Opening Monologue:
"There are places where truth doesn't reveal itself — it bleeds through the cracks. Where memories that never belonged to you cling to your bones, whispering futures you never asked to see. Some doors open. Others… awaken."
---
The blinding gold receded slowly, peeling itself off Lullaby's visor like a living veil. He gasped, stumbling forward as the world around him reshaped, reformed, and reassembled into something entirely new.
He wasn't in the corridor anymore.
He stood in a vast hollow chamber — round, cathedral-like — with walls spiraling upward into darkness. Golden veins crawled along every surface, brighter here, almost furious, pulsing like a trapped heartbeat.
The orb hovered beside him, shivering with unstable light.
"Where… are we?" Lullaby whispered.
The chamber answered with a low groan — a sound scraped from the bones of forgotten centuries. The floor beneath him rippled gently; not stone, not metal, but something in between. Something alive.
A soft murmur drifted across the chamber.
Voices.
Not whispered.
Not distorted.
Clear.
But not his.
Not this time.
They sounded like children — dozens of them — laughing, crying, calling in confusion and fear. The air shimmered, and the golden veins formed patterns, circles, looping trails of light weaving into memories that weren't his.
He saw glimpses:
– Small silhouettes running through a bright settlement…
– A mother lifting a child into her arms…
– A crowd gathered before the Door with excitement, not dread…
Then the memories shattered like glass, scattering into burning motes.
Lullaby pressed a hand to his visor.
"These aren't mine…"
The orb chimed softly — confirming what he feared.
They were the Door's memories.
The ones it kept.
The ones it devoured.
A faint trail of light formed at his feet, threading across the chamber toward a raised platform at the center.
A small mask rested on it.
Child-sized.
Cracked.
Shaped too perfectly… like his own.
Lullaby's heartbeat tripped.
His steps were slow. Shaky. Drawn in by something instinctive — something tied to a grief he never wanted to remember.
The chamber dimmed as he approached.
He reached out.
The moment his fingertips brushed the mask—
The chamber detonated with light.
Not gold.
White.
Raw.
Blinding.
A thunderous memory slammed into him:
Screams.
Running.
A Door opening where no place had room for one.
Hands pulling.
Light swallowing.
Shadows laughing.
A child crying for someone who never answered.
Lullaby collapsed to one knee.
He couldn't breathe.
He couldn't think.
But the vision forced itself deeper:
A small hand — his hand — reaching out as the Door took everything he knew.
His family's final cries swallowed by consuming light.
And a single word echoing through it:
"Chosen."
The chamber snapped back.
Lullaby gasped, clutching the cracked mask. The orb hovered frantically, chiming in alarm.
He stood slowly.
Weak.
Changed.
Awake in a way he wasn't before.
The Door had shown him something — but not why.
Not yet.
The golden veins brightened violently, syncing with his breathing. The walls trembled. A distant rumble crawled through the hollow depths.
Something had been triggered.
Something ancient.
Something aware.
And from far within the unseen structure, a voice — not memory, not echo, but real — whispered:
"Come deeper."
The chamber shook.
The orb flared protectively.
Lullaby tightened his grip on the mask.
He didn't fully understand why…
but he knew:
If he stepped forward, the true journey would begin.