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CHAPTER 37 — The Hallway That Should Not Exist
Aren hit the ground hard—but it wasn't forest soil beneath him.
It was tile.
Cold. Smooth. White.
He gasped, pushing himself up. The world around him spun and blurred, shifting between misty forest shapes and straight artificial shadows. The air smelled wrong—like chemicals and metal, not earth and leaves.
He blinked.
And suddenly…
He wasn't in the forest at all.
A long hallway stretched ahead of him. Narrow. Windowless. Painted in peeling white. The lights above flickered weakly, buzzing with an unnatural hum.
His heart stopped.
This place—
He didn't know it.
And yet he did.
A memory pressed painfully against the inside of his skull, as if someone was pushing it through a locked door.
He staggered to his feet. "Lirien?!"
His voice echoed strangely through the hallway.
"Aren!" her distant voice answered—but it sounded muffled, like she was shouting from behind a wall.
Aren spun around, searching, but the hallway remained empty.
Then—
A small figure appeared at the end.
A girl.
Thin. Barefoot.
Head bowed.
Hair dripping black water onto the tiles.
Echo.
But her form flickered, like she wasn't fully there—like a bad signal struggling to stabilize.
Aren swallowed hard. "Echo… where did you bring me?"
She lifted her head slowly.
Her face was pale, almost grey, and her eyes—no longer dark—were dim reflections, like shattered glass holding tiny sparks of light.
"You never came back for me," she whispered. "I waited… and waited…"
Aren's voice cracked. "I don't remember leaving you anywhere!"
"That's the problem," she said softly. "You forgot."
Something cold crept up his spine.
Aren looked again at the hallway walls. There were faded markings—numbers, scratched-out signs, and… something else. Handprints. Small ones. Smudged and smeared along the paint.
"Where is this?" he whispered.
Echo turned her head and gestured down the hallway.
"This is where your world ends."
Aren blinked. "My… world?"
She nodded. "Not the world Lirien showed you. Not the one that summoned you. This is the one you ran from."
A loud metallic slam echoed from the far end.
A door.
A heavy one.
Aren flinched. "Is someone here?"
Echo didn't look up. "He is."
Aren's chest tightened. "Who?"
The lights above them flickered more violently. The hum grew louder, shaking the floor.
Echo whispered:
"The one your mind hid from you."
Aren stepped back. "Echo, stop—just tell me what this place is!"
Her eyes sharpened.
"You made this place disappear in your memories. But fractures remember. Fractures always remember."
A ripping sound echoed from the far end, like metal tearing.
Echo's voice broke. "You left me here."
Aren's breath caught.
"Left you… where? What is this place?!"
Echo closed her eyes.
Then she whispered the single word that froze him:
"Home."
Aren felt like the ground disappeared beneath his feet.
His heartbeat slammed against his ribs.
"No," he whispered. "My home doesn't look like this. It wasn't— it wasn't—"
"Wasn't what?" Echo whispered. "Wasn't cold? Wasn't locked? Wasn't empty?"
Another metallic slam cut through the hallway.
This time closer.
Aren's breathing turned sharp and uneven.
Echo took a small step toward him, her bare feet leaving wet footprints that steamed against the cold tiles.
"You can't outrun it," she whispered. "Not here. Not in the fractures."
"Echo—"
"You left me in this hallway," her voice broke. "And now the hallway is coming back for you."
The ceiling lights burst—one by one—showering sparks down the hall.
A deep, shuddering growl echoed behind the tearing metal door.
Aren stumbled backward, hands shaking. "Echo, stop! I can't— I don't remember this place!"
She looked up at him.
Her smile was broken. Fragile. Sad.
"That's why it's coming."
The metal door at the end of the hall bent inward, as if something monstrous pressed against it.
Aren's heart hammered in his throat.
"Echo," he whispered. "Please… I need Lirien—"
"She's trying to reach you," Echo said softly. "But she can't step into this place. Only you can."
The walls around them flickered, splitting between forest and hallway, reality and fracture, memory and nightmare.
Echo lifted a trembling finger and pointed behind Aren.
He turned.
The forest shimmered behind him—Lirien reaching through a tearing veil of mist, screaming his name—
"AREN!"
But the hallway pulled him back with a violent jolt.
The door at the far end of the hall ripped open.
Aren didn't see what came out—
only darkness,
a shape too tall,
too thin,
too familiar—
Echo whispered:
"He has found you again."
Aren's mind snapped with a white-hot flash—
Then everything went black.
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