Dani dragged Lance over broken tiles and veined roots, his blood leaving a jagged red trail that didn't soak in—it shimmered, like spilled light trying to remember being fluid.
He groaned. Barely.
His ribs weren't broken in the normal way. They bent wrong. His skin steamed, flaring with heat where it should've been cold. The inside of him was folding.
"Stay awake," Dani whispered, jaw clenched. "Don't go anywhere. Not here."
Behind them, Kenton jogged up, panting, keeping low.
"I think I stabilized it—I made a seal. I—" He paused.
The barrier he'd cast earlier was still flickering in the corner of his vision. A crescent shape, refracting light like cracked ice... but slower. Like the light was reluctant to pass through. Time folded oddly there. A bird that had flown into it minutes ago was still mid-flap, bones unspooling midair, forever caught in the almost-now.
That... wasn't supposed to happen.
But a smile tugged at the edge of Kenton's mouth anyway.
"...That really shouldn't have happened," he muttered. "God, that really shouldn't—"
Dani snapped her head toward him.
"Kenton."
His expression vanished. He straightened his glasses. "Forget I said that. Focusing now."
They pushed on through an archway where the walls had turned inside out—roots growing inward from the stone, forming a tunnel of curling limbs. The Codex sigil Lance had touched still shimmered behind his eyes, but its shape had warped. Not a rune. Not even a symbol. Something older. Something whispering.
Every step Dani took felt like a test. The floor moved beneath her like it was deciding whether or not she deserved to pass.
They were supposed to be escaping. But where?
"Where the hell are we going?" Kenton asked.
Dani hesitated. "Down."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
The path split ahead—three tunnels, all crooked. One dripping with blood that hissed like acid. One echoing with laughter that didn't stop. One perfectly silent, framed by dying lanterns.
"Don't pick wrong," Dani muttered.
Behind them, the barrier shattered—sounded like breaking a mirror that had been trying to scream.
Time snapped back in. The bird, finally free, fell in pieces.
Kenton flinched.
Lance whimpered—his hands twitching.
He saw things that weren't real anymore. A hallway that used to exist. A door that remembered being opened. People who never were. He blinked and Kenton had a different face for a second.
"No. No no no—" Lance started, voice slurring, but Dani pressed her palm to his forehead.
"Shh. You're here."
She didn't believe it either.
Suddenly the tunnel itself inhaled. The silence-tunnel. Something inside it stirred.
And spoke.
"You're going the wrong way."
All three stopped.
Kenton's throat clicked. "That—wasn't—Did you hear—"
"He's unraveling," the voice said again. "You think carrying him will stop it?"
It was calm. Low. Measured.
It came from inside Lance's shadow.
"You can drop him now. Leave him. He'll vanish cleanly."
Dani snarled. "No."
"Then you will vanish too."
The three tunnels collapsed. All but one. The silence-tunnel remained, wider now, pulsing faintly with dull, wrong light.
No choice.
They entered.
The Codex shuddered in the dirt like a dying insect. Dani hadn't even noticed it fall from Lance's hands—it must've dropped when he collapsed. The pages were flipping violently now, as though caught in wind no one else could feel. Something was calling from within.
"Don't touch it!" Kenton barked.
Dani froze mid-reach.
The Codex stilled.
Silence. Not peace—a poised breath before something worse.
Lance groaned. Blood ran black where it should've been red, boiling up in fine threads from his arms like cobwebs burned in reverse. His spine arched, then cracked—once. Loudly. Dani caught him before he slammed back to the floor.
He wasn't awake, but his mouth moved, shaping names he didn't know. Hands clenching and unclenching like he was trying to remember how to feel.
"Stay with me," she muttered, pressing her palm to his chest. "Stay with me, Lance."
"I—I think the anomaly's still interfacing with him," Kenton whispered.
"Then break the interface."
Kenton flinched, sweat beading. "It's not a circuit board."
But he still reached into his satchel and pulled out what looked like a memory coil—snapping it open like a fan and waving it over Lance's head. Its light sparked and pulsed—faltered—then turned inward, collapsing on itself like it had seen something it wasn't meant to read.
"Stop using broken toys," Dani growled.
"I made this," Kenton shot back, then quieter, "I didn't know it would do that."
The floor cracked beneath them.
No tremor. No sound. Just a break in logic.
Tiles peeled into glass. Reflection first, then refraction, then splintering realities trapped beneath, spinning like insect eyes. A hollow image of Lance stood up where his body lay, but it wasn't quite him. His outline shimmered, too perfect, like someone remembering him wrong.
"Back—away," Kenton stammered. "That's not him."
Dani did not.
Instead, she faced it. Halberd drawn. Eyes narrowed. "Lance."
The echo tilted its head. There was a strange patience in the mimicry.
"You've been here before," it said. Not his voice. Not quite. Like something was dragging syllables out of water.
She lifted her weapon. "You've got five seconds."
But it smiled.
And the world around them turned into a corridor.
Walls reformed—not real ones, not stone or steel. Memory. They were inside a hallway that didn't exist anymore, one that hadn't for years. The edges bled into static. Light buzzed like a failing fluorescent bulb. Doors lined the sides, shut. Locked. Some scratched from the inside.
"Where the hell are we?" Dani asked, turning, halberd raised. The air felt familiar.
Kenton didn't answer. He was trying to scan the environment with his wrist-reader, but the UI wouldn't load. His hand shook slightly. "It's memory-stitched architecture. Not real. Or—it's real because it remembers itself."
"Make more sense."
"I can't. This place is wrong."
They both turned at a gasp.
Lance—real Lance—was upright, staggering. Bleeding heavily from the side. His shoulder bent at the wrong angle. But his eyes were open.
He stared down the hallway, past them. Whispered:
"...This is where I watched someone die."
Neither Dani nor Kenton moved.
She held Dario in her arms, who was whimpering quietly.
"Who?" she asked gently.
He didn't answer.
The hallway darkened. A chime rang through the air like an intercom.
A voice—not Lance's—spoke, clear and pleasant:
"Welcome, occupant. Please choose a memory to revise."
Every door lit up. Faint names appeared on the plaques—Lance didn't recognize any.
Kenton reached for one. "Maybe this one—"
"No!" Lance snapped. "We don't open random doors."
Kenton bristled. "We have to move. We're in something now. Maybe in you, Lance. And it's warping."
"You want to mess with my brain to escape?"
"I want us to live!"
Dani stepped between them. Her voice was calm, deadly: "We're not using Lance as a shortcut."
Lance grabbed at his temple. A new pain—not physical. Like a memory inserted wrong.
He turned. The door behind him had changed.
It now bore a label:
"Rico."
He blinked.
Who?