The City and Its Uncertain Walls

The protagonist recovers from his fever and returns to the library. He struggles with the dreams, managing to read only three a night. He cannot understand exactly what they say to him. The girl tells him he is doing better, and that the fever is expected. Winter finally arrives, and beasts begin dying in the cold and snow. Every day, the Gatekeeper and shadows go out to collect their corpses and burn them. On a cloudy day, the protagonist visits his shadow. The shadow is shrinking, working hard with the Gatekeeper. It warns the protagonist that it will eventually die, and that if he ever wants to go back to reality, they will need each other.

That summer, the protagonist and his girlfriend talk of nothing but the town. She paints a picture for him, both of how it looks and what its community is like. She claims she was there as a child, and that her real self remains. In the fall, her letters stop coming, and the boy grows nervous. He calls her house but cannot reach her. As the year comes to an end,