The puzzle box sits pristine on her desk, taunting her with its perfect edges and immaculate white surface. Agent Sarah Chen traces her finger along its seamless joins, searching for the hidden catch she knows must be there. Somewhere within lies the microfilm that could unravel everything.

White. Clean. Pure. Like fresh snow before the footprints come. Before the stains of reality seep in.

“You’re overthinking it again,” David’s voice drifts from the doorway. Her handler leans against the frame, arms crossed, watching her with that maddeningly patient expression.

“Am I?” Sarah keeps her eyes on the puzzle box. “Or are you underthinking it?”

Memories flash - training exercises, coded messages, dead drops in rain-slicked alleys. Trust no one. Question everything. Even the obvious answer could be misdirection.

“Sometimes a puzzle is just a puzzle,” David says softly.

Sarah’s laugh is sharp. “Nothing in our world is ‘just’ anything.”

Her fingers continue their methodical exploration. The surface remains stubbornly perfect, refusing to yield its secrets. Like trying to read the thoughts behind a stranger’s smile.

White walls. White coat. “Just relax,” the agency psychologist had said. “Tell me what you see.” Inkblots spreading like spilled secrets across pristine paper.

“What if there’s nothing inside?” The question slips out before she can catch it.

David’s reflection appears in the polished surface beside her own. “Then we learn something too.”

“About the sender? Or about ourselves?”

“Yes.”

Sarah closes her eyes, lets her hands still. Breathes in the silence.

Click.

The box opens with a whisper, revealing… nothing. Empty white space cradled in empty white walls.

She stares at the void, mind racing. “It’s a message.”

“What kind?”

“The absence is the message. They’re telling us we’re looking in the wrong place. That we’ve been…” Her voice trails off as understanding blooms. “That we’ve been chasing shadows of our own making.”

David’s hand settles lightly on her shoulder. “Or maybe they’re saying that sometimes the cleanest answer is the truth - that there was never anything to find.”

Sarah picks up the empty puzzle box, turning it in the light. “Can we afford to believe that?”

“Can we afford not to?”

White noise fills her head. Static drowning out certainty. When did suspicion become easier than trust?

She places the box back on her desk, perfectly aligned with the edges. “I’ll write up my report. Inconclusive findings.”

“And what will you really think?”

Sarah meets his eyes in the reflection. “That maybe the biggest puzzle isn’t the box at all.”

Later, alone in her apartment, she’ll take out her own white box. Place it next to her service weapon. Consider which contains the more dangerous truth - the emptiness that forces us to confront our own assumptions, or the certainty that lets us sleep at night.

Some puzzles aren’t meant to be solved. Some questions matter more than their answers.

Clean. White. Pure. Like fresh snow, waiting for someone brave enough to take that first step and mar its perfect surface with the messy reality of human choice.