Salvador sat motionless for a few seconds, as if waiting for his opponent to regain his balance—but in truth, he was staring at something that was disintegrating.
Before him, Dathweet—the one who had once been composed, once elite—was now trembling like a machine whose battery was gradually draining, flickering somewhere between the edge of existence and a loss of connection to reality.
The space around Dathweet warped and twisted.
The outlines of the table, the chairs, the glass walls stretched out and then pulled back in, as if breathing—like the lungs of some giant invisible creature.
The light in the room was bent, scattered.
Some corners flared with intensity, others sank into darkness so deep it felt like a black hole.
Even the echoes inside his head were no longer sounds—they were silent "bursts," noiseless explosions.
Violent pangs surged through him, like nerves twisting and recoiling in protest.
All that Dathweet had left was a single sliver of sensation: touch.
Everything else—hearing, sight, smell—felt as if drowned far underwater, or being transmitted from a different dimension entirely.
In front of him, Salvador laid down the card.
Each movement slow.
Deliberate.
Careful to the point of being unnervingly smooth—as if he knew that any extraneous gesture would be seized upon and dissected by the man sitting opposite him.
But it was precisely this over-cautiousness… that made it suspicious.
"One."
The number clicked out of his mouth.
And in that exact moment, Salvador's right hand quivered.
Ever so slightly.
His eyes swept—tracing a deliberate path from his hand, to the card, then resting on Dathweet's eyes.
He breathed sharply—four beats in quick succession.
Intentional.
It couldn't have been unconscious.
Dathweet still heard the number clearly. But that was all.
Everything after that… collapsed into fragments.
His mind turned pure white—blank.
No chain of logic. No train of thought. No process of elimination.
All of it, wiped clean from temporary memory.
He bit his lip.
Gathered every last ounce of will he had left, funneled it into one single channel: touch.
His fingers scraped lightly against the table surface—faintly picking up the texture, the grain.
Sweat poured like water from every pore.
That warm stream rolled down his forehead, slid past his temple—but he didn't wipe it.
He didn't have the strength to wipe it.
His entire body… trembled.
Not out of fear.
But because his body was betting everything—all that was left of the human within—on one final read.
And then—like the last nerve flickering alive—a small detail flared to the surface.
The temperature at the tips of Salvador's fingers.
Not seen.
But felt.
Through reflection. Through the vibration in the air when the card touched the table.
And… warm.
Warm meant he was bluffing.
Salvador always tensed when he bluffed.
When he spoke the truth, his hands ran cold—because the blood rushed inward, toward the heart. A kind of terrifying calm.
But when he bluffed… adrenaline flushed through him, widened the vessels, made the fingertips heat up.
Dathweet let out a breath—long, shallow, but failing to release fully.
His head ached to the point of rupture—so much so that tears leaked from both eyes.
Not out of emotion.
But because… his brain had reached overload.
He collapsed forward, resting on the table.
His forehead gently tapped the glass.
Eyes shut tight, but in his mind… a door opened.
A memory.
Age seventeen.
A game. A bet. A dusty card.
Ink not yet dry—he remembered smelling the ink, and from that, realized the deck had been switched.
Back then, Dathweet had won—because of a single breath.
And now… that instinct returned.
He raised his head. Leaned forward.
Couldn't smell a thing—his sense of smell had gone.
But… hormone. Pressure.
A deep, low, primal sensation told him—Salvador was straining to keep calm.
His voice came out hoarse.
As if spoken through a blown-out speaker:
"Why are you… so tense?"
Salvador flinched.
He gripped the edge of the table.
The feeling of no longer having complete control over the game made his skin itch, made something deep in him squirm.
Even though he still had more Echoes left, he couldn't read someone whose senses had nearly all shut down.
Those tiny blinks, subconscious tics, muscle twitches—all of them distorted now, drowned in the fog clouding Dathweet's awareness.
No signs. No logic to trust.
And this—this was what Salvador hated most.
He didn't fear defeat.
He feared losing control of the match.
And that was what was eating at him every second—like a needle piercing a nerve again and again and again.
At the exact moment Dathweet spoke his verdict, a headache—cold and sharp as stone—stabbed straight through Salvador's temple.
Dathweet:
"You're lying."
Ting.
The Echo board jolted lightly.
Salvador: 4 remaining.
Before he could react—he fell.
Not as hard as Dathweet had.
But clearly.
His body lost its center of gravity, slumping to the left.
Cold sweat rolled down his forehead.
His gaze turned unfocused.
The space around him began to distort.
Table legs stretched longer.
The ceiling spun—slowly, deliberately.
He had reached a new threshold.
Salvador, even with more Echoes left… had entered the same psychological hell that Dathweet had endured.
He sat up, staggering.
For the first time—his gaze lost its sharpness.
His pupils seemed wrapped in a thin layer of mist.
Everything in front of him blurred, like pencil sketches soaked in water.
The crisp lines of Dathweet's face dissolved into uneven blotches of shadow and light, fading in and out.
