> "Every step forward awakens a scream left behind."
---
He stood before the stairwell.
Unlike the smooth stone of the Tower's earlier floors, this one was crude—jagged obsidian spiraling downward in impossible geometry, as if built by something that had never seen stairs, only remembered the shape of suffering.
There were no torches. No light.
Only the sound.
Footsteps.
Not his.
Dozens.
Each step he took echoed behind him—and the echoes didn't match.
He descended.
---
The air thickened.
Not like smoke.
Like voices. Whispers trapped in vapor, sliding across his ears.
> "You should have saved her."
> "You promised."
> "You were the last."
He gritted his teeth.
The stairs twisted. Bent. At times, they looped impossibly upward even as he moved down. The Tower did not follow physics—it followed grief.
And it remembered everything he tried to forget.
---
Halfway through the descent, he saw them.
Figures.
Faint, translucent outlines clinging to the walls. Their faces blurred. Their mouths open—screaming silently.
Each one had his eyes.
Fragments of himself.
Lost timelines.
Choices he never made.
> One reached out.
> "If you had stayed," it whispered, "she would have lived."
> "Remi?" he asked.
But the figure didn't answer.
It simply fell backward, off the stairwell—into the abyss below.
Gone.
He clenched his fists and walked faster.
---
The spiral ended at a door.
This one wasn't carved.
It was made of bone.
Wrapped in chains.
Inscribed across its surface, in a language older than thought:
> "The Truth You Refused."
His mark burned again—the spiral on his arm glowing brighter than ever.
He touched the bone.
The chains unraveled like snakes.
The door creaked open.
Behind it—
A room of mirrors.
---
Dozens of them. Lining every wall. Each showing a version of himself.
Young. Old. Mad. Broken.
Dead.
They watched him in silence.
Then, one by one, they spoke.
> "You ran."
> "You begged."
> "You killed for peace—then prayed for war."
> "You forgot us."
One stepped forward—older, darker, covered in scars both real and unreal.
> "You were supposed to end the cycle."
> "Instead, you became it."
He couldn't look away.
The mirror shattered.
Blood leaked from his nose.
And the Tower spoke again:
> "You pass."
> "For now."
---
The back wall dissolved into smoke.
He stumbled forward, exhausted.
Another spiral burned into his skin.
Now two.
The pain was worse than before—but it anchored him.
He didn't cry.
Not this time.
Instead, he whispered to the Tower:
> "Bring me to the top."
The walls rumbled in answer.
Something far above had heard him.
And it smiled.
---
---