You check your position tracker.
Back at the beginning.
Slowly, once again, you begin taking steps and counting cracks in the sidewalk.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five
You look around. Pitch darkness. Nowhere to go except forward.
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
You pull a crumpled scroll out of your pocket. Perhaps today is the day you finally crack its code.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.
You reach into your other pocket and carefully pull out many small, rectangular scraps of scroll paper. Who perforates a scroll, anyways?
Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
These scraps used to be connected to your long scroll. The scroll and the position tracker were the only clues you had when you woke up here in this endless expanse.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.
You try to remember, but you can't. You don't know how long you've been here. You don't know how you got here. All you know is that now, you're here.
Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
Wherever here is. In this dark expanse, on this endless sidewalk, with nowhere else to go but forward.
Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four. Thirty-five.
You rummage in your back pocket and pull out another scroll, this one much smaller. The one clue you found as you explored this vast land of nothingness. The one clue that you're sure will point to a way out of this place.
Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty.
A way out of this place. A way home.
Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three. Forty-four. Forty-five.
You reach into your other back pocket and pull out four other small scroll pieces, these torn from the much smaller scroll. This strange land and its perforated scrolls.
Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty.
What drew you to separate the perforated pieces from the scrolls in the first place? How can you possibly get them back together?
Fifty-one. Fifty-two. Fifty-three. Fifty-four. Fifty-five.
Must have been the madness of this place. The unrelenting, unforgiving madness of this dark, desolate wasteland.
Fifty-six. Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine. Sixty.
Sixty. Sixty. The number echoes in your head. You stop and check your position tracker.
Back at the beginning.
Sixty sidewalk spaces. Just as the time before, and the time before that. Sixty sidewalk spaces in an endless loop.
And here you stand, at the beginning.
Slowly, once again, you begin taking steps and counting cracks in the sidewalk.
Hint #1
You've been staring at the same text for what feels like forever, to no avail.
What does it mean? How can I even start deciphering it?
The mysterious symbols swirl and jumble in your brain. If only you had a key of some sort to start deciphering the text... unfortunately, it looks like the right half of the key has been torn off as well.
Hopefully the key is something easily recognizable. Perhaps even so easy that it can be identified with just the left half...
You spend a moment closely studying the symbols you see, then get back to counting.
Hint #2
Finally. Finally. After all this time, you've finally made some progress on this scroll. One by one, you're starting to piece together the fragments and get some answers.
Answers. But that's all you have. If only you had somewhere to fill them in... A grid, perhaps...
