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 ^{(it's beta!)}

“You must leave something behind before you can proceed.”

I don’t remember his face, not really, an older, thin man with blond hair on the threshold of white; his features were nondescript, I know. He was a gatekeeper, or a guide. There was another man also, but he was too far away for me to see clearly.

(‘You must leave something behind before you can proceed,’ I repeated to myself.)

My hand slipped down into my right pocket, quickly producing two bobby pins I had linked together earlier, in my waking hours. I did not ask if they were satisfactory; my companions were already moving forwards under the white sun and gray sky, their backs to me. I simply pushed the pins into the thick mud at my feet, quickly burying them, and then proceeded.

I woke up.