Neo held the black pebble in his palm. Its weight was disproportionate to how small it seemed. As if it gathered within it something much denser than matter. He held it tightly, like a truth that might escape if he let go.
He tried to remember the dream. The gate. The light. The girl.
But especially that silent question he felt in his chest:
"Are you ready to see the world as it truly is?"
In the following days, the world began to change. Or perhaps he was changing. Everywhere he went, he felt the presence of something he couldn't explain. Words spoken by people seemed to have a double meaning. Ordinary objects seemed to attract his attention for no reason.
At one point, an unknown old man on the bus said to him without introduction:
"Not everyone sees. But you have already asked the question."
Neo froze.
"What question?"
"The one that no one dares to ask until they are ready to lose everything they thought they knew."
Arriving home, he opened the box again. On the initial note, the writing had changed:
"When you truly ask, the world opens. But it doesn't guarantee the answer you want."
Then, one evening, the dream returned. This time, he wasn't floating. He was walking on an infinite white ground. The gate was closer. And the girl was waiting for him.
"Do you want to know why everything exists?"
"Yes."
"Then prepare to forget everything you know."
She held out her hand. Neo took it.
In that instant, a bright light seared his mind. He felt every thought, every atom, every question in the world, all at once. He was no longer Neo. He was pure thought.
And in that chaos of universal consciousness, he heard:
"Everything dies so that it can be reborn. Everything is reborn so that it can seek meaning. And meaning... is the question that never ends."
When he woke up, on the wall of his room, large letters had appeared, as if time itself had written there:
"The question is the key. You are the key."
End of Chapter 3.