Cael stood alone in the reflective void. The air felt heavier here—thicker, like silence distilled into fog. There were no enemies, no slimes or monsters, no pulsing trial gates humming with anticipation. Just him. And across the room, under a desk like a wounded animal, himself.
Or… someone who used to be.
The reflected Cael was curled under the wooden table—knees tucked to chest, hands trembling as they gripped the edge of a weathered textbook. His eyes were hollow, dark crescents beneath them like bruises inked in years of guilt and anxiety. He looked like a teenager caught in a perpetual state of panic. His uniform shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sweat stains growing under the arms. His chest rose and fell too quickly. Hyperventilation lived here. Fear. Shame.
And then the voice came.
Not like thunder, not like whispers—but sharp. Cold. Intimate.
"Look at you. Do you even remember what it was like to be me?"
Cael flinched. His breath caught in his throat as the room seemed to lean in.
"You walk around now with your brave eyes and your cool magic and your precious little 'friends'—but you've forgotten, haven't you? Forgotten who you used to be. Who you really are."
The voice was his own. Older. Sharper. More cynical. It came not from the reflection—but from within his skull. A rusted echo pulled out of some sealed corner of his mind.
"Let me remind you," the voice hissed. "You were manipulative. You faked empathy like a magician. You learned exactly what people wanted to hear and weaponized it like a scalpel. You never cared. You acted like you cared. You used people."
The words struck like punches, slow and merciless. Cael's hands balled into fists.
"Every relationship you had? Transactional. If someone couldn't help you, they were just noise. Remember gaslighting your roommate? Lying about the test dates to sabotage your own friends when you felt threatened by their success?"
Cael winced. The memories didn't come—but the guilt did. A deep, tectonic shift in his chest like a truth buried so long it now clawed to the surface.
"And then—when you broke down, when you were the one falling apart—you demanded others pick up the pieces. You made yourself the victim. You cried and begged and rewrote your own story so you could keep playing the good guy. You never learned. You only adapted."
He fell to one knee, not because of the voice, but because the weight of what he couldn't remember was breaking him. Like he was being judged for sins carved into a version of himself he didn't even know existed anymore. The kind of grief where you mourn someone who wore your face.
The voice laughed.
"And then Coe, that deity of duality, handed you your little artifact—The Will to Change. How poetic. A sigil burned into your soul that scrubs you clean, that suppresses the truth. You never grew, Cael. You were just edited. A rewritten draft. You're living someone else's redemption arc."
His hands trembled as he touched his chest, feeling the ghost-warmth of the artifact. The sigil had always been there, glowing faintly under his shirt like a heartbeat that wasn't his own. And now he wondered—how much of his courage, his empathy, his insight… how much of it was real?
how much of it had been manufactured so he could function in this new world?
He looked up at the reflection of the boy under the desk. Eyes full of fear. Of rot. Of ego and guilt and self-loathing that had calcified into the corners of his psyche.
Cael's lips trembled.
"Who… was I?"
He had been a strategist of sympathy.
The original Cael—before the artifact, before the curated redemption—had weaponized vulnerability like a scalpel. Not the kind that inspired comfort or trust, but the kind that opened others up just enough to bleed their secrets dry. He'd listen with tilted-head empathy, a perfect mimic of concern, only to file every detail away for future leverage. Weaknesses were cataloged, insecurities recorded like tactical entries in a war journal.
He was cruel, but not loudly. His cruelty lived in subtleties: in the silence after someone stumbled over their words, in the way he paused just long enough to let discomfort fester. He knew how to smile when someone was breaking. Not out of malice—but because it meant he was still in control.
In classrooms, he'd manipulate group dynamics like a puppeteer. He'd let others take the fall for missed deadlines, all while offering carefully phrased apologies and stepping into leadership roles he'd orchestrated himself into. He'd play the victim to authority figures while privately dismantling the confidence of his peers, one passive-aggressive compliment at a time.
With friends—if they could be called that—he'd perform sincerity like a play. He'd memorize their dreams and fears, not to support them, but to ensure they'd never leave his orbit. He made them feel seen, wanted—only to gradually make them feel dependent. If someone grew too strong, too self-assured, he'd subtly unravel their certainty with reminders of past failures. All while feigning concern.
He was an emotional parasite.
Romantic interests were just another algorithm—input affection, output control. He understood how to mirror excitement, to offer the perfect "understanding boyfriend" act, only to guilt and gaslight when things slipped from his hands. When challenged, he'd spiral—not because he was hurt, but because losing control terrified him more than being alone. Regret was a tool. So were tears.
