Adrian's fall never ended.
He wasn't falling through space—he was falling through patterns. Spirals folded and unfolded around him like blooming flowers, and every turn scraped against his mind. He tried to scream, but the sound bent back on itself and lodged in his throat.
When he finally hit something, it wasn't ground. It was a surface that breathed. The floor pulsed beneath him like the chest of a slumbering giant, each rise and fall threatening to launch him into the air again.
He staggered upright, dizzy, and realized his hands weren't his hands.
Not fully.
The skin was translucent, veins glowing faintly with the same static light that filled the void. His fingers were longer, too many joints bending in wrong places. They twitched on their own, like the Dimensional was practicing inside him.
"No..." he whispered, clutching them, trying to will them back into normalcy. His voice echoed strangely, doubled, as though someone else spoke with him at the same time.
"You are not breaking," the other voice said.
"You are becoming."
Adrian collapsed against a wall—if it was a wall. It rippled at his touch, cool and wet, and for a moment his reflection formed in the surface. Except it wasn't him. Not exactly.
His reflection's eyes spiraled inward, endless pits of shifting light. When it opened its mouth, hundreds of whispers spilled out.
One world cannot hold you... You will span the seams...
Adrian tore himself away, shaking. "I won't. I won't be part of this. I'm still me."
The whispers laughed—like paper tearing.
---
He stumbled forward, searching for escape, but the Dimensional had no exits. The corridors coiled into impossible curves, stairs led upward and deposited him downward, doors dissolved into mist when touched. Every turn led deeper into spirals.
And with every step, he felt less solid. Memories bled out of him. He tried to recite his own name to anchor himself. Adrian. Adrian.
But halfway through, his tongue twisted the syllables into something else. A name that wasn't human. A sound that hurt to think.
He bit his tongue until blood ran down his chin, but the taste only made the whispers grow louder.
"You are being written into the pattern," they said.
"You are the paper. You are the ink."
Adrian pressed his palms to his ears, sobbing. His tears ran black.
---
He wandered. Hours? Days? Time didn't exist here—only spirals. He crossed bridges of bone that curved into their own ribs. He walked through forests of teeth that clicked in rhythm like clocks. He waded through oceans of glass shards that reflected his shifting form in infinite variations.
Each reflection looked less like him.
More like it.
But still, something human clung to him. A stubborn shard of defiance. He clutched it like the journal he no longer had.
That stubbornness pushed him onward, deeper into the labyrinth.
Somewhere, in the endless spirals, a truth was waiting. A truth about the Dimensional. About why it wanted him. About what he was becoming.
Adrian pressed forward, every step heavier, every breath corrupted—yet still moving.
Because if he stopped, he feared he'd dissolve completely.
And the Dimensional would wear his face forever.
---