’s going on here. First, the hikers run off the edge of that stupid thing. Now, it looks like it’s aligned perfectly with a corona, of all things?” I shake my head. “And I thought this week couldn’t get any weirder.”

“You’re right,” Ember replies. Now that the corona has stopped inflating and/or moving, a little of her prior enthusiasm seems to have returned. “Want to go check it out? You never know. We might find some more moss blankets out there.” She smirks at me, and I return the look as I fish a tuna sandwich—one of our last—out of the duffel bag. I take a look at the grimy face of my pocket-watch, do the math in my head, confirm that we’ve been out here for sixteen hours, fifty-four minutes, and forty seconds.

“Ready?” Ember asks as I bite into the tuna sandwich. My salivary glands sting as I chew down my first meal in almost a day.

“Relatively,” I answer—my trademark response to the question.

Tuna sandwich of death in hand, I walk alongside Ember towards the mysterious plateau.

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Take it slow, Phoenix. No need to rush; no reason to breathe all funny like that.

My mom’s wise words flood through my brain like a malfunctioning loudspeaker as my shaky legs carry me, hand-in-hand with Ember, across the desolate plateau. I try to think of our current situation as a difficult math problem, one that most likely involves lots of trial and error, long hours spent studying textbooks, and several wrong answers. When my mom worked through the problems with me—or at least tried to—she would notice my anxiety, my worry at not being able to complete the problem set before its impending due date. My breathing would become sharp and irregular, and my limbs would begin to twitch. She would put a comforting hand on my shoulder, tell me not to get worked-up about a stupid math problem.

Yeah, well, I never figured a math problem would take the form of a white-hot corona. What am I supposed to do here, find the roots of this plateau and plug it into the corona’s equation?

“You okay, Phoenix?” Ember asks, squeezing my shoulder.

“Honestly? No. How do you expect me to feel? Happy and overjoyed that we’re walking straight into this—this monstrosity?”

A concerned, almost hurt look washes over Ember’s face. “Hey, this is going to be fun. Have you ever seen a total solar eclipse before?”

I shake my head.

“No? . . . well, surely you’ve seen the photos. And I can tell you for a fact that they don’t do the real thing justice. Just think: you’re getting to see a real solar eclipse for yourself, in person!”

We reach the edge of the plateau, and I realize that my shoe scrapes alarmingly close to the very spot where the hikers jumped off the edge. There are no footprints, no disturbances in the layer of closely-packed dirt, no evidence to suggest that anyone was ever there. This place appears to be as unfruitful and uninhabited as my math classroom.

I cautiously extend my foot over the edge of the plateau. An acute surge of heat rushes up my leg, biting into my thigh and forcing me to jerk by foot back. “The hell was that?”

Ember studies the basin of the valley far below, dotted with trees and tall grasses. She puts her hand over the edge and cringes with pain, yanking it back with the same alacrity as I did with my foot.

“This isn’t a normal solar eclipse,” Ember concludes.

“You think?” I reply. The ground seems to vibrate beneath my feet as I take another cautious step closer to the edge. What are we supposed to do here? The corona hovers ominously over us, closer in the sky now than it seems possible for the sun to be. My astronomy teacher is going to have a field day when I tell her what I saw over winter break—assuming, of course, that we can get back to civilization.

“It almost seems like . . . the corona is some sort of portal,” I observe. “You know, the whole shining ring thing . . . totally out of a science fiction novel.”

Ember sighs. “What is it with you and science fiction novels? Anyway, this isn’t one. This is a chance to spice up our lives a little bit, get away from the monotony of everyday life.”

When she put it like that, things suddenly didn’t seem so bad anymore. What was a little portal-jumping and adventuring, especially as opposed to long hours doing homework or sitting in classrooms?

I take a deep breath, shielding my eyes from the blinding light of the corona that seems to be getting worse with each passing second. “Okay. I respect your pep talk. Now, what are we supposed to do here? Get into that corona somehow?”

“Probably,” Ember says. “Which means . . .” She appears to be deep in thought, so I don’t disturb her as she bends her body in different ways to study the plateau and the corona from various angles. I have no idea what she’s doing, but usually I don’t interfere when she’s putting her brain to work.

“It’s all in how you look at this thing,” Ember notes after a while. She walks over to me and tilts my head to the right before I can protest, bending my body over so that my head hovers approximately two feet off the ground, as she had done moments before herself.

