Mira didn't sleep.
Not because she didn't try—she did, curled on the right edge of her bed, the covers pulled up to her chin like a child hiding from monsters. But the moment her eyes closed, she saw it: the door at the center of her mind, the one she'd never opened in any lifetime.
The one Alex claimed she died beside.
She tried to rest. But rest wouldn't come. Thoughts rolled through her like storm clouds scraping against one another, heavy and bright with friction. She kept picturing the corridor she'd walked through last night with Alex, the hush of the archive, the air thick with something she couldn't name, and that breath—soft, warm, too human—exhaling from the red door.
A door was not supposed to breathe.
By 4 a.m., Mira sat up with a sharp inhale, chest tight, skin damp with cold sweat.
She couldn't stay in bed another second.
She dressed quickly in jeans and a loose sweater. Her hands trembled as she tied her hair back. Not from fear—at least, not from the kind she could articulate—but from the pull. A magnetic tug she could feel just beneath her ribs.
The red door wanted her back.
Or maybe she wanted it.
She wasn't sure which answer scared her more.
The empty city
The streets outside were dark, washed in the last hour before dawn. Yellow streetlights hummed gently, some flickering as though they were half-asleep too. The city felt abandoned, as if everyone else had been lifted out of the world and she was the only one left wandering in its shell.
Mira walked fast. She didn't remember starting, didn't remember choosing her route, yet her feet found their way with instinctive certainty—toward the last place she wanted to be.
The Archive Tower rose above the skyline like a giant, silent sentinel. Tonight its windows were all dark. Its shape seemed wrong somehow, like it didn't quite fit the geometry of the world around it.
She wondered if Alex was already inside.
She wondered if he felt the same pull she did.
When she reached the tall metal doors, she hesitated. For a second, she expected them to be locked, because that would have been merciful. But her fingers wrapped around the cool brass handle and pulled lightly.
The door opened without resistance, as if it had been waiting for her.
A chill skated up her spine.
"Not a great sign," she whispered to herself.
Her voice echoed in the vast foyer.
Alex's voice in the dark
She crept down the long hallway, footsteps soft on the marble floors. The smell of old paper hung heavy in the air, familiar by now.
As she reached the central staircase, she heard it:
"Mira."
His voice. Quiet, threaded with worry.
Alex stepped out from the shadow beneath the railing. His hair was messy, his jacket half-zipped. Like he had rushed out in the middle of something to meet her.
Or like he hadn't slept either.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, but she could hear relief beneath the caution. "You shouldn't be near this place alone."
"Funny," she said. "I was about to say the same thing to you."
He winced slightly, as if she were right.
She walked toward him slowly.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" she asked. "The door pulling."
Alex didn't answer right away. He swallowed, looked away, then nodded.
"It's stronger this time," he admitted. "Stronger than any cycle I remember."
Cycle.
That word again.
A lifetime loop she supposedly kept dying in.
"Why now?" Mira whispered. "Why is it changing?"
Alex stared at the floor for a long moment, jaw tight.
"Because you're changing," he said quietly. "You're remembering faster. You're making different choices. You're not following the path you always do."
She blinked, confused.
"What path is that?"
His throat bobbed.
"The path that leads you to that door alone."
The corridor shifts
They walked side by side in silence. The deeper they went, the more the building changed.
The air grew cold enough that Mira could see her breath.
The overhead lights flickered, not because of electrical issues but because something was pressing against reality itself.
Mira stopped in front of the corridor that housed the red door.
But the corridor wasn't the same.
It was longer.
At least twice as long as yesterday, stretching out like a tunnel receding into darkness. The walls bowed inward slightly, as if the hallway were inhaling.
Mira felt her pulse quicken.
"Alex," she whispered. "Was it always like this?"
"No," he said. "It's—adapting."
"Adapting?" Her voice pitched higher. "A building can't adapt."
"This one can."
He walked a few steps forward, testing the air, then turned back to her.
"It's not the building, Mira. It's the memory of it."
She blinked hard.
"What does that even mean?"
"It's the shape of your past repeating itself," Alex said. "And the closer we get to the moment everything splinters—the more the world adjusts to match what's coming."
Mira exhaled shakily.
And then she felt it.
A pulse.
A soft thud echoing from the far end of the corridor.
The door was beating like a heart.
A promise that sounds like a threat
"Mira," Alex said gently, stepping toward her, "listen to me. We don't have to go all the way tonight. We can step back. We can regroup. We can—"
"No."
She didn't know why the word came out so fiercely, only that it was the truest thing she'd said in days.
"I'm done running," she whispered. "I'm tired of being scared of something I don't remember."
Her hands curled into fists.
"I want the truth."
Alex looked at her with something heartbreakingly raw—fear, pride, grief, and something she didn't know how to name yet.
"Then I'm going with you," he said. "No matter what happens."
"Even if it kills you too?" Mira asked softly.
He smiled faintly—the saddest smile she had ever seen.
"It always does."
