The city held its breath.
Khương Triều Dạ wandered aimlessly, feet tracing the cracks between tiles on the pavement as if each step could draw meaning from stone. The streets around him pulsed—not with sound, but with presence, like the world had become one massive lung that inhaled with his every breath.
His coat clung wetly to his back. His hair hung damp across his brow. But what he noticed most—what clawed at the edge of his senses—was the spiral on his chest.
It was burning.
Not with fire.
With memory.
---
I. THE GATE WAKES
He first saw it near the abandoned underpass where the freeway collapsed ten years ago. He didn't know why he went there—only that his feet moved without permission. The old chain-link fence had rusted, bent inwards as if pulled by an invisible force.
Behind it, weeds grew black and twisted. Street signs bled rust like dried blood. The air shimmered. Not with heat.
With tension.
And then he saw the gate.
A structure made of fused bones and glass. It wasn't there before. It couldn't have been. It shouldn't be.
But now, it towered above the ruins, tall as a building, its surface lined with carvings—thousands of them—each one twitching minutely when looked at directly. Some moved like worms. Others like blinking eyes.
He stepped closer.
The spiral on his chest throbbed.
The gate sighed.
From beyond it came a sound like wind being torn apart. Like lungs filled with teeth trying to exhale.
A whisper followed:
> "You were never whole."
He fell to one knee.
The spiral burned so fiercely it seared the coat, curling fabric, releasing the sharp scent of scorched thread and skin.
He looked up.
And saw it.
---
II. THE HERALD OF THE SECOND
It emerged from behind the gate—not through it. Not over it.
But from inside his vision, like it had always been there, waiting for the correct perception.
A creature draped in shrouds of velvet flesh, its limbs wrapped in black ribbon soaked in oil. Its face was featureless—save for a single, massive mouth that spanned its entire torso. Rows of human teeth, some broken, some golden, some baby-sized, all smiling.
It spoke with breath, not sound.
Every word was a gust of heat that peeled paint from the nearby concrete:
> "Your marrow calls, Fragment." "You have passed through the First Spiral. Now, you must be judged."
Khương Triều Dạ couldn't breathe.
His lungs felt filled with ash.
The Herald moved with the grace of a marionette—jerky, unnatural, yet intentional. It stopped three feet before him, then bent low. Its ribbons reached toward his face like blind fingers.
> "Look into the Eye."
Khương Triều Dạ felt his body freeze.
The spiral on his chest glowed white.
And in the creature's mouth, an eye opened.
Massive. Amber. Vertical-pupiled.
It stared into him.
And ripped him apart.
---
III. THE SPLITTING
He was standing.
He was kneeling.
He was lying down.
He saw his body—three of them, separated, shadowed, repeating his every motion a moment too late. Echoes made flesh. Each wore his face. Each bled from different wounds:
One from the heart.
One from the eyes.
One from the mouth.
The Herald's eye gazed at all three.
> "Choose."
Khương Triều Dạ's mind pulsed. The pain in his skull reached its crescendo.
Then, a voice from behind him. Feminine. Ragged.
> "Don't choose. It's a trap."
He turned.
The girl with no eyes stood there.
Her sockets were bleeding now. Her skin cracked and blackened like burned paper.
> "They want you to bind to one version. Stay broken. Don't consolidate."
> "You're not ready to be whole. Not yet."
He looked back.
The three selves stared at him—no longer in sync. One cried. One begged. One grinned.
He backed away.
The spiral screamed.
The Herald hissed.
The eye in its chest narrowed.
> "Judgment rejected."
The gate shrieked.
---
IV. THE COLLAPSE
The world inverted.
Colors bent. Gravity twisted sideways. His ears bled as space collapsed into a scream. The Herald dissolved—ribbons unraveling, ribbons burrowing into the cracks of reality like worms seeking warmth.
The gate shattered.
Khương Triều Dạ screamed.
And found himself falling.
Not physically.
His mind—his soul—falling, deeper and deeper, through layered strata of light, memory, pain, and language.
Whispers passed him:
> "Second Gate unsealed." "Fragment status: sustained." "Time fracture: tolerable."
Then—
Silence.
---
V. THE RETURN
He awoke on a bench beside the river.
Dawn. Mist. Birds.
His coat still bore the burned spiral.
A stranger walked past—an old man, grinning. He tipped his hat.
> "Mornin'. You look like you've seen the inside of a church that shouldn't exist."
Khương Triều Dạ said nothing.
His hands were shaking.
But something was inside his pocket.
A key.
Bone. Smooth. Carved with symbols.
> "Level Two Unlocked."
And somewhere, far below the waking world, the Herald whispered:
> "Next time, you won't get to run."