Immediately the world is transformed. The plateau we are standing on merges with the corona, so that it appears we are standing on a bridge to the distant white halo. Ember presses my head down further, and I ignore the pain and aching, concentrating instead on the way the plateau has seamlessly merged with the corona and clicked together. Ember tilts my head to the right; the plateau and the corona remain connected.

“So now comes the hard part. We have to make it across this plateau and into the corona with our heads tilted and our bodies bent?” I guess.

“Exactly,” Ember replies. She orders me to remain exactly as I am now, lets go of me, and gets into a similar position. It’s hard beyond belief, keeping my body from slumping and my head from rolling off my shoulders. Everything aches; if we ever get out of this alive I’ll be in bed for a week. But our entire plan this week was to improve our physical abilities, after all; shouldn’t this count?

My insides churn ominously as me and Ember step to the edge. A thousand questions tumble through my mind, and suddenly I am just a solitary snowflake in a blizzard of worries. What if the heat kills us? What if we’re bounced back? What if we fall straight down? It shouldn’t be possible, using an optical illusion to walk straight to the sun’s corona. That journey would take an unspeakable amount of time with humankind’s current advances with space travel, and the prospect of walking into the corona suddenly sounds so fake, foolish, and unrealistic to me that a laugh escapes from my lips.

“What?” Ember prompts.

“Nothing,” I reply. I can’t bear to hold this literally back-breaking position forever, so I tell Ember I’m ready to make the jump.

The searing white outline, now blurry in my degraded vision, is the last thing I see before we fall. Straight down, like a crashing airplane. Trees and walls of rock rush past us, looking on silently and stolidly. I’m vaguely aware of a dark blur next to me, maybe Ember. Wind battles aggressively with my skin, trying to wear me down and chill my innards until they freeze. Everything feels a hundred degrees colder now that we’re falling, and there seems to be no end to our plunge. At some point we’re going to meet ground, right? Monument Valley has got to end eventually.

And we probably would have a matter of seconds later, if not for what happens next.

The air seems to bend upward, slamming us back into the sky with such force that I feel my vision begin to darken. Freshly-squeezed tears roll down the sides of my face as we blast towards the corona, Monument Valley rapidly receding below us. Everything happens so quickly that I fail to check for Ember’s presence—or rather, her distant black blur—next to me as I continue my rapid journey into the heavens.

Flying towards the white halo a million times faster than any human spacecraft, I don’t have time to think about anything else. The air is still cold as hell on my skin, and it still feels like ten different people are pulling me in ten different directions at once. But the otherworldly forces acting on me now must be working, because the corona is slowly getting closer. Even at this speed, though, the journey is going to take a little while. Too bad I didn’t bring my AirPods.

When things finally seem to settle down—or at least to the limited extent that they can here, halfway to the sun—I risk a peek to my left and right to check to see if Ember is still there.

A pang of remorse and terror colder than the flood of air around me courses through my body when I realize she isn’t. Not next to me, not behind me, not even in front of me.

Stay calm, Phoenix. It’s going to be all right. I try to tell myself a thousand times that she’s all right, that she’s simply traveling a bit behind, a bit slower. Maybe the sheer insanity of jumping off a plateau and into the sun’s corona hit her moments after I took off. Hell, maybe she’s still there. No, my conscience tells me. She wouldn’t do that. Something else must have happened.

But what?

I swiftly realize I won’t be at ease until I find the answer to that question. There’s nothing I can do to get back to her now, wherever she is, but I’m hoping that there will be some way to make the return journey when I reach the corona. Of course, I still have no idea what awaits me on that distant frontier. Aliens, maybe? Something more complicated? Either way, there’s no turning back now.

A few painful minutes later and the corona is astonishingly bright and huge in my eyes, blocking everything else out of sight. I think I’m floating in space, and somehow I can still breathe. The forces propelling me towards the sun have lessened, although I can tell I’m still moving at a steady pace towards the ring of light. I have to look away into the inky darkness of space to prevent my eyes from being destroyed permanently, if they haven’t already by the constant blare of light. A comet hurtles past me, nearly grazing my elbow. Yep, I’m in space all right.

Deep breaths, Phoenix. Deep breaths. I try not to lose control of myself and completely flip out as the corona bulges ominously in front of me, closer now than ever. A few more meters and I’ll pass directly through it. Or maybe I’ll slam into it and be fried to death. There is no telling what will happen next, and the mounting suspense is becoming unbearable when there is a muffled snap and the whoosh of wind around me dies away.

