There was no door to Room 0C.
Not anymore.
Only a threshold.
Where the mirror used to be, a passage had opened.
Not lit.
Not dark.
Just constant.
Like walking through a breath held too long.
I crossed it.
The moment I did, sound disappeared.
No echo.
No footsteps.
No heartbeat.
Only the hum of presence.
Room 0C wasn't a room.
Not in the way I understood space.
It was a hallway that folded.
A square spiral.
Walls of pale white. No texture.
Floor felt like marble.
Ceiling was too high to see—or too low to stand under.
It shifted depending on where I focused.
The first five steps repeated.
Over and over.
Each time, slightly different:
A picture on the wall—me, again. Older.
A chair, facing the wall. Empty.
A plant, rotting in fast-forward.
A mirror, but reversed—my reflection blinked before I did.
A door, labeled: "EXIT (NOT THIS ONE)"
Then the loop reset.
I walked faster.
Tried to count my steps.
Tried to keep my eyes fixed on one thing.
But it didn't help.
On the twelfth cycle, I screamed.
Not out of fear—but to hear something.
No echo.
But a voice replied.
From the wall:
"Voice detected. Loop stabilization at 64%."
I stopped.
The mirror rippled.
Then showed three versions of me.
One screaming.
One silent.
One smiling.
Only the smiling one remained.
He looked at me. Whispered:
"You're almost shaped."
I reached for the mirror.
My hand went through.
It was liquid.
I stepped in.
Inside was a room, circular this time.
Lined with doors.
Each labeled:
"FIRST TRY"
"SECOND CONTRACT"
"THIRD LOSS"
"FOURTH WARNING"
"FIFTH YOU"
The sixth door had no label.
Just a red light above it.
Pulsing.
I approached.
The door slid open.
No handle.
No sound.
Just a chair in the middle of a black space.
And a table.
On it: a pen. A new scroll.
And a single card with my name:
Elias CrossAppointment Confirmed: Loop 7 – Completion Phase"Please sit. Your shape is nearly final."
I didn't want to sit.
But I couldn't stand either.
The room shifted under me until I had no choice.
I sat.
The scroll unrolled on its own.
Blank at first.
Then words bled through the paper, one line at a time.
"This is not your first time.This is not your first shape.This is not your first building."
My hands began to tremble.
More lines appeared.
"You have been a resident.You have been a visitor.You have been a tenant.You have been a mirror.You have been a room."
I looked at the walls.
They weren't walls.
They were screens.
Each one played footage—of different versions of me.
Living.
Breaking down.
Falling apart.
Signing papers.
Looking into mirrors and screaming.
One line appeared in red:
"What are you now?"
The pen rose.
Floated beside my hand.
Waiting.
I whispered, "I don't know."
A new voice responded, directly into my mind:
"Then we will choose for you."
The lights went out.
When they came back, I was in a hallway again.
Different now.
Paintings lined the walls.
All of me.
But each wore a different expression.
Some angry.Some blank.Some dead-eyed.Some smiling too wide.
I walked forward.
Each step made the paintings flicker—like they were trying to choose one to become me.
At the end of the hallway, another door.
This one had a keypad.
No instructions.
Just a screen that said:
"Enter your shape."
I hesitated.
Typed:
"Caretaker"
The door didn't open.
Instead, the hallway lit up behind me.
And I saw… someone else walking toward me.
Wearing my face.
But he wasn't me.
He held a copy of the scroll.
Signed.
Smiling.
Whispering:
"You're the last fragment."
I stepped back.
Typed again.
"Elias"
Still nothing.
The other me kept walking.
Closer.
Then he said something that shattered me:
"You were never the tenant.You were the building.The part that wanted to forget."
The keypad flashed green.
Door unlocked.
I stepped through—
And was home.
Back in Room 0B.
But now, everything was reversed.
The clock ticked backward.The mirror showed the future.The lights flickered to the rhythm of a heartbeat.
And on the kitchen counter—
A lease.
Signed by someone else.
With a name I didn't recognize.
But a face I did.
Mine.