The White Space. Chapter 3. The Correct Space

The door closed behind him. He headed toward the elevator and suddenly realized why apartment 57-A was missing from the records — it had been hidden, as if it had never existed.

The elevator carried him down. Outside, the air was cold. He glanced at the ground, remembering the warm parquet floor, its texture, the feeling beneath his feet.

He walked to his car, opened the trunk, and took out a flying drone. After closing it, he silently made his way back to the building.

Once inside the apartment again, he headed straight for the hidden section. Time was running short — he had already spent far too long there. The warm space welcomed him with the same softness as before, as though nothing had changed.

The man placed the drone on the floor in the middle of the living room and stepped out. Slowly, he closed the hidden panel, and the warm light vanished. Only the sterile white apartment remained.

He pulled out his phone, opened the drone control app, and selected a mode: 3D space scanning. His finger hovered over the confirmation button for only a moment.

Then he pressed it.

Behind the wall, the drone quietly came to life. A soft hum filled the silence — the recording process had begun. Not for correction. For preservation.

“I can at least have some coffee while it works,” the man murmured quietly.

He walked into the kitchen — the sterile, officially approved part of the apartment. He placed a cup beneath the dispenser. As the machine steadily filled it with aromatic coffee, he realized for the first time in many years that he had just made a decision that went against every rule. It could be dangerous, yet he knew he had no other choice.

Meanwhile, the drone moved methodically through the hidden space, scanning surfaces and reading textures. It recorded the warmth of the lighting, the density of the materials. Everything was proceeding normally.

On the phone screen, a digital twin of the secret apartment slowly began to take shape. Warm tones turned into data, furniture into polygons, light into numbers.

The drone emitted two short beeps.

The scan was complete.

He slowly walked toward the hidden section, retrieved the drone, and placed a shredder in its place. For a moment, he stood still, taking one last look around: the floor lamp, the wooden floor, the bio-fireplace.

He picked up the leather notebook filled with ideas. Opening the program, he selected: Erasure — 100%. He confirmed the command and returned once more to the white part of the apartment.

Standing by the window, he looked outside.

“Well, at least I still have the entire apartment preserved digitally, along with all the materials and settings,” the man said quietly to his reflection in the glass.

In his mind, he stepped inside it once again, walked across the warm parquet floor, and ran his hand along the wooden paneling. He knew he would return to that apartment again and again, because even the memory of the space warmed him.

Behind the wall, a dull mechanical noise echoed softly.

After some time, the shredder emitted two short signals.

Silence.

The secret room no longer existed in the form it once had.

The Space Corrector stepped inside.

A white space. Empty, like a blank canvas. No textures. No shadows. No warmth.

It was time to create a new, “correct” space.

And for the first time in all these years, he didn’t want to do it. It felt as though something inside him had snapped. Why recreate the old? The same thing, over and over again, from one space to another.

He brought in the 3D printer and switched it on. Activating the creator’s virtual mode through his glasses, a model of the apartment appeared before his eyes.

To speed up the process, he used the “correct” section as a foundation. He replaced a few furniture models, altered the kitchen layout slightly, changed the lighting fixtures. Minimal deviations, all still within the approved standards.

Then he sent everything to print.

“Sloppy work,” he muttered.

In the past, he would have perfected every line, every connecting seam. But not anymore. Once you’ve tasted something sweet, it’s hard to return to bitterness.

When the printing process was complete, the space became “correct” once again. White, cold, flawless.

He photographed the entire apartment. He left the hidden door open, like a thin crack in the system. Gathering his belongings, he slipped the leather notebook of ideas into the inner pocket of his snow-white trench coat.

Then he stepped out into the corridor.

Apartment 58-A.

He looked at the number.

It changed me. And it will stay in my memory forever, he thought.

He pressed his phone against the electronic lock and activated the full cleansing and disinfection protocol. The door shut behind him.

As he walked toward his car, he opened the service communication app. He uploaded the photos to the cloud storage and wrote a short, dry report.

"Object 58-A

Status: corrected.

Space restored to standard.

Deviations eliminated.

Disinfection completed."

His finger hovered over the screen. After a pause, he added two more lines:

Hidden architectural void detected between units 57 and 58.

Possible intentional exclusion from the registry during the design phase.

Dry. Emotionless. Purely factual.

He knew the report would go directly to his supervisor, and from there higher up — to the Department of Environmental Control. Maybe even to the Architectural Committee itself.

And most importantly, the response would tell him whether they already knew about the secret room.

Or whether this had all been a test.

He sat inside the car and leaned his head back, trying to process everything that had happened. The entire day had felt surreal, almost dreamlike. Yet even his dreams had long since become just as colorless and cold.

His phone emitted a double signal.

“Finally. Now I’ll understand whether they knew about the hidden room,” he muttered.

He opened the message.

A short reply:

"Report received. No additional comments required."

He understood nothing.

That was not what he had expected.

He thought the message would finally put everything into place, but instead — nothing.

He exhaled deeply, started the car, pulled out of the courtyard, and merged onto the main road, slowly driving away from the building.

He glanced into the rearview mirror. The white apartment block still stood there — lifeless and sterile.

Some details of the façade... he would have designed differently.

And then it hit him.

He slammed on the brakes.

His heart pounded violently as cars rushed past, blaring their horns.

An engineer he knew had designed that building.

There was no way he hadn’t known about the hidden apartment.

He was the one who created it.

And the protagonist had corrected it.

That’s how people disappear sometimes — when they go against the system.

The interior of the car was suddenly flooded with blue and red light — the only colors still visible in this world, and even then, only on police sirens.

An effective way to teach people to hate color, fear emotion, avoid beauty, and obey without questioning authority.