Now the only indication that I’m still alive and not going through some terrible pre-death fever dream is my harried breathing, hissing and puffing like a steam engine run out of control. I’ve passed through the corona, into the massive dark sphere where the sun itself should be. Instead there is only nothing—just an infinite expanse of darkness, even more vacant and silent than from where I have come.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Now I can only hear my racing pulse, thrumming through my ears and head. I must still be breathing, but the sound has vanished among the inky darkness that seems to swallow all life out of everything. I can’t move a muscle in my body. It is as if someone has paralyzed me, putting me into a sort of half-coma to see how long I can last. Suddenly my body can no longer support its own weight. I rapidly roll over onto my back, then whatever force supporting me is gone and I’m tumbling again through the corridors of empty space. Gradually, the blackness around me begins to lighten, like I’m drawing closer to a lighted room far below. The light pulses, almost in sync with my heartbeat, and I grope in the shadows for a sense of perspective. Sometimes fading, sometimes growing, the distant glow is like a beacon, dragging me back to reality.

Then there’s the sound of metal on metal, and my back collides with something—hard. This is the end, I think. Why am I not dead yet? That fall should have killed me. I feel hands—human hands—supporting me from below, and I realize I’m moving at a normal pace. No longer free-falling through the wispy passages of space, no longer adrift among the heavens. Could it be true? Might I have finally returned to my senses? And most important, who is carrying me?

I realize my eyes have been closed, somehow, this entire time. I rip them open and find myself face-to-face with a grimy stone wall that is moving slowly past me as I’m carried along. Guttering sconces have been placed at regular intervals, and it seems I have arrived in the cliched, all-too-familiar stone dungeon that features prominently in so many science fiction books.

It takes me a matter of seconds to realize that I’ve got it all wrong.

A quick glance downwards reveals that there is no floor below me; instead, the infinite void of empty space that I fell from stretches on into the darkest depths of the universe. I don’t know how the people carrying me aren’t falling to their deaths—must be some other enchantment I don’t know the workings of. The smell here reminds me of an office—crisp, fresh, and . . . is that coffee?

I strain against the strong grip of my conveyors. They don’t lighten up on my arms and legs. The march continues solemnly, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve lapsed into a state of reduced consciousness again when everything comes to a stop and the creak of a door manages to penetrate my feverish brain. I’m carried through a translucent archway and out into what appears to be a sort of open-air balcony, except there isn’t any air for the balcony to be open to. Just like the void of space that was below me earlier, the mysterious ebony of the darkness surrounding me now is astonishingly beautiful. Here, there are no twinkling stars offering their distant pinpricks of light in the sky. Just blackness.

My body thumps against a soft surface that feels lined with cushions. To my right is a glass wall that wraps around the length of the structure, just like any other balcony. And to my left is the curious silhouette of a young woman wearing a pointed cone-shaped hat.

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“What have you done with my friend Ember?” is the first thing I demand of the tenebrous silhouette in the pointed hat. I’m baffled, exhausted, and confused, and I’m in no mood for pleasantries. Additionally, the first thing that floats to the surface of my mind is the situation of Ember’s disappearance.

“And hello to you, too, young one. You may call me Ida,” replies the woman. Ida’s voice is creamy but ancient, youthful but sapient, kind but demanding. Her silhouette shifts slightly, and she edges closer to me. I hope I’m wrapped in a similar cloak of shadows, because my face is probably a mess from all that time out in the frigid wilderness.

“That’s not actually an answer,” I point out.

“I’m aware of that,” Ida answers. Her posture slumps ever so imperceptibly, and a weary sigh tumbles from her lips. “I suppose I should give you some background. Welcome to the real Monument Valley—not that puny little landform that your rulers have named after the actual kingdom. You and your sister have been chosen to playtest, as it were, the various puzzles and illusions we have devised to trap trespassers in our realm.”

“So . . . we’re lab rats, then. And why do you need your stuff tested? Can’t it just, like, work? And if it doesn’t, you just go oh well and try again? Also, if you’re having my sister participate in this fiasco as well, why don’t you bring her here?” I resolve to deliberately attempt to shame her into bringing Ember to me.

