Part I: The Breathing Walls
Summary: Thale and Vermidge descend into the corridor. The walls pulse like flesh, and the air is thick with spores that carry false memories. As Thale walks, her past starts bleeding through—visions she can't control.
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The stairs were shallow, but endless.
Thale stepped lightly, eyes scanning every curve of the walls as they spiraled downward. The corridor's shape was more organic than architectural—like they were walking through a vein, not a tunnel. The walls weren't metal anymore. They had texture.
Veins. Folds. Sweat.
And they moved.
Not all at once, not dramatically. But every few steps, the corridor gave a long, slow inhale—so faint it might have been imagination. The floor dipped and rose with no warning. Strange seams split open briefly, exhaling a mist that smelled like dried skin and lemon rot.
"Why does it feel like it's watching us?" Thale murmured.
Vermidge, behind her, adjusted his ticking monocle.
"Because it is. The Corridor of Rot is a reactive zone. It interprets emotional output and builds an environment. Old tech, old magic, take your pick."
"That's comforting."
"Oh, it shouldn't be."
As they turned a curve, the light changed.
The corridor was now lit by small, pulsing sacs embedded in the walls—soft, warm pinks and yellows. They looked like tumors filled with lanterns. One ruptured quietly as they passed, releasing a puff of white spores.
Thale coughed once. Then again.
Vermidge stopped instantly and yanked a cloth over his mouth.
"Don't breathe deeply. Memory-spores. Very volatile."
"Memory?"
"They root in the hippocampus. Try to bloom images. Not yours. Not always. Avoid eye contact with the hallucinations."
Hallucinations?
Too late.
The spores were already working. She blinked, and for just a moment, the corridor shivered into a hospital hallway.
Clean. Bright. Buzzing with fluorescent lights. A white floor.
Her feet were bare. A hand reached for hers—someone calling her name in a voice she didn't know.
"Thale."
She gasped and snapped back.
Vermidge was holding her by the arm, whispering urgently.
"You were gone. Just for a second. But your eyes flickered. Stay with me."
"I saw something."
"You'll see many somethings down here. Don't trust any of them."
"I saw a hospital."
He shook his head. "Too neat. That's bait. This corridor doesn't know you yet. It's throwing up guesses."
"Guesses of what?"
He gave her a long look.
"Who you were. Or might have been. Or could still be."
They walked on.
The air thickened.
Ahead, the corridor widened, opening into a chamber coated in fibrous black mold. It hung from the ceiling like wet hair. The floor was sticky, and each step made a soft tearing sound.
Something moved beneath the mold.
Vermidge didn't stop.
"Don't acknowledge it."
"Why not?"
"Because if you acknowledge it, it's real."
Thale tightened her grip on the mirror shard in her coat.
Her shoulder itched where the wound had been. It was no longer bleeding—but something under the skin twitched.
She looked down.
For a second, she saw light beneath the skin. Like wires.
But when she blinked—it was gone.
She didn't ask. She just kept walking.
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Part II: Glimpse of Nyxalune
The corridor narrowed until they were nearly walking shoulder to shoulder. The mold faded, replaced by a slick sheen coating the walls like resin or sweat. In one section, the wall curved inward into a shallow basin that held a puddle of liquid metal—still, reflective, too bright.
Thale paused. Something in it caught her eye.
She stepped closer, despite Vermidge's warning glance.
"It's not water," he said. "It's static. Don't look long."
But she was already looking.
In the puddle: her face.
Only not quite. Her features were the same—the long black hair, the pale skin, the scar along her temple from the cradle—but the eyes were wrong. They were too wide. Too bright. Too certain.
The reflection smiled.
Thale did not.
"You're not me," she whispered.
The reflection tilted its head.
"Then what are you?" it asked, voice perfectly matching hers.
Thale staggered back.
Vermidge grabbed her shoulder, pulling her away from the pool.
"Did it speak?"
"Yes."
"Then it knows. Keep moving."
They hurried forward. Thale didn't look back, but she felt it. The reflection. Watching. Following through unseen surfaces.
"Who was that?" she asked.
Vermidge's voice was grim. "Nyxalune. One of the echoes. Old as the first loop. They say she only appears to those who could overwrite themselves."
"What does that mean?"
"It means if she's curious about you, we're in trouble."
The corridor shifted again, the walls stretching wide and then closing tightly around them like a throat trying to swallow.
Somewhere behind them, the puddle hissed.
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Part III: Insect Choir
The air changed.
It had been thick before—heavy with spores and damp with machine rot—but now it buzzed. Audibly. An undercurrent of static, like a choir trying to hum through its own teeth.
Thale slowed.
Ahead, the corridor widened into a chamber. The walls here were ribbed and concave, like the inside of a throat, and from the crevices spilled hundreds—maybe thousands—of tiny insect-like machines. Each was the size of a fingertip. Their bodies gleamed black, segmented with silver etchings, and their wings flickered with faint data-light.
They didn't move toward her. They vibrated.
"What are they?" she asked, breath shallow.
