The Procession of Every Ending

I have always been a collector of oddities, things that skitter at the edge of sight and whisper in frequencies just out of reach. But the strangest artifact in my collection was an experience—the first time I encountered the Recorders.

It began on a night when the moon was a sliver of bone, and the air in my apartment above the old fish cannery was thick with the smell of brine and rust. I had fallen asleep reading a book on maritime folklore, and I woke with a start, knowing instantly that I was dreaming. This happened often, a curse from childhood when my night terrors taught me to seize control of my own mind. I developed a trick I called the ‘Hatch,’ where I would snap my eyes shut and then wrench them open, hoping to break the dream’s hold. It worked most of the time.

So I stood, and the floorboards felt strangely solid under my bare feet. I walked to the window that overlooked the bay, and instead of the usual dark water and distant lights of the mainland, I saw a procession. A long line of figures, all in antique diving suits, their brass helmets glinting in the faint glow of the city beyond. They moved with a slow, deliberate pace, as if they were walking on the ocean floor, their heavy boots leaving no sound. It was horrifying and beautiful, and I felt a pull of recognition.

I realized I was witnessing a parade of every ending, every closure, every last goodbye that had ever or would ever happen in the world. Each suited figure carried a lantern that held a piece of the final moment—a last breath, a final glance, a closing door. I saw the last moments of a lighthouse keeper, the final confession of a priest, the expiration of an empire. And I knew that the procession was marching toward a great, dark building I had never seen before, a structure that existed only in the dreams of the dying.

I should have used my Hatch, but I wanted to see how it all ended. I wanted to see the final destination. So I stepped away from the window and moved to the door of my apartment, and I walked into the hallway. It was no longer the familiar dim corridor with its peeling paint and smell of cat urine. It was a vast, endless hall with walls of black glass, and the procession was filing through enormous doors at the far end. The figures turned their helmeted heads toward me, and though I couldn’t see their faces, I felt their attention like a weight.

One of them broke rank and approached me. It stopped a few feet away and pointed a gloved finger at me, then at a door that had materialized beside me—a small, unremarkable door with a rusted handle. I knew, with a certainty that made my blood cold, that behind that door was my own final moment, the one I would inevitably face. I had seen it in my dreams before, but never so clearly. I knew that if I opened that door, I would see my own death, and I would be changed forever.

I didn’t open it. I slammed my eyes shut and forced them open, and I was back in my apartment, dripping with sweat, the smell of brine and rust still thick in my lungs. I lay there until dawn, but I couldn’t shake the image of that small door. And ever since, I have been haunted by the knowledge that the procession is still marching, and that at some point, I will have no choice but to follow it to the end of every ending.