Salvador blinked repeatedly—not from exhaustion, but because his brain was panicking, desperately trying to recover clarity.
It didn't work.
He lifted his hand to the corner of his eye.
His fingertip came away with blood.
Salvador thought silently:
(Vision's gone…)
A wave of sensory distortion washed over him.
The room lengthened.
The chairs became warped geometric masses.
The table surface tilted downward, sloping like a ramp.
Dathweet remained silent.
He knew… this was the moment for the finishing blow.
He took two cards.
Lifted them with his left hand, stacking them with subtle care so they looked like one.
The movement was just shaky enough, just slow enough, to avoid suspicion.
As he placed them down, his index finger shifted—the bottom card slid back into his sleeve, leaving just one card on the table.
Salvador couldn't see clearly.
He only made out a faint blur shaped vaguely like the number 1.
Dathweet declared:
"One."
Salvador focused instantly.
He frowned:
(He used… his left hand?)
Dathweet's left hand—frozen until now from nervous imbalance—suddenly moving smoothly again.
Wasn't that strange?
Salvador tilted his head slightly.
Salvador:
(The card's angled… about 15 degrees off from his usual placement. Something's being hidden.)
His eyes scanned—down Dathweet's shoulder, to his right hand.
That hand was shaking.
Not slightly—but constantly, as if it had no strength left to hold a card.
Then he spoke:
"You know full well I don't have the strength to bluff anymore."
A simple sentence.
But it struck a nerve in any would-be victor—the dangerous assumption that a collapsing opponent couldn't deliver one final blow.
Salvador paused for one and a half seconds.
He licked his lips.
Clenched his fingers slightly.
(Is he… trying to scare me? Or is he being honest?)
His eyes shifted to meet Dathweet's—but Dathweet was looking just past his shoulder, not making direct eye contact.
Experience told him: that's a liar's sign.
But body language told him: this man is trembling, losing control, falling apart—and none of it looks staged.
Salvador growled softly:
"You're… telling the truth."
Ting.
The sound rang out, tiny, like glass cracking in Salvador's skull.
His Echo dropped.
Now: 1.
At that exact instant, Salvador's entire body reacted as though it had been set on fire.
Blood streamed from both corners of his eyes.
Then from his nose.
Then from his ears.
Then from his mouth.
The pain didn't feel like a scream—but like someone had unplugged all the nerves at once.
He could no longer tell finger from table.
No longer knew if he was upright or falling.
Everything melted like watercolor.
The space around him spun—not in a straight direction, but crossed, flipped, sucked into white light smeared like a swirling galaxy.
That light beckoned him.
It looked like heaven.
Looked like truth.
Looked like… a permanent escape from everything.
He thought he was dying.
Salvador clenched his teeth—bit into his lower lip.
Blood welled out.
But the pain… never came.
The sensation of pain… had disappeared.
Dathweet, though slumped and exhausted, forced himself to straighten up—forced a strained, crooked smile:
"I tricked you. Visual hallucination… and reversed signals.
What you read—was only what I let you read."
Salvador lowered his head.
The entire room tilted toward him.
Everything—from the match, the control, the psychological logic—had shattered in his hands… because of a single misread.
And now… he had only 1 Echo left.
Still collapsed, Salvador's Echo dropped to 1.
The white light still seared through his mind, stroking the edge of his consciousness like heaven calling him.
He could barely feel his body anymore—only the cold of blood flowing backward through his brain, and the lullaby whispers of the other world echoing somewhere deep in his skull.
Salvador struggled to sit upright.
His lips were bloodless.
One hand clung to the table edge, the other still trembling.
Dathweet looked at him, his back hunched from fatigue.
Then, slowly, he tapped a single finger on the Echo board in front of him.
Dathweet:
"2 Echoes. One point difference.
Not very fun."
Then he looked up.
His gaze locked straight onto Salvador—colder than steel, and sadder than a man who's already accepted his own death.
Dathweet:
"System. Deduct one more Echo for me."
A dry, lifeless Ting rang out.
Dathweet's Echo: 1.
All his senses jolted for a beat—
his body tilted, sweat pouring down like water.
But he said nothing more.
Just sat there, waiting for the next round.
Between the two players,
there now remained only two final breaths of reason.
The last round.
No more rules.
No more time.
Only two human beings.
facing each other like distorted reflections of themselves.
Space… began to fracture.
The four glass walls stretched and contracted like breathing.
The ceiling seemed to liquefy—
a sea of white light slowly spreading above their heads.
The entire room warped.
It was no longer a place of competition.
But had become the core of the mind—
where all memories, wounds, and the self were pushed to the limit.
Salvador placed the card down.
His fingers trembled—
not out of fear,
but because… the truth was drawing near.
His gaze pierced through Dathweet
as if seeing through a thousand past versions of him.
The light above…
began to fall like a rain of white stars.
Not hot.
Not cold.
Just inviting.
Dathweet looked up.
The entire room seemed to be pulled toward an invisible center—
everything rotated slowly,
warped like molten glass.
