Echo hit the ground gasping.
Not the dream-ground. Not the Maze's illusions.
Real ground.
Cobblestones slick with moss. Cold night air brushing his skin. The sound of distant clockwork mechanisms grinding beneath the surface of the city—like Nu'Ravin itself was breathing in slow, mechanical heaves.
He rolled onto his back, eyes scanning the sky.
It was cracked.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The stars above him shimmered like broken glass suspended in black ink. Pieces of constellations drifted in slow motion, rearranging themselves with each blink.
"The sky's wrong," he muttered.
"It always is when you're close to a memory-knot," came a voice from the shadows.
Echo sat up, body tensing. He didn't reach for a weapon—because he never carried one. He was the weapon. Or at least… he had been.
A figure emerged from behind a rusted iron fountain: a girl no older than fifteen, with hair the color of spilled ink and eyes that didn't match. One was silver. The other was bleeding.
"You again," Echo said warily.
"You're not as clever as the last version," she replied with a shrug. "But you're asking the right questions. That's progress."
He blinked. "Last version?"
The girl walked past him and sat on the fountain's edge, kicking her boots against the stone. "Every time you loop, you lose a little more of the original you. Personality fragments, emotional residues, even your sense of smell—gone. But something always survives. A shard."
Echo didn't like where this was going. "What loop?"
"You died, Echo. Or at least your body did. But your mind... it moved. Skipped tracks. Like a broken record with divine teeth."
She tossed something at him.
He caught it.
A red marble.
Inside, something swirled. Smoke? Blood? A memory?
"What is this?"
"A key. But not for doors."
He turned it in his palm. It pulsed faintly.
"You have three," she added. "Each tied to a Red Memory. You have to unlock them if you want to remember who you were before you became the Mind-Eater."
The name made him flinch.
"Stop calling me that."
"But that's what you are," she said calmly. "It's not just a title. It's a function. You don't just kill minds. You consume them. Rewrite them. Stitch pieces of others into your own. That's why you forget so much—because you're never just you."
He swallowed, eyes falling to the marble again.
"Where do I start?"
The girl pointed.
A street had opened behind her—one that hadn't existed seconds ago.
It pulsed with red light.
"Down that road," she said. "You'll find the first girl you ever killed."
Echo's pulse spiked.
"I don't want to remember that."
She tilted her head. "Too bad. The first Red Memory is tied to guilt. If you can't face that, you'll never survive what comes next."
He hesitated.
Then pocketed the marble and stepped forward.
The street swallowed him.
Red.
Everything was red.
Not blood—not yet—but memory.
The buildings along the street warped as he walked. Doors blinked. Windows whispered. Names scrawled across the bricks rearranged themselves into accusations.
LIAR.
YOU CHOSE THIS.
SHE TRUSTED YOU.
Echo kept walking.
The air grew colder. The fog thickened.
And then—he saw her.
She stood at the far end of the alley, facing away. Her dress was soaked, crimson fabric clinging to her back like it remembered drowning. Her hands trembled. In one palm, she held a ribbon. In the other, a note.
She didn't move.
Echo did.
Step by step, his feet dragged him toward the moment he had locked away.
The girl turned.
She was maybe thirteen.
Big eyes. Sharp smile. Pale skin and raven-dark braids. She looked like someone who'd once trusted monsters.
Echo stopped.
"I remember you," he whispered.
She smiled wider.
"Then you know what comes next."
The world shattered.
They were in a different memory now.
Same girl. Same smile.
But younger. No blood. No fear.
They sat together on a rooftop, legs swinging over the ledge. Below them, the city glowed in golden fractals, alive with the illusions of joy.
"You promised you wouldn't leave," she said.
"I meant it," Echo replied.
"You said we'd burn it all down. Together."
"I… did."
She looked at him. "So why did you kill me?"
The wind stopped.
So did Echo's heart.
"I don't know," he said. "I don't even remember your name."
"That's the cruelest part," she whispered. "You took my name before you took my life. Like it was a souvenir."
Echo turned away.
But the girl wasn't done.
"Do you know what you said when you did it?" she asked, eyes wide and gleaming. "You said it was part of the game. That my death was a necessary moment of escalation."
She stood.
The sky behind her fractured.
"And then you smiled. The same way you did when you planted the first rose."
Lightning lit her silhouette.
Her smile turned into a scream.
And Echo woke up.
Alone.
In the dark.
Breathing hard.
His hands trembled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the red marble.
It was glowing now.
A crack had formed in its center.
One memory down.
Two to go.
***
The marble pulsed softly in Echo's hand, the thin crack on its surface glowing like a vein of lightning trapped in glass. The memory was returning piece by piece—fragmented, jagged, and dangerous.
But it wasn't just memory anymore.
It was evidence.
