He didn't fall.
He floated.
Or at least, it felt like it.
Kye's body never hit ground. The momentum just... slowed. The wind became syrup. The scream in his throat fizzled out, dragged into silence before it could escape.
Then—
Touchdown.
Not a crash. Not a landing. Just a presence.
He was standing, barefoot, on smooth stone. No pain. No echo.
No gravity, either.
The sky above—if it was sky—spun in slow, lazy spirals. Purple veins slithered through clouds shaped like eyes. He blinked. They were gone.
The ravine was gone, too.
So was the forest.
Kye turned in place.
He stood in the center of a massive flat chamber that extended in all directions. No walls. No ceiling. No floor, really. Just... endless, slate-grey ground, and a faint pulsing light beneath it.
A heartbeat?
He crouched and placed a hand to the stone.
Yes.
Thump.
He recoiled.
Not just one pulse. A thousand, stacked, layered. Heartbeats above, beside, inside.
Something massive was alive beneath this place.
---
He began walking.
He didn't know which way he chose. There were no signs, no sun, no bearings. But still, something in him whispered:
"Go forward."
With each step, a distant chime rang out—soft, melodic, almost musical.
He stopped.
No sound.
Step. Chime.
Step. Chime.
A pause. A cold breeze passed through him. Through, not across.
Like he wasn't fully there anymore.
---
Eventually, the stone changed.
Not color—texture.
It rippled underfoot, like skin reacting to cold.
Kye froze. Bent down.
There were symbols embedded in the stone—each one shaped like an open eye. Dozens of them, barely raised, watching.
Then one of them blinked.
---
Kye jerked back.
From behind him, a new sound: footsteps.
Measured. Echo-less.
He spun around—nothing.
He turned forward again—
And came face to face with himself.
Not broken like the reflection in the cave. Not twisted like the one in the camp.
This version was clean. Perfect. Fresh-faced, with untouched hands and bright, focused eyes.
"I thought you'd never make it," the double said.
Kye backed up.
"You're not real."
The double smiled. "Neither are you."
---
Before Kye could run, the ground rose beneath him, flipping him forward. He hit hard, sliding across the slick surface.
He scrambled to his feet, but the world tilted again.
Gravity returned—and then shifted sideways.
He was sliding now, down a massive incline, unable to stop.
The smooth surface beneath him twisted into a spiral, pulling him inward, down, down—
—
—
He slammed into solid ground.
This time, it hurt.
He groaned, rolling over—and gasped.
He lay on a platform, suspended in air, overlooking a massive network of stairways, buildings, and floating rooms below. Like someone had shattered a city and left the pieces hanging in space.
Lights flickered in windows. Some pulsed red. Others flashed images he didn't understand—memories, maybe. Dreams.
Or surveillance.
A voice buzzed in his ear, faint and electric.
"Trial 3 complete. Subject approaching core."
His eyes widened.
"They're watching me."
He stood, pulse racing.
The spiral stairways below seemed to shift as he looked at them, rearranging with each blink. And somewhere far below, in a dark corner, he saw something waiting.
Not moving.
Not chasing.
Just waiting.
For him.
---
Kye didn't move at first.
His breath sat like ice in his lungs. Below him, the city unfolded in impossible directions—paths defying gravity, buildings suspended on nothing, bridges forming and fading as if the architecture were breathing.
"Trial 3 complete. Subject approaching core."
The voice had no source. No direction. Just there. Inside his skull, inside the stone, inside everything.
He turned in a slow circle on the platform.
No escape.
No stairs.
Just a drop—and the thing below.
It hadn't moved.
It didn't need to.
Whatever it was, it knew he'd come down. The whole place bent that way.
---
Kye clenched his jaw and looked up.
The sky above was… flat. Not endless. Like a sheet of metal hung with projected clouds. A few flickered, showing static and shadowy symbols underneath—runes or data. He couldn't tell which.
"How deep is this dream?"
The question felt dangerous.
Like the place didn't want him thinking too hard.
---
The platform shifted, a tremble running beneath his feet. Slowly, it lowered—no railing, no sound—just a drift, like sinking into the world's throat.
Kye breathed slow, his knuckles pale from the grip on his makeshift weapon—just a chunk of cracked tile. Useless, but heavy. He couldn't let go of it.
Below, stairways twisted into each other, growing more organic the deeper he went. Less concrete, more… tendon. Flesh? Pipe? He couldn't tell.
The boundaries between real and symbolic were fraying.
L
---
He reached the next platform.
It was wide, circular, with thin rails made of something like bone. A single lamp swung from above—no pole, just suspended light, hanging from nothing.
At the far end was a door. Out of place. Ordinary. Wooden. Hinges and all.
Beside it, a person.
Small. Hooded.
Kye stopped.
They didn't move.
"You part of this?" he asked.
No answer.
The figure raised one hand and pointed to the door. Slowly. Deliberately.
Then they vanished. Like dust being unwritten.
Kye shivered. Not from fear—from recognition.
That figure had been in one of his school's old murals. A forgotten one, hidden behind scaffolding in the hall. A painting nobody remembered painting.
"Draems pulling memories now."
He approached the door, half-expecting it to melt, scream, or explode.
It didn't.
It opened with a click.
---
Inside: a hallway.
Wallpaper. Old, peeling. Floorboards that creaked when stepped on. Kye blinked. He knew this place.
His old house.
Before the move. Before everything changed.
The hallway stretched longer than it should. Photos lined the walls. Some he recognized—family trips, birthdays, school awards.
But others…
They were still frames of the dream.
Him running. Mila screaming. The fire pit. Jula bleeding. A shadow behind him he hadn't seen when it happened.
A voice—familiar and small—echoed from the end of the hall:
"Are you going to look away again?"
Kye's stomach turned to acid.
No.
He moved faster, down the endless corridor, ignoring how the floor warped and bent beneath him.
At the end: a mirror.
And in the reflection:
The classroom.
Bright. Clean. Everyone present.
But no one moved.
He was standing in the doorway—but in the mirror, he was already seated.
Staring forward.
Frozen.
Mouth open.
Eyes wide.
Bleeding from the nose.
---
Kye stepped back.
The mirror stayed the same.
Then his reflection turned its head—slowly—until its eyes met his.
---