Elara and the other Elara ran down the endless hallway. Every step made the walls stretch and shrink, like the mansion was breathing. Doors appeared and disappeared as if the house was alive, reshaping itself to trap her.
She glanced at her reflection in a warped mirror. For a moment, it wasn't her. It was her as a child, then as an older version, then twisted and hollow eyed. Each version whispered fragments of memories she didn't recognize.
"Keep moving!" the other Elara shouted, pulling her forward.
The floor beneath them rippled like water. Elara stumbled. When she looked up, the hallway had changed. She was back in the room she had first entered after the hidden door the mirrored room where shadows had attacked her.
"No… not again!" she screamed. The mansion was looping her memories, forcing her to relive every fear.
Shadows rose from the mirrors, clawing at her, screaming fragments of her past. She dodged and ran, heart pounding. Every memory she had reclaimed glowed faintly in her mind, forming a shield she could hold onto.
Suddenly, the walls twisted into impossible angles. She saw herself walking the corridors from earlier chapters versions of herself running, turning, touching the hidden door. It was all happening at once, layered on top of each other.
"You have to focus!" the other Elara yelled. "The mansion is testing you! It wants you to forget yourself!"
Elara clenched her fists, holding her memories tighter. The shadows hissed and recoiled, but the hallway continued bending. Stairs led to nowhere. Doors opened into walls. Time itself felt broken.
She took a deep breath. "I remember… all of it. I am still me!"
The warped hallway froze. The shadows paused. Even the floor stopped shifting. For the first time, the mansion hesitated.
At the end of the hallway, the carved wooden door pulsed violently. Symbols writhed faster than ever, forming faces of trapped versions, whispering: "You cannot leave… not fully… yet…"
Elara swallowed hard. She realized the center the heart of the mansion was just beyond that door. If she stepped through, she'd face everything she had lost, everything the door had trapped, and the mansion itself.
She looked at the other Elara. "We go through… together."
The mansion groaned, walls twisting like living things, as if it understood. And then the carved wooden door slowly creaked open, darker and larger than ever, waiting for her to enter…