Cael ran.
Boots slamming into concrete, breath tearing raw through his throat, arms pumping as the fluorescent-lit labyrinth blurred around him in streaks of dull yellow and rust-gray. The walls—if they could be called that—were far off, half-swallowed by shadow, the ceiling low and oppressive like the Tower wanted to crush him for remembering too much.
And behind him—footsteps.
Not rushed. Not desperate.
Predatory.
He didn't dare look back. He'd seen enough already.
They had no faces.
Not blank masks—missing. Just smooth skin where eyes, mouths, and humanity should've been. But they walked like people. Moved like people. Tilted their heads like dogs hearing a frequency just beyond sound. Their hands twitched when they moved, fingers fluttering in little bursts of tension like marionettes testing their strings.
He had counted three at first.
Now the echoes said there were more.
He thrust out a hand behind him, desperation crackling in his voice.
"Umbra—!"
Nothing.
No ripple. No surge. No shadow bloom.
Just cold air and silence.
The darkness that had always answered him—the loyal twist of night he could bend and carve and hurl—was gone.
No, not gone. Muted.
Like the Tower had cut the cord to his power and left the plug hanging, taunting.
He stumbled into a turn, nearly slamming into a yellowed concrete barrier that marked a long-forgotten drop-off. No signs. No railing. Just a pit of shadow where a ramp should've been. He pivoted and kept moving, legs burning, lungs screaming.
The facelings didn't run.
They just walked faster.
Like they knew he'd tire first.
Somewhere between the blood pounding in his ears and the sterile hum of dead lighting, Cael heard something—wet skin slapping concrete. A hand, not a foot.
One of them was crawling now.
His vision blurred as sweat stung his eyes. He tried again, yelling this time—raw magic forced into the shape of instinct.
"Shadow pulse! Umbra bind! Something!"
Still nothing.
Only the Tower's silence, now mocking.
As if it wanted to see who Cael really was without the borrowed power. Without the safety net. Without the script.
As if it wanted to know when everything is stripped away, and you can't pretend to be the hero anymore—
Will you still try?
Or will you remember?
He hit a stretch of floor that looked familiar—only to realize it wasn't. Just another perfect repetition. A glitchless loop in architecture. Lines, pillars, lights. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
He was slowing.
And they weren't.
The nearest faceling tilted its head as it turned the corner. Its gait twitched, like it was imitating a run but didn't understand what fear looked like. Its smooth, featureless face reflected the overhead lights just enough to gleam.
And then it whistled.
Not with lips—it had none. But the sound came anyway. A broken, tuneless mimicry of a melody Cael almost recognized.
A song someone used to hum in his old school.
His knees nearly gave.
They weren't just chasing him.
They knew him.
And they were drawing closer.
Cael's breath came in ragged shudders, every inhale a slice of broken glass in his lungs. He didn't know how long he'd been running—minutes, hours, a lifetime measured in concrete lines and flickering lights. The endless parking lot stretched on in every direction, infinite and looping, a sterile purgatory that refused to end. No doors. No stairwells. No signage. Just the same painted arrows leading nowhere. The same dead silence wrapped around the steady hum of fluorescent light.
His legs were jelly. His side ached from a cramp that had turned into a knife. But he kept moving.
Because he had seen what happened when he stopped.
He'd paused once, just once, to catch his breath against a yellowed pillar—and the facelings had appeared without sound. Just one, first, inches from him when he looked up. A soft whine of joints, like bones that hadn't moved in years.
He hadn't screamed. He didn't have the breath.
He just ran.
And now he ran still.
But there was no direction. No goal. The lights above him flickered like a taunt—briefly revealing shadows that didn't match his movements. Every echo of his footsteps sounded one beat too long. Every turn looked identical to the last. No matter how far he pushed forward, the layout rearranged beneath him. The Tower was cheating. He could feel it—rewriting the path behind him, making the corridors longer, the air heavier, the dread thicker.
He skidded around another corner—nearly slipped. Concrete dust scraped the side of his boot as he threw himself forward again.
"Where's the end?" he gasped. "Where's the exit? There's always a path forward—there's always—"
His voice cracked into the dead air.
