The White Space. Chapter 6 — Disturbing Message

The White Space. Chapter 6 — Disturbing Message

Fresh air hit his face. The light of the blue sky slightly blinded his eyes. For a moment, he felt peace and freedom. How much the architecture of the ministry pressed on a person. Only after leaving it does one begin to truly understand that.

On the stairs he paused just for a moment to catch his breath. His heart was still beating fast but slowly returning to its normal rhythm. In his hands was the same container. From the outside — ordinary, no different from hundreds of others. But inside was something forbidden. Descending to the parking lot, his steps gradually became calmer. The air was cool, but after the sterile cold of the ministry it felt almost warm.

Near the car he looked around. The massive building of the Ministry of Spatial Balance stood just as motionless and cold. White, flawless, like a giant sculpture of order. It felt as if it was watching everyone who left it. For a second he even thought someone was observing him from the upper windows. He quickly looked away, opened the trunk, and carefully placed the container among the tools. He closed the lid and ran his hand through his hair. It was still slightly damp.

— Calm down... — he quietly said to himself and sat in the car.

When the door closed, silence filled the space again. Only the faint hum of ventilation and distant traffic remained. For a few seconds he sat with his hands on the steering wheel. In the trunk lay something that could change his apartment exactly as he had imagined. Maybe even his life. Or destroy it completely.

The engine started softly, and the car moved. For the first time in a long while, he was going home differently than usual. Only one thought remained in his mind.

Tonight, the first color would appear in his apartment.

He didn’t even notice how he got home, how he ended up inside, or how he brought in the tools. Standing in the middle of the room, he looked at his space and already imagined changes. New ideas kept forming in his mind. He had never created in color before, and that made everything inside him restless. He took out the container with the color cartridge and studied it for a moment longer. On the white surface, bright RGB letters stood out, cutting through the whiteness like a rupture in space.

The cartridge slid into the slot of the 3D printer. This was an important moment. He activated the shredder and switched on the virtual design mode in his glasses, then pressed delete on his old white chair. The machine destroyed it almost instantly. That was the symbolic end of his old life and the beginning of a new one.

He opened the scanned project and quickly broke it into separate elements. He selected the leather chair he had been sitting on that day and sent it to print. The laser immediately began moving, building something new layer by layer. First the metal frame appeared, then the leather parts in true color, followed by texture and surface detail. A double signal sounded.

Those sounds had never felt so satisfying. For the first time in a long while, a faint smile appeared on his face. His eyes became moist, and his heart beat strongly.

In front of him stood a chair that felt alien to this world. Like something from a dream. Slowly sitting down, he immediately felt warmth. Even more than in that previous apartment. Maybe the materials simply hadn’t cooled yet. But then a realization came — they would never fully cool.

The new object did not belong to this world. A warm fragment against an emotionless white background. A foreign element, like a piece of another reality. And at that moment it became clear — he could not stop anymore. Everything had to change. This chair, like its owner, no longer belonged to this world.

His gaze shifted to the old white floor lamp. Just as cold and emotionless as everything around him. It needed warm light. 3200 Kelvin... maybe even 2800.

The shredder activated again, destroying another object. Almost immediately the printer began constructing a new lamp. Layer by layer it emerged from nothing, rising upward. When it was finished, he stepped forward and pressed the button.

Warm light gently spread through the room. It filled the space, wrapped around surfaces, created deep shadows. The room instantly became different.

Warm light does not only change space. It changes the person. And now it was happening here, inside his apartment. The most important thing — he had created it himself.

He became fully absorbed in the work. The shredder destroyed object after object while the printer kept producing new ones almost without pause. One after another, items of different shades appeared in the apartment. All warm, but each with its own character. Some deep and calm. Others soft and bright. His eyes gradually relaxed. After endless whiteness, the colors felt almost healing. Tension disappeared. His shoulders dropped, his muscles relaxed, and a strange sense of fullness appeared inside him. As if the space itself began filling him.

