Chapter Three: The Street Written into Being

There was no sun on September 37. At dawn, every navigation service began directing travelers to Intercalary Lane. Drivers following the route vanished after the second turn. A clerk wrote GO HOME on a sticky note, opened his office door, and found his apartment beyond it—occupied by a family who had never met him. Beside the torn calendar record, a fresh warning appeared: *Words become roads. Roads devour people. Old traces endure where no name exists.* Lin wrote “conservation room to archive” in pencil. Walls groaned. Outside, the corridor now ran straight to the basement, omitting every office, stairwell, and washroom between. He erased the sentence. The building returned, but those in the missing rooms had lost the previous minute.