The silence after the door slammed wasn't quiet.It throbbed.A low, pulsing hum that crawled beneath my skin like static.
The room was gone again.Now there was only the corridor ..... endless, colorless, stretching out in both directions like a snake eating its own tail. Every few seconds, the lights above flickered, showing glimpses of something moving between the frames of sight.
I stood frozen, staring at the bone-handled door.It shouldn't have existed.Yet it did.
"Don't let her in again."The whisper still echoed in my head ;trembling, desperate.Who was her?Why did the voice sound like me… but younger?
The door creaked. Just slightly. As if something on the other side was breathing against it.
My instincts screamed to run. But curiosity ; that terrible, cursed thing ; made me step closer. I reached out, fingertips grazing the door's surface. It was cold. Colder than metal.
And then ...
Knock.
Once.Twice.Three times.
Each knock reverberated through my chest like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
The walls shuddered. The floor beneath my feet rippled again, the black spirals crawling like veins up the walls.
A voice seeped through the cracks ; this time, unmistakably human.Low. Male."Open it, Lira."
That name hit me like lightning. Lira. My name wasn't Lira. At least… I didn't think it was.
The voice came again, closer. "You promised."
My breath hitched.I stepped back.
Then -
The door burst open.
A gust of freezing air slammed into me, dragging my hair across my face like claws. Beyond the threshold was not a room, not even space ; it was memory, bleeding and alive.
A dark forest.Rain.A fire burning blue at the center of a clearing.
And there, standing beside the flame .... him.
Tall. Thin. Dressed in black, his face blurred as if reality refused to remember it.But his voice… his voice I knew.
"You came back," he said, almost tenderly. "You never could stay away from me."
My throat constricted."Who are you?"
He tilted his head. "You used to call me something softer. But I liked it when you whispered my real name."
The shadows around him quivered, taking on shape .... like hundreds of hands trying to crawl toward me.
"I don't remember you," I said, my voice shaking.
He smiled. "That's the point."
The fire dimmed, and behind him, I saw figures ; people half-formed, eyes hollow, faces flickering between recognition and nothingness. They reached for me, mouthing words I couldn't hear.
Until one of them spoke .... a girl with pale hair and a slit throat.
"You said you'd save us."
I stumbled back, heart crashing. "Save you? From what?!"
The shadowed man's grin widened. "From me."
The air twisted. The forest vanished.I was back in the corridor ; but it wasn't empty anymore.
All along the walls, those same people stood.Unmoving. Silent. Their skin grey, their eyes mirrors.
Every single one reflected me.
"This isn't real," I whispered. "This can't be real."
"Then why do you remember the fire?"
The reflection stepped out of the nearest mirror, her body half-glass, half-flesh."You were the one who lit it," she said. "You thought it would stop him."
The hallway flickered between two worlds ... the burned clearing and the endless corridor ... switching faster and faster until they blurred together.
I clutched my head, screaming. "What did I do?!"
The shadow's voice slithered through the static."You made a deal."
Images erupted in flashes ; candles in a circle, symbols painted in black ash, my younger self whispering words I didn't understand. And beside me, him.
"Bring them back," I'd said in that memory. "Please. I'll give you anything."
And he had smiled."You already have."
The fire consumed everything.
Back in the corridor, I collapsed to my knees, shaking violently. My hands were black again ; the same shadow liquid dripping down my wrists.
"Why are you showing me this?" I gasped.
The reflection crouched beside me, her black eyes soft with something that might've been pity."Because the door you opened wasn't supposed to exist anymore. You built this place to forget. Every corridor. Every wall. Every silence. You made your own prison."
"I–-" My voice cracked. "No… I couldn't have."
"You could." She smiled faintly. "You did."
The whispers rose again, overlapping into words. A chant. My name ...repeated like a curse.
The corridor began to twist, folding in on itself like paper burning in reverse. The floor peeled open, revealing more doors underneath .... hundreds, thousands , spiralling into darkness.
"Stop!" I screamed. "Make it stop!"
The shadow's laughter filled the air. "You can't unremember what you chose to bury."
And then, suddenly ... silence again.
Everything froze mid-motion. Even the whispers halted.
A light appeared above ; soft, golden, unreal. It cut through the dark, illuminating a single door ahead. Unlike the others, this one was white. Plain. No spirals, no bone handle. Just… stillness.
Something deep inside me whispered: That's the first door.
I stood, trembling, drawn to it. Every step I took made the corridor crumble behind me. The black doors dissolved into dust. The whispers grew frantic, begging, screaming.
Don't open it. Don't remember. Don't go.
But I did.
The white door opened soundlessly.
And there....
A hospital room.Dim. Sterile.Machines beeped softly in the background.
On the bed lay… me.Unmoving. Pale. Tubes in my arms.
And beside the bed sat a doctor, scribbling notes.
"She's been in a coma for nine years," he said quietly. "Still the same nightmares. Still muttering about 'doors' and 'shadows.'"
The nurse beside him sighed. "You think she'll ever wake?"
He shook his head. "If she does… I'm not sure she'd survive the memory."
I stumbled back, throat tightening. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out.
The reflection appeared beside the bed, watching me with those black eyes."This is where you've always been," she said. "Trapped between remembering and waking."
I turned to her, shaking. "Then let me wake up."
"You can't," she whispered. "Not until you understand what really happened that night."
The lights flickered. The doctor's voice warped. The walls began to melt, the hospital room decaying into the burned forest again.
"You started the fire, Lira," the reflection said softly. "To save them. But you couldn't save yourself."
And behind her, the shadow returned ..... taller than before, his smile sharp as glass.
"You can wake up," he said, "but you won't be alone in your body anymore."
He stepped closer, pressing his hand to my chest. It burned like frostbite.
"You invited me in once," he murmured. "You can't uninvite me now."
The reflection screamed ; the sound shattering the world like breaking mirrors.
Light burst.
And then ... silence again.
But this time…I was breathing.
Real air.
I gasped, eyes flying open.
The ceiling above was white.Machines beeping.A nurse shouting, "She's awake!"
Hands gripped mine.Voices blurred around me.
But beyond all that....in the reflection of the heart monitor;a shadow stood at the foot of my bed, smiling faintly.
"Welcome back, Luna."
And when I blinked.....he was gone.
Only the faint echo of that lullaby lingered in the air.