The light inside the chamber did not behave like light.
It shifted in uneven waves, bleeding across the floor in irregular pulses, as though the walls themselves were breathing.
The air was thick—too thick—and every inhale tasted faintly metallic, the way blood does when it lingers too long on your tongue.
Kaito stood in the center of it, Nyra at his side.
Her expression was unreadable, but her hand never left the hilt of her blade. Even when the air shimmered and illusions began to whisper around them, she didn't waver.
It wasn't the first time they had been trapped in a place like this—where reality bent just enough to make you question what you knew.
But here, in the deep recesses of the Threadscape, it was different. These illusions didn't just want to deceive. They wanted to replace.
The first flicker came in the shape of Mika.
Not the Mika they knew now—scarred and sharper than before—but Mika as she had been months ago, before everything began to unravel.
