The woman who just entered the building takes a quick glance out of habit. And the mirror shows a woman who has firmly stepped into her thirties; black hair tied up high in a bun; large glasses that became fashionable again last year; loose, wide pants with sneakers; and beneath her good spring coat, a carefully ironed black blouse with a floral print in the center. She looks exactly like what she is – a librarian, or what one would stereotypically imagine a librarian to be. Curious and "buttoned-up," but paying attention to details: a huge necklace hanging from her neck, earrings that go back and forth, a ring on her little finger. She might have gone to her parish fair like this, or to a protest. No one knows.
She unlocks her mailbox, pulls out a handful of envelopes, pushes the door to close until she hears the click, and then notices that the note with her name has shifted in its slot; she straightens it. K. DAI APARTMENT 10 The K is important. Not the whole Caitlin. Just the initial letter: Code 273 of the woman who is alone, right after holding her keys like blades between her fingers as she walks home. If you write Caitlin Dae on the doorbell or on the mailbox, you’re asking for trouble; every odd passerby will know that someone lives alone in this building, and could easily wait around the corner to see if she needs rescue, teasing, follow-up, a jump, or worse, murder.
She looks at her mail over the trash bin. Trash. Trash. Trash. Bill. Trash. Bill. And then… Oh my God. There it is. It has finally arrived. The envelope says Ministry of Interior. It even has a wax seal where it opens; she thought those had been taken by Tudors into their graves. But inside, the document is on cheap government office paper, while she was expecting something like a wedding invitation. Even so, the invitation is an invitation. "Test of Returning to Zero" says the heading at the beginning of the letter. This phrase is underlined and written in bold letters.