And when it finally crumbled—when his masks began to slip—he didn't apologize. He rewrote the story. Became the broken one. The misunderstood genius. The tragic victim of mental illness, of academic pressure, of a world that never gave him room to breathe. He drowned his accountability in eloquence, wrapped it in sob stories and justifications until even he believed the script he'd written.
This was the Cael that lived under the desk.
The one who still shook, even now, not because of guilt—but because the illusion had finally shattered. Because he had once built an empire of lies with no exit strategy, and now he was trapped in the ruins.
This was the Cael that had to die—for someone better to be born. But now, faced with that past, Cael had to wonder that had he truly changed?
Or was he just another lie... polished enough to pass as truth?
Cael didn't move. Couldn't. The weight in his limbs wasn't fear—it was doubt, twisting inside him like wire. The kind that coiled through the cracks of certainty and tightened with every breath. He stared at the boy under the desk—his own face, warped by time and trauma—and something inside him shifted.
Not pity. Not understanding.
Suspicion.
His hands dropped from his chest like they didn't belong to him anymore. He took a step back, not from the desk, but from himself.
What if it's true?
That whisper didn't come from the voice.
It came from him.
He couldn't remember gaslighting his roommate. He couldn't recall sabotaging his friends or turning tears into tactics. But that absence didn't feel like innocence—it felt like erasure. Like pages torn out of a diary he never got to read.
What if the artifact didn't help me heal? What if it just rewrote me into someone more... palatable?
The idea burrowed deep.
And then, the world shifted.
No wind. No flash of light. Just a hard cut. Like a stage change mid-performance, when the curtain drops and rises again and nothing is where it was supposed to be.
The desk was gone.
Now there were lockers. The chipped paint on them was familiar in a way that made his stomach twist. Linoleum floors, yellowed ceiling tiles, fluorescent lights that flickered with a failing pulse. The air reeked of old paper and anxious sweat. Cael turned slowly, recognizing the warped geometry of middle school—a place that had once felt like a throne room to someone with too much to prove and no one to tell him no.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
The hallway stretched out impossibly far. Classrooms with doors slightly ajar, shadows inside too tall, too still. The walls whispered. Not words, not yet—but something like memories trying to push through wallpaper.
And then—
A voice. Not distant. Not inside.
But right in his ear.
Low. Intimate. Sharp as a knife pressed just against the skin.
"Welcome to Floor 22 of the Tower."
A pause. The air turned to ice in his throat.
"Face my sins, you faker."
Cael spun, but there was no one behind him. Just his own breathing, too loud. Too fast.
His palms were sweating. Eyes darting to every corner. Every creak of a door made his back tense. The walls were too close. The silence was watching.
He felt hunted. Not by monsters. Not even by the Tower.
But by the possibility that he didn't deserve the life he'd built above all this.
By the possibility that he hadn't changed at all.
He stumbled backward and bumped into a locker. It clanged like a gunshot. A photo fluttered out of the slats—one he didn't remember being in. A group photo. His face at the edge. Smiling, but with dead eyes.
And next to him—faces he didn't recognize. Or maybe he didn't want to.
He reached for the photo with shaking fingers.
And the locker door creaked open.
The locker creaked wider on rusted hinges, the cold air inside reeking of dust, old paper, and something metallic—like dried blood or rusted guilt. Cael leaned in, unsure whether his body moved by choice or momentum. And then he saw him.
Crumpled inside, knees to chest, arms wrapped around his head, was a boy.
Bruised. Silent. Shaking.
His uniform shirt was torn at the collar, one sleeve missing entirely. There was a deep purple welt across his cheekbone, dried blood crusted under his nose. One of his shoes was gone. The other hung from his foot like it had been half-dragged off in a struggle.
He didn't look up. Didn't cry. Just breathed in short, shallow gasps. The way prey does when it's learned that screaming doesn't help.
Cael stared.
The boy's face—it triggered a flicker. A memory. Not a full one, but enough to make his stomach twist.
He knew this boy. Not from this Tower, not from any of his trial runs, but from before.
And then the voice returned. Smooth now. Confessional. Almost proud.
"His name was Yulan. Remember him? Top scores every term. Teachers loved him. Classmates admired him."
A pause. The boy in the locker twitched like he heard it too.
"And you hated him."
Cael took a step back. The hallway warped at the edges, like it pulsed in tune with the voice's rhythm.
"Not because he hurt you. Not because he was cruel. But because he stood where you wanted to be. He shined just a little brighter—and that made you burn."
