Erel tested the rope around his waist, checking the knots with methodical precision. Well, this is reassuring. Trusting my life to someone who might literally be a construct designed to ensure I drown. But what choice do I have? Stone's busy being traumatized, Adren's clearly planning to go solo, and everyone else is... well, fewer in number than when we started.
The ballroom felt colder now, shadows lengthening despite the unchanging light from the submerged chandeliers. Eleanor's drowned form waited beside the ornate tub with the patience of the dead, black water pooling at her feet and spreading across the marble in patterns that hurt to look at directly.
"Eleanor's memories will try to make me live her experiences as if they were my own," he said aloud, his voice echoing strangely in the waterlogged space. "The key is maintaining separation between observer and participant."
Plus not letting Grey 'accidentally' drop the rope if she turns out to be programmed to eliminate threats to the narrative.
"How can you be so calm about this?" Grey asked, studying his face for any sign of the fear that should be there. Her detective's instincts were clearly picking up on something—whether his unnatural composure or the calculated way he assessed every person in the room.
"Because panic gets people killed. And I've already died enough times to know the difference between actual danger and psychological manipulation."
Seeing Grey's confused expression, Erel chuckled slightly and moved forward. Right, normal people don't casually reference their own deaths. Should probably work on that.
The other survivors watched the exchange with varying degrees of tension. Captain Stone stood rigidly at attention, his military bearing intact despite the psychological trauma of his own trial. Dr. West fidgeted nervously, still shaken by his failure to save Miss Blackwood. Madame Ravenwood muttered quietly to herself, her theatrical persona subdued in the face of genuine supernatural horror.
He paused at the edge of the tub, the clear water seeming to deepen infinitely beneath him. The surface was perfectly still, reflecting the ballroom's twisted elegance with mirror-like precision. Yet something moved in those depths—not physical shapes, but the suggestion of memories, experiences, entire lifetimes waiting to drag him down.
Of course, if Grey is a construct, she might be programmed to seem helpful right up until the moment she isn't. But I need someone to hold the rope, and she's the least suspicious option available.Grey's grip tightened around the rope, her knuckles white with determination. "I won't let go."
Trust me, I really hope you won't. Erel nodded once and submerged.
The transition felt like diving through liquid starlight that burned cold against his skin, each layer of reality peeling away as he descended through Eleanor's past. The drowning chamber dissolved around him like watercolors in rain, replaced by something far more visceral and immediate.
He found himself in a massive control room filled with gauges, levers, and the thunderous sound of rushing water that seemed to shake the very foundations of reality. The air was thick with humidity and the metallic taste of fear, while warning lights cast everything in an apocalyptic red glow.
Eleanor stood before an enormous control panel, her hands steady on a series of massive levers despite the chaos erupting around her. She was older here than in Stone's memory, perhaps thirty, wearing the practical coveralls of a dam operator. Through reinforced windows that spanned the entire far wall, Erel could see a raging flood bearing down on the valley below—and a town full of people who had no idea death was racing toward them at thirty miles per hour.
Dam operator. Of course. Nothing says 'noble sacrifice' like choosing between your own life and an entire town.
The scale of the disaster was breathtaking. The upstream dam had suffered a catastrophic failure—whether from the storm, structural weakness, or simple bureaucratic negligence was irrelevant now. What mattered was the wall of water twenty feet high and growing, carrying with it the debris of destroyed farms, shattered trees, and the occasional glimpse of something that might once have been a building.
Eleanor had maybe ten minutes before the flood reached the populated areas below. Through the window, Erel could see the lights of the town twinkling innocently in the evening darkness—families eating dinner, children doing homework, people living their ordinary lives with no idea that death was approaching with unstoppable inevitability.
And let me guess—the only way to divert the flood requires someone to manually operate controls that are about to be underwater.
As if responding to his thoughts, Eleanor's hands moved across the control panel with practiced efficiency. Warning messages flashed on multiple screens: MANUAL OVERRIDE REQUIRED. AUTOMATIC SYSTEMS OFFLINE. SPILLWAY CONTROLS UNRESPONSIVE. The emergency spillways could still be opened, but only through direct manual operation—and the control room would be completely flooded within minutes of beginning the sequence.
