The door burst inward.
Splinters flew like shrapnel. The mass of them poured in—those the building had twisted and cast out, half-made memories held together by static and spite. Their forms were vague and trembling, a collage of lost identities stitched into walking ruins. Their mouths opened, but their screams were silent—sucked inward as though the air around them refused to carry their pain.
Ansel didn't run this time.
He moved.
Quick, sure, down the stage stairs, over rows of torn theater seats. His fingers closed around a broken curtain rod, iron and rusted. He held it tight. Not as a weapon, but as a promise.
They came at him in waves.
The first leaped—something tall and feminine, its skin veined with mirror-glass, fingers ending in quills of static. Ansel ducked and swung the rod hard across its ribs. It shattered into light and vanished, like a dream waking wrong.
More followed.
A man with three faces, all screaming the wrong names. A child made entirely of teeth. A girl with no eyes, just mouths where tears should be. He fought through them, not perfectly. His shoulder tore on one. His thigh burned from the slashes of their fingers. But still, he didn't move. He stood.
Each strike he landed, each ghost he shattered—it gave him more form. The building had forgotten him before. Now, with every act of resistance, he carved himself deeper into its fabric.
He wasn't just a crack anymore.
He had a wound that couldn't close.
The theater began to come apart. The walls screamed in voices not their own. Lights exploded in showers of sparks. And beyond the far wall, a door yawned open—its frame lined with pulsing veins, like the building was birthing an exit just for him.
He didn't hesitate.
He ran toward it, shoulder-checking a phantom that rose from the aisle, and dove through.
The hallway on the other side wasn't a hallway anymore.
It was a corridor made of names.
Thousands of them, written in spiraling script, wrapping the walls, floor, ceiling—every surface a litany of identity. Ansel's breath caught. Some names he recognized—friends, neighbors, victims. Others were strangers.
But every single one had been someone real.
The building had devoured them.
Now it wrote their names like a boast.
He pressed on.
The farther he walked, the darker the ink became, changing from black to crimson and then to something deeper, almost violet, like blood gone bad.
His name appeared again.
And again.
And again.
Ansel. Ansel. Ansel.
Each instance was distorted.
Ansel, who forgot. Ansel, the anchor. Ansel, who failed.
He stopped walking.
"No," he whispered.
He took a broken shard of glass from the floor and scratched beneath one of the names:
Ansel: Survivor.
The wall shuddered.
And just like that, something changed.
The corridor warped, like it had flinched. The names shifted, trying to reassert dominance—but now there was resistance. The ink struggled to cover his words, but the glass left deep, stubborn gouges. The rewrite wouldn't take place.
Further ahead, a whisper stirred.
A presence.
He followed it down the hall of names until it emptied into a chamber. Small. Tight. An elevator shaft with no doors. Cables hung like muscle sinew. The scent of rust and old air clung to his clothes.
The voice was louder now.
A woman.
Whispering.
No, pleading.
He looked up.
Far above—maybe three floors—a flickering light.
And beneath that light, a figure trapped in a web of cables.
"Mira?" he called.
No answer.
But the figure shifted.
Ansel didn't wait. He grabbed a hanging cable and began to climb.
Hand over hand.
One step. Then another.
Below him, the shaft began to close. Metal screamed. Walls convulsed inward. The building knew where he was. It didn't want him climbing higher.
He kept going.
Fingers bleeding. Arms burning.
Voices echoed around him.
"You'll fall."
"She's not worth it."
"She left you."
"She's forgotten."
"No," he hissed, through clenched teeth.
He climbed.
The closer he got, the clearer the figure became.
It wasn't Mira.
Not fully.
A woman's body, yes. Dressed like a memory of someone he once knew. But her face was broken. A blank oval of smooth skin where the features should be.
A forgotten memory.
A test.
As Ansel reached the platform and pulled himself up, it turned toward him.
"No name," it whispered. "No purpose." Let me have yours."
It lunged.
Ansel rolled aside, barely dodging. It hit hard, stronger than it looked, dragging cables down with it. The shaft trembled. Dust fell like gray snow. Ansel gripped a length of pipe and swung wide, catching it in the side. It stumbled.
He shouted into its face,
"My name is Ansel. I am not forgotten."
The figure reeled back, smoke rising from its flesh as if the name burned it.
He struck again.
And again.
Each swing of the pipe made the building quake.
It clawed at him, but he held fast. He drove his boot into its chest and knocked it toward the edge.
One final blow.
And it fell down the shaft, down into silence.
Ansel stood, panting, coated in sweat, blood, and dust.
Above, a hatch creaked open.
Warm light spilled down.
Real light.
Clean.
And Mira's voice echoed faintly:
"Ansel…?"
He looked up.
Smiled.
"I'm coming."
He grabbed another cable and began to climb again, toward her voice, toward the opening, toward whatever came next.
The shaft still trembled. The walls still hissed.
But now… now, they sounded less like a threat.
And more like fear.
What truly waits for Ansel beyond the hatch—Mira and freedom, or the building's final trap, a memory so twisted it could unravel everything he's fought to reclaim and become...
Ansel has not only fought through the broken children of the building—he's carved himself back into its narrative. With each step, he proves his memory, his resolve, his purpose. But now, the walls above are shifting again. And Mira waits—above or beyond, it's hard to tell.