The words flowed like poison through an open wound.
"You watched him laugh with your classmates. You listened to the way they spoke about him. Brilliant. Kind. Focused. You took every compliment they gave him like a personal attack. You couldn't compete, so you corrupted."
Cael shook his head. Just slightly. A twitch. An instinct. But not a denial.
"You found his bully. That tall, angry boy from Class 2-C. The one with too much rage and not enough impulse control. You whispered things into his ear. Twisted truths. Fed him scraps of envy. You made him think Yulan looked down on him. That he talked behind his back. That he mocked him for being stupid."
The locker clicked as the door opened further on its own, revealing more of the curled figure. The boy's eyes opened—just barely. They didn't register Cael. They were locked somewhere else. Somewhere in the past.
"You gave that bully all the ammunition he needed. Then you stepped back and watched. No fingerprints. No proof. Just blood and bruises and silence."
Cael's throat dried. The buzzing overhead lights seemed to grow louder. Like the Tower itself was judging him.
"And then you consoled him, didn't you?" the voice cooed, venom-slick. "You played the worried classmate. Said how terrible it was. Offered to help him study while he healed. And when his grades dropped from the trauma—when his average fell just enough for you to rise…"
The voice chuckled.
"You celebrated."
Cael staggered back, hand clamped over his mouth like he could keep the nausea from spilling out.
He didn't remember doing it.
But he didn't not believe it, either.
The boy—Yulan—didn't move. Just stared blankly into nothing.
The air shifted again—violently, like being yanked through a hole in reality.
No flash. No scream. Just a snap and then stillness.
The school hallway vanished.
Cael landed hard on concrete.
It was colder here. Hollow. His palms scraped the ground as he pushed himself up—rough, gritty floor that reeked of motor oil, rubber, and dust long undisturbed. Overhead, fluorescent lights buzzed with a dull, artificial hum, too steady, too constant, like the heartbeat of a machine that shouldn't be alive. They cast a yellow-gray light over the endless expanse.
He was in a parking structure.
Or… something like one.
Except there were no cars. No pillars marked with levels or letters. Just a massive grid of faded white lines stretching in all directions. Concrete ceiling low enough to press down on him like a lid. No windows. No wind. No exits. Just rows and rows of empty parking bays, identical, repeating like the world had forgotten how to be different.
His footsteps echoed too loud, too sharp. Each one sounded like it belonged to someone else trailing behind.
He turned.
Nothing.
But the air was heavy again. Like the void. Like judgment.
The silence here was deeper than before. Not just the absence of noise—but the presence of watching. Of something just beyond the lights, waiting in the periphery where the fluorescent glow didn't quite reach.
And worse: the lights flickered sometimes.
Not randomly.
In patterns.
Far in the distance, whole rows would blink off for a heartbeat, plunging parts of the lot into brief, pulsing darkness—before stuttering back to life with a sound like old breath.
Cael started to walk.
He didn't know where. There were no signs. No doors. Just more painted lines and turning lanes and the illusion of structure. A place built for arrival and departure with nowhere to come from and nowhere to go.
The echoes of his footfalls warped subtly as he moved. Sometimes they returned too fast. Sometimes too slow. Sometimes there were more than he made.
And then came the sound.
Soft. Tires on concrete. A low, growling rumble. Not approaching—just circling. Somewhere in the distance. Like an engine crawling through endless turns, never accelerating, never stopping.
He stopped breathing.
The rumble grew louder for a second—then receded again. Taunting. Unseen.
And then, barely audible, as if carried on the stale air like a whisper through vents:
"You buried so much. You had to."
The voice again. But not in his ear this time.
All around him. Saturating the space.
"They never would've let you keep going if they knew what you were. So they took it. Scrubbed it clean. Left you just enough to survive."
A slow, wet creak echoed behind him. Not a machine. Organic.
Cael turned.
Nothing.
Just another row of empty slots.
His breathing quickened. Heart pounding loud enough to drown out the lights. He moved faster now, his boots scuffing the grime-caked floor as he scanned the edges of the shadows. There had to be something. A stairwell. An elevator. A way out.
But every turn looked the same.
The lights flickered above him again—shorter this time. Closer.
"You've been playing hero in someone else's body," the voice murmured. "Let's see how long you last… once the floors remember what you really are."
Then everything went still.
No flicker. No sound.
Except one new thing:
A fresh set of wet footprints, just ahead of him.
Not his. Not going toward him.
Going away.
And still warm.