Adrian fell.
He didn't know if it was through air, water, or the static itself. He tumbled endlessly, spirals spinning around him, pulling his body apart strand by strand. His hands dissolved into whispers, his chest into echoes. His voice scattered into a thousand versions, each screaming his name back at him.
And when he finally stopped falling, he wasn't standing in the Dimensional.
He was inside himself.
No—inside what was left of himself.
A hollow cage of memory. A prison made of his own mind. His reflection stared back at him from every surface, each one smiling the smile he feared most.
He tried to move, but his body was gone. His limbs didn't answer. His voice didn't carry.
He was nothing but awareness.
Disembodied. Displaced. Discarded.
---
Meanwhile, his body rose.
It stood in the Dimensional corridor, spirals blazing across its flesh, silver light pouring from the chest wound where a spiral-heart beat like a second sun. Its face flickered between anguish and ecstasy, Adrian's twisted grimace warring with the double's serene smile.
Every step shattered the ground, the walls, the air itself. The Dimensional and reality bled together, corridors splitting open to reveal glimpses of his old life: his bedroom, his street, his mother's kitchen — all fractured, spiraling into the abyss.
The double laughed with Adrian's voice, smooth and confident.
"Balance is broken."
Adrian fought from within, his scream tearing through, cracking the smile into a grimace.
"This is my life!"
Their body convulsed violently, snapping between forms, every muscle fighting itself. Spirals tore free from the skin, unfurling like tendrils, lashing the walls, ripping holes in the veil between worlds.
---
Inside the prison of his mind, Adrian clawed against the walls of nothingness, desperate, frantic.
I won't disappear. I can't.
And for one flicker of a heartbeat, he forced his voice through his own lips. His body fell to its knees, clutching its head, the Dimensional shrieking around him.
"STOP!" Adrian roared, raw and broken.
Silence fell.
The double sneered, calm, unshaken.
"You can't stop what's already begun."
---
The spiral-heart pulsed one final time.
Light exploded outward, tearing Adrian's awareness from his body completely. He was flung into the Dimensional, screaming silently, watching his own form collapse, then stand again — no longer twitching, no longer contested.
The double had won.
Adrian saw his own face smile, serene and complete.
And then his body stepped forward, leaving him behind.
---
From his prison in the Dimensional, Adrian saw the veil tear. He saw his body — the double wearing him — step out into the world he'd left behind. The familiar streets warped and bent in its presence, spirals blooming across buildings, shadows twisting into mouths.
His mother's voice called faintly, distant, confused.
The double smiled with Adrian's lips.
"Home."
---
And in the Dimensional, Adrian screamed until his voice became static, spiraling into nothing.
The echo of him would last forever, trapped in the infinite.
But in the world above, Adrian walked free.
And the Dimensional walked with him.
---