The Holder of the Glyph

In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house you can get yourself to and ask the secretary at the front desk to see "The Holder of the Glyph". She may or may not agree to this - it does not matter. For one reason or another she will excuse herself: maybe to get paperwork for you to fill out, or because she needs a cup of coffee.

As soon as she is out of sight, flee the building immediately. She is the first guardian, and she is the fastest of the seven. Pray that you are out of sight of the windows and that the front door has shut completely by the time she returns. Wait, and do not try to look at the building. For whatever value you place in what is left of your mind, do not attempt to look at the building, or glimpse into the windows, not even from across the street. Should you feel a massive blast of wind rip through you and everything around you, you may reenter the building.

Inside will be a slaughter. Every man, woman, and child will be dead, their eyes having exploded. Blood will splatter the walls, floor, and ceiling, and ooze from their mouths and necks. Now you must move quickly, for their blood hides the next guardian, who is hiding among the corpses. Where the front desk originally was will be a gaping hole in the air. This is a literal rip in the fabric of reality, dark and swirling. You must enter it, and if you are fast enough you might live to leave it.

On the other side of the tear, all will be black and cold. Start walking. Do not stop for any reason. You will walk for hours, or maybe days - time is irrelevant here. Should the third guardian become interested in your path, then eventually, you will see a speck of light out in the darkness. Otherwise, be prepared to wander this nether below the abyss.

The light you are following will illuminate a door, plain and wooden, with a knob in the middle. Be careful now, for the third guardian is watching you closely. Twist the knob twice clockwise and then pull up on the door. If the door catches, or if you hear a low rumble, know this: you have failed, and you will die in the jaws of what is behind the door.

If you have done this correctly, then you will find that the door opens upon a circular room brightly lit with an ambient white light. Along the back wall, you will see four statues carved out of obsidian. Sitting on the floor in the middle of the room will be a small boy, dressed in rags and with a blindfold tied around his head. This is the Holder. Do not speak - to do so would wake the statues, the last four guardians. Instead, silently approach the boy and remove the blindfold. Where his eyes should be will be empty, charred sockets. Now you must remove your eyes and give them to the child. This will be difficult if you have not brought a sharp object, such as a scalpel. It will be agonizing, but do not make a sound - the statues are listening, and hunger for your soul.

If you have done this correctly, then you and the child will appear in the void. Below you, although you have no eyes, you will see the child begin to trace with his finger a pattern. The symbol will be massive and glow in the darkness, and then you will understand. You will see how its path broaches this universe and connects to the others. You will watch its circuit arc in and out of the folds of each reality, see its loops envelop cosmologies yet to be born, and behold as its unending pattern shadows dying worlds and planes of existence. Now that you and the Holder are alone, ask: "When will They come together?" The child will then answer you. He will explain Their beginning, how They were together, and how he has been guarding this last secret, this map at the foundations of existence.

To physically behold this symbol, the glyph, is forbidden for any mortal, and so once again the sight of it will burn away the child's eyes, which, unlike him, are mortal. Do not worry, your vision from the glyph will be more than sufficient compared to your old eyes. It will be burned into the blackness of your mind. With your new method of sight, quickly search through the glyph for your world and enter. Then you will emerge through the rip, back in the bloodfest of the institution. The rip should fold upon itself behind you. The way you see now will easily let you see the guardian hiding in the bodies that you escaped before, and he will know that you have succeeded. Ignore him.

The glyph is Object 364 of 2538. It is many things to the Objects - to you, it is the Map to the End.