Chapter Three: The Room with No Corners
He dreamed—but the dream didn't feel like a dream.
There was no beginning.
No sense of "falling asleep."
One moment, Elias was staring at the ceiling, and the next… he was elsewhere.
A room.
Dim. Old. Silent.
The light came from nowhere, yet it filled the space with a colorless haze, like fog caught in a box.
The first thing he noticed: there were no corners.
The room's edges curved unnaturally, like the walls rejected straight lines.
The floor was smooth, but warm.
The ceiling pulsed faintly—like it was breathing.
He stood in the center.
He didn't remember walking.
He didn't remember standing.
In front of him stood a small chair.
Wooden. Familiar.
And on it, a boy.
Maybe six years old.
The boy had Elias's eyes.
The same hair.
The same slight twitch in the jaw.
But his face…
It was hollowed in a way children's faces should not be.
Too quiet.
Too still.
Elias opened his mouth to speak.
But the child raised a finger—
a warning.
Silence pressed down.
Then, behind the child, a shape began to form.
From the wall itself.
A shadow.
It melted downward like wax, slow and deliberate.
No eyes. No limbs. Just form.
The boy did not react.
Elias couldn't move.
The shadow approached the child.
Its shape wrapped around him—softly, like a mother's embrace.
And the child whispered:
"She was never on the floor."
The room dimmed further.
A smell reached Elias's nose—rotten milk, and old rain.
He stepped forward, not meaning to.
The floor groaned, though it was smooth stone.
With every step, the light changed.
Red.
Then grey.
Then almost blue.
In the far corner—
No.
There were no corners.
But from the farthest curve of the wall, a mirror rose.
Not like the one in his mother's room.
This one floated.
No frame.
No glass.
Just a surface.
It showed a kitchen.
He knew that kitchen.
He knew that table.
The broken plate.
The open cabinet.
And the scream.
So sudden, so sharp, it echoed into his bones.
He turned away—
But another mirror had appeared on the opposite wall.
A bedroom.
His old bedroom.
Someone—himself, younger—sat on the bed.
Crying.
Murmuring something again and again.
"She didn't fall.
She didn't fall.
She didn't fall."
Then silence.
Then—
A third mirror.
This one didn't show a place.
It showed a symbol.
A circle, surrounded by jagged lines, drawn in what looked like chalk.
No… not chalk.
Bone dust.
And in the center:
"SPEAK NOTHING.
LISTEN TO THE GLASS."
Elias felt something behind him.
Not heard.
Felt.
He turned.
The child was gone.
The chair was burning—
no flames, just smoke rising in perfect spirals.
And in its place—
A crack.
In the floor.
Narrow.
Barely visible.
But growing.
From within it, whispers:
"You remember it wrong.
Or perhaps you remember it right."
His feet began to sink.
The ground did not collapse—it welcomed him.
Pulled him gently, as if tucking him in.
He fell without falling.
The room vanished.
Darkness again.
But not empty this time.
A whisper followed him as he descended:
"The past was not closed.
You just stopped opening the door."
And the door…
…was opening again.