Eleanor's options were brutally simple: she could open the emergency spillways to divert the flood, but someone had to remain at the manual controls to keep them open against the massive hydraulic pressure. The control room would flood completely, drowning whoever stayed behind in a matter of minutes.
There it is. The classic heroic choice: save yourself or save everyone else. No middle ground, no clever third option. I really am grateful for being born selfish.
Erel felt Eleanor's emotions pressing against his consciousness like a physical weight—her terror at the approaching water, her determination to save the town, her grief at the family photographs taped to her control panel that she would never see again. The memory wanted him to experience her fear as if it were his own, to blur the line between observer and participant until he forgot which life was his.
Nope. I'm observing, not participating. I refuse to drown vicariously in someone else's heroic sacrifice.
But as Eleanor began the sequence to open the spillways, Erel found himself genuinely impressed by her calm efficiency. No dramatic speeches, no last-minute hesitation, no tearful goodbyes to photographs. Just competent professionalism in the face of certain death, each action performed with the precision of someone who had drilled for this moment countless times.
She's not being brave because she's fearless. She's being brave because she's terrified and doing it anyway.
The water began pouring into the control room as the spillways opened with a grinding roar that shook the building. Eleanor stood at her post, hands steady on the controls, keeping the channels clear as the redirected flood roared past the town toward the empty reservoir beyond. The force of the diverted water created a pressure wave that rattled the windows and sent vibrations through the steel and concrete structure.
This is where it gets dangerous. Where her noble death becomes more compelling than my ignoble survival.
The rising water reached Eleanor's waist with shocking speed, the icy cold making her gasp but not waver from her task. Through the windows, Erel could see the flood's main body rushing harmlessly past the town toward the spillway channels Eleanor had opened. The lights of the community remained steady—families still safe, still unaware of how close death had come.
Everyone she saves will go home tonight. Kiss their families, complain about their jobs, worry about trivial problems. They'll never know her name or what she did for them.
The water reached Eleanor's chest, then her neck. She took one last deep breath and submerged, still working the controls underwater with practiced precision. Her lungs burned, her vision darkened, but she held her position until the flood had completely passed, counting the seconds by the rhythmic pressure of the hydraulic systems against her hands.
And she's okay with that. She's not doing this for recognition or gratitude. She's doing it because it needs to be done.
Erel felt the memory trying to drag him deeper, wanting him to experience Eleanor's drowning as his own death. Her noble sacrifice pulled at something in his consciousness, trying to make her choice his choice, her death his death.
Wait. This feels familiar. The weight of other people's lives in your hands. The choice between self-preservation and protecting others. Just like...
The memory shifted without warning, and suddenly Erel wasn't experiencing Eleanor's death—he was reliving his parents' final moments. The planar tear opening like a wound in reality, the shadow wraiths pouring through with their hunger for living essence, the impossible choice between saving themselves or throwing their three-year-old son to safety.
No. That's not what happened. They didn't choose to die—they were forced into an impossible situation.
But as the memory deepened, Erel saw something he'd never understood before. His parents had had options. They could have both escaped together if they had chosen to abandon him. They could have saved themselves and left him behind.
They chose to save me. Just like Eleanor chose to save the town. They weren't victims of circumstance—they were heroes who made the hard choice of saving their responsibility rather than their own future.
The realization hit him like a physical blow, sending ripples through the flooding memory. His parents hadn't died because of his curiosity or weakness or some cosmic injustice. They'd died because they were the kind of people who couldn't live with themselves if they saved their own lives at the cost of their three-year-old child.
And here I am, spending my entire existence feeling guilty about their choice.
The water was filling his lungs now, Eleanor's drowning becoming his drowning. But instead of fighting it, Erel let himself understand what she had understood—that some things were worth dying for, and some choices defined who you were regardless of the consequences.
The secret isn't avoiding the drowning. It's choosing what you're willing to drown for.
The memory released its hold on him, recognizing that he had learned its lesson. Eleanor's wisdom—that dignity came from conscious choice even in the face of terrible outcomes—settled into his understanding like a missing piece of a puzzle.