Her blood ran cold.
But she didn't back away.
Whispers through the walls
They moved together, slowly, every footstep measured. The air felt thicker with each meter they traveled, as if something unseen pressed against their bodies. Mira's ears rang, the way they sometimes did in moments of deep silence.
Then she realized it wasn't ringing.
It was whispering.
Dozens of whispers.
Hundreds.
Voices she didn't understand.
Voices that seemed to rise from the walls themselves.
She froze. "Alex…"
"I know," he murmured, hand drifting near the small of her back but not touching her yet. "They're remnants. Echoes. Don't listen too closely."
But she already was.
A girl's voice, soft and trembling: Don't open it.
A man's voice, broken with anguish: Not again. Please, not again.
Another voice—her own—cracked and terrified: Alex, run!
Her breath caught painfully.
She stumbled, knees weakening, and Alex grabbed her by the arms instantly.
"Stay with me," he urged. "They're memories. They're not happening now."
"But they were," she rasped. "I heard myself."
He didn't deny it.
He just held her for a long second until she steadied.
The pressure builds
Halfway down the corridor, Mira could feel the toll. Her chest felt tight, her head buzzing with a pressure that pulsed in time with the door's heartbeat. Sweat gathered at the base of her neck, cold as ice.
Alex wasn't doing much better—his jaw clenched, fist white-knuckled.
"This is worse than before," he muttered. "It's almost like—like the door is waking up."
"It's alive," Mira whispered.
He shook his head. "No. Not alive. A threshold. A gate. Something on the other side is stirring."
She shivered violently.
But she didn't stop.
She accelerated.
Because now she felt something else beneath the fear—a thread of anger. Something had manipulated her life, loop after loop. Something had stolen her memories, stolen her choices, stolen her endings.
She wanted it back.
All of it.
The red door breathes again
Ten feet away.
The corridor vibrated.
The lights dimmed.
The floor seemed to pulse under her shoes, like she was walking across the chest of a giant creature dreaming restlessly.
Then the door exhaled.
A warm, slow, deliberate breath that rolled across her skin.
Mira gasped and clutched Alex's sleeve.
He tensed violently. "Don't look away from it. Not now."
The door's surface rippled—just once—as if the wood itself swallowed.
"What's behind it?" Mira whispered.
Alex closed his eyes briefly.
"The truth," he said. "But truth always demands something in return."
The choice Mira never had before
Her fingers reached toward the door.
Not to open it—just to touch.
To see if it felt real.
Alex caught her wrist gently.
"Mira. Once we touch it, we can't step back."
Her chest rose and fell quickly.
"Have I opened it before?" she asked.
His silence was answer enough.
After a long moment, he said quietly, "You never meant to. Not the first time. The first time… it opened for you."
Her heart lurched.
"The door opened itself?"
"Yes."
Mira swallowed hard.
"And I died."
He nodded once.
"But not because of what was behind it," Alex said. "You died because you were alone."
She stared at him.
"I'm not alone now."
Something in Alex's eyes softened—like light cracking through a thick shell of fear.
"No," he said. "You're not."
Her hand meets the door
Mira lifted her hand again.
This time Alex didn't stop her.
Her fingertips brushed the red surface.
It was warm.
Too warm—like skin.
Her pulse stuttered.
Then—
The entire corridor shuddered.
The door inhaled sharply, its surface rising beneath her hand as if it were taking a breath through her.
Something inside it stirred.
Something old.
Something familiar.
Her vision blurred.
Her ears rang.
Her knees buckled.
Alex caught her before she hit the floor.
"Mira!"
She clutched his shirt, gasping.
Images flashed behind her eyes—too quick to understand. A girl screaming. A spiral staircase. A gloved hand dragging her backward. A shard of something red falling from her hair. Alex reaching for her, too late—
She jerked back to reality with a choked cry.
"What was that?" she whispered.
"A memory," he said softly. "One of the first."
Her fingers shook but she didn't pull away from the door.
"I want more."
"You will get more," Alex said. "But not all at once. The door doesn't give—it takes."
"What does it want from me?"
He swallowed.
"Everything."
The echo on the other side
The door… knocked.
A single, heavy, deliberate knock.
Mira froze.
Alex's breathing hitched sharply. His hand reached instinctively for hers.
"That's new," he whispered.
The knock came again—three slow bangs that made the corridor tremble.
Mira's heart hammered.
"There's something on the other side," she breathed.
Alex's grip tightened.
"There always was," he said. "But this time—this time it knows you're here."
The knock became a low, rumbling sound.
A laugh.
Faint.
Distorted.
Wrong.
Mira took a step back—
—but the door lurched forward as if reaching for her.
Alex yanked her away, pulling her against him as the corridor shivered violently and the lights burst in a flicker of sparks.
For a moment the world went pitch-black.
Mira heard something whisper her name from the other side of the door.
Not a voice she recognized.
But one that recognized her.
"Finally."
Her blood turned to ice.