EPISODE 9: THE VISITOR ## PART ONE: THE BREACH ### CHAPTER 1: THE IMPOSSIBLE ARRIVAL The woman appeared in the Corridor without dying. This had never happened before. Every soul who walked these halls had arrived the same way—through the moment of self-termination, waking in the infinite passage with their guilt ready to be faced. But this woman simply... appeared. One moment the passage was empty; the next, she was there. Marcus felt her presence before he saw her. A disturbance in the Corridor's fabric, like a stone dropped in still water. He found her standing near one of the numbered doors, looking confused but very much alive. "You're not supposed to be here," he said. The woman turned. She was in her sixties, gray-haired and practical-looking, with the weathered face of someone who'd spent her life outdoors. "I know," she said. "But I had to come." "How? The Corridor doesn't accept the living." "It does now. Eve left a door open." --- ### CHAPTER 2: THE MOTHER Her name was Helen, and she had come looking for her son. "Tommy died fifteen years ago," she explained. "Suicide. He was only twenty-two. Depression that we didn't see until it was too late." Marcus knew this story. He'd heard variations of it countless times. "I'm sorry for your loss." "I've...