The storm above the mountains never stopped. It had churned for so long that lightning had begun to look like veins across the sky — an unending heartbeat of the world that refused to die.Beneath it stood the Mansion.Stone ribs jutted from the cliffside, half-consumed by brambles of glass. The windows glowed faintly, pulsing with sickly blue light, as though the building had learned how to breathe. Rain ran backward along the walls, climbing instead of falling. Time here did not move forward — it coiled.Inside, Daichi stirred.He was standing where the light had left him: the plaza of the Forgotten City no longer existed. Instead, marble corridors extended endlessly, carved with runes that shifted like tides. The bone dice hung from his neck, heavier than they had before. Their surface whispered whenever he moved — voices too faint to recognize, but familiar enough to draw a shiver from muscles that no longer felt human.He looked down at his hands.They were fading and reforming at once, skin giving way to dust, then reweaving into flesh. He tried to breathe, and the breath came out as mist."What… am I now?"The walls answered, murmuring his name in layered echoes.Daichi tried to remember living — his daughter's face, her letters, the fragile hum of her laughter through a cheap phone speaker. But every time he focused, the memory splintered, melting into symbols and whispers. The Game was rebuilding him from the inside.He turned toward a mirror embedded in the marble. His reflection blinked a heartbeat before he did. Its eyes glowed blue — Mei's eyes, but hollowed. Behind the reflection, shapes flickered: people walking in circles, shadows that resembled every lost player."You carry the key now," a voice said.Daichi spun. Mei's figure appeared, woven from mist and candlelight. Her presence no longer bent the air as much as before — she was almost gone, a memory barely held together."I thought you disappeared.""I am only what remains of the rules," she said. "When the Host awakens, the past unravels. You must learn the laws before the next Game begins.""Next Game?" His throat tightened. "There's another?""There's always another."Outside, thunder rolled through the mansion's bones. Windows trembled. From the chambers below, faint laughter echoed — children's laughter, cut short by whispers.Daichi's voice shook. "I didn't want this.""No one does," Mei said softly. "Not the first host. Not the last. But the Mansion feeds on memory and debt — on those who owe something they can't repay. Its hunger calls, and players answer. It always begins again when the envelopes form."Daichi's mind flashed back to the ending of the Forgotten City — the black circle of sigils, Haruto's scream, the light swallowing them both. He clenched his fists. "Then I'll destroy it. I'll end The Game for good."Mei tilted her head. "To destroy the Game, you must learn its origin.""Then show me."She stepped closer, her outline dimming further until only her eyes remained. "Walk the halls. Each corridor opens to memory. Each memory shows a different truth. Beware which one you choose to keep."Then she was gone.The air shifted. The corridors rippled like fabric touched by wind. Daichi stood alone.He started walking.The first corridor was narrow, layered with tapestries that whispered in voices of the dead. Faces moved across the fabric — merchants, monks, children — the same statues from the Forgotten City, now breathing again. Their eyes followed him as he passed, blinking in and out like candle flames. The walls glowed faintly red, as if blood pumped behind stone.He reached a door carved from obsidian, its surface carved with the symbol of a spiral of eyes — the same mark that had sealed his envelope. When he touched it, the door melted.Inside was not a room, but a memory.He stood on a rainy street, the world flickering like a dying film reel. His daughter, Yui, waited by a crosswalk, holding a red umbrella. She turned, smiling. "Come home, Daddy."Daichi reached out — but the world trembled. Her voice distorted, deeper now, layered with whispers. "Come home, Host."The vision shattered. He fell backward into darkness.When he landed, the marble beneath him cracked. The mansion rearranged itself around him, forming an enormous hall filled with floating candles. Each candle contained an image — a moment from someone's past. Lovers parting. Children crying. Wars ending. The air pulsed with grief.A whisper followed him through the chamber: "The City holds the Forgotten. The Mansion holds the Forgivers.""What does that mean?" he called.No answer.Daichi approached one of the candles. It showed Haruto — half-broken, holding the candle from before, walking alone through the fog. But Haruto stopped, as if