*The Echo That Knew His Name***
The roar didn't sound like a creature.
It sounded like **a thousand voices collapsing into one**—a tidal wave of fear crashing through steel and silence.
The chamber trembled.
Screens flickered violently.
Cold wind rushed through the room though there were no windows, no vents.
Kairo stepped back. "What… what is that?"
Solace didn't answer at first. His masked head slowly tilted upward, as if he were listening to something only he could hear.
"That," he whispered, "is the *Warden of Echoes*."
Bungo swallowed hard. "And what does it want?"
Solace turned toward him.
"You."
Before Bungo could respond, the ceiling above them cracked open with a thunderous *KRAAAASH*, shards of metal raining like broken glass. A massive shadow dropped into the center of the chamber—tall, skeletal, draped in long ribbons of dark, rippling fabric that fluttered as though underwater.
Its face was a blank oval of pale light.
But the moment it landed, that featureless mask *bent* toward Bungo as if recognizing him.
And then—
The voice came.
Not from its mouth, but from everywhere.
Inside the walls.
Inside the screens.
Inside Bungo's own bones.
**—Bungo—
—you came back—
—you came back to remember—**
Kairo grabbed Bungo's arm. "Don't listen to it—Bungo, hey—focus!"
But Bungo couldn't move.
The voice wasn't calling him.
It was *claiming* him.
The creature leaned forward, and the blank oval twisted, shapes forming across it like liquid metal—until it became a face.
Not just any face.
**His own face.**
But contorted with terror.
Crying.
Begging.
The same face he had seen on the glitched screen.
Young Bungo looked at him with trembling lips and whispered:
"Don't let them take her again…"
Bungo staggered backward, breath shattered.
His heartbeat pounded like a desperate drum.
"What are you talking about? Take who?"
The creature's face melted into static.
Then into a woman's silhouette.
Then into nothing.
**—You forgot her—
—you forgot everything—
—we kept your fear safe—
—so you could return—
—so you could wake—**
Solace immediately stepped between Bungo and the creature.
"Stay behind me," he commanded.
Kairo pulled Bungo back. "What is it talking about? Bungo, did you know—?"
"No!" Bungo's voice cracked. "I don't know anyone it could mean. I don't—I don't remember—"
But that was the problem.
He didn't remember **anything** before the streets of Greyline City. Before BeatRoots. Before Kairo. Before he first danced to survive.
His past was a black void.
And now something inside that void was screaming.
The Warden took a slow step forward, shedding echoes with every movement. Its limbs stretched too long. Its neck cracked as its head tilted unnaturally—listening.
Solace raised his hand.
The air thickened.
A faint white sigil flared to life on the floor.
"Stay back," Solace warned it.
The creature paused.
Then its faceless head *smiled*.
Not visually.
But Bungo **felt** it smile inside his skull.
**—You cannot stop a memory—
—you cannot lock away what was born in fear—**
Its arm lashed out.
A whip of shadow cut across the room, shattering multiple screens. Sparks rained. The wind howled. Solace stumbled back as the sigil cracked under pressure.
Kairo shouted, "Bungo—MOVE!"
But Bungo was frozen again.
Because behind the creature…
in the flickering static of the broken screens…
a silhouette appeared.
**The Woman in White.**
Her eyes glowed softly.
Her hands pressed against the screen as if trapped behind glass.
"Bungo…"
Her mouth shaped the word carefully, lovingly, painfully.
"*Remember me.*"
The Warden shrieked, a sound like warped metal.
The screens went black.
And the creature lunged.
Bungo felt the impact before he understood what happened.
A rush of cold air.
A violent tug.
And suddenly—
—he wasn't in the chamber anymore.
He was somewhere else.
A dim hallway.
Long.
Quiet.
Fading at the edges like a dying dream.
Kairo was nowhere.
Solace was nowhere.
The Warden's roar was far away, echoing through layers of reality like a distant storm.
Bungo stood alone.
And at the far end of the hallway…
someone stood with her back turned.
A girl.
Maybe his age.
Long hair cascading down a white dress.
The Woman in White.
But younger.
More fragile.
More real.
Bungo's breath caught.
"Are you… are you the same person from my dreams?"
She didn't turn.
But he saw her shoulders tremble.
"You promised you wouldn't forget me," she whispered. "But you did."
His chest tightened painfully.
"Who are you?"
He took a step forward.
"What was taken from me?"
The girl slowly lifted her head.
And the lights in the hallway flickered as she finally whispered:
**"Your name is not Bungo."**