He kept printing and printing. Sometimes he paused, evaluated the result, then started the shredder again and replaced one object with another. Almost every version felt right, but balance was needed. That exact moment when everything fits together. When every object stands exactly where it should. When the entire interior becomes a single puzzle and nothing feels unnecessary.

Room by room, the apartment transformed. He had never worked with such intensity before. There was no fatigue — only growing energy with each square meter completed.

The final piece was a table lamp next to the sofa with a diffusing shade that filled the entire living room with soft light. At last, the puzzle was complete.

Everything was ready.

Silence filled the apartment, but not the cold empty kind — it was warm and comfortable. The space had changed, but more importantly, the feeling inside it had changed.

He took off his shoes and walked barefoot across the warm textured parquet, feeling it under his feet. He sat on leather chairs, on the sofa, ate at the new table. Even smoothie-food under the warm clay lamp tasted better.

Then he took a shower in soft warm light. The chrome shower head reflected golden tones of the lamps. Water droplets fell from the circular base like refreshing rain. Each drop touching his skin felt like a small electric impulse. There were thousands of them. He stood there for a long time, simply enjoying the moment.

Stepping out of the shower, he walked barefoot to the bed. So soft, so comfortable. He lay down as if into a cloud, and only then felt true exhaustion.

But it was a pleasant kind of exhaustion — the kind that comes after doing something difficult but deeply meaningful. When almost all of the body’s resources are spent, and you simply enjoy the earned rest. You relax, feeling every muscle slowly release tension. After that shower, it felt even stronger.

The last two days had been intense — emotional, difficult, and at the same time inspiring.

Before falling asleep, only one thought remained — where to find the next object for his ideas. He imagined transforming space after space, apartments, buildings, districts, entire cities.

And with those thoughts, he drifted into a warm, sweet sleep, continuing his journey in the new world.

In the morning, he woke up without opening his eyes. He had dreamed of an incredible colorful dream — a completely different world, warm and cozy. He did not want to wake up, he wanted to return there. It had felt so good.

But it was time to get up. Opening his eyes, he looked around. This was not a dream. He blinked again, as if checking reality itself. Yes, it was real.

Slowly getting up, he did not even make the bed and walked to the shower. Only now he noticed the heated bathroom floor. It must have simply not warmed up yesterday. Standing on it, he felt warmth rising through his feet and spreading through his body. He just stood there, enjoying it, not wanting to leave at all. He did not want to leave his small warm world. But the desire for another warm shower took over, and he stepped inside. Standing under the water, he wished this morning would never end.

After the shower, he dried himself with a soft towel and felt completely alive. He walked barefoot to the kitchen, touching the textured parquet with each step. Every movement reminded him of the harmony of the space he had created himself.

He pressed the coffee button. Almost immediately, the aroma filled the apartment. He took a sip and walked to the window, looking at the endless white world outside.

Now he no longer saw emptiness.

It was a canvas. Full of possibilities. Colors. Ideas flooded his mind. Everything began to change in his imagination. Straight perpendicular roads turned into curved flowing lines, winding between buildings. Cars changed colors as they moved. Buildings lost their cold geometry — becoming rounded, softer, more fluid, shifting shades. The white world slowly filled with warmth.

Another sip of coffee — and the vision disappeared.

Everything returned to perfectly straight roads and endless white buildings. The same cold sterile order. He looked at it for a few seconds. He wanted to create something new. Something this world had never seen.

Turning away, he placed the cup down and prepared a smoothie.

Just as he finished, his phone emitted two short signals.

“Probably a new assignment,” he thought. How he wished it was something colorful.

He opened the message.

His heart started pounding violently, as if it would jump out of his chest. A cold wave ran through his entire body.

Message from the curator.

Meeting today at 12:00.

Department of Residential Space Correction.

Room 203.

Panic hit instantly.

He had met the curator only once — during his hiring. No meetings had taken place since then. He had assumed it was a one-time formality.

Why now?

Why so urgent?

Did they know something?

Of course, it could not be a coincidence.

They had found out about the cartridge.

They knew he had taken color outside the Ministry of Spatial Balance.