The wind howled through the hollow tower, whistling like breath caught in dying lungs.
Reigen stood at the base of the spiral stairs, staring upward into darkness. The steps curved endlessly into shadow, no rails, no walls — just a narrow path carved into blackstone that looked as though it had bled once.
Kael stood behind him, silent.
"You don't have to come," Reigen said.
Kael didn't answer. She simply began to climb first.
---
Every step echoed.
Not in sound — but in memory.
With each level, Reigen felt… pieces returning. Faint flashes. Hands coated in chalk. Blueprints burning in a fire. A voice whispering:
"You drew the world too close to heaven."
On the third floor, they passed a collapsed room filled with metal mannequins — all half-formed, their arms reaching out, mouths mid-scream.
Kael paused, staring.
"Failed simulations," she murmured. "Shapers trying to imprint memory into form. But these ones broke."
Reigen approached one.
Its face looked like his. Younger. Terrified.
He backed away fast.
Kael whispered, "Not all echoes fade. Some wait."
---
By the seventh floor, the air grew heavy. Like guilt made physical. The walls trembled with invisible pressure, and the stairs beneath their feet pulsed — as if the tower had a heartbeat.
Reigen clutched the blueprint in his coat.
It was changing.
The lines were… shifting. Rooms folding into themselves. Doors appearing where none were drawn.
"It's adapting," Kael said. "Responding to your memory."
"…Then this tower isn't just remembering me," Reigen muttered. "It's made of me."
---
On the ninth floor, they found a chamber.
Circular. Silent. At its center, a podium held a stone tablet carved with ancient runes.
Reigen approached slowly — the symbols glowing as he neared.
Then he heard it.
His voice.
Younger. Broken. Begging.
> "Please… don't let it fall. I just wanted them to see it. To believe."
He staggered back.
The tablet flared — and a projection burst outward: a spiraling hologram of the original stairway he designed years ago. The one that collapsed. The one that got people killed.
He dropped to his knees.
Kael walked to the image, studying it.
"You were going to ascend past the sky fracture," she said quietly. "You believed the sky could be rewritten."
Reigen covered his face. "I… I didn't know it would shatter. I didn't want to break the world."
Kael knelt beside him.
"It wasn't the world you broke," she said gently. "It was yourself."
---
The tower quieted.
The projection faded.
And on the far wall, a new door appeared.
It wasn't drawn by the tower.
It wasn't part of the blueprint.
Kael touched it.
"This leads to the next truth," she whispered.
Reigen rose slowly, wiping his eyes.
And together, they stepped through the door.
Not into a hallway. Not into another level.
But into a perfect recreation of his childhood room —
untouched, preserved, waiting.