Arien stumbled over the threshold.
The moment his foot touched the warped wooden floor, the house exhaled.
Not like air leaving a room.
It exhaled like a beast alive, like lungs growing from walls, breathing through the floorboards and ceiling. The smell of decay thickened, and dust lifted as though the house were inhaling him.
He swallowed. Every instinct screamed to run, but the stitched-eyed girl—Lyra—was beside him, hand gripping his arm with unnatural strength.
"Don't stop," she whispered.
Her voice trembled. Not with fear.
With warning.
"Every second you hesitate, it learns more about you."
Arien's gaze swept the room. It shouldn't have been a room.
The walls pulsated like flesh. Shadows crawled along the corners, forming shapes that resembled him. All of him: past selves, dead selves, and versions of himself that never should have existed.
One shadow raised a hand. Another bent backward in pain.
And then all of them cried his name at once.
"Arien… Arien… Arien…"
He covered his ears, but the sound drilled into his mind. Memories he didn't have began flashing: the taste of blood, the echo of screams, the feeling of falling endlessly.
He staggered, falling to his knees.
Lyra pressed a finger to his lips. Her stitches quivered as though they were alive.
"Shh. Don't answer it. Don't acknowledge it.
If it remembers you first… it decides which version of you survives."
Arien shook. "What—what are you talking about?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she pulled him forward into a narrow corridor. The walls here were smoother, yet the air grew heavier. Each step felt like walking through molasses. The house shifted beneath his feet, subtly, almost imperceptibly—but enough to make him dizzy.
At the end of the corridor, a door. Black.
Not wooden. Not metallic.
It was as if it were carved from the shadow of time itself. Symbols moved across its surface, rearranging themselves constantly. Each symbol seemed familiar, but every time he looked away, it changed.
Lyra's hand hovered above the door.
"Don't touch it," she said, voice shaking now. "This door… it knows you. It knows all the Arien that ever lived."
Arien's pulse quickened. "Why… why is it calling me?"
From behind the door came a faint, uneven whisper. Not words, exactly.
A name.
His name.
Spoken thirty-eight different ways, all wrong.
Lyra's hands shook as she gripped his shoulder.
"Every time you step closer, you risk becoming one of them."
One of who? Arien wanted to ask—but another sound cut him off. A low creak, then the dragging of something massive.
The floorboards behind them shuddered. Hands burst through the wooden planks—not one, not two, but dozens. Pale, broken, reaching, clawing. All of them familiar. Too familiar.
Arien froze.
Lyra hissed, "Run. Now."
They sprinted down the corridor. The house shifted again, folding in on itself, stretching the walls impossibly long, then snapping them back. Each step was accompanied by a scream—the echo of a past death he couldn't remember.
"Who—what are they?" he gasped.
"They are what remains of the Arien who failed," Lyra said grimly. "Every cycle that ended with death left a shadow behind. They crave recognition. They want to know which one of you is real."
Arien felt bile rise.
"Real? I'm… I don't even know who I am!"
Lyra didn't answer. Her eyes—stitched, yet glowing faintly—focused on something ahead.
A stairwell. Leading down into darkness.
"The basement," she said. "Do not—do not let it see you first."
Arien's stomach clenched. The air coming from below smelled like iron and wet earth.
And something else.
Something alive.
"You… you mean there's something down there?" he whispered.
Lyra's gaze was deadly serious.
"Not something. Someone. Or… some version of you.
It remembers more than I do.
It remembers the first death. And every death after.
If it sees you first, Arien… you won't return as yourself."
He felt the cold press of her hand against his arm. The warmth should have reassured him, but it did the opposite.
The basement door swung open. Slowly. Like a mouth opening.
A breath of darkness spilled out.
From it came a whisper. His own voice.
Soft. Broken. Pleading. Angry.
Thirty-eight different versions of him all layered into one.
"Arien… Arien… Arien…"
He staggered backward.
Lyra's grip tightened. "Do not—do not respond. Not even in your thoughts."
The house trembled. The walls shivered. Candles flickered, elongating into thin, spindly spears of flame.
The shadows on the walls began to writhe, forming distorted versions of Lyra herself.
And then all at once, the air above them tore open.
A black shape fell from the ceiling. Massive. Wrong.
Its hands were long, ending in broken clock shards instead of fingers. Its face was a spinning ring of bone clocks, each ticking backward.
Arien's blood ran cold.
Lyra pressed herself against him.
"It's a Keeper.
It enforces the Loop.
It doesn't care if you live or die—it only cares that you obey the cycle."
The figure stepped closer. Each footfall warped the ground beneath it. Every shadow recoiled, as if the world itself feared it.
Arien's knees buckled.
"I don't understand… why me? Why now?"
Lyra's voice was quiet, trembling.
"Because… you are the anomaly.
The Paradox Child.
The thirty-ninth cycle.
Every version before you failed. Every one died trying to save me.
And now… you exist again."
The Keeper raised its hand.
Time seemed to slow.
The air split.
Lyra pushed Arien toward the basement stairwell.
"Go. Don't look back. Whatever happens… don't let it recognize you first."
Arien hesitated, heart hammering in his chest.
He wanted answers. Wanted to fight.
Wanted to know who he really was.
And then the darkness below whispered his name again.
Soft, low, patient.
"Arien…"
And with a scream, he ran.