It was no longer a room.
It was "the stripped-down inner self"—
where he felt like he was floating between layers of time,
between himself… and the one he once was.
Dathweet:
(Number One… is himself. And he hates that to the marrow.)
A radiant light flared behind Salvador—
a pure white glow, like the gate of death.
It didn't threaten.
It invited.
A nameless, gentle whisper… echoed in both their minds:
"You have both… reached your limit.
One will let go.
One… will go on living."
Dathweet placed his hand on the table.
His hand still trembled—
but this time, not from exhaustion.
But from… absolute certainty.
Dathweet:
"You won't pick One.
Because if you do, it means accepting yourself.
And you… are still afraid."
The light behind them flared—
not blinding, but so gentle… it ached.
Like being lulled into a sleep you'll never wake from.
Dathweet closed his eyes.
No more echoes.
No more time.
Dathweet:
"I guess you picked Number 3."
Ting.
A sound rang out like the bell ending a play.
Salvador's Echo board dropped to 0.
He laughed.
A raspy laugh, then fading—
like ash scattered by the wind.
His body didn't vanish, didn't scream.
It simply… fractured from within.
Fragments of Dathweet's memories floated around him.
A child sitting alone on a staircase,
a hollow gaze in a mirror.
The light swallowed him, and he… disappeared.
The room was stark white.
Only Dathweet remained, sitting still,
in a quiet pain without form or name.
The light softened.
A door opened behind him—
where reality was calling him back.
Dathweet stood up,
no strength left to scream in victory.
His body still trembled, breath uneven,
but his eyes were wide—
staring straight into the light pouring through the open door,
as if something in it were calling him forward.
To the other side.
He stepped forward.
The air shifted the moment his foot touched the threshold.
No more glass room.
No more Salvador.
Only… a cracked brick path
stretching through Hollow Echo,
the town where everything had once begun.
The town appeared like an old photograph,
half-burned at the corner.
The buildings on either side of the road slumped
as if no one had walked here in a hundred years.
Brick walls peeling, roofs shattered.
But amidst the ruins…
something was trying to come back to life.
A wall clock hanging inside the grocery shop trembled.
A broken window blinked gently
as if someone silently closed it.
Faint signs that the town was trying to mend itself.
As if even this space knew…
the final moment was approaching.
And covering everything
was a thick white fog.
Not cold.
But damp and clinging,
like the breath of someone drowning.
The fog hung so dense
that even light had to slip its way through.
Faint beams glowed from shattered bulbs,
from worn-out signs—
as if guiding someone
back to a place they'd run from their whole life.
Dathweet stood in the middle of the street,
looking up at the gray, clouded sky.
No wind.
No birds.
No footsteps behind him.
He was… alone.
Truly alone.
But in that chill,
something stirred from deep within—
a blurred memory,
a name he didn't dare recall,
a curse never spoken aloud.
He walked on,
slowly,
through the fog.
And from somewhere…
a child's cry rang out.
Faint.
Distant.
But unmistakable.
He passed the block
where he and Lyun had once run from The Baby.
The wall she was impaled on
was now sealed again,
as if… nothing had ever happened.
No blood.
No trace.
No… Lyun.
Dathweet stayed silent.
He didn't call her name.
No need.
He knew—
if she were here, she'd have appeared.
He was alone.
He kept walking.
His steps passed through thick patches of fog—
like thin liquid coating the air.
The streets were warped—
some corners folded like crumpled paper,
others stretched on endlessly
only to suddenly collapse inward.
He moved through it all
as if gravity no longer applied.
Dathweet:
"How many things are still waiting inside this brain of mine?"
A crisp cracking sound to the left.
A creature spilled out from a wall's crevice.
Its skin didn't match its frame—
as if wearing the wrong human suit.
Its back was patched with sewn scraps of skin,
its nape overlaid by something like an old mask.
It screamed.
No sound.
But the air quivered—
as if someone had slammed a massive pane of glass.
It charged.
Dathweet spun,
grabbed a broken brick nearby.
No thinking.
No analysis.
Just reflex.
Whack!
The brick slammed into the creature's face.
It collapsed—
its soft skull caving,
bursting like a ripe pumpkin.
He hadn't even caught his breath
when more figures emerged from the mist.
Same shape.
Same hollow eyes.
Same skin that didn't belong to them.
They chased him.
Dathweet ran.
His stomach ached—
probably the aftermath of Echo Bet still lingering.
They didn't stop.
Didn't tire.
Didn't feel pain.
With every turn, he felt cornered…
Toward the Hospital.
A looming building at the heart of town,
a jet-black cube—
no lights,
no people.
He passed through the rusty iron gate.
And at that moment,
all the creatures stopped.
They didn't take another step.
Dathweet turned back.
They stood there.
Like statues.
Like fragments of old memories
unable to enter the part of the mind he was about to explore.
And ahead of him—
the hospital door.
Slightly ajar.
Waiting to open.
— End of Chapter —