Somi held the white Tier 6 essence high above her head.
It was Glowing Bright like a white star on the cosmos.
She closed Her eyes,White Essence Hold tightly on her hand above.
Suddenly
Air Around Us screamed like A Star Taking It's Last Breathe And Going "Supernova"
The sound wasn't physical—it was metaphysical. Like the universe itself was being torn.
And Then
"BOOM"
Red velvet curtains, rich and deep. Gold filigree decorating the frame, intricate patterns that seemed to move when you weren't looking directly at them. And above, in flowing script that seemed to writhe and shift:
"THE ETERNAL STAGE"
"Tonight's Performance: Your Final Act"
"Admission: One Soul"
Music drifted through the curtains. A waltz—beautiful, haunting, but distorted. Off-key in ways that made my teeth hurt.
And underneath the music—singing. Hundreds of voices. Maybe thousands. All in eerie, perfect harmony.
The sound made my skin crawl. Made my bones ache.
"What is this place?" Lucy whispered, voice small and scared.
"A Tier 5 Mirror World," Somi said, staring at the door with her red eyes narrowed. "Completely different from the Tier 7 worlds we've seen. More complex. More dangerous. More real."
We stepped through the red velvet curtain.
The transition was instant and disorienting. One moment we were in the Crimson Barren, the next—
We were somewhere else entirely.
My first breath in The Eternal Stage tasted WRONG. The air was thick, perfumed with something sweet and rotting at the same time. Like flowers left too long in a vase. Like makeup on a corpse.
"Where... are we?" Lucy whispered.
I looked around, trying to process what I was seeing.
We stood in a massive theater foyer—but not like any theater from my world.
This was opulent. Decadent. And deeply, horribly wrong.
Beneath our feet: red carpet. Deep crimson, so dark it was almost black. But it wasn't clean. Dark stains covered it—brown, rust-colored patches that could only be old blood. Some stains were fresh enough to still look wet.
The carpet was plush, expensive, but worn. Threadbare in places. As if thousands—maybe millions—of feet had walked this path before us.
The walls were covered in red velvet wallpaper, the same material as the curtains we'd passed through. Gold filigree patterns ran along the edges—intricate, beautiful, hypnotic.
But the patterns moved when I wasn't looking directly at them. I'd focus on one section, and in my peripheral vision, I'd swear the gold designs were shifting. Crawling like living things.
Hanging on the walls: portraits.
Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Stretching down the foyer in both directions as far as I could see.
They showed performers—actors, actresses, dancers, singers. All in elaborate theatrical costumes. Victorian-era clothing. Edwardian dresses. Baroque suits.
But their eyes... their eyes all followed us as we moved.
Not painted to look like they were watching. Actually watchin.
And they were sad. Every face showed the same expression—sadness, resignation, desperation trapped behind a performer's smile.
Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling above. Massive, elaborate, beautiful.
But half the crystals were shattered. The candles—actual candles, not electric lights—burned with flames that flickered between normal yellow and deep crimson red.
The light they cast was wrong. Shadows fell at angles that didn't match the light sources. My shadow on the floor seemed to move half a second before I moved.
I looked up. The ceiling was painted with a massive mural—a theatrical scene. Performers on stage, audience watching, curtains drawn back.
But the figures in the mural were moving. Slowly. Subtly. Like a painting come to life.
As I watched, one of the painted figures turned its head and looked directly at me.
I looked away immediately, heart pounding.
The voices we'd heard from outside were louder now. Clearer.
Hundreds of voices—maybe thousands—all singing in perfect harmony. A wordless melody. Beautiful. Haunting. Wrong.
The singing came from everywhere and nowhere. From the walls. The ceiling. The floor. The air itself seemed to carry the sound.
Sometimes I could pick out individual voices in the chorus:
- A soprano, high and clear
- A tenor, strong and confident
- A child's voice, innocent and pure
- An old woman's voice, cracked but determined
- A man sobbing while he sang
All of them trapped in the same eternal performance.
Beyond the singing, instrumental music played. A waltz. Elegant. Classical.
Piano, violin, cello, harpsichord—a full orchestra somewhere out of sight.
But the notes were wrong. Off-key in ways that made my teeth hurt. The timing was perfect, but the melody felt corrupted. Like beautiful music heard through a broken mirror.
The air was neither hot nor cold. It was... neutral. Perfectly, artificially neutral in a way that felt unnatural.
No drafts. No air movement at all. Like we'd stepped into a sealed tomb.
That sweet-rot smell was everywhere. Perfume trying to cover decay. Roses and corruption. Stage makeup and old blood.
Underneath it all: dust. Centuries of dust.