No answer.
Just the faint, broken whistle behind him again.
That warped melody again. Mocking him.
He staggered past an abandoned stairwell entrance—only a painted mural on the wall. Fake. Part of the illusion. His hand passed through it. Just color on cement. No give. No escape.
"Why can't I cast?" he hissed to himself, voice raw. "Why now? Why here?"
No feedback. No system error. No magic surge or mental feedback loop.
Just nothing. Like he was a dead battery trying to spark an entire storm.
The Tower was watching him. He felt it. And not just as a game master watching a contestant struggle—but like a mirror watching a lie unravel.
He turned another corner. The same lot. Again.
Same skid marks. Same flickering overhead bulb. Same broken vending machine covered in graffiti.
But this time…
The graffiti had changed.
Written across the machine's plastic cover, in smeared black strokes.
"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID."
Cael stopped. Just for a breath.
And then he screamed.
Not in pain.
In desperation.
"I don't remember! I don't remember!"
His voice cracked. Echoed. Swallowed by the concrete.
"I don't know how many there were—I didn't choose this! I didn't ask to forget!"
He slammed a fist into the vending machine. The glass didn't break.
Behind him, the facelings moved faster.
Not running. Gliding. Like they were being pulled. Like gravity was bending around him now—because his denial had run out.
Cael stumbled forward again.
Feet raw. Muscles on fire. He was past fear now.
He was digging.
Not through the floor—but through himself.
What did he forget?
What did he let them take?
What did he trade away… to get a clean slate?
His feet slapped the ground. Again. Again. Again.
And still—no exit.
His lungs were knives. His legs felt like water.
But through the blur of motion and sickening adrenaline, something new blinked into existence in the periphery—a gleam of silver against the monotonous concrete gray. Cael's head snapped toward it, blood roaring in his ears.
An elevator.
Half-hidden in a shadowed alcove beyond a cluster of yellow pillars. Real metal. A rusted call button flickering faintly, like a dying heartbeat.
He didn't think. He couldn't afford to.
He ran.
The footsteps behind him grew louder, faster—no longer hiding their hunger. The air around him bent with their presence, like gravity distorted by unseen heat. Something hissed wetly in the dark.
Cael reached the elevator and slammed the call button with the flat of his palm.
Nothing.
No chime. No doors opening.
He hit it again. Again. Fingers trembling, blood from a split knuckle smearing across the metal.
The hallway behind him groaned.
Not the walls.
The air.
It was breathing now.
A shape slipped around a nearby pillar—faceless, smooth, tall. One arm dangling too long, fingertips grazing the ground as it walked. Another crawled down the ceiling like a spider. Their heads tilted in perfect sync, twitching as if scenting something just beneath his skin.
Ding.
The elevator doors creaked open.
Cael didn't wait.
He threw himself inside, the stale reek of copper and mold washing over him like a second punishment. He spun on his heel and hit the CLOSE DOOR button over and over and over, fingers frantic, heart shattering against his ribs.
The facelings surged.
The one closest reached out—its arm snapping up like a whip, stretching at the elbow as if skin and bone had been sculpted wrong.
The doors began to close.
An inhuman shriek followed—a warbled, airless wail that clawed its way through the vents. A faceling's hand hit the elevator gap, forcing the doors to stutter—just slightly.
Cael kicked the hand. Bone cracked under his heel. The hand jerked back. The doors slammed shut.
Darkness.
Silence.
The sudden stillness was violent. His knees buckled. He slid down the elevator wall, back to cold metal, chest heaving like it might explode.
The elevator didn't move.
It just sat there.
Closed.
Claustrophobic.
Stinking.
But safe.
For now.
And on the scratched panel above the floor buttons, something flickered to life.
Floor 22-B: Reflection Archive
And below it… in faint, pulsing letters, another line appeared—almost too fast to catch.
"One floor down. One sin deeper."
The elevator shuddered once—then again, like a dying breath rattling through machinery not meant to move anymore. Then, with a reluctant ding, the doors parted.
Cael remained frozen for a heartbeat, lungs still clawing for air, fear still scraping raw along his nerves.
Then the smell hit him.
