In an abandoned metro station beneath Warsaw, Hania, Majek, and Szymon find a strange compass that wakes a portal to a city that should not exist.
Beneath Warsaw, beyond the official lines of the city, there was a station that no map admitted existed. Szczęśliwice had been sealed for years, forgotten by commuters and swallowed by silence. For Hania, Majek, and Szymon, it was supposed to be nothing more than a daring stop on the way to some legendary graffiti. Instead, it became the place where their lives split open.
They slipped through a broken service entrance just after dusk, their torch beams cutting thin, nervous paths through the dark. The air was cold and metallic, carrying the faint smell of rain, dust, and old electricity. Their footsteps bounced down the tiled tunnel and came back to them in a hundred ghostly echoes.
"Someone's been here recently," Szymon whispered, crouching beside a line of fresh mud on the floor.
"Or something," Hania muttered, trying for a grin and missing it by a mile.
Majek didn't answer. He had stopped beside an old wooden bench, staring at the shadow beneath it. "There," he said quietly.
Half-hidden in the dust lay a silver device, no bigger than a palm, shaped like a compass but wrong in every detail. It had three needles instead of one, and the face was marked with symbols none of them recognised. Szymon reached for it before anyone could stop him.
The moment his fingers closed around the metal, the needles spun so fast they blurred. A low hum rose from inside the device, steady at first, then pulsing like a heartbeat. The wall in front of them shivered, as if the tiles had turned to water.
Then a bright slit opened in the air.
Hania stumbled back. Through the widening shimmer she saw a city suspended above a black void, towers of glass and light hanging in impossible silence.
"That can't be real," Majek breathed.
The compass gave one sharp, urgent pulse. A voice came from the other side, calm and unmistakably human.
"If you are ready," it said, "come in. We have been waiting."