Erel surfaced in the ballroom tub, gasping but intact. The transition back to reality felt like breaking through ice, the waterlogged ballroom seeming almost warm compared to the freezing flood waters of memory. Grey's hands remained steady on the rope, her grip strong and sure throughout the entire ordeal.
"What did you see?" Grey asked, helping him climb out of the tub. Her detective's instincts were clearly working overtime, cataloging his reactions for later analysis.
"A shit-ton of water," Erel replied, wringing the supernatural moisture from his shirt. The water felt real enough, though it left no puddles on the marble floor. "And a woman who understood something about choices that took me eighteen years to figure out."
Eleanor's drowned form nodded approvingly, black water streaming from her hollow eye sockets. "Wisdom... earned through... witnessing. You understand... the weight... of conscious... choice."
"I understand that being a hero isn't about having powers or being fearless," Erel said quietly, though his tone remained characteristically dry. "It's about doing the right thing when doing the wrong thing would be so much easier."
Adren approached the Victorian tub with careful, measured steps, his hazel eyes scanning the water's surface for any hint of what horrors lay beneath. The lack of a partner didn't seem to concern him—if anything, he looked relieved to be working alone, away from the complications of trust and dependence.
"Foolish... to attempt... my trial... without anchor," Eleanor gurgled, black water streaming from her lips in an endless cascade that somehow never pooled on the floor. "The memories... will claim... the unmoored."
"Maybe," Adren replied, testing the rope with the methodical efficiency of someone who had learned to trust only his own preparations. "But I've spent three months learning not to depend on other people when my life is on the line."
His voice carried the weight of hard-earned experience, the kind that came from repeated failures and small betrayals. Erel recognized the tone—it was the same one he used when people asked about his family.
Adren tied one end of the rope around his waist with practiced knots, then, in a move that surprised everyone watching, secured the other end around his own wrist in a complex harness configuration.
"That won't work," Captain Stone said grimly, his military experience evident in the certainty of his assessment. "You can't anchor yourself."
Adren's smile held more desperation than confidence, but there was something else there too—the grim determination of someone who had been backed into corners before and found ways to fight out of them. "You'd be surprised what you can do when the alternative is letting down someone who's counting on you."
Mira's face flashed in his mind—thin from worry, eyes dark with sleepless nights, waiting for him to come home from what was supposed to be a simple academic research trip. He'd failed her once by running away from their toxic family situation. He wouldn't fail her again by dying in some supernatural bathtub.
The water in the tub seemed to respond to his approach, the surface developing tiny ripples despite the absence of any breeze. Eleanor's presence grew stronger as he prepared to descend, the temperature in the ballroom dropping several degrees.
He stepped into the water and descended into Eleanor's memories.
The memory that manifested was different from what Erel had experienced—instead of adult heroics and impossible choices, Adren found himself in a lighthouse during a terrible storm. The building swayed with each gust of wind, its stone foundations groaning under the assault of waves that crashed against the rocks below with the force of artillery shells.
Young Eleanor, maybe sixteen, was the sole keeper on duty when ships began foundering in the treacherous waters below. She moved through the lighthouse with the competence of someone trained for this responsibility, but her face showed the strain of someone far too young to bear such weight alone.
Well, this is appropriately symbolic. Guiding others to safety while risking your own life.
The lighthouse's main beacon had failed during the storm, its massive lens cracked by flying debris and its electrical systems shorted by the driving rain. Through the lamp room windows, Eleanor could see ships approaching the deadly coastline, their navigation lights bobbing desperately in the towering waves as they struggled against winds that seemed determined to drive them onto the rocky shoals.
Young Eleanor had only one option—the emergency flare system. But it required someone to manually operate it from the lamp room at the top of the lighthouse, which was already being battered by waves that crashed over the structure with each surge, sending spray and debris flying through the air like shrapnel.
The storm was a monster of wind and water, each gust strong enough to tear a person from the lighthouse's external ladder. The manual flare system was an emergency backup from the days before electric lights, requiring someone to physically reload and fire signal rockets at precise intervals to mark the safe passage through the shoals.
Adren felt the memory's pull immediately—stronger than what the others had described, perhaps because he was attempting it without an external anchor. Eleanor's determination began bleeding into his own consciousness, her desperate need to save the ships becoming his desperate need to save them. The psychological pressure was like drowning in emotion rather than water.
