The door didn't open like it should.
It peeled.
Like the world itself was a skin being pulled back — and reality was raw underneath.
He stepped through, barefoot, breathless, and numb.
The corridor inside shimmered like glass submerged in water. Mirrors lined both sides. Some were shattered. Some fogged. Some showed rooms he hadn't entered yet.
Some showed him.
But not the him of now.
Versions of himself — older, younger, bleeding, burning, laughing, screaming — flickered behind the silver like trapped ghosts. One had no eyes. One whispered through stitched lips. One mouthed something again and again, but no sound came through.
"That's you," said the cloaked man behind him.
The nameless man turned. "Why… can't I speak?"
The cloaked figure tilted his head. "Because you're dangerous when you do."
He tried to push the man for answers, but his mouth betrayed him — still bound in that strange, voiceless silence. The words remained thoughts. The ache to say anything burned.
"You've said your Sentence before," the man said. "Again and again. Different each time. That's the problem."
They walked.
The mirrors seemed to grow taller. Thinner. Now they weren't just reflections — they were windows.
He caught glimpses:
A woman weeping beside a burning throne.
Children made of candle wax, melting as they laughed.
A staircase spiraling upward forever, blood dripping upward.
A black book with a lock shaped like a human mouth.
"Those are places you've been," the cloaked man murmured. "Things you've caused."
The nameless one pressed a hand to the glass — one mirror rippled at his touch. A younger version of himself stood on the other side, eyes wide, whispering words with cracked lips. The reflection mouthed:
"Don't trust him."
He staggered back.
The cloaked figure didn't flinch.
"You think you're trapped here. But this place is made of you. Of the words you've spoken, the ones you shouldn't have."
A door emerged ahead. No frame. No hinges. Just wood etched with claw marks and a single phrase burned into it:
"Speak and Forget."
The cloaked man stepped aside again.
"Go on, then," he said. "Meet her. You always do."