Ethan gasped for air, his hands clutching the floor beneath him. He could still feel the presence of the figure—the shadow—that had emerged from the cracks. Its voice lingered in his mind, like static bleeding through a radio.
"You broke it all."
The room was silent now. The cracks had sealed, leaving only a faint buzz in the air. His chest heaved, and sweat trickled down his forehead. He wiped it away with a trembling hand, but when he looked at his fingers, they were covered in black dust. Like the remnants of something that no longer existed.
The walls—bare and silent moments ago—were now lined with markings. Symbols, familiar and yet foreign, scrawled across the concrete. They shifted in front of his eyes, moving like ink that refused to stay still.
His heart raced. This wasn't just some forgotten dream.
It was the place where it had all begun.
The ground beneath him hummed again, and the light overhead flickered violently. Ethan stumbled to his feet, scanning the room.
What happened?
As if in answer, the walls began to peel away in slow, painful strips, revealing something beneath them—a hidden layer. A layer of the world he hadn't seen before. And the more they peeled away, the more familiar it became.
His childhood home.
He blinked. Impossible.
The room shifted, faded—no longer a decaying concrete shell, but a living room. The same couch his mother used to sit on. The same old carpet. The photographs on the walls. Everything was just as it had been when he was a child.
Except… it wasn't right.
The pictures on the wall had changed.
He saw a younger version of himself in one, but it wasn't a memory he recognized. A day at the park—laughing. He was playing with someone. A girl, perhaps. Someone important. But he couldn't remember who she was.
He reached out to touch the frame—but as his fingers brushed the glass, the photo blurred. The edges melted into shadow. His reflection in the glass twisted, warping into the outline of that same figure he had seen in the cracks.
The shadow.
He recoiled, stumbling backward.
"You're breaking it all again," the voice from the shadow whispered. It wasn't just a voice—it was a presence. A pulse. Something that thrummed at the edges of his mind. "You were supposed to forget."
Forget?
He felt the weight of the words crush him. The weight of memories he couldn't access. A part of him knew the answer, but it was locked away. Every time he tried to reach for it, something pushed him back. Like the world was unremembering.
Ethan ran to the door—but when he reached it, it too began to blur. The edges folded inward, becoming liquid, like water spilling through cracks in glass. No escape.
He slammed his fists against the walls. "I don't want to break it. I don't want to forget."
The voice answered again. This time, it felt closer. Almost within him.
"You can't wake up. Not yet. Not until you understand. There's a reason you're still here. But you're not the only one."
Ethan turned, heart pounding.
The figure stepped out of the shadows—slowly, purposefully. Its movements were jagged, glitching, as if reality itself couldn't handle its form. It didn't belong in this world. But it was here, now. Watching him.
"I'm… I'm not alone?" Ethan whispered.
The figure tilted its head. It understood. It was part of the puzzle. Part of the truth Ethan was so desperately searching for.
"You're not. There's always been two."
The room around him warped again, and suddenly, he was no longer alone. A second version of him—different, but the same—stood next to him.
The other Ethan.
This version looked… broken. Haggard. Eyes wide with confusion. Like it had seen the end of something.
"What is this?" Ethan asked, his voice shaking. "Who are you?"
The other Ethan looked at him, eyes haunted. "You… you're the dreamer. The one who wakes up too early."
The words hit him like a slap. Dreamer?
Before he could ask more, the world snapped again. The figure—his shadow—was gone. The walls started peeling once more, and Ethan was falling, falling through layers of memories, of time, of spaces that shouldn't have existed.
Then—darkness.