The moment Cipher stepped through the portal, the world shifted.
The colors bent first. Where the Hub had been a mosaic of radiant stars and crystalline streams, this new place was… heavy. The very air carried weight, pressing on his chest as if gravity itself had grown crueler.
He stood at the edge of a forest, and immediately he noticed how wrong it felt. The trees loomed too tall, their trunks blackened as though burned, but their leaves were blood red—fluttering silently as if made from paper. Each time one fell, it did not touch the ground but dissolved into crimson mist before vanishing altogether.
"Ah," Automaton murmured, its little brass body perched neatly on his shoulder, legs swinging lazily. Its glowing eyes reflected the dim scarlet of the forest. "The first lesson begins."
Cipher narrowed his eyes, instinctively adjusting the strap of the Codex at his side. Astralis, his great scythe, rested against his hand with unnatural familiarity, the runes along its black shaft flickering faintly. "This place…" His voice trailed as he scanned the horizon. "It feels like the nightmare of a child."
"Correct," Automaton said cheerfully. "A story gone sour. These are called Doors—gateways to fractured tales. Once, they were bright, full of lessons and endings that taught mortals how to be. But when a story is abandoned, twisted, or remembered wrongly…" It raised one tiny metal hand and let a crimson leaf dissolve against its palm. "Corruption takes root."
Cipher exhaled slowly. "So, this is where I start. Not by fighting for myself—but by mending something broken."
The automaton tilted its head. "Mending… or teaching it to mend itself. That's the role of the Teacher."
Cipher smiled faintly at that, though it didn't reach his eyes. He stepped forward, boots crunching against soil that looked more like dark ash than earth. The forest welcomed him with silence. No birds. No wind. Only the faint echo of his steps, as though the trees themselves listened.
For the first time since awakening in this strange new existence, Cipher felt a familiar emotion stir in him. Not fear, exactly—but the echo of it. Childhood memory surfaced: nights in a small, cold room, staring at the dark corner where shadows stretched too long, waiting for something to emerge. His jaw tightened, but he walked on.
They moved deeper.
The sky above was strange—ashen clouds pulsing faintly, as though lit by a dim heart that beat somewhere behind the horizon. The air was thick with iron, like old blood.
Cipher's eyes traced the forest carefully. Some trees were wrong: twisted too far, bent into arcs that seemed to form half-symbols. He caught himself staring at one in particular, the gnarled branches curling together to almost spell out a word before unraveling. He blinked. Gone.
"The corruption doesn't just rot," Automaton said, almost reading his thoughts. "It re-writes. Stories are language, and language is fragile. A word changed, a meaning misplaced… and the whole tale unravels."
"Like a careless rumor," Cipher murmured.
"Or a careless teacher," Automaton quipped, swinging its legs.
Cipher chuckled dryly. "Touché."
But his eyes were scanning constantly, noting every shift. Every detail mattered. That was something he'd carried from his classrooms: children gave away their struggles in the smallest gestures—a clenched hand, a downward glance. Here, too, the world betrayed its sickness in every leaf, every shadow.
After a while, they came upon a clearing.
Cipher paused at its edge, one hand resting on Astralis. The grass here was gray, brittle, crunching under his boot like shards of glass. In the middle of the clearing stood a well. Its stones were perfectly stacked, almost too perfect, like a drawing copied over and over until the lines had sharpened unnaturally.
Something whispered.
Not with a voice, but through the stillness itself. Faint words drifted in and out of Cipher's mind like smoke. He frowned, taking a cautious step closer.
"Did you hear that?" he asked quietly.
Automaton nodded, but its tone was unnervingly calm. "Fragments. The story trying to remember itself."
Cipher listened harder. The whispers grew louder, repeating phrases like broken nursery rhymes: "The girl wore red… the girl wore red… she walked, she walked, she walked to grandmother's house—"
Then, abruptly:"…and then the wolf ate her whole."
Cipher froze, eyes narrowing. The words dissolved, glitching into static. The well in the clearing seemed to pulse faintly, as though it had spoken.
"That's not right, is it?" Cipher asked, turning to Automaton.
Automaton's eyes glowed brighter. "Some versions end that way. Some do not. When too many memories clash, the story loses its center."
Cipher exhaled through his nose. He gripped Astralis a little tighter, his voice steady. "Then we'll find the center."
They pressed on.
The forest thickened, trees leaning close until the sky vanished. A sour smell lingered now, sharp and animalistic. Cipher felt Astralis hum faintly, its runes glowing brighter as if warning him.
"Something is...watching us," he murmured.
"Yes," Automaton said simply.
Cipher crouched down, brushing his fingers across the soil. It was softer here, and a little damp. His eyes caught the impression in the dirt: tracks.
Massive pawprints, each one as wide as his chest, pressed deep into the ground. The claws scored trenches into the soil. The direction was clear—they led further into the forest, dragging lines that suggested something heavy had been carried.
Cipher's heart steadied. He stood, following the line of prints with his eyes until they vanished into the red mist.
Then, the sound came.
Low. Deep. A growl that rumbled not from the air, but from the ground beneath his feet. It vibrated through the roots of the trees, through his bones, a sound too large to belong to anything natural.
Cipher's grip on Astralis tightened. He glanced once at Automaton, whose eyes flickered wide for the first time.
"The lesson," the little construct whispered, "might have teeth."
Cipher's gaze turned forward, calm but unyielding. The growl echoed again, closer this time, and the crimson mist curled tighter around the path ahead.
And then—silence.
Cipher lifted Astralis, its blade gleaming like a sliver of the night sky, and stepped forward into the dark.