“What has no beginning, no end, yet binds all things together?”
The voice rang out before Inquisitive Indu could take another step. Indu stopped. The question roamed in his mind like an unsolved puzzle, tempting yet taunting.
Then came the second sign of strangeness: the stranded door.
It stood in the middle of nowhere, swaying gently as if caught in an invisible breeze. Indu narrowed his eyes. That wasn’t there a second ago. Or was it?
Before he could step closer, the door creaked open—not inward, not outward, but sideways, as if it had slipped through reality itself. And out poured a deck of cards, swirling like autumn leaves in a storm. They scattered at Indu’s feet, flipping and fluttering until only one remained upright.
A jester stared up from the card, its grin far too wide, its eyes gleaming with mischief.
Then, with a flicker, the jester moved.
No, not just moved—it escaped.
With a snap and a burst of confetti, the painted figure peeled itself off the card, stretching and twisting into something real. One moment it was flat ink and color, the next it was flipping through the air, landing before Indu in an exaggerated bow.
Jinx had arrived.
Small, shape-shifting, and delightfully chaotic, the jester was never the same for more than a second. One moment a rubber chicken, the next a bouncing ball, and then a tiny goblin juggling invisible oranges.
“Well, well, well,” Jinx cackled, tilting his head so far it nearly toppled off. “A seeker of truths! How dreadfully serious.” He flicked his wrist, and another card spun into Indu’s hand. “But answers, my dear wanderer, are just riddles with their masks taken off. So tell me—”
Jinx leaned in, his grin stretching impossibly wide.
“Are you ready?”
Indu tightened his grip on the card, heart pounding. Jinx’s grin shimmered, shifting at the edges like ink bleeding into paper. The question hung between them, weightless yet pressing—Was he ready?
“I’ve been ready my whole life,” Indu said, steadying his voice.
Jinx waggled its eyebrows, now in the form of a very smug-looking cat. “Ah, the Answer to Everything! A noble quest! But tell me, Indu—why do you seek it?”
Indu frowned. “Because I need to know. Don’t you ever want certainty?”
Jinx gasped dramatically, flopping onto the ground. “CERTAINTY? How dull! How dreadful! You might as well turn into a stone and sit still forever!” It sprang back up, now balancing on one foot, then no feet at all. “But tell ya what—I can lead you to your answer. But only if you solve my riddles.”
Indu hesitated, eyeing Jinx warily. “And if I get them wrong?”
Jinx grinned. “Oh, then you’ll have even more questions than before. A fair trade, don’t you think?”
With a snap of its fingers, the world around them shifted. The sky cracked like glass, splitting into fragments of deep indigo and burning gold. The ground rippled beneath Indu’s feet, shifting between stone, sand, and something that felt alarmingly like water. Floating doors appeared and vanished, each carved with strange symbols that pulsed like beating hearts.
“Since you fancy yourself a seeker of answers, tell me, dear Indu—” Jinx’s voice coiled around him like silk, smooth and teasing. “What weighs nothing, but can break even the strongest of souls?”
Indu frowned. He had always been good at riddles, but with Jinx, something told him the answers weren’t just wordplay. They were keys—steps toward something bigger.
“Silence?” Indu guessed, but even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t right.
Jinx tasked, wagging a finger that momentarily turned into a tiny snake. “Oh, close, close! But tell me this—what lingers in silence? What fills the space between unsaid words?”
Indu hesitated. The weight of his own unspoken thoughts pressed on him. And then it struck him.
“Regret,” he said.
Jinx’s grin widened. “Very good. Very good indeed.” He snapped his fingers, and one of the floating doors from before reappeared, tall and dark, its surface rippling like black water.
“Then let’s see if you truly understand.” Jinx stepped aside and gestured toward the door. “Step through, dear seeker, and face what you have yet to say.”
Indu swallowed. His fingers twitched at his sides.
“Or,” Jinx added, voice dripping with amusement, “you could turn back now and keep searching the way you always have—half-truths and whispers, never quite reaching the end.”
Indu took a breath. He had come too far for that.
He stepped through.
The moment Indu stepped through the door, the world twisted—no, sneezed. Yes, sneezed.
With a loud ACHOO! the door behind him vanished in a puff of glittering dust, and Indu found himself standing… on a giant teacup.
The teacup, floating on what looked suspiciously like a sea of spilled ink, rocked gently beneath his feet. Islands of sugar cubes drifted lazily in the distance, and above them, the sky was a swirling mess of scribbled words, shifting and rearranging as if the universe itself was trying to write a story but kept changing its mind.