No. This isn't my memory. This isn't my responsibility. And I am not dying in a teenager's maritime fantasy when Mira needs me to come home.
But the memory's emotional weight was overwhelming. Eleanor's anguish at watching ships head toward destruction, her terror at climbing the storm-lashed lighthouse, her absolute refusal to let people die when she could prevent it—all of it pressed against Adren's mind like a crushing tide that threatened to sweep away his sense of self.
That's when something awakened in the Imaginarium within him. Fenrir, the wolf that was destined to break free from any chain, responded to the impossible situation.
Phase slip.
His body began to flicker between states, becoming incorporeal in the specific way that the legendary wolf was said to escape all bonds—not through brute strength, but through the fundamental refusal to remain constrained by physical limitations. The transformation felt like stepping partially out of reality itself, his form becoming translucent and somehow less substantial.
The storm winds passed through him harmlessly as he climbed the lighthouse's external ladder, his translucent form unaffected by the crushing waves and flying debris that would have torn a solid body apart. Young Eleanor's terror could no longer drag him down because he was no longer fully present in the physical memory.
Good. Now I can help instead of just drowning in her memories. Who knew my mythic ability could break through the bounds of memories as well?
But the ability came with a cost that became apparent immediately. Each second of phase slip drained his Flux reserves dramatically, and more dangerously, it weakened his connection to his own identity. His sense of self was becoming as insubstantial as his body, threatening to dissolve entirely if he maintained the state too long.
Can't maintain this long. Need to find another way through this.
Instead of simply enduring Eleanor's trial or trying to outlast the memory through supernatural abilities, Adren did something unexpected—he began to actively assist her rather than just survive her experience. His wolf instincts, enhanced by desperation and mythic resonance, showed him solutions the panicked teenager had missed in her fear.
There—the backup generator. She doesn't know about it because she's too scared to think clearly.
The lighthouse had been built with redundancies, backup systems installed by engineers who understood that failure meant death for sailors caught in storms. Eleanor, in her terror and inexperience, was focused only on the dramatic solution—the dangerous climb to manually operate the flare system.
"The basement," he whispered, his voice somehow reaching across decades of memory to touch the frightened girl's consciousness. "There's a backup power system. You don't have to risk the lamp room."
Young Eleanor, responding to some echo of hope that seemed to come from nowhere, abandoned her suicidal climb and found the hidden generator room. The backup beacon blazed to life just as the first ship reached the dangerous waters, its brilliant beam cutting through the storm to guide the vessel safely around the shoals that would have torn its hull apart.
The memory collapsed around them—not because Eleanor had died in a storm, but because she had found the way to save everyone, including herself. The lighthouse dissolved back into the flooded ballroom, reality reasserting itself with the weight of marble and chandelier light.
Adren surfaced in the ballroom tub, gasping and exhausted but unbroken. The rope around his waist had remained slack throughout—he truly had anchored himself through sheer stubborn will and creative problem-solving rather than convention and trust.
Eleanor's bloated features showed something approaching respect, her hollow eyes focusing on him with an intensity that made the air itself feel heavier. "Remarkable... to guide... rather than... simply endure. Few possess... the will... to change... memory itself."
"I learned something important recently," Adren said quietly, untying the rope from his waist with hands that shook slightly from Flux exhaustion. "Sometimes survival isn't about making the noble sacrifice everyone expects. Sometimes it's about being clever enough to find the third option."
Six survivors remained: Erel, Grey, Stone, West, Ravenwood, and Adren. The night was far from over, but they had proven they could work together when it mattered—even if that cooperation was built on suspicion and necessity rather than trust.
"The next... trial... awaits," Eleanor gurgled, gesturing toward a corridor that led deeper into the mansion's twisted architecture. The hallway beyond seemed to shift slightly when not observed directly, walls breathing with subtle organic motion. "Lady Lydia... grows... impatient."
As they prepared to follow her deeper into the mansion's labyrinthine interior, Erel caught Adren's eye. Something had changed in the young man during his trial—a hardness that spoke of lines crossed and prices paid. They were all being changed by this place, shaped by its trials into something different from what they had been.
The question was whether they would still be recognizably human when it was over.