“It’s not that simple. Our kingdom is in jeopardy again for the first time in many years. Given my abundance of experience with these puzzles, I was chosen to be your guide and instructor as you traverse our levels.” She chokes slightly on the final sentence, as if it brings back bad memories.

I realize there’s no changing what this mysterious woman has planned for me. Apparently, Ember isn’t coming back, and I’ll be stuck going through these puzzles all alone. The hopelessness of the situation is almost enough to make me revert to my previous alarmed state. But a slight movement from the doorway grabs my attention before I can shoot back a response, and I look up to find . . . a crow?

“Oh, don’t mind these little guys,” Ida says, waving a disinterested hand in the direction of the tiny black bird. Its feathers, tucked protectively against its sleek black body, twitch every so often with a strange nervous energy that reminded me of the time I spent anxiously pacing around Ember back in the valley. Its eyes, crystal-black and dolefully unfriendly, bore into my own like a jackhammer. Its sharp beak stretches out at least five inches from its head—the ultimate pecking machine.

A skittering from my right alerts me to the presence of three more crows, who are all perched on the low glass wall that surrounds the balcony. In this wearied state of mind I can’t be sure of anything, but I swear the look on their faces all seem to convey the same thing: One wrong move and you’re dead.

“Why are there so many of them?” I ask quietly.

“They’re our guards,” Ida replies. “Simple bastions of peace, as I like to call them. As one of my ancestors once said, the crows do no harm and let none take place. Don’t worry, I’ll see to it that they leave you alone. Especially since you look so dreadfully afraid of them.”

I cringe. “Noticed that, huh?”

Ida nods. “I’ve become very good at discerning emotions from facial expressions over these past few years. Partly because of the central tenets that lie at the foundation of our kingdom.”

I’m not sure I want to know what those are, but my curious mind, hungry for answers, shoves past my conscience. “What kind of tenets are those?”

“There are many, and time is short. I’m afraid I won’t be able to discuss all of them with you today. But I can tell you this: geometry is the basis of all that we see.”

Feverish flashbacks to geometry class, in which such things as tangents and circles and ratios and formulas were discussed, bite into my mind like a thousand angry crows. Ever since my disastrous first geometry class at the beginning of the school year, in which I had been chewed out twice for hopelessly messing up a problem, I’d vowed never to think about any sort of geometry outside of homework or class time, lest it bring back the ineffable pain of that prison-cell of a class. And now this strange woman in a pointed hat is trying to convince me that geometry is the foundation of all things in life?

I suppose she’s right. When it comes down to it, most of the things in the world around me originated from some geometric proof or theorem. But I hope the puzzles I’ll soon be subjected to won’t require me to possess profound knowledge of geometry. Because that’s one of the last things I’ll ever have.

“I can see you’re feeling skeptical about this tenet,” Ida says. Skeptical is one way to put it, I think. “I believe you still need a little more time to adjust to the values of Monument Valley before I can reveal the true meaning of our sayings.”

Finally, something that Ida and me agree on. “That sounds like a great idea. Now, how about seeing if you can get Ember in here, since she’s supposed to be accompanying me through these puzzles?”

Ida smiled drily. “Oh, I assure you, she’s getting her own introduction right now. You may not realize it, but I’m actually existing in two places right now.”

“What?!” I screech despite myself. Ida’s kingdom of crows may have been weird by itself, but this latest fact has taken me entirely by surprise.

“When you become experienced enough with manipulating the forces of geometry in the air around you, it’s possible that you can split your existence into equal parts, and send one off into a separate place. Right now, the other half of me is giving this same exact conversation to Ember—and I have to say, she took the news of my cross-existence a lot calmer than you did.”

I shrink back against the soft cushions behind me. “Well, that’s great for her.”

Ida smiles again, this time with slightly more energy. “It certainly is. She’s been quite the good listener thus far, and has even gone so far as to demonstrate some excitement at the puzzles you two will be facing shortly. Speaking of which . . . I believe it is now time to reveal the rest of Monument Valley to you, so you know how to access our various amenities. Ember will also be restored to your side, since you seem so adamant about having her company at all times.”

I breathe a sigh of relief as Ida gets up from the dark cushions to my left. Her form flickers ever so slightly, and Ember’s familiar silhouette appears right in front of me. I throw my arms around her, and she hugs back, and we’re locked in the tight embrace for what feels like an eternity until Ida clears her throat, and the sharp peck of a crow’s beak nabs my ankle.

