Four

Tom should have felt dejected. However, the moment his fate had been revealed, he came to accept it. Now the only thing left was to open the basement and see if his grandfather had left anything that could be used to escape this catacomb. Alice was angrier than she showed. Tom knew she was cooperating only because she was hopeful that they might find something useful in the basement.

With their combined efforts, the duo was able to dig through the remaining mud within a few hours. The basement was an odd one, even by the anarchy's standard. It felt more like a factory, with its huge red pipes and gigantic orange vessels. Tom was dumbfounded by its mere size. Alice suggested that it was a nuclear bunker on seeing a pyramid of tinned food lying around at the corner. Owing to their hunger, none of them noticed the already opened tins lying on the floor.

After a brief tour, both Alice and Tom agreed that the most peculiar thing about the factory was the door. A circular metallic monstricity, it belonged more in bank than in a factory. Yet the door was the most artistically pleasing object that either of them had seen and opened at the slightest touch. On the other side of the door, lay another factory, identical to the one already described but primarily green in colour.

Tom knew that this was in no way possible as there was a lake in that direction. Still, he and Alice decided to step inside and heard the door close behind them.

In front of them stood a stairway, identical to the one in Tom's house. It led, as they would soon discover, to a world about which they knew nothing and remembered no one, to a world wherein the war had never taken place.