Scattered around the foyer were theater props:
- A coat rack with elaborate costumes hanging—velvet capes, silk dresses, tailcoats
- A vanity table with makeup and mirrors (the reflections in the mirrors didn't quite match reality)
- Theater masks on pedestals—comedy and tragedy faces, but with too many expressions, faces that seemed to shift
- Prop swords and weapons that looked too real
- A music stand with sheet music covered in notes that rearranged themselves when I blinked
Three archways led out of the foyer:
Left Door:
A grand double door carved with dancing figures. The carvings moved slightly—dancers frozen mid-step, but their positions shifted when I wasn't watching.
Above it, a sign in flowing script: "ACT I - THE BALLROOM OF STRINGS"
Center Door:
A single large door made of dark wood, covered in theatrical masks. Each mask had a different expression—joy, sorrow, rage, fear, ecstasy, despair.
The eyes of the masks tracked our movement.
Sign: "ACT II - THE GALLERY OF FACES"
Right Door:
An archway draped with heavy curtains. Behind them, darkness. And singing—so much singing, louder than anywhere else.
Sign: "ACT III - THE CHORUS ETERNAL"
Ahead of us, at the far end of the foyer, a massive staircase curved upward into darkness.
Red carpet. Gold railings. Crystal chandeliers lighting the way.
At the top, barely visible through the gloom, another door. This one was different—larger, more ornate, radiating presence.
The translucent usher materialized beside us, silent as mist.an usher in old-fashioned theater attire. Top hat. Tuxedo. White gloves.
It smiled at us. But the smile was wrong. Sad. Resigned.
"Welcome to The Eternal Stage," the many-voices said in unison. "You stand in the Foyer of First Impressions. All performances begin here. All performers entered through these doors."
It gestured to the portraits on the walls.
"They came seeking glory. Fame. Immortality through art. The Queen granted their wishes. They perform forever now. Never aging. Never dying. Never stopping."
The usher's sad smile grew wider.
"You are the first visitors in many years. The first to enter unwillingly. The first to see the Stage not as performers... but as challengers."
Lucy grabbed my arm, her hand shaking. "Can we leave?"
The usher looked at her. All those overlapping faces, all those overlapping voices, all showing the same expression: pity.
"The door behind you is gone. You entered willingly. The Stage has accepted you. Now you must perform."
I turned around. The red curtain we'd entered through—gone. Just a solid wall covered in portraits.
We were trapped.
"You must pass the three trials," the usher continued. "Each trial is an act in the eternal performance. Complete them, prove your worth, and you may challenge the Queen herself."
"And if we fail?" Somi asked, voice cold.
The usher gestured to the portraits. To the singing voices. To the moving figures in the ceiling mural.
"Then you join the cast. Your face on the wall. Your voice in the chorus. Your body dancing forever on strings you cannot see."
Gery gripped his Tier 6 sword tighter. "We're not joining your cast."
"Many said the same." The usher began fading. "The Stage has heard such declarations before. It always ends the same way."
"Wait!" I called out. "What are the trials? What do we face?"
The usher was almost gone, just a whisper now:
"Act I - Dance with the puppets who forgot they had strings.
Act II - Face the masks that wear their wearers.
Act III - Join the chorus, or silence them forever.
Break a leg, dear visitors.
Or break entirely.
The usher vanished completely.
As we stood in the foyer, trying to process everything, I noticed more unsettling details:
The portraits blinked.Not all at once. One at a time. Random. But definitely blinking.
Footsteps echoed from empty spaces. Like invisible performers walking past us.
The shadows on the floor occasionally showed figures that weren't there—dancers, actors, shapes moving through the empty space.
The singing changed.Sometimes harmonious. Sometimes discordant. Sometimes it sounded like screaming hidden inside melody.
The temperature shifted in small ways—cold spots near certain portraits, warm areas near the doors, as if the environment itself was breathing.
The carpet under our feet felt soft in some places, hard in others. And sometimes—just sometimes—I felt it pulse, like we were standing on something alive.
Dust motes in the light didn't fall naturally. They danced. Swirled in patterns that looked almost choreographed.
The gold filigree on the walls definitely moved now. I could see it clearly—growing, spreading, retreating, like veins of metal crawling through the wallpaper.
Lucy was breathing fast, on the edge of panic. "This place is wrong. Everything here is wrong. We shouldn't be here. We need to leave. We need to—"
"There's no leaving," Somi interrupted, voice steady but tight. "The door is gone. The only way out is through."
Gery held his sword ready, but I could see his hands trembling slightly. "Which trial do we take first?"
Somi studied the three doors carefully. "The trials are probably meant to be done in order. Act I, Act II, Act III. But we might be able to choose."
I checked my pocket. The red essence was still there—warm, reassuring. Our ticket home if we survived.
If we survived.
"The ballroom," I said, pointing to the left door. "Act I. The Dance of Marionettes. We start at the beginning."
"Agreed," Somi said. "We face this like we faced the Barrens. Together. Carefully. And we don't let this place get in our heads."
The singing swelled, as if in response. The portraits smiled wider. The dancing figures in the door carvings moved faster.
The Eternal Stage was ready for us.
We approached the left door.
Act I was about to begin.