Stupid birds.

“Well, it is now time for us to get moving,” Ida says, gesturing towards the translucent archway that floats about fifteen feet away. It’s still quite dark on the balcony, and I almost trip over my own feet several times. But the light of the floating archway guides all of us to safety, and in another moment we’ve carefully stepped over the shimmering gel-like substance that makes up the doorway and onto the void of empty black space.

I’ll probably never get used to the sensation of putting my foot down into a seemingly-infinite vacuum and feeling it find purchase on the slippery abyss. But for now, I grab Ember’s hand and lock it tightly in my own to steady the both of us. Ida comes out from behind us and leads the way down the wide corridor, whose walls are made of the same gel-like translucent material that comprised the archway. The cloying smell of coffee still floats in the air, tickling my nose like an innocent flower and making me realize how long it has been since my last meal. I can’t believe I’m not dead already from starvation. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m not actually that hungry right now—more like the steady, normal craving for food that consumes me whenever I’m near a bakery or an Italian restaurant.

We walk silently down the passage as if on air, seeing no one else but ourselves. The entire place seems to be deserted, but from the way Ida had described Monument Valley earlier, it seems like there should be at least some other inhabitants of the strange kingdom. Maybe they’re all working? Perhaps they’re asleep?

I decide to ask. “Where is everyone else? Surely a kingdom must have citizens inhabiting it, right?”

Ida stares at me like I’d just killed one of her sacred crows. “There are no people here, young one. The only inhabitants of Monument Valley are our crows. They, in fact, were the ones who built the puzzles that served as a test for me many decades ago when I first discovered this hidden society–and that will serve the same purpose for you two.”

“As a test?” Ember asks. “I thought the whole point of us being here is so we can make sure these puzzles are in good working order. Is there something I’m missing?”

“There is,” Ida says, a hint of agitation creeping into her voice. “Or you didn’t listen properly the first time. Either way, our puzzles serve more than one purpose. I will be monitoring your progress as you make your way through the various stages of completion, and when you finish I will assess both of your skill levels to decide whether you will be able to help our kingdom.”

Something Ida had said earlier floats to the surface of my mind. “Didn’t you say that your kingdom is in jeopardy again for the first time in years?”

Ida’s smile sags, evaporating into an uncomfortable frown. “That is true. The Thieves are upon us again, attempting to break through our security measures and access our sacred geometry so they can harness its powers. When I was brought here myself many years ago, the kingdom was in the same state of panic.”

“Who was in charge of Monument Valley before you?” Ember asks.

“An ancient entity called The Storyteller,” Ida tells us. “I met them several times during my quests to restore the sacred geometry the first time. Their identity has long remained concealed from me, and to this day I have little knowledge of their origins. But they remain today as one of the oldest, wisest members of Monument Valley.”

“Sounds mysterious,” I say. I find myself feeling unnaturally excited about all of this—excited that a boring hike into the rocky fringes of wilderness turned into something so surreal and unthinkable. And yet . . . some part of this feels oddly familiar. Like I’ve heard of the sacred geometry before, somehow. It’s just a faint wisp of remembrance, but I can feel it tickling my mind. Even Ida’s strange pointy hat brings back a distant memory of something I’ve long forgotten.

We pass another floating archway embedded in the translucent wall, a flock of crows crowding around its edges and screeching angrily.

“Is something wrong?” Ida asks. Ember has noticed the change in my emotions as well, squeezing my hand in rhythmic pulses in an attempt to calm my nerves.

“I’m just thinking about all of this,” I tell Ida. “This sacred geometry . . . why do you care so much about it? And why did The Storyteller share the same sentiment?”

“It is a very long and tired story,” Ida informs me. “A story whose details I no longer can place. But I will tell you this: the sacred geometry is what gives our society is magic. This corridor, our puzzles, myself—none of this would be here in its current shape and form if not for the sacred geometry.

The geometry keeps us together, gives us identity, and makes everything seem familiar and recognizable. Without it, we would be lost in a swirling vortex of empty space.”

The void of blackness beneath me seems closer than ever now that I know how fragile Monument Valley is. I can’t imagine spending more than a few seconds free-falling through that infinite hell.

“In case you’re curious,” Ida continues, seeming energized now, “there are five main geometrical shapes that govern our existence. I unfortunately can’t tell you their identities or forms until you embark on your journey into our puzzles, but you will understand their meanings when you see them, I am convinced.”

