Nathan's scream was swallowed by the void, the sound ripped from his throat before it could even reach his own ears. Darkness coiled around him, pulling, twisting, dragging him downward. There was no floor, no ceiling, no walls—only an endless abyss, stretching beyond reason, beyond existence.
Then—
A sudden impact.
Nathan hit the ground hard, his body aching from the force. The air was damp, heavy with the scent of decay. He coughed, trying to push himself up, his hands sinking slightly into something soft and wet. Panic clawed at his mind. The ground wasn't just damp—it was pulsing, shifting beneath his touch, as though alive.
His breath came in ragged gasps as he forced himself to his feet. His flashlight was gone, but a faint, unnatural glow emanated from the walls—if they could even be called that. They pulsed, as if breathing, slick with something dark and glistening.
He was no longer in the factory.
Or maybe, he had never truly left it.
The whispers returned, rising from the depths of the space around him. But they weren't just voices anymore. They were memories—his own, fractured and distorted, looping over themselves in an endless, maddening echo.
"Nathan…"
The voice slithered through the air, wrapping around his mind like fingers tightening around his throat. He turned sharply, his eyes scanning the shifting darkness. Shapes moved just beyond his sight, flickering between shadow and substance, forming faces he recognized before dissolving into nothingness.
Then he saw it.
A door.
Standing alone in the vast emptiness, a single wooden door, old and weathered, with a rusted handle that pulsed like a heartbeat. It shouldn't have been there. It didn't belong.
And yet, it was waiting for him.
Nathan swallowed hard. Every part of him screamed to turn back, to run, to fight against whatever nightmare he had fallen into. But he knew—deep down—that this was it. The answers he sought, the truth buried beneath the factory's whispers, lay beyond that door.
He stepped forward.
The moment his fingers touched the handle, a violent shudder ran through the space around him. The whispers rose to a deafening crescendo, the walls convulsing as if in agony. The darkness thickened, pressing against him, trying to pull him back.
Nathan clenched his jaw and turned the handle.
The door swung open.
Beyond it, an impossible sight awaited.
A massive chamber stretched endlessly, lined with machinery that looked both ancient and impossibly advanced. Pulsating cables ran along the floors and walls, their veins glowing with a sickly blue light. The air vibrated, heavy with an energy that set Nathan's skin on fire.
And at the center—
A figure.
Bound in chains of light, suspended above the shifting mass below, its body twisted and barely human. It had no face, only an empty void where one should be, yet Nathan felt its gaze pierce through him. The whispers stopped, replaced by a silence so heavy it threatened to crush him.
The figure moved. Just slightly. Enough for Nathan to feel the weight of its presence.
Then, it spoke.
"You've come so far."
The voice was layered, shifting between tones, familiar yet alien. It wasn't just speaking—it was remembering.
Nathan took a shaky step forward. "What are you?"
The figure's head tilted, as if considering the question. "I am the first. And the last."
Nathan's pulse pounded. "The first… of what?"
The chains pulsed, tightening around the figure's form. "The first to see. The last to leave."
Nathan's throat tightened. "Leave what?"
The chamber trembled. The walls darkened. The machinery groaned under unseen pressure.
The figure's voice softened. "There is no leaving."
Nathan's breath hitched. He knew that already. He had known it the moment he stepped inside the factory. He had felt it in his bones, in the way the air pressed against his skin, in the way time twisted without mercy.
He had never been meant to leave.
But then why had it let him come this far?
Nathan's grip tightened into fists. "Then why bring me here?"
The figure's hollow face seemed to shift, the void in its features deepening. "Because you are ready."
Nathan shook his head. "Ready for what?"
The chains around the figure shattered.
A force unlike anything Nathan had ever known erupted from its body, sending a shockwave through the chamber. He was thrown backward, crashing against the pulsing ground, his vision blurring as the factory breathed around him.
The whispers returned, rising in unison, forming one final, undeniable truth.
"You were always meant to take my place."
Nathan's vision blurred. The world around him dissolved.
And the light began to fade.