The instant he stepped through, the world forgot how to hold itself together.
No stone. No sky. No air.
Just silence. Crushing, cold, and endless.
Crispin staggered. The ground beneath him wasn't ground—it was memory, shaped into broken platforms that floated like shattered dreams. Each one flickered with fragments of past Gates. A blood-soaked corridor here. A jungle filled with monster carcasses there. A half-burned photo of Yara—
What the hell is this place?
No System prompt. No status screen.
Even Gatewalk was gone.
The interface wasn't broken.
It had left.
Something had closed the door behind him—and bolted it shut.
The First Step Down
He walked forward, breath shallow.
The realm pulsed with a heartbeat not his own. The further he went, the less sense things made.
A floating archway.
A staircase that led to nowhere.
A hallway made of screaming mouths sewn shut.
Then he saw it.
Himself.
No armor. No blade.
Just Crispin David—taller, leaner, coated in jagged shadows and wearing a cloak stitched from fading faces. His eyes glowed dim violet. Empty of mercy.
He sat on a throne made of collapsed Gates.
And he was smiling.
"About time you showed up."
Crispin stopped a few meters away, posture tight. "What are you?"
The other Crispin leaned forward, elbows on knees, like a bored king addressing a subject.
"I'm your inevitable future."
The Conversation With a Mirror
"No," Crispin said.
"Yes," his reflection replied. "I'm the version of you that stopped pretending he wasn't already dead inside."
"I'm not dead."
"Not yet," the Echo smirked. "But you've stopped living. You know it. You've started caring more about control than about survival."
"You're just a freak conjured up by this Gate."
"Maybe." The Echo leaned back. "But I remember everything. I remember begging Arlen not to follow me. I remember the night Yara said I looked like someone else. I remember her crying when I didn't hug her back."
Crispin clenched his fists.
"You're not me."
The Echo stood.
"Not anymore."
And behind him, they rose.
A legion of Echoes—creatures he'd killed, monsters he'd burned, humans he'd silenced. All of them stood in line behind this twisted version of himself, wearing chains, crowned in shadow.
He recognized every one.
"These were mine once. Now they're his."
Crispin drew his blade.
"You talk too much."
The Duel
The fight started with no countdown.
Shadow Crispin vanished.
A shockwave cracked through the floating floor. Crispin rolled, parried blindly, caught a blur of movement behind him, twisted—and felt his arm snap under the pressure of a kick that felt like a truck.
He bit down hard enough to taste blood, used the momentum, flipped over his attacker's shoulder, slashed mid-air.
Shadow Crispin caught the blade.
With his bare hand.
The metal sizzled against his palm but didn't cut.
"Cute," he said.
Crispin grit his teeth and pulled back, twisted, threw an elbow—landed it. Shadow Crispin stumbled—but smiled again. Blood trickled from his mouth.
"I remember when I was still this weak," he said.
They clashed again.
And again.
And again.
No winner. No fatigue. Only rising rage.
The Revelation
Their final clash broke a floating platform in half. Crispin tumbled, caught a ledge, pulled himself up.
Shadow Crispin stood over him.
And for the first time—he didn't strike.
Instead, he crouched.
"There's something I want you to see."
He placed a hand on Crispin's chest.
Crispin's world flashed.
And suddenly
He wasn't in the realm anymore.
He was somewhere else.
The True First Gate
A plain room, white and endless.
A single door made of black metal wrapped in red chains.
It pulsed. Alive.
It saw him.
Words seared themselves into his vision.
[ACCESS: LOCKED]
[KEY DETECTED — CRISPIN DAVID]
[RESTRICTIONS: ACTIVE]
[SYSTEM CONTINGENCY ENGAGED]
And then—something screamed.
Not aloud.
In his mind.
The Gate shrieked like a wounded god, and Crispin stumbled back.
He landed again on the floating ruins of the Unscalable Gate.
Back in the fight.
Back in his body.
Shadow Crispin knelt beside him.
"You're the only one it lets near," he said softly. "It doesn't want you dead. It wants you opened."
Crispin groaned, blood dripping from his mouth.
"Why tell me this?" he whispered.
Shadow Crispin grinned.
"Because I want to see what happens when you finally break the lock."
The Return
He woke up in the crater.
Ash was still falling like snow.
Guild medics shouted. Arlen's voice broke through the noise.
"Crispin!"
He blinked, throat dry.
He was alive.
He'd come back.
But something had changed.
Inside him—something else had come with him.
A tiny mark.
A burning seal.
A chain, inked red across his chest beneath the skin.
It pulsed once.
And then was silent.
Later That Night
Yara sat beside him, reading some dumb fantasy novel with a wizard and a cat that talked in riddles. She didn't say anything about the blood on his sleeve. Or the fact that he didn't blink when she touched his shoulder.
But before she went to bed, she looked back at him.
"You're not going to disappear again… right?"
He didn't lie.
He didn't speak.
He just nodded slowly.
And stared at the wall.
Because deep down, he knew the truth.
Something was calling him.
And one day soon…
He would answer.