“I should hope,” Ember grumbles. I know from experience that she isn’t a fan of geometry either, although she’s able to mask her distaste of it much better than me in most cases.

But the same distant remembrance continues to prick at my mind as we continue walking at a slight uphill angle, passing more and more gooey archways.

Before it’s too late, I clear my throat and turn towards Ida. “Not sure if this makes any sense, but . . . a lot of this stuff about Monument Valley seems vaguely familiar to me.”

Ida stopped walking entirely, bringing me and Ember to a halt as well. “Familiar in what way?” she asks.

I struggle to find words that accurately describe what I’m feeling. “Like . . . you know, when you experienced something at a very early age but barely remembered anything about it, and now decades later you’re having a flashback to it?”

Ida frowns. “No, I don’t know.”

A sigh of exasperation escapes my lips. “It’s a very faint twinge of memory, and it’s barely even there. But somehow, somewhere inside me, I think I’ve heard about this kingdom before. And I might even know specifically when and where I heard about it. It may have been in an old story, or maybe in a video game of some sort. I . . . oh, right, you wouldn’t know what a video game is. Never mind.”

But Ida has already connected the dots between my strange experience and whatever infinite reserve of knowledge she has tucked away in her brain from decades of living in Monument Valley.

She pulls me and Ember through a translucent archway and into a nicely-furnished and well-lit office, ordering us to sit down on a white sofa and taking a seat herself in a wooden chair across from us.

Then she turns to me. “Close your eyes for one minute. Then tell me every single thing you can remember about Monument Valley.”

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At first I’d thought Ida had been out of her mind, telling me to close my eyes for a minute to better visualize the memories. Those kinds of visualization tricks had never worked for me, and certainly wouldn’t now, I had figured, when I was already under so much stress and pressure from everything and everyone around me.

I almost hadn’t believed my own sleep-deprived brain when a memory, crystal-clear, bobbed to the inky surface of my mind.

Now, eyes still pulled shut, I try to concentrate on the memory, try to stop it from fading away before I can replay it, so I can tell Ida what happened. The sneaky little thing tries to resist, tugging relentlessly on my consciousness and attempting to escape, to disappear back under the clouded waters from where it has come. I imagine I’m trying to catch a stray dog, a particularly spry one with food on its mind and a nimble set of legs. I give the escaping memory a mental shove in the wrong direction—perhaps to one of the dried-up banks of my consciousness’s river of thoughts—and race after it, trapping it for good.

All right, I think, my brain throbbing harder than in math class. A strange sort of excitement fills my body, the sort of feeling you get when you’re about to watch a scary movie or jump into a violent video game. Time to start the show.

I press that mythical “Play” button in my subconscious, and I’m thrown backwards in time.

---

The car rumbles past rows of stout, weathered houses and parked Hondas and Toyotas, baking in the unrelenting July sun. I’ve gone backwards in time, all right—straight to last summer’s vacation, in which my family visited some friends in another country. I hadn’t been sure about where exactly the memory had been taking place at first, but the fact that opposing vehicles seemed to be coming down the left side of the road gave it away.

My head is turned all the way to the left, towards the window. Strange; I don’t remember looking that way the first time, but either my memory is fuzzy or my exhausted brain is hallucinating. I peel my gaze from the whirlwind of houses and face forward as we hurtle around bends and up steep hills on the left side of the road. The car is right-hand drive, as I’d been expecting, and I sit in the middle of the backseat bench.

Save for the initial surprise of my looking towards the window, everything is exactly as it occurred originally. The two friends whom we are visiting sit on my left and right. We’ll call the boy, aged about eighteen, Andy, and the girl, about fourteen, Anna. Behind the wheel on the right is my aunt, who we had also been visiting that summer, and in the passenger’s seat on the left is my mom. Andy and Anna, of course, are my aunt’s children. I forget exactly where we’re going, but I know it’s some sort of restaurant or café. And since it’s late afternoon, I’m guessing we’re heading out for an afternoon drink or maybe even an early dinner.

My brain races furiously as I attempt to put this memory in context. What had happened before we set out? Hadn’t we just arrived from the airport? Yes, that’s right. That morning, we had been shuttled in a van from the small regional airport where we had flown in to my aunt’s house. I’d crashed there for a few hours with Andy and Anna while my mom did some shopping with my aunt. The cloudy recollections wash through my mind as our white Nissan hatchback trundles down the narrow market street.

