The Wall A Novel Novels & Stories

Chapter 25: The Master Copy The sun rose higher over the Brooklyn harbor. It cast a glow across the wide-plank floors of the warehouse. Elena stood by the glass display case near the entrance. She watched the light hit the black iron key and the yellowed edges of the recovered Wall Street manuscript. For fifteen years her words had been a product. They were spun quickly to satisfy demanding platforms. They were wrapped in storylines and hidden behind a fake name. Looking at the pages now she didn't see a trap or a writer's cage. She saw where her fiction had broken down the walls of an empire.

Those who build walls are their own prisoners. Ursula K. Le Guin Piper woke slowly, in that hazy way one does on a winter weekend when one has snuggled deep into the blankets. Bright, clear sunlight bathed the room and bed in stark pale colors, washing everything out and making it feel surreal.

​The shattering of the front window was the definitive sound of the Fourth Wall being replaced by a glass ceiling. ​For 300,000 words, Nora had fought in worlds where the rules were written in code, but as the cool Brooklyn air rushed through the jagged hole in the storefront, she felt the terrifying weight of Public Opinion. The crowd outside wasn't a "Rendered Background." They were a cacophony of real people—activists, tech-anarchists, and obsessed fans—whose flashlights and camera-phones cut through the dim interior of the bookstore like searchlights in a prison yard.

I shake my head and move on. Walking to the wall where I saw the picture moving, I feel around. At first, it seems like an ordinary wall. But then, I realize there’s a slight separation between panels. This doesn’t seem right. Looking at the bookshelves close by, I begin to tip books up, looking for the strangest ones first, the most worn ones, the biggest ones. I pull on a book that says, “How to Win at War,” and I hear the creaking noise again. The wall opens up. It’s a secret passage.

Willa had suggested she ask Daniel if she could take the books to her bedroom, but she just had not gotten any chance to. After a while of searching what caught her attention was a thin book. Its cover had an abstract dark image of a man mouthing on the skin of his lover's neck. Curiosity immediately encircled Mili, reminding her of the day when Daniel did the same to her. Whatever Willa informed her that day flashed in her mind. Mili was too inquisitive to read that novel just by the cover of it.

A wall. Not stone. Not wood. Something in between. It rose from the earth like a spine, curving upward until it vanished into the canopy. Its surface was smooth but not clean; it was covered in red handprints. Hundreds to thousands of them, Kieran thought they were clay. It was not. All of them facing inwards, this wall is warm; there must be something behind it. Something hot. Then nothing. Kieran stepped back. “It’s not time to leave,” he thought. “Not yet, at least.”

How that simply being near her—the timbre of her voice, the teasing glint of her eye, the way she seemed to see right through him, into his very thoughts—could make him squirm. Tonight, he'd had enough. He dried his hands and walked to the living room, gazing at the thin wall that they shared. That bloody wall. It had kept him attached and tortured. On the other side, he imagined Sienna reclining on her couch, pretending not to know what she'd done to his life. **Tap. Tap. Tap.** He didn't mean to. His fingers moved on their own. Three soft knocks on the wall. Silence. His heart pounded.

"Then I hope to God it's worth what we're all about to risk to find out." They rounded the final corner into a wide corridor that opened onto a heavy set of double doors marked with faded stenciling, and Marcus slowed, holding up a hand for silence. Through the small windows set into the doors, Ryan could see the loading dock beyond, dark and still, exactly as promised. Except it wasn't empty.

A palace, that still stands, even to this day. VII Night slowly fell, and unlike the rest of them, one Kozaki was awake. Oswan slowly walked through the massive, but rotten, gate that once held off many sieges. Why, would he choose a place like say, was made entirely from white marble. Why would he do that? No one was sure about that. Some say, he left because he didn't like the countryside that much. Whatever is the case, the castle this for a walk? There was no answer, to that, sadly. He always liked the place where you can the history appearing from every stone in the thick walls. He stopped for moment, listened to the water dripping. How can water drip in place like this? There was no wa

Almost dropping him down, too much for a bet they just won, he just realizes and awfully that he is the losing sheep in this novel. “This is just a dream, no, a nightmare.” In denial, he hurriedly walks away with his story is just getting started as someone's nose poke in return that will make this stance a spinning roller coaster ride. “The higher you build walls around your heart, the harder you fall when someone tears them down.” —Unknown