We did not think it would be true.
We did not think that one would actually collect all of those damned Objects.
We were just joking around, right?
After the world collapsed, I was walking around what used to be a road and saw a building in the distance. I stared at it for what may seem to be a long time and pinched myself to see whether or not I was hallucinating. I was not. It was a perfectly fine building, and it was exactly that that scared the wits out of me. Since the Completion, as I mockingly call the day when all 2538 Objects had been collected, all of the buildings had rotted away, leaving dust, hanging steel bars, and old memories of an envied past.
I went inside the building and saw myself staring at a simple room. It was barren except for a desk in the middle and a small portrait of the former map of Asia on the left wall. A man with gold-rimmed spectacles was sitting behind the desk, face as expressionless as the room.
"Yes, sir?" he asked with a familiar European accent.
I racked my brain for a quick answer.
"H- How come this building is still standing?"
The man with the gold-rimmed spectacles stood up, and I saw that he was wearing a red-and-gold concierge suit. He walked toward me and eyed me from my feet to the last hair on my head. Seemingly satisfied, he turned his back and said, "Follow me."
I could not stop myself and followed him to the back of the room. There was a door. "Was there a door here before?" I thought, but before I could think, the concierge opened the door, revealing a long, narrow hallway lit with torches on either wall. He stepped back and waved his hand toward the hallway. I stepped back.
"W- what? You want me to go inside?"
The concierge nodded and waited for not a second before pushing me inside the hallway and immediately closing the door. I banged my hand but there was no door. It had simply disappeared. I walked down the hallway, clutching my jacket. It was terrifyingly cold. Just when I thought I had been walking for almost an hour, I saw another door in the distance. I ran toward the door, but when I opened it, I was in the same room where I had come from.
The concierge turned around, sitting in a chair. He was smiling.
"How was the Holder of the World?"
I looked at him in shock. I know the Holders. In fact, after the Completion, everybody knows about the Holders.
"There is no Holder of the World," I said to him, but the concierge only shook his head and laughed.
"Of course, there is. You just spoke with him, didn't you? You do not remember, son, but you did. Search your pockets."
I pushed my hand into my pocket and felt something. When I took it out, I realized that it was a watch. It was a peculiar watch, however. It was running backward.
"The Holder of the World is the keeper of that watch which was thought to be lost. He was against the other 2537 Holders for keeping the other Objects in plain sight of humans, but he lost the argument and was cast here, eternally doomed to look at the damage wrought by the reunification of the 2538 cursed Objects.
"That backward watch that you are now holding, that is the Object 1307 of 2538. It symbolizes hope even in this midst of darkness."
I looked at the watch for what may seem a long time. When I looked up, the concierge was gone. I was looking at a derelict room with the desk upturned and the walls carved with vandals and bullet holes.
The watch felt like a warm, beating heart in my hands.