Having found its prior momentum, my consciousness continues to dredge up memories of the hours leading into what I’m experiencing now. After all, I’m supposed to be telling Ida everything related to the memory where I first heard of Monument Valley—doesn’t heart to review everything, I guess. I seek through my brain like a YouTube video, searching for the most important parts. Let’s see . . . we arrive at our own small condo—the place we’re staying at—at around noon, hang around for a bit, and watch some TV. Andy and Anna’s mom calls us to say that we can feel free to drop by their place any time, so we do. We call a taxi and jet across town to their lovely two-story cottage, and I get carsick on the way. Yeah, time to fast forward past that mess.

Okay, we’re making some progress. Still no sign of anything related to Monument Valley, but let’s press on. Thirty minutes after we arrive at my aunt’s house, I’m asked if I would like to head out to pick up Andy and Anna from their respective schools and then return home to chat and have drinks. Sure, I remember replying, although the tiniest part of me had been nervous that meeting Andy and Anna for the first time in years would be awkward. (Due to the pandemic, leaving the country has been very difficult for us). Myself, my mom, and my aunt had jumped in the car and we’d jounced back across town to Andy’s school, retrieved him in all his school-uniformed glory, and exchanged the customary hellos and how-are-yous.

And then . . .

Andy had pulled out his tablet as we left the school parking lot, asking me if I wanted to try playing a “fun game” of his that he particularly enjoyed. I recall balking at first, not wanting to launch a weighted projectile of breakfast-bagel barf across the pristine interior of my aunt’s car. But Andy had insisted that I give it a go. Come on, Phoenix, you’ll enjoy it. It’s your kind of game. Besides, what’s a little fun after a long day?

It is at this moment that I realize why this memory is so important—why the name Monument Valley had seemed oddly familiar to me.

Because, when Andy clicked on the game’s icon on the screen of his tablet, the words “Monument Valley” appeared in dramatic white text, subtitled by “A Thrilling Game of Illusions and Geometrical Puzzles”.

I almost don’t want to continue. Now that I’ve found what I was looking for, I want so badly to exit the memory replay, snap back to reality, and begin to unload upon Ida what the recollection had depicted—avoiding any more embarrassing or awkward moments between me, Andy, or Anna. But I don’t feel satisfied yet. I haven’t even seen what the game looked like, and I still don’t remember anything about the characters in the game. Ida certainly won’t be very happy with me if all I have to offer is a meager “There’s a game also called Monument Valley that you can play on a tablet.”

So I press forward, skipping past the drive to Anna’s school and the awkward few minutes that ensued in the backseat after that, with Andy making jokes at Anna’s expense and getting scolded by my aunt. Remembering now that I’d continued playing the game at whatever restaurant we’d been trying to get to, I launch onward to our arrival at the café—a large, rectangular wooden building adorned with the words “UsCafé”.

I thought the name was strange a year and a half ago, and I still do now, in this wispy dreamland that seems so unnaturally real.

Almost there, I think to myself as the car rolls to a stop on the blackened street and we get out—me, Andy, and Anna having been told to get inside the restaurant and find a table while my aunt waits for my parents to arrive for dinner. The next few moments are a blur of shifting colors, squeaking doors, wood paneling, and the hustle and bustle that often accompanies a busy town cafe in the late afternoon. We locate an empty table in the corner of the cafe and sit down. A waitress hands us three copies of their menu and we begin to browse.

After a particularly awkward few minutes of me trying to decide what to eat—I’m torn between the “Simple Spaghetti”, which has a spiciness level of five (the maximum), and the “Ostentatious Omelet”, whose sample image evokes the sort of eccentricity normally expected of bathroom pubs in Maine—I make my decision (the Ostentatious Omelet), the server comes by in a flash to whisk the menus away, and the tablet comes out immediately.

Within seconds, I’m drowning in complex and confusing illusions, flashing colors, and strange geometrical structures that make no sense. Andy gives me pointers every so often when I seem to be getting stuck, and occasionally I have to stifle a scream of frustration. But the tiny woman in the white pointed hat that appears to represent the player is unmistakably Ida. Scurrying around across catwalks and up stone staircases as my hand, going through the all-too-familiar dragging and tapping motions, directs her through archways and around obstacles. Even the sulky crows are there, except they try to attack Ida if she dares to get too close. Whenever one nears I jerk my finger away from it, steering Ida off paths and quite likely giving her a stomachache.

