> "You can lock a memory in a box, bury it beneath eternity—but if it screams loud enough, it finds its way back."
---
The fourth chamber was silent.
But it wasn't still.
Every breath he took echoed too loudly, like the Tower was listening to the rhythm of his lungs. The walls pulsed faintly with veins of light—white, like bone under thin flesh.
A staircase waited, leading downward.
> Deeper still.
He descended.
Each step felt heavier. As if something beneath was pulling him—not physically, but emotionally, spiritually, like gravity born from guilt.
And then—
He saw it.
A single chair. A table. And on it, a box.
Old.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
He approached, and the air around it wept. No breeze. No sound. But moisture clung to his skin, as if the box had cried for a thousand years.
The voice returned.
> "Trial Three: Truth."
> "Open it," it whispered.
His fingers hovered above the lid.
He knew what was inside.
Not an object.
Not a memory.
A person.
He opened it.
And the room collapsed.
---
He was in a field now.
Somehow… real.
Grass. Wind. Sky.
The sun was soft. The warmth almost unbearable after so much cold.
She stood there.
Back turned.
Long white dress. Bare feet. Hair like ash drifting in the wind.
She turned slowly.
And he broke.
It was her.
The one who had called him before the war.
The one who had followed him into ruin.
The one who had died because he forgot.
Her face was gentle. Kind. And terribly sad.
> "You remembered," she said.
He couldn't speak.
His legs collapsed beneath him.
She stepped closer and knelt before him, resting her hand on his chest.
> "You still carry it. All of it."
> "I never wanted to forget," he whispered.
> "You didn't." Her voice trembled. "You just buried it."
> "I thought it would break me."
> "It did."
The field flickered. Once. Twice. And then the sky fractured like glass.
> "This place isn't real," he realized.
> "Neither am I."
He looked up.
> "What are you?"
She smiled.
And her eyes went black.
> "I am the part of you that remembers everything you begged to forget."
The field burned.
---
He woke screaming.
But no sound came.
Back in the Tower. Still in the chair. The box—gone.
His hand was covered in blood.
But it wasn't his.
He looked down.
A name was carved into his palm.
One word.
"REMI."
It meant nothing.
And yet—it destroyed him.
He fell to the floor, shivering, panting.
> "Who was she…?"
No answer came.
Only the Tower. Breathing. Watching. Preparing the next door.
---
As he rose, one thought echoed louder than all others:
He wasn't remembering.
He was returning.
To who he used to be.
To what he did.
To what he lost.
And if this Tower held the truth at its summit...
...then he wasn't sure he wanted to survive the climb.
---
**