In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house you can get yourself to. Ask the receptionist to see someone who calls himself "The Holder of the End."
The worker will pause. They will look at you for a moment in a way that makes you feel like they've been expecting you and also hoping you wouldn't come. They will call someone on an intercom and then lead you down a hallway.
The hallway will be longer than it should be. Do not comment on this. Do not look at the doors on either side.
You will hear sounds from the rooms as you pass. Do not listen. This is essential. People have lost themselves in those rooms because they slowed to listen. The sounds are words. The words are not for you. They are for others who came before you and stayed in the hallway too long and are still there, technically, though you will not be able to identify them when you pass.
The hallway will end at a door. The worker will leave without a word.
Open the door. Inside is a cell that smells of ash. In the cell is a man. He will not be looking at you. He is never looking at anyone when they arrive.
Sit across from him and say: "What happens when they all come together?"
The man will look up.
This is the moment when the room gets wrong. Not visually wrong, not in any way you can photograph or describe precisely. Just wrong at the level of instinct — a wrongness your body registers and your mind refuses to catalogue.
He will tell you.
He will tell you in a voice that is not exactly a voice, in words that are not exactly words, what will happen when all of the objects are reunited. He will not stop talking until he is finished. Do not interrupt. Do not ask him to repeat anything. If you fail to understand any part of what he says, you will fail, and failing means you join the hallway.
When he is finished, he will give you a rusted straight razor — its blade is pitted and old and somehow sharp. This is Object 1 of 538.
They must never come together. That is the only thing you need to know.