No one said a word for a while.
Kenton had resumed fiddling with his perimeter tools—thin, metallic wires that shimmered when touched, like spider silk dipped in oil. Dani crouched beside the far wall, eyes flitting between shadow and glyph, never resting too long in one spot. Dario lay curled at Lance's feet, breathing steadily, rhythmically, like the only metronome in a town that had long abandoned time.
Lance didn't move.
He sat beneath the fractured mural, back pressed to the cold, warped bone of the chamber wall. The saint painted above him seemed to shift when he blinked—its sewn mouth straining subtly against the thread, its branch-like arms twitching just enough to notice but not enough to trust.
The words whispered earlier still lingered in the air, like smoke caught in the lungs.
"You can't walk deeper than your guilt."
Lance stared at the saint's halo—receipts, all of them. Faded, curling. Grocery receipts. Pharmacy scripts. Dates printed in soft pink thermal ink. One of them... he thought... maybe he recognized. That deli on 43rd he'd always meant to try. The place he passed twice a week but never stepped into. A receipt for a sandwich he never bought.
He stood slowly. His knees didn't want to. Dario's head lifted but didn't protest.
"You see something?" Dani asked from across the room.
Lance didn't answer. He raised a hand and touched the mural.
The paint was dry.
But his fingers came away damp.
He stepped back.
The saint's face flickered. No, not flickered—peeled. The paint pulled away, slow and silent, curling back like the corner of an old sticker.
Behind it was bone.
No, not bone—a seam.
"I think this wall opens," Lance said.
Kenton looked up sharply. "Why do you think that?"
"Because it just blinked at me."
That got Dani's attention.
She stood, weapon held low but ready. "Elaborate."
"I touched it," Lance said, heartbeat rising, "and it felt wrong. Like the paint was wet. And then... it moved."
Kenton stood slowly, approaching with caution. "Seams aren't supposed to be reachable this deep."
"Well, congratulations," Dani muttered. "Your map's now useless."
Lance touched the wall again. This time, he pushed gently.
The bone behind the mural yielded.
A soft creak. A sigh, like breath escaping something long buried.
A section of the wall folded inward, curling like an eyelid opening.
Behind it—stairs.
Narrow. Spiral.
Again.
But these were different.
They were smoother. And they pulsed. Very slightly. Like something sleeping was using them as lungs.
Kenton swore under his breath.
Dani stared.
Then smiled, just a little. "Of course there's a second spiral staircase."
"Should we—?" Lance started.
But Dani was already walking.
Kenton hesitated, fingers trembling near the edge of his notebook, then followed.
Lance looked down at Dario.
The dog stood without command.
They descended.
The second spiral was shorter, tighter. The walls were ribbed. They didn't shine—they absorbed light, drinking it like something thirsty. The air thickened the further down they went, like walking through a soup of dust and grief.
At the bottom was a doorway.
Not a door—just a jagged arch carved out of material that didn't feel like stone. It pulsed with a slow, biological rhythm. Almost cardiac.
Beyond it was a room.
And in that room: mirrors.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Arranged in a tight circle.
Each mirror reflected the room.
But not the same version of it.
In some, Lance saw Dani standing beside him. In others, she wasn't there. In one, Kenton was gone—and instead, there was a woman with his eyes, wearing a lab coat soaked in ink.
In one mirror—only one—Lance stood alone.
No Dario.
No Dani.
No Kenton.
Just him. Pale-eyed. Still. With something crawling just beneath the skin of his forehead, twitching every few seconds, like it was trying to learn what a face looked like.
He turned away.
"What is this place?" Dani murmured.
"A memory fracture site," Kenton whispered, pulling out a small scanner that immediately shorted out in his hand. "They used to trap pieces of identity here. Test what stuck."
Lance backed away from the mirrors.
His reflection didn't follow him.
It stayed.
Staring.
"Okay," he said softly. "That's enough. I don't want to—"
The ground shuddered.
A low groan, like pressure equalizing in something wet and cavernous.
One of the mirrors flickered. Cracked.
And something behind it leaned forward.
A face, wrong in subtle ways. The teeth didn't line up. The hair moved like it was breathing. The eyes were his, but they blinked out of sync.
Then the mirror shattered.
And the thing inside stepped through.
It was him.
But it was built wrong. Too long in the legs, too calm in the smile. Its voice came before its lips moved:
"Lance."
Dario growled low, fur on end.
Dani raised her weapon, finger twitching over the trigger.
Kenton stumbled back, jaw clenched.
Lance didn't move.
The thing tilted its head. "You're not real enough yet. But you will be. I'm just here to see what I'll fix when I become you."
Then it took a step.
And Lance felt something in his own spine unlock.
A phantom nerve.
An echo of pain that hadn't happened yet.
Dani fired.
The grenade didn't explode—it unraveled. Threads of energy whipped around the doppelgänger and shredded the nearest mirror instead.
Glass burst. Screamed.
The thing hissed. Turned.
And walked back into another reflection.
Gone.
But not far.
They stood in silence.
Lance was shaking again.
Not from fear this time.
From the ache in his back.
Kenton wiped sweat from his brow. "We need to leave this room. Now."
Dani didn't argue.
As they climbed back up, the mirrors didn't break again.
But every few steps, Lance could feel something watching through the glass.
One version of himself.
Waiting for him to catch up.
Or fall behind.