Jinx appeared with a pop, now wearing a captain’s hat three sizes too big. “Welcome aboard the S.S. Nonsense! I am your extremely underqualified navigator, Jester Jinx, and you, dear seeker, are now on the Sea of Forgotten Questions!” He twirled a candy cane as if it were a spyglass and squinted dramatically at the horizon. “Ooooh, look at that! A particularly juicy ‘Why do we dream?’ floating just over yonder! And—OH! OH! A ‘What happens when we sneeze with our eyes open?’ Classic!”
Indu pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jinx. Where are we?”
Jinx threw an arm around Indu’s shoulders and gestured grandly. “Ah, my dear little question-collector, this is where all the unanswered, ignored, or too scary to ask questions go to swim. It’s like a retirement home, but instead of bingo night, we have existential crises.”
Indu sighed. “And how does this help me find the Answer to Everything?”
Jinx waggled his eyebrows. “Ah! But what is an answer without a question? And what is a question without an answer? And what is a—”
Indu held up a hand. “Just… stop. Do you even know where we’re going?”
Jinx gasped, clutching his chest as if mortally wounded. “HOW DARE YOU?” He sniffled. “Of course, I know where we’re going! We are headed to The Librarium of Lost Truths.”
Indu raised an eyebrow. “And that is…?”
“The place where all truths go when people are too scared to accept them,” Jinx said, suddenly serious. But then he grinned. “Also, the only place where you can get a decent cup of coffee in this dimension. So win-win!”
Jinx clapped his hands, and with a sound like a rubber duck being stepped on, the teacup sprouted wings and launched into the sky.
Indu barely had time to grab onto the rim before they were soaring through the scribbled clouds, dodging flocks of flying punctuation marks (a very angry exclamation point nearly took off Jinx’s hat).
As the Librarium came into view—a massive, floating island of endless bookshelves suspended in a web of glowing threads—Indu felt a shiver of anticipation.
Jinx, meanwhile, was grinning ear to ear. “Now, my dear seeker, let’s see if you’re ready for the truth… or if the truth is ready for you.”
With that, they crashed spectacularly through the front doors.
Indu stumbled forward, catching himself against a towering bookshelf that hummed softly under his touch. The entire Librarium breathed. The shelves shifted like restless beasts, and the books whispered to one another in languages not spoken in centuries.
Jinx, now wearing a scholar’s robe – though inside out and upside down – advanced, waving a massive quill like a sword. “WELCOME, SEEKER! To the grand, the mystical, the absolutely overwhelming collection of truths that no one wanted!” He waggled his fingers. “Ooooooh, spooky.”
Indu ignored him, as scanned the endless rows of books with his eyes. Somewhere in there was the Answer to Everything. And he could actually feel it.
Jinx, on the other hand, was already causing trouble. He pulled a book from a shelf, flipped it open, and gasped dramatically. “Oh dear. This one says that if you swallow a watermelon seed, a whole watermelon really does grow inside you.”
Indu rolled his eyes. “That’s not true.”
Jinx grinned. “Isn’t it?”
Indu didn’t get a chance to respond. The air shifted, followed by a long, low creak. Shelves moved, and a book shot out, landing at his feet. The cover was inscribed with glowing golden letters: The Answer to Everything. He froze. This was it. The end of the chase.
He slowly bent down, his fingers brushing against the cover. The moment he touched it, the book opened on its own. Pages flipped fast, like a storm had hit them. One sentence. Big, bold. “The Answer to Everything is…”
Indu leaned in. As he leaned in, words twisted and rearranged themselves. Then settled. “Another question.”
Silence. Jinx cackled, spinning in circles. “OH, THAT’S RICH!”
He gasped for breath. “You spent all this time searching, all these riddles, all this fuss… and the answer is just another question!”
Indu didn’t flinch. He stared at the page, then at Jinx, and then back. He then laughed. A deep, full laugh that shook through him, unraveling all the frustration and exhaustion of his journey.
Jinx faked a tear. “Ah, they grow up so fast.”
Indu shut the book, standing taller. “I think… I get it now.”
Jinx smiled. “Good! Because the real treasure was the mess we made along the way!” With a snap of his fingers, the world hiccupped again.
Indu blinked. He was back where it all began: the empty stretch of land where the door had first appeared. The Librarium, the teacup, and the flying punctuation were all gone.
Only a single card remained in his hand. The ridiculous jester grin, frozen in time.
Indu exhaled, staring at the card and slipped it into his pocket. He didn’t have all the answers. And maybe he didn’t need them anymore.
But he had something better: questions. Still burning. Still pulling him forward.
And somewhere, just beyond the edge of reality, Jinx’s laughter echoed, promising more riddles, more nonsense, and more questions still waiting to be asked.