The game, while obviously a complex and intricate work of art that must’ve taken years to perfect, is simple and uncluttered. The monolithic stone structure that Ida is traversing fills the entire screen, and there’s no way out, no way to get to the home screen, at least none that I can remember at the current moment. My finger, now completely on autopilot, guides Ida to the top of a staircase and into a dark hole, and the screen dims to a murky black.

Congratulations, announces the white letters flashing across the screen. You have completed Chapter I: Monument Valley. To advance to the next Chapter, press Next below. Or, to quit to the home screen, press Exit.

Having ascertained what I’ve come for, I decide to back out of the memory. It’s almost as easy as pressing the Back button on a TV remote; I search for the faraway tug of reality that has been lurking in the corners of my brain the entire time, and I spring upon it, willing it to transport me back to the present. My finger, still governed by the hidden subconscious forces that fuel my memories, presses the Next button, and I catch a glimpse of the screen changing to a bright yellow background with another grey stone structure as the scene begins to dissolve, the clinking and clattering of silverware fading into a dull, distant hum as I leave the land of dreamy remembrance.

---

Ember is the first to speak when my vision clears and the brightly-lit office around me comes back into focus.

“So,” she says, clapping her hands together and fixing me with an expectant stare. “What do you have to tell us?”

I give my consciousness a little tug, and all the little details of the last five minutes of my memory come pouring out of my mouth like an open bathtub faucet. The restaurant, the game, the little pixelated Ida, the crows, Chapter I. Ida somehow manages to keep her cool as the memory unfolds from my lips, although I can tell she’s holding back laughter, or a scream, or maybe several gasps of surprise.

When I finish, Ida shifts nervously in her wooden chair. “It’s true, then. The ancient legends of Monument Valley live on in the Civilized World.”

“It appears so,” I say. “Though I’m not sure which one of your crows decided it was a good idea to blab all your ancient secrets to some random game developer.”

“It wasn’t a crow,” Ida replies, a hint of frustration drizzling onto her tongue. “In the Ancient Times, in the very beginning—during those early days before even I was recruited to restore the sacred geometry—Monument Valley had human leaders. The crows were few in number, and performed only the menial duties of servants and butlers. Our ruling class consisted of fifteen—the Sacred Fifteen, as we used to call them—and one of them wanted someone they could confide in, someone they knew Monument Valley’s secrets would be safe with. This came during a time when all the ancient legends, manuals, and volumes of our society were beginning to build up—or so I was told by my predecessors.

“In an effort to establish such a connection, one of the Sacred Fifteen somehow got a hold of a citizen from the Civilized World, and entrusted them with the duty of protecting Monument Valley’s deepest, darkest secrets. I don’t know how that member of the Sacred Fifteen chose that person, and frankly I don’t think it was the wisest idea when it comes to security. But within a short period of time, the knowledge transfer was completed, and the Sacred Fifteen essentially went hands-off and never interacted with that trustee again.”

“Sounds like a recipe for disaster,” I remark.

“It was,” Ida answers. “It looks like no significant harm has come from this particular digital re-creation of Monument Valley—although I still don’t fully understand the concept of a ‘video game’, despite your numerous repetitions of its dictionary definition. I cannot help but feel a little nervous, however, that Monument Valley’s most devastating secrets may fall into the wrong hands.”

“You’re perfectly right to feel that way,” Ember jumps in. “If it’s any consolation, Monument Valley only had a few hundred downloads on the App Store a few months ago, if I remember correctly. So the chances are probably low that some evil hacker dude got his hands on the game. And besides, if that person doesn’t even know there’s an actual hidden society called Monument Valley somewhere out there, it’s practically impossible that they’d even make the right mental connections.”

Ida frowns. “I see your point, although I only understand half of what you just said. Well, I suppose there isn’t much harm in leaking secrets about a dead society whose ruling class is now comprised of a single human, is there?”

“I guess not,” I say.

The conversation has come to a natural conclusion. “Thank you for your assistance in recalling the memory, young one,” Ida says to me. “That is the first step in the right direction towards earning my trust. Now that we have gained each others’ acquaintances, would you like a tour of the Sacred Observatory?”

“Sure,” Ember and I both say at the same time.

Ida rises from her wooden chair and leads us through the translucent doorway of the office

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