Vermidge didn't step closer. "Swarm fragments. Leftover code-beasts. Useless on their own, unless they harmonize."
"They are harmonizing."
Indeed, the insects were humming—not like bugs, but like tuning forks. Together, the sound took on shape. It started to form... words.
"Grey..."
Thale froze.
The insects chirped, paused, chirped again in sequence. Tch-tch... Tch-tch-tch.
Then, softly, from their combined resonance:
"Cycle... five-one-one-nine..."
One of them detached from the wall. It flew—slowly, delicately—to hover in front of her face. Its eyes were not cameras. They were screens. And they showed her own face, weeping.
"Is this real?" Thale asked.
The insect buzzed.
Then it spoke, not with voice, but through its screen-mouth:
"You gave the order."
Thale staggered back.
The rest of the insects swarmed upward in a sudden blast, spinning into a vortex above the chamber. Sparks burst from the ceiling. The hum became a shriek.
Vermidge grabbed her arm and pulled her through the far opening.
"Time's rewriting!" he shouted.
"What does that mean?"
"It means it remembers you differently than you remember you! And it's correcting!"
Behind them, the chamber began to collapse.
The insects weren't chasing.
They were singing. Still.
And the last word Thale heard from the hum was:
"Mother."
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*Part IV: The Blood Loop*
The corridor grew narrow again, spiraling sharply as if coiling around a central nerve. The walls here were slicker, darker—mirroring each other with subtle, shifting symmetry. Thale touched one side and felt heat. Touched the other and felt cold.
Then she stepped forward, and everything snapped.
The light changed. The sound vanished. Vermidge was gone.
She stood in the same corridor—but now empty. Still. Frozen in perfect silence.
She turned.
Behind her: a perfect replica of herself.
Dead.
Lying on the ground, neck twisted, eyes open and glassy. Her own face.
She staggered back. Her breath caught. A low hum began again—the corridor rebooting its sound. Vermidge reappeared behind her, blinking.
"You looped," he said flatly.
"What?"
"You entered a blood loop. Minor time recursion error. Corridor locked you into a death pattern."
"I *died*?"
"Briefly. Not this you. Another you."
"What does that mean?"
"It means if you die again, this you might become the dead one."
She stared at the corpse. It faded. Then the corridor reset again.
Snap—
Dark.
Still.
This time, the ceiling split open. A spiked arm lunged down and impaled her through the chest.
Pain blossomed, bright and metallic.
Snap—
Reset.
She gasped. Back in place.
Vermidge: "Second death. This is not sustainable."
"*How do I stop it?!*"
Vermidge pointed to her arm.
Her left forearm. A line of glowing red code now pulsed just beneath the skin.
"You've been tagged," he said. "The corridor's trying to write you out. You have to cut the loop."
She didn't hesitate. She pulled the mirror shard from her coat and drove it into her arm.
Pain lit her vision. Sparks behind her eyes. She sliced the skin open, revealing the code-thread—a glowing, vein-like filament.
She reached in, fingers trembling, and *tore it free*.
The corridor screamed.
Everything blurred—stretched—then snapped.
She was back.
Whole.
No corpse. No spikes. Just Vermidge, pale and sweating.
"You cut it," he said. "Good. Good. If you hadn't—well. That would've been the last version of you that mattered."
Thale shook, holding her bleeding arm.
"I hate this place."
"Then you're sane. Let's go."
---____
*Part V: The Door That Asks*
They emerged from the spiral into a quiet space. Flat. Geometric. A rectangular hall too perfect to be natural. The chaos of the corridor behind them gave way to stillness that felt... expectant.
At the far end stood a door.
It had no handle. No hinges. Just a single dark slot in the center like a mail chute. Above it, a flickering inscription read:
**OFFER MEMORY TO PROCEED**
Vermidge stiffened.
"No. No, no, no. Not one of these."
Thale stared at the door. "It wants a memory?"
"One real, rooted one. Something unrepeatable. Once you give it up, it's gone. That part of you dies, and the corridor feeds on it."
"And if I don't give it anything?"
"You stay here. Loop until your mind breaks. These doors don't close. They wait."
Thale stepped toward the slot.
Nothing happened.
She pressed her fingers against it. Cold. Deep.
Her vision flickered.
She saw herself.
Standing in a white hallway, older, armored. Surrounded by red lights and klaxons. A vault door behind her. Her own voice, whispering a command. Then a hand—her hand—slamming a panel. Locking something inside.
The vision passed.
"That wasn't real," she murmured.
"Doesn't matter," Vermidge said. "If it felt like it was yours, it's enough."
She reached into the memory. Let it rise. Let it *hurt*.
The door inhaled. The slot pulled light inward.
Then: a click.
The door slid open without a sound.
Beyond it, blackness. Soft. Quiet. Almost warm.
Thale turned to Vermidge. "You coming?"
He stared at the slot. "I've got nothing left to give."
She nodded once.
Then stepped through.
The door closed behind her.
**End of Chapter 2: The Corridor of Rot**