The rain didn't let up. It only deepened, soaking into the gravel and dirt like it was trying to bury something. Kye moved carefully through the mist-choked clearing, each footstep a test of balance and nerve. His shoulder ached from the last encounter—a burn across the skin that throbbed with every breath—but it was the silence that unnerved him more.
Too quiet. Always too quiet before something broke loose.
He passed by a shattered wooden signpost, half-buried in the earth. Something scratched into it, deep, desperate lines, some unreadable, some clearer: "WE NEVER LEFT". Kye's stomach twisted.
Behind him, a sound. Sharp. A breath?
He turned fast, ready. But nothing.
"Don't," came a whisper—his own voice again.
He froze. It was behind him this time.
"No more mirrors," it said.
Then everything turned cold.
Not cold like air, but a gut-deep freeze that made his blood slow. The trees warped. Bent inward. The sky seemed to ripple.
Then he saw it.
A figure—pale, gray-eyed, walking like it had borrowed bones—emerged from the fog ahead. The way it mimicked his limp was too perfect.
Another Kye.
He didn't wait. He turned and ran. Through brush, over roots, mind flaring. It didn't chase him. Not at first.
But he heard it laugh. No echo. No soul.
---
He burst through another clearing, breath tearing out of him, and stumbled into an open ruin of stone and tile. Carved markings all over the floor—ritualistic, circular, geometric. Blood dried in the grooves.
There was someone else here.
She sat cross-legged in the center, eyes closed, humming. Red streaks marked her jaw. As if hearing his thoughts, she opened her eyes.
"You're not ready to face it," she said softly.
"I don't care," Kye snapped, barely catching his breath.
"You should. Because it remembers you."
---
They didn't speak for a long while.
Eventually, the woman offered him something from her satchel. Dried meat. Or something like it. Kye hesitated but took it.
"I'm Yhami," she said. "Been here four days. Or four years. It doesn't really track."
"You're real?"
Yhami looked amused. "Define real."
He sighed. "I thought maybe… never mind."
Yhami rose. "The one that's copying you. That's not a fluke. It's a trial."
"A what?"
"There are layers to this place. Like skin. Each one closer to the root. The deeper you go, the more yourself you face. Some don't survive it."
Kye felt it then—that faint pull. Like something calling from underneath the world. A whisper of his own voice, far off.
"You're in the Spiral now," Yhami said. "And it remembers every lie you told yourself."
---
Later that night, Kye dreamed of water.
He was drowning, but breathing at the same time. And around him were reflections—not just of himself, but of moments he tried to forget. His old home. A locked drawer. The face of a teacher he'd betrayed. Luca's laugh before it went quiet.
When he awoke, the sky above the ruins had shifted again. And Yhami was gone.
But her voice remained:
"Find the tether."
---
A shadow passed over the moon. The sound of footsteps, too fast. Kye braced himself.
Then… a hand touched his shoulder
Kye had long abandoned the idea of understanding everything. He'd decided, after the mirror shattered, that survival didn't demand clarity—just motion. He moved like a shadow under blood-red light, breath synced with the quiet pounding of his pulse. Every hallway was slick with a sheen of something like oil, yet too warm to be mechanical.
He ducked beneath a pipe that pulsed like a vein and emerged into what looked like a library made from bones. The shelves were spines, neatly aligned, supporting parchment bound in stretched skin. And the air—it trembled. Not from movement, but from the sheer presence of memory.
Someone had screamed here before.
He could almost taste the echo of it.
He didn't stop moving until he saw the chair.
It was perfectly centered in the room, facing him. On it, sat someone—or something—that wore his body like a coat. Skin too loose, posture too relaxed. The imposter raised a hand lazily, grinning.
"You made it further than most," it said, voice oily and light.
Kye didn't answer. He was busy tracking exits, counting footfalls, gauging distances.
"You know what this place is?" the imposter asked, standing now. Its movements mimicked his own. "It's not just memory. It's root. And roots always twist downward."
With a step forward, the imposter's body convulsed. Bones snapped into new places. A mouth split across its chest. It smiled wider.
Kye stepped back once.
The lights blinked out.
A whisper scraped across the room like nails.
"Now show me what you've learned."
(Important announcement in authors note)