The wind hissed through the ruined corridor of the red-lit alley, scattering ash and petals. The world hadn't returned to normal—whatever that was for Echo. Time here folded in unnatural ways. Every second carried the weight of years. His breath steamed in the cold air, but he wasn't sure if it was frost or fear tightening around his lungs.
He looked up.
A red door stood ahead, the only structure untouched by rot. Its surface shimmered faintly, as if inked from the inside with words he couldn't read. There was no handle—just a lock.
And a keyhole.
Echo's hand went instinctively to the silver key around his neck.
It had been silent since the maze collapsed, but now, as if stirred by the awakened memory, it vibrated with growing intensity.
"You want me to open this?" he muttered, more to himself than to anything else.
The key was warm when he lifted it. The metal clicked into the lock without resistance.
The door didn't swing open.
It breathed.
A low exhale of warmth and shadow poured over Echo's face as the door folded inward like a book splitting at the spine. A gust of wind spiraled around him, and he stepped inside.
The world changed again.
This time, the transition was smoother. No falling. No screaming walls.
Just silence.
He stood in what appeared to be a bedroom—small, dusty, and cluttered with old books, scattered drawings, and a dozen red candles that burned without flames. Each flicker cast silhouettes on the walls—dancing versions of a girl playing the violin, painting roses, whispering secrets to someone unseen.
Then he saw the desk.
And the photograph.
He crossed the room in a few careful steps, wary of what he might find.
The photo was old. Colorless. Faded by time or by magic. In it stood the girl from the memory—younger, maybe ten—and beside her…
Echo's hands went cold.
It was him.
Same eyes. Same scar beneath the left one. But he was smiling. Truly smiling.
And holding her hand.
Scrawled at the bottom of the photo in childlike ink were four words:
Echo & Lani — Forever
The name tore through him like glass.
"Lani…"
He remembered it now.
Not all of it—but enough.
She had been more than a memory. More than a victim. She was his first tether. The first person to believe in him before he had a name. Before the Asylum. Before the experiments. She had whispered the name Echo into his ear the night he forgot his own—and it had stuck.
She had given him his identity.
And he had taken hers.
Stolen it.
Burned it.
"Why did I do it?" he whispered.
"You thought she'd betray you," came a voice from the shadows.
He spun around.
The blindfolded boy from the Library of Lost Days stood in the corner, arms still woven from vines, his expression unreadable.
"Did she?" Echo asked.
"No."
"Then why—?"
"Because paranoia is a side effect of your gift," the boy said softly. "You don't just consume memories. You inherit fears. Echoes of other minds live in you—screaming to be heard. Sometimes, you can't tell their fears from your own."
"I was wrong," Echo muttered, the guilt settling into his spine like cold iron.
"You were broken," the boy corrected. "You are broken. But you still function."
Echo sat on the edge of the bed.
"What happens if I unlock all three Red Memories?" he asked.
"You remember who you were before the Empire turned you into a weapon."
"Is that a good thing?"
The boy didn't answer.
Instead, he reached into his coat and held out another marble—identical to the first, but pulsing with a different rhythm.
"This one is tied to betrayal," he said. "The second scar."
Echo hesitated. "Can I rest?"
"No."
He took the marble.
It was colder than the last.
As it touched his palm, the cracked marble from Lani's memory disintegrated into red dust. It spiraled upward and vanished into the air, as if the city itself was collecting it.
Another fragment returned.
Another piece of him restored.
But the weight of it stayed.
Before Echo could speak again, a soft chime rang out behind him.
The photo had changed.
It now showed only Lani.
Her hand no longer held his.
Instead, she held a knife.
And her smile was gone.
"She remembered too," the boy said quietly.
Echo turned to him. "Lani's alive?"
"In a way. She exists in the Archive now—rebuilt from fragments. If you finish unlocking the memories… she'll remember everything. So will Thalia. And then?"
His gaze darkened.
"Then the real game begins."
Outside, the cracked sky groaned like rusted metal. Lightning stitched itself across the heavens, forming letters in a forgotten tongue.
Somewhere in the upper districts of Nu'Ravin, a maskmaker looked up from his workbench and began to cry without knowing why.
And in the Tower of Sight, Vaedra watched the red energy ripple across the city's leyline maps.
"The second seal has been claimed," she said to no one.
Behind her, a dozen robed seers chanted faster, ink spilling from their mouths, staining the marble floors with forgotten runes.
In a dream just beneath waking, Thalia opened her eyes.
She had seen Lani's face again.
She had felt her memory unlock.
And deep in her chest, something unfamiliar stirred.
Not rage.
Not duty.
Regret.
Echo stood in the ruins of the bedroom, two marbles down, one to go. The silver key pulsed once around his neck, then quieted again—waiting.
The betrayal was next.
And this time, he feared it would not be someone else's death he would have to face.
But his own.