Dust. Paper. Cheap carpet steeped in mildew and time.
He stepped out.
The hallway beyond was endless. Rows upon rows of gray office cabinets flanked either side—pressed against beige, water-stained walls under buzzing fluorescent lights. No windows. No signs. No direction. The only sound was the distant hum of unseen ventilation, and the soft click of the elevator closing behind him.
He turned—only to find a blank wall where the elevator should've been.
No doors. No seams.
Gone.
He swallowed hard and faced forward.
The hallway stretched on, a sterile labyrinth of bureaucracy and time rot. It wasn't abandoned—it felt maintained. Like something had been living in it. Or working in it.
He walked.
Each step sank slightly into the threadbare carpet. The air here was too still. Too stale. As if it hadn't been disturbed in years—but never truly settled.
The first cabinet was unlocked.
He hesitated, hand hovering above the cold handle.
Then pulled it open.
Files. Stacks of them.
Neat. Categorized.
His name was on every single one.
Cael Envar.
In ink. In type. In strange, angular handwriting that looked like it had been carved with a needle.
He pulled a file out.
Case 044-B: "Subject C. Envar falsified medical reports to gain extension on final exams. Target: Instructor Rellin. Outcome: Successful. Innocent party penalized for dishonesty."
He blinked. Shook his head.
He didn't remember that.
He flipped the page.
Case 044-C: "Subject C. Envar orchestrated false study group to extract answers from rival student. Target: Marn Kied. Outcome: Expulsion of rival. Social credibility of Subject increased. No remorse recorded."
His hands trembled.
He yanked another file from a different drawer. Labeled "Personal Manipulations."
The words blurred.
Weaponized personal trauma for sympathy votes during council election.
Spread rumors about romantic rivals to maintain monopolized attention.
Initiated confrontation between friends to test loyalty outcomes. Logged observation: 'She only comes to comfort me when I'm the victim.'
Cael staggered back, the folder slipping from his hands. Papers scattered across the hallway floor like fallen feathers from a guilty wing.
He stumbled to another cabinet.
And another.
Each one worse.
Each drawer a grave dug for someone who had trusted him.
Each report phrased clinically, but with a sharp undertone—as if someone had taken glee in writing them down. As if his past had a scribe.
He pulled open another drawer, desperate for something different—anything—
And found a folder with a photo.
Of a boy.
The same boy from the locker room.
Bruised. Shaking. Slumped against tile.
Cael Envar's name scrawled across the header.
He slammed the drawer shut and staggered back, breath ragged, nausea swirling in his gut.
This wasn't just a record room.
It was a confession engine.
And he'd been catalogued like a specimen.
The hum of the lights flickered once.
Somewhere, down the hallway—
A drawer clicked open.
By itself.
Then another.
And another.
Papers began to slip free, drifting to the floor like leaves in a slow wind.
And then the voice came back. Cold. Clinical. Soft.
"You think forgetting makes you innocent?"
"But this place remembers everything."
The drawers kept opening.
And somewhere down the hall, something began walking toward him—
Not running.
Not hunting.
Just… reviewing.
Cael's breath caught as the figure stepped into the light—tall, human-shaped… yet wrong. Skin too smooth. Limbs just slightly too long. Its head was bare. Featureless. A blank slate of flesh where a face should be.
But the way it moved—tilted its head, curled its shoulders, dragged its fingers along the cabinets—it was him.
A perfect mockery of his gait. His posture. A walking silhouette of Cael Envar with his soul hollowed out.
The Faceling stopped several paces ahead, standing beneath the flickering fluorescence. Then it pointed.
First at him.
Then, slowly, silently, it turned and pointed again—this time toward a specific drawer halfway down the right-hand wall. One that Cael hadn't touched yet.
A wet sound echoed down the corridor.
Drip… drip… drip.
Blood.
Seeping from the thin edge of the cabinet drawer. Slow at first, then faster—running in thin, oily lines down the metal front, staining the carpet in a growing pool of rust-colored memory.
Cael didn't want to move.
But his body did anyway.
Drawn like a marionette on invisible strings.
He reached the drawer. Opened it.
The metal groaned.
