The air here was heavier.
Every breath felt like it was being pulled from my lungs, weighed down by something unseen.
I stood on a narrow bridge of black stone, suspended over a chasm so deep it swallowed the light.
Far below, a faint crimson glow pulsed in rhythm—like the slow, steady beat of a massive heart.
Whispers circled me again, but now they were sharper, more urgent.
They weren't guiding me.
They were warning me.
The bridge ahead split into two paths, each vanishing into darkness.
One path was lined with mirrors, their surfaces rippling like water.
The other was bare, but the stone there bled faint streams of red light.
A voice rose from the depths beneath me—calm, but laced with something ancient and cruel:
One path will end you.
The other will keep you here forever.
Choose."
And for the first time, I realized—
there might be no right choice at all.
My legs trembled as I stepped forward.
The whispers grew louder, overlapping into a frantic chorus.
Some urged me toward the mirrors, others toward the bleeding stone.
I closed my eyes, trying to shut them out.
But in the silence of my mind, something else spoke—a softer voice, closer than breath:
"You already chose once. This is only the consequence."
When I opened my eyes again, I found my feet moving toward the mirrors.
The glass shimmered as I approached, each one showing not my reflection, but fragments of… other versions of me.
Some were screaming.
Some were begging.
One was smiling, blood dripping from her teeth.
The nearest mirror rippled outward like a drop hitting water.
A pale hand emerged, fingers slick with something dark, reaching for my throat.
I froze.
Behind the glass, the other me leaned forward, her eyes wide with hunger.
"Let me out," she whispered.
Before I could move, the hand seized me, dragging me toward the cold surface.
And the worst part was—I didn't fight.
The glass was not cold as I expected.
It was warm—alive—its surface pulsing faintly against my skin like the heartbeat of some hidden creature.
The pale fingers tightened, pulling me closer until my face was only inches away from my own twisted reflection.
She smiled again, but the smile was wrong.
It was too wide, stretching beyond what a human mouth should.
Her eyes locked on mine, and I felt a sharp pressure in my skull, as if she was searching through my thoughts.
"You left me here," she said. "Now you're back to take my place."
I tried to pull away, but the glass had turned to a thick, sticky surface, clinging to my skin like tar.
My hands sank deeper, my arms following, until my shoulders were swallowed whole.
The world behind me—the bridge, the chasm, the bleeding stone—faded into muffled silence.
Then, with one final pull, I was inside.
The air here was colder, heavier.
The ground beneath my feet was not stone but a shifting layer of black liquid that rippled with each step.
The sky—if it could be called a sky—was a ceiling of swirling shadows, pierced by brief flashes of red lightning that revealed shapes moving above me.
They had too many limbs.
I turned, searching for the mirror I had just passed through.
It was there, but instead of my reflection, I saw her—the other me—now standing on the bridge.
She looked at me with something between pity and triumph.
"It's better this way," she said, her voice echoing through the black air. "You'll understand soon."
I pounded on the mirror, but it was solid now, cold and unyielding.
On the other side, she turned away, walking toward the bleeding stone path, vanishing into the dark.
Behind me, the black liquid began to move—not from my steps, but from something beneath the surface.
Slow, heavy ripples.
Getting closer.
And then I heard it—
a slow, dragging breath, rising from the depths.
The sound grew heavier, more deliberate—like something vast and ancient dragging itself upward through an ocean of tar.
Each inhale was a deep, guttural rumble, and each exhale released a cold mist that curled around my ankles.
I stepped back instinctively, but the black liquid clung to my feet, pulling at me with a slow, sucking force, as if the ground itself wanted me to stay.
A faint glow began to rise from beneath the surface.
It was dim at first, but with every passing breath, it grew brighter, illuminating the liquid from within.
The ripples spread wider, faster.
And then…
something broke through.
At first, it was only a shape—long, skeletal fingers, their joints bending the wrong way, clawing at the edge of the unseen world beneath.
They were slick with the same black substance that now stained my legs.
The fingers gripped the surface, and slowly, deliberately, it began to lift itself up.
What emerged was not a face, not in any human sense—just a mask-like plate of bone, hollow where eyes should be, yet somehow staring straight at me.
Thin cracks ran across the bone, leaking trails of glowing red light, like veins filled with molten blood.
The breath I had heard came from a jagged slit in the center of its head, opening and closing slowly, each movement accompanied by that dreadful hiss.
It paused, as if savoring my fear.
I turned to run—but the black liquid was solidifying, freezing around my legs like ice.
I pulled with all my strength, the tar-like substance stretching but refusing to let go.
The creature tilted its head, and the glow inside its cracks pulsed brighter—almost as if it was… smiling.
"You don't choose anymore," a voice echoed, not from its mouth, but inside my skull. "You were chosen."
The surface beneath me split open, and I fell—not downward, but outward—into a place where there was no direction, no ground, no light.
Only the feeling of being watched by countless unseen eyes.
And then—darkness swallowed everything.
As the last thread of light faded, I realized something horrifying—
this wasn't the end of the nightmare.
It was the beginning.
Somewhere in the suffocating dark, the whispers started again.
They weren't calling me by my name anymore.
They were calling me by hers.
And I finally understood…
the voice in the mirror hadn't been asking for freedom.
It had been warning me.
Now it was too late.