sensing Daichi through the flame. Their eyes met through realities."Haruto!" Daichi reached out, pressing his palm to the air.The candle flickered violently. It exploded into a rain of golden sparks, and from them emerged something huge — a shape made of folded paper and smoke, wearing dozens of faces. It crawled along the ceiling, whispering in every voice Daichi had ever heard."Host," it gurgled. "You carry our debt."The creature lunged.Daichi dodged, rolling across the cold floor. Instinct guided him more than thought. He yanked one of the bone dice from his necklace and threw it. The dice burst midair, expanding into a circle of glowing runes that froze the creature mid-motion."Stay back!" he shouted, though the command came with strange authority. The mansion obeyed.The beast convulsed and screamed like metal tearing. Then, slowly, it dissolved into mist.Daichi fell to his knees, panting. His hand trembled. He could feel the mansion shifting again, rewriting its shape. The dice had absorbed something — perhaps the memory of what he'd killed.Then, from the silence, a door opened ahead.He walked through it.This time, the world resembled an ancient archive — rows upon rows of shelves, stacked not with books but with envelopes. Each was sealed with the spiral-eye mark. Names shimmered faintly across them, flickering between legibility and oblivion.He stepped closer to one shelf. The envelopes whispered, overlapping in thousands of tones. He recognized some — Mina, Haruto, Mei — even his own. Each time he spoke a name aloud, that envelope pulsed brighter.The air spoke through them."Every player who forgets adds a note to the archive. Every loss feeds the mansion. Every survivor becomes Host."Daichi's jaw clenched. "Then you'll starve."He grabbed one envelope.Instantly, the room convulsed. The shelves bent outward, collapsing like waves. A great wind rose, shredding the paper, scattering names into the air. From the fragments, shapes began forming again — ghostly figures, half-formed and rumbling with pain.The Game's creations were waking.Daichi threw the envelope to the ground, but it had already opened. Inside was light — and a voice."Hello, Father."Yui's voice.He froze. "No…"The light flared, and a figure stepped out — his daughter, or what the mansion thought she was. Her dress was made of paper. Her eyes were the same sick blue as Mei's. She smiled beautifully, cruelly. "You said you'd come home. You lied.""I didn't—"Her hands extended — not hands anymore, but flowing ink, wrapping around him, pulling him into the illusion. He could see their old apartment, the unpaid bills, the empty chair where she used to wait with her sketches. The air smelled like rain and static."I wanted you to be proud," she whispered. "You never looked back."He screamed.The mansion trembled again. Candles shattered. Time folded. Mei's voice echoed through the storm."This is The Game, Daichi. You don't fight it. You forgive it."He clenched his fists, shaking, as light poured from the symbols along his arms. "Then I'll forgive… myself."The illusion broke with a sound like glass shattering underwater. Yui's ghost smiled one last time, serenity returning to her face, before dissolving into light that sank into his skin.The mansion went still.Daichi stood there, shaking. The bone dice glowed steadily around his neck, unburning, alive. For the first time, the voices in the walls quieted.He understood.The Game wasn't about survival or victory. It was a hunger born from guilt — an echo of every soul who couldn't forgive what had been lost. Every domain, every trial, every "forgotten city" was just another reflection of that wound replaying itself.The mansion began to crumble — but not into ruin. It unfolded.Walls became skies, towers extended upward as light poured from within. Daichi stepped forward into the forming dawn. Beyond the horizon, the storm slowed. Time loosened its grip.He could leave, he thought. Just walk out and be free.Then his gaze fell to the marble beneath him. It was covered again with the same sigils that once lined the Forgotten City. They pulsed with warm light — not evil this time, but awareness.The Game wasn't ending.It was waiting.Because far away, on another mountain wrapped in storm, five envelopes had already begun forming. Each bore a single mark of the spiral eye.Daichi lifted his hand. The bone dice floated beside him, circling like moons."So it begins again," he murmured. "But this time, I'll be watching."Behind him, the mansion shifted fully awake — a cathedral of memory and debt. Candles flickered in unison. The whispering started again, soft, reverent, like a prayer to something still human inside the ghost.Daichi walked into the storm.The Host endured.
