Day 41. Raven was hungry.
Not for food.
But for presence.
He had crossed over twenty levels of Level Space. Each step he took etched symbols no one could understand no one but him… and perhaps the entity watching from afar.
But today, Level Space was quiet.
Too quiet.
No narrator's voice through the hidden speakers. No mechanical creak of shifting walls. No eerie giggle from lurking anomalies.
Only his own breath, and the faint pulse of the book still strapped to his back.
Then, he found a corridor he hadn't seen before. The walls… they breathed, as if alive.
Etched above the entrance:
"Level 25 — Reflection Zone."
Raven stepped in.
And the world changed.
Reflections here were not just mirrors. They spoke. Each showed a different version of him
A crying child.
A hopeless teen.
A laughing boy with his family…
And then
One more.
A version of himself with pitch-black eyes, a razor-sharp grin, and blood-soaked hands.
"Who are you?" Raven asked.
The reflection grinned.
"I'm who you'll become… if you keep walking."
Raven punched the glass.
It didn't crack.
The reflection just laughed.
"You're starting to enjoy it, aren't you? When they're afraid? When they submit?"
The voice boomed through the hall.
"That's not me," Raven whispered.
"Not yet," said the reflection. "But you're hungry, aren't you? Not for food. For power."
Raven ran.
But the laughter echoed, chasing him like a shadow.
He stumbled into the next room:
"Evolution Zone."
A place where anomalies were tested forced to evolve.
He read the sign and felt… summoned.
The room was empty.
Except for one figure:
Anomaly A023N Mirror Maw.
A "normal-class" entity that consumed reflections of consciousness.
It slithered forward.
Raven prepared to fight
But couldn't move.
His reflection appeared on the wall weak, trembling.
"No! That's not me anymore!"
But Mirror Maw absorbed it.
And for the first time… Raven felt hollow.
Then, he laughed.
"Thank you," he said to the creature.
"You erased the weakest part of me."
He raised his hand.
The symbol carved into his back ignited.
Mirror Maw shrieked.
Raven didn't stop.
He turned the mirror's power against it—forced the anomaly to see itself.
And for the first time…
Mirror Maw saw itself as a victim.
It broke.
It shattered.
As the room collapsed, and the creature dissolved into echoes of despair, Raven stood in the debris.
Not unconscious.
Not shaken.
He smiled.
"If Level Space wants to devour me… then I'll digest it first."
The days that followed were different.
He hunted anomalies.
Talked to them.
Lured them into revealing their truest selves then tore them apart.
He stopped hiding.
He began laying traps, warping the structure of levels, even contacting the narrator without agency equipment.
He rewrote the reality code on the walls using the blood of the entities he'd defeated.
He was no longer just a survivor.
He was the architect of their suffering.
Then he found a room with no name.
No light.
No gravity.
Only… a voice.
Whispers.
"Raven."
He froze.
"Raven."
He followed the voice.
And saw something.
A shadow.
Formless—
But shaped like him.
"Who are you?"
"I am your hunger."
"Which one?"
"The one you hide from mirrors. The one that doesn't want to be human anymore."
Raven said nothing.
"I am your Hunger not for blood. For existence. You don't want to live. You want the world that rejected you to see you."
Raven closed his eyes.
And opened them with a single answer:
"Show me the way."
When he stepped out of that room, his body had changed.
His eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
His left hand pulsed with a jagged symbol.
And behind him, a shadow not his own followed like a loyal hound.
Now, he was no longer surviving Level Space.
He was becoming its master.
Not to escape.
But to take control.