Kye stepped into the elevator.
It was a pristine chrome box suspended in the core of a jagged skyscraper. One wall was completely transparent, revealing the contorted city beyond, rising and falling like a sea of breathing metal. The moment he entered, the doors hissed shut behind him, sealing him in with a finality that made his breath catch.
There were no buttons.
Only a slit along the wall, like a mouth waiting to speak—or bite.
"Take me to the top," he said, not expecting a response.
The floor trembled.
Then the elevator dropped. Not rose—dropped.
Kye's knees buckled as gravity grabbed his spine. His breath sucked out, stomach launching into his chest as the elevator plunged downward in silence. No whirring gears, no rush of air, no screams. Just... falling.
Until it stopped. Dead. No slowing. No transition.
He slammed into the floor, coughing, head ringing. His bones felt like glass.
Then the lights flickered.
A voice spoke from nowhere. No gender, no tone—just there, inside his ears.
"You don't control direction. You asked for the top. We show you the foundation."
The doors peeled open.
And Kye saw a hallway lit by flickering neon tubes, walls covered in claw marks and smeared handprints. The floor was tile, but it moved slightly beneath his weight, like breathing skin. An orange line was painted on the wall, accompanied by symbols he didn't recognize, but somehow understood—this was a ward. A containment floor.
He walked. Slowly. Each step squelched faintly.
The lights dimmed the further he went. He passed by glass cells—each holding… something. Some sat still, curled in corners. Others stared at him, blank-faced, or whispered things to the walls. A few slammed into the glass the moment they saw him. None of them looked fully human.
Then he passed a mirror.
He didn't mean to stop. But his eyes caught the movement.
In the mirror, he was still. But his reflection wasn't. It moved on its own, mouth opening in a silent scream, then grinning.
Kye stumbled back.
The reflection began tapping the glass.
Once.
Twice.
The hallway light popped overhead.
Three times.
The reflection winked—and vanished.
"You're not going crazy," said the same voice from before. "You're seeing things as they are."
Kye looked up. There was a speaker embedded in the corner of the hallway.
"Who are you?"
No answer.
He turned and kept walking. Past more cells. One held a girl without skin. Another held a copy of him—identical, unmoving, eyes tracking him as he passed.
Eventually he reached a red door with burn marks along the frame. Words etched into the metal read:
ALL THAT IS LOST BURNS.
The door opened before he touched it.
Inside was a circular room. Monitors wrapped around the walls, each showing different scenes from the city—alleys, rooftops, bedrooms, a classroom.
His classroom.
Kye stepped forward, eyes locking on a monitor that showed him… asleep. Back on the bus. Head resting against the window. A teacher speaking at the front.
He felt like vomiting.
"Why show me this?" he said.
The voice returned.
"To remind you: this dream is not yours alone. There are others. All dreaming. All trapped."
Another screen flicked on. It showed Luca. Running. Blood on his shirt. Someone chasing him.
Another screen: Arun. Crying behind a dumpster.
Another: the girl from earlier—his friend?—pinned down, hand over her mouth, surrounded.
Kye's fists clenched. "Why are you doing this to us?"
Silence.
He turned in place, searching for the source. "Tell me!"
One screen began to flicker.
The image warped, the classroom view distorting. His sleeping body twitched. Then opened its eyes.
Kye's breath stopped.
The version of him in the real world looked directly at the camera.
Then directly at him.
He backed away. "No. No, no, no…"
The real Kye grinned. Same way the reflection had.
And whispered something, barely audible over the speaker.
"You're not waking up. I am."
The screens shut off.
The floor split beneath him.
Kye fell again—
—but not into blackness.
This time, he fell into himself.
Kye bolted through the sliding doors of the broadcasting tower, lungs burning, heart thrashing like a cornered animal. The city had turned from a twisted graveyard into a full-blown hunting ground. The porcelain-faced things were no longer creeping—they were chasing. He could still hear their footsteps behind him, rapid and glitching like distorted video frames.
The inside of the tower was surprisingly warm. Not the kind of warmth that offered comfort—no, this was artificial, dry heat that pressed against his skin like old breath. The floors gleamed. Not a speck of dust anywhere. Even the elevator shaft at the far end looked untouched by the apocalypse unraveling outside.
He didn't trust it.
Kye took one shaky breath and forced himself to keep moving. Past glass panels. Past mounted televisions that blinked with static-filled images of him. Literally him. Footage of him running, panting, hiding, bleeding—somehow the tower had access to moments even he didn't remember clearly.
Each screen bore a label at the bottom:
SUBJECT 11: LATENCY // CURRENT THRESHOLD: 63%
That word again—Latency. He knew it meant something about delay, about holding back—but why did it feel so personal now?
He approached a mirrored hallway. As he walked, his reflection didn't mimic him perfectly. It hesitated. Blinked late. Tilted its head too slowly.
"Great," Kye muttered, gripping a rusted tripod stand from a corner as a makeshift weapon. "Haunted mirrors. Just what I needed."
A sharp click echoed down the corridor.
He froze. Not footsteps. Not glitching. This was deliberate. Mechanical.
The mirrored walls faded, replaced by projected memories. His classroom. His brother. A funeral. His own voice arguing with a teacher. The audio was off-sync, a half-second delay that made his skin crawl.
"What is this?" he whispered.
A soft voice answered from the ceiling:
"Processing integrity. Aligning identity."
He spun around. No one. Nothing. Just that same dry heat and the flicker of old moments. Then the voice repeated:
"Aligning identity."
A door opened on its own, revealing a stairwell lit in crimson. It beckoned like the mouth of something ancient.
Kye hesitated. Then, tightening his grip on the tripod, he stepped through.
Every stair creaked in a whisper. Not a physical noise—a mental one. Like his brain registered each step as more than just movement. The deeper he went, the more he remembered things he never knew he forgot. Teachers calling him promising. Friends asking him why he held back. His own voice in the dark, saying:
"I could do more. But I don't. I wait. I always wait."
The final door opened without his touch.
It led to a control room. Circular. Massive. Surrounded by monitors. In the center sat a chair facing away from him.
He approached slowly.
"Hello?"
The chair turned.
In it was… himself.
Older. Paler. Worn. The figure looked up, eyes hollowed from lack of sleep, and gave a tired, bitter smile.
"So," the older Kye said. "You finally made it. About time."
Kye's mouth went dry. "What is this?"
"This," the doppelganger said, spreading his arms to the room, "is your feedback loop. You were never meant to reach this level, you know. Not awake. But here you are. Forcing meaning into things not meant to hold it."
Kye stepped closer. "You're not me."
"No," the older Kye said, "I'm what you become if you stop fighting. If you accept every delay, every compromise, every whisper that says, 'Not yet. Maybe later.' I'm what happens when you make waiting your whole identity."
Kye's grip on the tripod tightened. "Then you're just a warning."
A shrug. "A possibility."
The screens flickered. The entire building groaned. Red lights flashed. An alarm blared:
System Breach: Latency Threshold 70%
"You're close," the older Kye said. "One more push, and this whole dream collapses. You wake up."
"Good," Kye growled.
The older version stood. "But if you do… you'll forget all this. Every trick. Every truth. You'll lose the edge."
Kye hesitated. "Then tell me something real before I go."
The older Kye paused. Thought. Then said:
"Everyone's afraid to begin. That's not your weakness. That's your delay. Learn the difference."
The building began to crumble.
Kye turned to run. But before he left, he heard his own voice echo from the collapsing hallway:
"Wake up