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Chapter 12 - The First Architect

The whispering wouldn't stop. It crawled through the walls, through the floor, through my mind — my own voice echoing back at me in a dozen different tones.

Maya clung to my arm, shaking. "Arlen, we have to move. We can't stay here."

"I know," I said, though my voice didn't sound like mine anymore. "I just… I can't tell what's real."

The corridor stretched endlessly ahead, its ceiling low, slick with moisture. Every few steps, the lights flickered, and the world seemed to shift — one blink, we were in the decayed mansion; the next, it looked new again, pristine and golden, as though the house itself couldn't decide which version of reality it wanted us to see.

Maya's breathing was ragged. "It's playing with us."

"No," I murmured. "It's remembering with us."

We turned a corner and froze.

Ethan stood there — or what was left of him.

His skin had gone almost translucent, pulsing faintly with red veins beneath. His eyes glowed with that same crimson hue as the mansion's heart. He smiled, gentle and sad.

"Arlen," he said softly. "You found it."

Maya stepped between us. "Stay back."

Ethan ignored her. "You saw the truth, didn't you? What you did here. What you built."

I swallowed hard. "I was trying to save someone."

He nodded. "And in doing so, you built something that could never die."

The floor beneath him pulsed in time with the mansion's heartbeat. His voice grew quieter, almost reverent. "It's not just alive, Arlen. It remembers you. You are the pattern it was built on — its consciousness, its echo. That's why it calls to you."

Maya shook her head violently. "No. No, you're not listening to it. You're just another part of its trick!"

Ethan's gaze softened. "Maybe. But look at him. He already knows."

I could barely breathe. The images from the visions flashed again — the ritual, the sacrifice, the woman's eyes. Rachel's face merging with the past.

"I didn't mean to create this," I said, my voice breaking. "I was trying to stop death."

"And you did," Ethan said. "You stopped it from ending. You trapped it here."

The walls trembled, and the sound of breathing filled the air — not just from the mansion, but from beneath us, around us, inside us.

Maya grabbed my arm. "We have to destroy it. Whatever connection it has to you, we end it now."

I turned to her. "If I die, it might collapse with me. That's what it wants."

She stared at me, horrified. "No. We'll find another way."

"There isn't one," I said quietly. "I can feel it. I am the last piece of it."

The floor split open between us, a fissure glowing with crimson light. Ethan stepped back, his form flickering, dissolving into mist. "Then you know what to do. Finish it, Architect."

The fissure widened. I reached for Maya, but she was already slipping away, the floor collapsing under her feet. I dove, catching her hand just in time.

"Don't let go!" she screamed.

"I won't," I said through gritted teeth. The light beneath us burned like molten glass. My hand trembled.

"Arlen!"

I looked down. The light wasn't fire — it was memory. Faces, moments, fragments of everything the house had consumed flickered within it. And beneath them all, I saw her — the woman I had tried to save.

Rachel.

Her eyes opened. "You promised me forever," she whispered.

Maya's voice cut through the roar. "Arlen—let me go! You can't—"

But the mansion spoke too, echoing through my mind:

"Finish it, and be whole again."

Something broke inside me. I closed my eyes and whispered, "I'm sorry."

Then I let go.

Maya's scream vanished into the light. The fissure closed like a mouth swallowing its prey.

I fell to my knees, shaking, empty. The walls pulsed around me — once, twice, then steadied. The whispering faded. The mansion grew still.

In the silence, I heard only one voice.

"Welcome home, Arlen."

And in the reflection of the blood-slick floor, I saw my own eyes glowing red.

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