The shards of the broken mirror float around you, suspended in the air like glassy fragments of your own fractured soul.
Your reflection - gone. Shattered. Its pieces cut into the air with silent precision, but none of them land. They remain suspended, slowly rotating in the stillness.
The air is thick. So thick, you can feel it pressing against your chest, pushing the breath out of you.
You're not sure how long you've been standing there, just staring at the shards. A moment? An eternity?
Then you hear it again. Kael's voice.
"You should've lied harder."
It echoes from all around you, like it's coming from the shards themselves. Your own voice ripples through them, repeating the words you said, twisting them.
You clench your fists.
There's a door behind you now - another one. It wasn't there before.
And yet, here it is. The knob gleams, pristine, untouched.
But this time… you don't hesitate
The room is a cavern of whispers.
The walls are alive, shifting, breathing in time with your heartbeat. On the far side of the room stands a single figure - a man in a gray suit. His hair is slicked back, his posture rigid. But there's something about him… something wrong.
His eyes are black.
He's staring at you with an unsettling, almost familiar gaze.
"You're late," he says.
It takes you a moment to realize he's talking to you.
"How do you know my name?" you ask, your voice barely more than a whisper.
The man smiles.
"Your name doesn't matter here. It's what you choose to become that counts."
You step forward, unsure whether to trust him, but the air feels so thick, so oppressive that you're drawn to him - compelled.
"You're the one who controls this place?" you ask, your voice tinged with suspicion.
"I don't control anything," he replies, a slow grin stretching across his face. "I observe. I catalog."
He gestures around the room, and the walls shift again, revealing endless rows of bookshelves. Each shelf is filled with black notebooks, each labeled with a single word.
"What are those?" you ask, though you already know.
"Lies," he says, his voice a low, haunting murmur. "The truths you create. The memories you invent. The stories you tell yourself. I catalog them. Every single one."
You step closer. There's a notebook on the nearest shelf. Its label reads "YOU" in sharp, angular letters.
"Why?" you ask.
"Because without the lie, you wouldn't exist," he replies. "Truth is a weapon, after all. And the more you cling to it, the more you become… nothing."
You swallow hard, your mind racing. "What does that mean? What happens if I stop lying?"
He shrugs, his smile widening. "I guess we'll find out."
Suddenly, the room shifts again. The walls crack and bend, and the bookshelves warp like they're melting.
"Tell me the truth," the man says, his voice now sharp. "What are you really afraid of?"
You open your mouth.
But the words aren't yours.
"The truth is the only thing that will destroy you," you hear yourself say. "And I'm terrified of it."
The man laughs softly, the sound dark and hollow.
"Exactly."
You're back in the hallway. But the walls… the mirrors… everything is changing. The air smells different. Like smoke. Like fire.
You glance down at the notebook in your hand.
The word YOU stares back at you.
It's heavier now.
And as you move down the hallway, you feel it pulling you in a direction you don't want to go.
"I told you," Kael's voice comes again, like a shadow behind you. "The truth will destroy you. It's already started."
You turn. He's not there. But his words stay with you, sinking into your bones like poison.
The hallway stretches on, twisting and curling into endless corridors, but you can't look away from the notebook.
You can't look away from the truth.
"You're already dead."
The words hit you like a punch. You feel it in your gut. A sinking, hollow sensation.
But the truth is - you're not sure what that even means anymore.
You can't be sure. Not when the truth itself is the thing trying to kill you.
You grip the notebook harder, trying to stop it from slipping from your hands.
"Don't let it consume you."
The voice is faint, almost drowned out by the sound of the shifting walls.
You take one last look at the notebook. The word YOU pulses now, as if it's alive.
And in that moment, you realize - you are not in control. This place controls you. It decides what you remember, what you forget. And it's getting closer to taking you apart, one piece at a time.
You try to speak, but the words you need to say won't come.
They can't.
The walls close in around you.
And in the distance, Kael's voice echoes once more.
"It's too late to save yourself now."
You can feel the walls closing in. Every breath you take becomes harder, like the air itself is pressing against your chest.
The corridor stretches before you, longer than it ever should be. The shifting walls seem to mock your every step, rearranging themselves in patterns that almost make sense. But you're not stupid.
You know they're playing with you.
The whispers come again, softer this time, like a distant echo of the man's voice from the library.
"The only way out is in."
You stop in your tracks, your heart skipping. The words are too familiar. A riddle. A promise. But you don't know where the door is anymore. You don't know where the beginning ends or where the path leads.
The hallway flickers. It warps. It shifts like it's alive, like it's a living organism with a mind of its own, and that mind is starting to feel you, understand you.
A door appears ahead of you - one you recognize. It's small. Simple. Almost too simple. But the closer you get to it, the more distorted it becomes. The air around it warps, shimmering as if the door itself is holding back something far more terrible than you can imagine.
The whispers grow louder. Closer. They press against your ears like a hundred voices, all telling you the same thing.
"The only way out is in."
You glance at the notebook still clutched in your hands. The word YOU seems to shift, twisting like liquid ink.
"You're not real," it whispers. "You're a lie. A memory. A shadow of something else."
You feel the truth of it in your bones. The sinking feeling of déjà vu, of knowing too much but still understanding nothing.
This place - the structure, the corridors, the shifting walls - isn't designed to hold you.
It's designed to consume you.
You reach for the door, your hand trembling. The knob is cold - colder than anything you've ever touched, like it's been frozen in time.
And just before you turn it, you hear a sound from behind you.
A thud. Heavy. Steady. The echo of footsteps.
Kael.
You don't need to turn around to know it's him. You can feel him, like a shadow creeping up behind you, pulling at your reality.
"Not this time," his voice growls, harsh and grating. "You don't get to leave."
You know he's not real. You know this entire place is a game. But it's hard to remember that when you can feel his breath on the back of your neck. You turn quickly, but there's nothing there.
Only the sound of his laughter.
"The only way out is in," he says, a mocking twist to his voice.
And with that, you step forward. You don't know why, but the door calls to you - promises you something.
You turn the knob.
You don't know what you expect.
But this isn't it.
The room is vast, empty. The air is stale. There are no mirrors. No reflections. No bookshelves. Just cold, harsh stone beneath your feet.
And then, in the center of the room, is something you don't expect to see.
A door.
The exact same door you just opened.
You feel a sick twist in your gut. It doesn't make sense. You just came through this door, yet there it is, standing as if it had never moved.
A wave of panic rises in your chest. You step back, your heartbeat quickening.
There's no other exit.
The walls are too high to climb.
You're trapped.
"You're here again."
The voice is familiar, but it's not Kael's. It's yours.
You whip around, but there's no one else in the room.
You take a step forward, then another. Your breath becomes shallow.
The door in front of you flickers.
And that's when you realize - you are the door.
You're the key. The lock. The one who decides whether you stay in this place or shatter it.
"The truth is a weapon," you hear your voice say again. "It's always been."
You feel it now - the truth pulling at you. Not the truth of who you are or who you were. But the truth of what this place is.
A game. A trap. A prison for the mind.
"The only way out is in."
You can feel the walls vibrating. The ground beneath you shifts, and the room expands, becoming something larger, darker, more dangerous.
The door, the one you came through, is now just a reflection of the door in front of you. And the reflections keep multiplying, until you can't tell which door is the real one.
Which you is real.
You take a deep breath.
There's no way out.
Except in.
The truth is a weapon.
And the only way to survive… is to use it.
You reach for the door.
But before you can open it, the ground beneath you cracks.
And you hear Kael's voice again, but it's not a whisper now. It's a roar.
"You can't escape. You're already inside. And you always will be."