Aiden's eyes flew open, his chest heaving as a strangled cry ripped from his throat.
"Damn it!"
The curse burst into the still air, crashing against the stone walls like a blade dragged across rusted iron. It didn't just echo—it lingered, twisting back at him with unnatural sharpness. A reminder. This wasn't his cabin. No creaking wood, no scent of firewood or damp soil grounding him to a forest clearing.
This place was wrong.
Empty.Silent.Dead.
He didn't move. Couldn't.
The air was thick—stale, unmoving—as if time itself had stopped breathing here. The cold bit into his skin, and a foul scent curled in the corners of his awareness: damp stone, decay, and something coppery beneath it all.
Blood.Rust.Rot.
Panic sparked in his chest.
Where was he?
He tried to shift, but pain flared. His wrists screamed in protest. He looked down—and froze.
Chains.
Iron shackles gnawed into his skin, old and rusted, but merciless. His arms were pulled back unnaturally, his knees twisted beneath him, throbbing with pain from the contorted position. The cuffs left his skin raw, red, and burning with every slight twitch.
Aiden clenched his jaw, flexed his fingers—just to feel something other than the cold grip of steel and the growing sense of dread crawling up his spine.
He pulled once.
Twice.
The chains didn't budge.
Then—sound.Barely audible.Footsteps.
Slow.Measured.Inescapable.
They grew louder with each step, echoing like a heartbeat carved from stone. Aiden turned his head, eyes locked on the far corner of the cell where shadows rippled across the wall. A faint light—icy blue and unnatural—glowed from above, casting long, twitching silhouettes that danced like ghosts.
From that swirling darkness, a figure emerged.
Tall.Graceful.Wrong.
And yet... familiar.
Aiden's breath caught in his throat.
It was him.
Or something that wore his face.
His heart stuttered. Disbelief flooded him.
"Wait…" His voice cracked, hoarse and fragile. "That's… me?"
The figure stepped closer, light glinting off its sharp features—his features. The same tousled blond hair. The same piercing blue eyes. But those eyes… they weren't human. They gleamed with a cold, calculated light. Something ancient. Something cruel.
The face smiled—but it was hollow, twisted. A predator's grin.
"Pathetic," the figure sneered, voice gravel-thick and laced with disdain. "You look like something a bear would chew up and spit out."
Laughter followed. Low. Cruel. Not just sound, but a presence. It filled the cell like black smoke, clinging to Aiden's skin, seeping into his bones.
Aiden didn't answer.
He stared.
At himself.At what he might become.At what might already be him.
A skinwalker. A mockery. A shadow.
Seconds passed like centuries.
Chains clinked softly with each shallow breath.
Then, Aiden spoke—quietly, as if speaking louder would shatter him.
"Am I the real one… or is he?"
His gaze searched the doppelgänger's face for something—anything—that would tether him to truth. But there was only that smile. Cold. Mocking. Endless.
And in that smile was the worst thing of all:
Doubt.
His thoughts spiraled. Memories crashed over him—victories, losses, choices, regrets. They all blurred. Fragmented. Which ones were real? Which were echoes?
His voice trembled.
"Who am I now? The shadow… or the ghost?"
The skinwalker's eyes glinted with something unreadable—pity, maybe. Or amusement.
"You don't know," the thing said softly, stepping closer. "You've broken too many times. Shattered into so many pieces you can't remember what the whole ever looked like."
Aiden's heart pounded.
He shook his head, defiance igniting in his chest.
"No," he said, voice hardening. "I remember. Every death. Every failure. Every damned moment I stood back up."
The skinwalker smiled wider, stepping into the pale light like a blade unsheathed.
"Good," he said. "Because soon, you'll have to decide what to keep… and what to let die."
Aiden swallowed, tongue tasting iron.
"What are you?" he demanded.
The figure tilted his head.
"I'm what you left behind," it said. "The part of you that refused to die. The part that doesn't break."
Understanding struck like a hammer.
This thing wasn't just a copy.It was him—distilled through suffering, sharpened by failure, born of death.The survivor. The monster. The fragment too stubborn to fade.
His fingers curled into fists, chains biting deeper.
"What do you want?"
The skinwalker leaned in, breath icy against Aiden's cheek.
"To replace you," it whispered. "To finish the game. To become the real Aiden."
Aiden's rage surged, white-hot.
"No," he snarled. "You're nothing but a shadow. I won't let you win."
The double's eyes narrowed.
"We'll see."
Then—footsteps again.From outside.More of them.
The skinwalker stepped backward, swallowed by darkness like a phantom returning to the abyss.
Aiden was left alone.
Chained.Breathing hard.Trembling with fury.
And drowning in the silence that followed.
Only one thought clung to his mind—tight, merciless, unrelenting:
Which of us is real?
The silence stretched long after the skinwalker vanished, but it wasn't peace—it was suffocating. Aiden sat in the dim glow, sweat chilling on his skin, heart pounding like war drums in his chest.
Every sound felt magnified now. The clinking of his chains. The crackling hum of the eerie light above. Even the beat of his own pulse seemed foreign, like it belonged to someone else.
He tried to steady his breathing. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Again.
But the doubt wouldn't let go.
What if he really wasn't the real one? What if everything—the memories, the fights, the pain—belonged to something else? Some copy born of fractured timelines and broken games?
His fingers trembled.
No. He couldn't afford to think like that. That way led to madness.
He had to believe. In something. In the fact that he was still here, still fighting, still breathing.
Aiden gritted his teeth and looked up toward the barred door. Shadows still moved beyond it. More were coming. More pieces of the game, more pieces of whatever truth this nightmare was trying to twist.
He wasn't done yet.
Not even close.
Let them come.
Let them all come.
Because real or not—he would decide who walked out of here.