Inside was a single, fat folder—its spine stained dark, its papers warped with dampness. A sticky heat radiated from it, as if the document itself resented being disturbed.
The title was embossed in cold, clinical type:
CASE 072-F: PARENTAL MANIPULATION / TRAGEDY ENGINEERING
Subject: Cael Envar
His fingers moved before his brain did.
He flipped the cover open.
The first page was a printed timeline. It began with a list of behaviors. Quiet. Calculated.
Subject began withholding emotional communication at age 11.
Subject created false diary entries to imply neglect to school counselor.
Subject fabricated claims of emotional abuse to trusted third parties.
Result: Parental figures investigated. Emotional tension increased.
Cael's vision blurred. His hands were shaking.
The next pages were worse.
Transcripts of arguments—recorded or reconstructed. Phrases he didn't remember saying but felt in his bones. Quiet, cutting lies. Emotional isolation. Letters he forged and left for them to find.
The final section was titled simply.
Trigger Sequence / Emotional Collapse Timeline
It detailed the exact sequence of events leading to the night they died.
The things he said.
The things he implied.
The seed planted deep in their minds that they had failed, that they were toxic, that he would be better off without them.
And the final line, printed in smaller type at the bottom of the last page, hit him harder than any blade.
Subject cried at the funeral. The performance was deemed convincing.
Cael staggered back.
The file slipped from his hands and hit the floor with a sickening slap.
The Faceling was still standing there.
Watching.
Judging.
Its finger still raised. Still pointing.
The hallway broke open like a wound.
Cael ran.
Behind him, the office drawer—that drawer—still gaped wide, its file still open, bleeding guilt like a fresh confession. The floor beneath his boots squelched, soaked with ink-dark blood that trickled from the seams of every cabinet now. They were all opening. All of them. One by one. Slow. Like mouths parting for a silent scream.
The walls pulsed slightly, as if the building itself had a heartbeat.
Cabinets yawned open on both sides. Some hung crooked, rusted from the inside, their hinges whining like dying animals. Others were pristine, sterile, hospital-silver, but pouring blood in long, elegant streams that puddled without spreading—pooling like memories that had nowhere else to go.
The lights flickered—but never went out. They stayed on just enough to let him see what he didn't want to.
File after file slipped free, fluttering to the carpet like falling snow. Cael caught flashes of handwriting. Case numbers. Red-stamped words like DECEIT, COERCION, EXPLOITATION. Some pages burst into flakes of ash when they hit the ground. Others twitched.
He didn't stop.
Couldn't.
The hallway had changed.
Somewhere in the run—somewhere in the heartbeat-pulse between one breath and the next—angles stopped making sense. The floor tilted, subtly, like he was running upward and downward at once. The ceiling felt lower, but the walls taller. The cabinets leaned inward, giving the illusion of a corridor that funneled forever toward a point he'd never reach.
Blood pattered across his shoulders, dripping from above.
He looked up once—and wished he hadn't.
Cabinet drawers hung from the ceiling.
They opened slowly, methodically. Blood trickled down like reverse rain, painting crimson constellations across the flickering tiles. A map of sin that had no legend, no origin. Just destination.
His breath rasped. It felt too loud.
The sound of his boots slapping the wet floor echoed in ways that didn't match the rhythm. Like someone—or something—was running beside him, always just out of sight. A half-step behind. Or ahead.
The hallway twisted again.
Subtly.
The lights above changed tone—from sterile white to pale amber, then to sickly green, then to nothing but the color of old teeth. The blood looked black now. Oil-slick. Reflecting moments instead of light. Cael caught glimpses in those reflections—not of himself—but of the other him.
The one who had orchestrated. Calculated. Lied.
The one with dry eyes at every funeral.
The drawers creaked louder now, some slamming open violently, splattering the floors, spraying files like shrapnel. Some cabinets shuddered, like something inside them still moved. As if the memories were trying to get out.
And still, Cael ran.
Not toward anything.
Just away.
But the hallway never ended.
There were no doors. No windows. No clocks.
Just the cabinets.
And the blood.
And the endless echo of his own sins, thudding in time with every step he couldn't stop taking.