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My head swims. My stomach churns.

It’s almost too much to take in—the sparkling sprawl of the city and the profusion of neighboring towers and the vast expanse of the lake, which I can see clear across into southern Michigan.

To the west and south, beyond the suburbs, the prairie glows in the morning light, a hundred miles away.

The tower sways.

Four states—Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin—are visible on a clear day.

Standing on this work of art and imagination, I feel small in the best kind of way.

It’s enthralling to breathe the air of a world that could build something as beautiful as this.

Amanda is beside me, and we’re staring down the gorgeously feminine curve of the building. It’s serene and nearly silent up here.

The only sound is the lonely whisper of wind.

The noise of the streets below doesn’t reach us.

“Was all of this in your head?” I ask.

“Not consciously, but it all feels right somehow. Like a half-remembered dream.”

I gaze toward the northern neighborhoods, where Logan Square should be.

It doesn’t look anything like my home.

A few feet away, I see an old man standing behind his old wife, his gnarled hands on her shoulders as she peers through a telescope, which is pointed down at the most extraordinary Ferris wheel I’ve ever seen. A thousand feet tall, it looms over the lakesh.o.r.e, right where Navy Pier should be.

I think of Daniela.

Of what this other Jason—Jason2—might be doing at this moment.

What he might be doing to my wife.

Anger, fear, and homesickness envelop me like an illness.

This world, for all its grandeur, isn’t my home.

It isn’t even close.

AMPOULES REMAINING: 42

Down the dark corridor through this in-between place again, our footfalls echoing into infinity.

I’m holding the lantern and considering what I should write in the notebook when Amanda stops walking.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Listen.”

It becomes so quiet I can hear the escalated beating of my heart.

And then—something impossible.

A sound.

Far, far down the corridor.

Amanda looks at me.

She whispers, “What the f.u.c.k?”

I stare into the darkness.

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