The inner room was a dome of silence.
No echoes. No outside noise. Just heavy, crushing quiet.
In its center, a single thing resting on a pedestal: an hourglass, dripping black sand slowly.
Behind it, a wall covered with writing.
Weird looking writings.
Dozens of entries. Notes. Diagrams. Desperate thoughts scribbled in chalk and ink.
Avery approached it, reading the words with increasing cold.
"He sees through riddles."
"He distorts identity with language."
"He is not ONE man. He is MANY masks."
"I've seen his face and forgotten it in seconds. That is his curse. That is his power."
Reed leaned against her shoulder, silent.
At the bottom, a final line jumped out—larger than the rest, double-underlined in red:
"IF YOU FIND THIS ROOM, YOU ARE NOT SAFE ANYMORE."
Then—
A sound.
Behind them.
Something metallic sliding shut.
The door had closed.
Avery spun—but there was no handle. No mechanism to release it.
Reed slammed his fist against the stone. "We're locked in."
But Avery wasn't looking at the door anymore, she was staring at the hourglass.
The black sand had stopped.
Reversed.
And beneath it, a single engraved line had appeared on the pedestal:
"Your time has been noticed."
They were not alone.
***
The walls of Spiral House exhaled—not with noise, but with feeling. A breath down the neck. A presence lingers just on the periphery of vision. The kind of quiet that is anything but quiet, but anticipation.
Avery stood stock still before the hourglass. The black sand flowed back and dripped upward with unnatural precision. Each grain moved like an un-made choice.
She reached out a hand, fingers tracing the cool rim of the glass.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you," Reed growled, low tone, scanning eyes roving across the room.
"I need to know what it is," she said.
"Pretty sure it's a cursed countdown."
"It's a message," Avery said, "in time."
And then—
The whisper coalesced into a word.
Not spoken aloud, not heard by ears—but within her.
As if memory became sound.
"Avery Locke."
She leaped back from the pedestal.
"Did, did you hear that?"
Reed glared at her.
"What?"
"You didn't hear it?"
"Hear what?"
She recoiled from the pedestal.
"The house. It, it called my name."
Reed's teeth ground together. "That's it. We have to get out of here. This is playing with your head."
She shook her head, looking at the sand. "It's not a hallucination. It knows me. It's waiting for me."
He started towards the door again, scanning the stone for seams, switches, hinges—anything. But the spiral design was smooth. Solid. No gaps. Avery stood before the chalk-covered wall again. The weird scribbles ran together before her eyes, the words dissolving like riddles within riddles.
Then she saw it:
"His voice rides through pattern. The only defense is silence."
Her eyes widened.
"It wants me to hear it," she breathed.
Reed stopped.
"What?"
She pointed to the note. "It's not just speaking. It's seeding words—command triggers—into sound. Into patterns of sight. Like a virus."
Reed looked at the hourglass, his face pale. "What kind of psychopath does that?"
She met his gaze.
"The kind who leaves breadcrumbs in the form of riddles. The kind who can walk through your mind like a corridor."
Avery pushed her fingers against her temples, repressing the throb behind her eyes.
The room—its corners, its designs—were performing some sort of magic. Lines that don't cross were meeting. Shapes curling over one another. The more she stared, the more the spiral on the walls began to ripple, as if it was breathing.
"Reed," she whispered, "don't look at the spiral."
He turned his head, startled. "Why?"
Because it's not painted. It's alive."
Reed blinked. "Say that again?"
"I don't know how, but… it's emitting a frequency. Not sound. Not even light. Something more primitive. It's trying to speak to us."
Reed edged away from the wall reflexively. "This was a chilly lead. An indication. We weren't going to enter into some esoteric horror maze in which geometry responds."
Avery stepped toward the spiral and exhaling slowly.
"He glides through pattern."
"He is not one man. He is many masks."
Avery's thoughts spun, matching the spiral's curve. Was this what happened to Alina? Did she stand here and listen until her thoughts weren't her own anymore?
"We're being tested," she whispered. "This room—it's not about information. It's about entry."
Reed frowned. "Entry to what?"
"To the next layer."
***
The hourglass clicked.
Avery jumped.
The last grain of sand snapped into place—and the pedestal shifted.
A wall slab groaned open on its hinges, revealing a narrow stair which curved down into blackness.
"No," Reed said immediately. "No, no, we are not going to do that."
But Avery was already heading there. Forced. Driven.
"Something's down there," she said. "I think. it's part of him."
"Or part of his trap." Reed said, placing a hand on his hip.
She hesitated at the head of the steps, glancing over her shoulder.
"You can stay if you want to," she said quietly. "But I have to see this through. If I turn back now, I'll lose the thread. I'll lose him or whatever it is doing all this."
Reed muttered a curse, then followed along behind her.
"I hope your therapist is twice as expensive," he snarled. "Because you're going to need it after this."
***
The stairs were narrow—smooth stone curving like the inside of a shell. With each downward step, the silence was plunged deeper until it seemed to be swallowed whole.
Avery reached out and grabbed hold of the wall with one hand to steady herself.
The moment her foot touched the last step, a pale light glowed up ahead.
A ring-shaped room throbbed with phosphorescent lines on the ground—overlapping spirals made of fine sand. A coat lay on a single hook on the other wall.
It was black. It was long. It was familiar.
She knew that coat.
Her stomach flipped.
Reed's voice broke the silence. "Is that—?"
"Yes,"Avery whispered. "It's his, I think."
Behind the coat, a note was pinned to the wall.
She edged forward and ripped it free.
"You've gotten further than the others, Avery. Inquisitive mind, but still so… breakable."
"Shall we begin the actual riddle now?"
"Repeat out loud what you fear most… or he will."
The walls pulsed suddenly.
And a voice—her own—whispered back to her on all sides:
"I'm afraid I don't exist outside of questions I ask…"
"I'm afraid I'll become her."
"I'm afraid I'll forget my own name."
Reed's eyes widened. "That's you. That's your voice."
"No," she said hollowly. "It's my thoughts. Ones I've never spoken aloud."