Salem's foot touched the first rung of the spiral staircase, and the world cracked open beneath him. Not literally—nothing in this space obeyed literal physics—but the sensation was the same: vertigo, vertigo multiplied by every timeline he had ever walked, every memory he had ever lost, every "maybe" he had ever ignored.
Threads curled around him like serpents, humming in frequencies he could feel in his teeth and in the marrow of his bones. Each pulse carried a whisper: "You could have… you might have… you must…"
"Great," Salem muttered, gripping the luminous handrail. "It's like the universe is giving me a motivational speech written by a sadistic drunk poet."
The staircase spiraled endlessly upward, or downward—he couldn't tell. Every step shifted reality beneath him. A fragment of the city he thought he remembered appeared on one side, while on the other, a forest grew from fractured clock towers, its trees dripping liquid glass. Somewhere, faint laughter—the Carnival Barker's, he was sure—echoed from all directions and none.
A thread coiled around his wrist, tighter than he expected. He glanced down to see a version of himself—child Salem, eyes wide, clutching a stuffed animal that shimmered with fractured light.
"I… I don't want to go," the child whispered. "It's too scary."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Salem muttered under his breath. "I'm right there with you, buddy."
Another thread snapped across his path, forming a mirror in mid-air. His reflection—or perhaps their reflection—stared back at him. Older, younger, smirking, crying, laughing silently, screaming without sound. The mirrors multiplied until he was drowning in versions of himself, each one tugging him in a different direction.
"Stop! Just… STOP!" he shouted, though the threads didn't listen.
Then, a voice—deep, calm, impossibly patient—broke through the chaos:
"Do you feel it, Salem? The weight of every step, every choice, every possibility?"
Eryon Vale emerged from the shadows between threads, their form ethereal, almost translucent, yet piercingly real.
"I… I feel like I'm going to explode," Salem admitted, clutching his head. "Or maybe implode. I can't tell anymore."
"Good," Eryon said, stepping closer. "You must feel everything. Only then can you see what truly matters."
Salem glanced at the mirror reflections again. One older self raised a hand, another younger self shook their head violently. They all seemed to speak at once: "Don't do it… Do it… Choose… Wait… Move…"
"You're all insane," Salem groaned. "I am insane."
"Perhaps," Eryon replied, voice soft but unwavering. "Or perhaps this is clarity. Fractured, chaotic clarity."
The threads pulsed again, forming shapes, images, and impossible possibilities. He saw a hospital corridor, a hand he had once held, a street that didn't exist in any reality he knew, and then—briefly—her face. The one he thought he had lost.
"No… not now," Salem whispered, reaching instinctively. The threads swirled around her, impossibly fast.
"She is part of the threads," Eryon said. "Part of the choices, the possibilities, the consequences. You cannot have one without the others."
Salem's stomach churned. Every step up the staircase pulled him deeper into himself, into every version he had ever been, into every version he could yet become.
"I… I don't know if I can handle all of this," he admitted, voice breaking.
"You must," Eryon said. "Step after step. One thread, one choice at a time. Only then will the chaos make sense."
Salem gritted his teeth and stepped forward. A thread stretched out before him, glowing brighter than all the others, pulsing like a heartbeat synced with his own. He grasped it firmly.
"Alright… let's do this," he muttered.
The moment he stepped onto it, the spiral staircase dissolved around him. The threads coiled tighter, forming a tunnel of fractured light, memories, and echoes. Every version of himself—past, present, and potential—screamed silently as he was pulled forward, into a place that wasn't anywhere he had been, but somehow was.
And at the tunnel's end, a faint glow appeared, a figure waiting… a figure that made his blood run cold and his heart race at the same time.
"So… this is the part where I find out I'm completely screwed, huh?" Salem muttered, voice trembling.
The figure stepped forward, and the threads quivered in response, alive with anticipation.
"Not screwed," it said softly. "Just… tested."
Salem swallowed hard, gripping the glowing thread. Somewhere deep in the chaos, he heard the older Salem sigh.
"Good luck, kid," the voice said.
And with that, the tunnel of threads began to collapse behind him, leaving only the path ahead—uncertain, terrifying, and entirely his own.