Rules: One word per puzzle. No spaces, English alphabet only.
Use prior answers when the clues suggest it. Some puzzle content are Interactive to help you solve them.
Puzzle 1 – The Narrator
Step 1 of 12
It starts at a round table, back home, with relatives talking and one person quietly thinking:
“This is my story.”
Seven small lines, all in the same voice. Begin at the very start of each, and let those first
impressions fall into a single name.
- Certain choices feel small in the moment.
- Hidden details later become anchors for memory.
- A seat at the right table can quietly redirect a life.
- Random invitations sometimes matter more than careful plans.
- Links between people start with something as simple as hello.
- Every chapter has someone saying “this happened to me”.
- Start with that person.
Write it as one word.
Puzzle 2 – The Guest
Step 2 of 12
At that same table, someone new is introduced: a guest who will matter more than it seems.
Count the letters in my name like counting seats around the table. In the grid below, follow that
same position straight down; the letters that wait there whisper her name.
| A | R | Q | M | J | K | A |
| L | X | W | B | C | H | V |
| T | O | U | D | S | P | A |
Two names now sit next to each other in your notes.
Puzzle 3 – The Stamp
Step 3 of 12
Before any of this, there was a country you had left, but not really left.
Her name is short, but it sets a pace. Starting that many steps into the string below,
keep walking forward in strides of the same length; every place you land traces out the
country that still clings to your passport and your family dinners.
ALCQRHZ OITPNGUA
Think passport stamps and family lunches.
Puzzle 4 – The Campus
Step 4 of 12
Her future points toward a different continent and a specific campus far away.
However many letters are in that country’s name, that many rows you slide down this grid.
The one you land on, read straight across, is the campus that pulls her to the other side
of the world.
| Q | O | F | X | Z | L |
| H | S | R | M | K | J |
| W | T | Y | V | N | B |
| P | U | R | D | U | E |
| A | C | L | I | G | S |
It’s the name of the university she heads to.
Puzzle 5 – Holiday Board
Step 5 of 12
A first-year far from home needs somewhere to land for winter break. A message arrives.
The board is full of noise: places you’ve been, places you haven’t.
But only one row connects where she came from with where you are now.
Read the table like a message, not a schedule.
The city she actually visits is written plainly, if you know which line to trust.
| Flight | From | To |
| AC120 | PEK | CHICAGO |
| BD305 | PVG | NEWYORK |
| CX410 | PVG | LOSANGELES |
| DL512 | PVG | PURDUEWEST |
| EA233 | LHR | SEATTLE |
| FJ902 | NRT | TORONTO |
This is where she spends that winter with the narrator.
Puzzle 6 – Midnight Grid
Step 6 of 12
In that city, a countdown, a rooftop, a living room, or a crowded street turns into a hinge moment.
Strange how people always likes to abbriviate words, I often wonder what's inside these abbriviations, don't you?
| C | N | L | W | I | E | A | R | C | C |
| N | E | A | Y | N | A | C | X | D | R |
Think of the moment when a year ends and another begins.
Puzzle 7 – Unheeded Voices
Step 7 of 12
Around that night, some people are excited for romance. Some quietly worry out loud.
Take the last letter of that turning-night you’ve written. Then, among these words, look for the
one that both suits that letter at its heart and fits what cautious parents or friends would try
to offer before everything cracks.
comfortsupportwarninggiftsapproval
This is what the narrator hears, but doesn’t really follow.
Puzzle 8 – How Far
Step 8 of 12
After break, she goes back to campus, and suddenly the story is stretched between two places.
Take the length of what you ignored before.
One of those words matter more than others.
What's now between he and her.
drivedistancemessageroutineevening
Now the relationship isn’t just emotional; it’s defined by geography.
Puzzle 9 – Tickets
Step 9 of 12
To fight that distance, the narrator keeps doing the same expensive, exhausting thing.
A repeated action that keeps burning time and money just to be in the same room.
| Leg | Note |
| flight | overnight |
| flight | weekend |
| flight | missedclass |
Think about boarding passes, not road trips.
Puzzle 10 – The Month
Step 10 of 12
At some point, the calendar month matters more than the date on the ticket.
Strip the spaces from this broken phrase until it feels like one tangled thread. Then let the
length of what you just kept boarding for mark off steps along it. The letters you land on,
in that rhythm, spell the month that now tastes like an ending.
tw rlh om rr chb a eak
Focus on which month the breakup is tied to, not the exact day.
Puzzle 11 – On the Table
Step 11 of 12
After a long overnight trip to her place, the narrator notices one object that changes everything.
Let the month’s name decide which row of the tabletop your eyes keep coming back to. Read that
single line from left to right; buried in the jumble is an object that doesn’t belong in a life
where she “doesn’t drive”.
| C | U | P | S | T | A | R | E |
| B | O | O | K | N | O | T | E |
| C | A | R | K | E | Y | X | Y |
| P | H | O | N | E | C | A | S |
This doesn’t belong to someone who doesn’t drive.
Puzzle 12 – Finale: What It Became
Step 12 of 12
You should now have eleven answers written down. Together, they’re not just words – they’re a timeline.
Read your notes like a diary: a name, another name, a country, a campus, a city, a night, a caution,
a stretch of miles, repeated trips, a month, and a key that shouldn’t be there. They already replay
the whole thing without needing any extra details.
- a narrator’s name
- a guest’s name
- a country tied to family and graduation
- a campus where she studies
- a city she visits during winter
- a night when a year changes and feelings are confessed
- something people close to him offered
- the structure of their relationship afterward
- what he keeps doing to cross that structure
- the month that becomes attached to the breakup
- an object on a table that doesn’t fit her life
Stand at that last scene: overnight flight, tired eyes, an unfamiliar car key, and an excuse
that doesn’t really land. Whatever word comes to mind for what the relationship is, from his side,
after that moment—that’s the one this story is circling.
It's finished. Done. O
I Still Wonder
Lined up, your eleven answers are enough to reconstruct everything: a meeting, a visit, warnings, flights, a month, and a key left on the table. The puzzles never say it out loud, but the pattern is clear. There isn’t a twist waiting past that object—just an ending.
The only thing that’s left, once all of it is written down, is the word you just typed.
It's almost Christmas again, how soon a year comes to it's end. _ _ _ _