Noah didn't remember walking here.
One second he was in the hallway—the one where the lights flickered like a dying heartbeat—and the next he stood before a door that wasn't supposed to be part of the apartment at all.
Room 07-B.
The number plate was crooked, metal bent as if someone had clawed at it from the inside.
His system chimed, faint and distorted:
[Warning… illegal environment detected.]
[User Noah Hale is advised to retreat.]
"That's new," Noah whispered.
The system never warned him. It only instructed, insisted, commanded.
But now it sounded… afraid.
A cold draft seeped through the bottom of the door, carrying a smell he couldn't name—old paper? damp concrete? something metallic, almost like blood but not quite.
He placed his hand on the doorknob.
It was warm.
As if someone had just let go.
"Don't," a voice hissed behind him.
Noah froze.
It wasn't the system's voice.
It was his own voice—but rougher, older, frayed at the edges like it had been used too many times.
He turned slowly.
A shadow stood at the end of the hallway, shaped like him—but slightly off.
Shoulders too tense.
Head tilted at an unnatural angle.
Like a reflection in a cracked mirror.
Noah's breath hitched.
"You again…?"
The shadow-Noah raised a hand.
The lights overhead buzzed, then dimmed, plunging everything into a sickly flicker.
"You open that door," the shadow whispered, "and you won't come back."
Noah swallowed hard. "Back to what?"
"Back to yourself."
A wave of dizziness hit him like a punch.
For a moment, his sight split—two sets of images overlapping, glitching, fighting for dominance.
In one version, the hallway was empty.
In another, the shadow-Noah stared directly at him, eyes too dark to be human.
His system crackled again:
[Stabilization failure: 43%]
[User is experiencing a cross-memory collision.]
Noah steadied himself against the wall. "Why are you showing me this? System—fix it."
The system's reply came late, trembling:
[Noah…]
[…I am not the one showing you.]
His blood ran cold.
The shadow took one slow step closer.
And with each step, Noah felt something—some thread inside him—pulling tighter, like the world itself was trying to stitch them together.
"You're missing pieces," the shadow said softly.
"Pieces I'm keeping safe."
It lifted its hand, revealing something clenched tightly in its fist.
A small, silver object.
A key.
Straight from Noah's missing memories.
His chest tightened. "Give that to me."
"You're not ready."
The shadow's smile stretched too wide.
"You don't even know which version of yourself you want to be."
Noah reached out anyway.
His fingers brushed the key—
A sound like tearing fabric shrieked through the hallway.
The walls rippled.
The floor tilted.
Noah stumbled forward—
—and the door labeled 07-B yanked itself open.
A force like a vacuum pulled him inside, swallowing his breath, his voice, his balance.
"Noah!" the shadow-Noah shouted—
But his voice warped and dissolved as the door slammed shut.
The last thing Noah heard from the other side was his system, glitching uncontrollably:
[Location: UNKNOWN]
[Identity integrity: 29%]
[Noah… Noah— NOAH—]
Then silence.
Pure, suffocating silence.
And when Noah opened his eyes…
He was no longer in the apartment.
He was in a room lined with hundreds of photographs—
all of him.
Different expressions.
Different ages.
Different lives.
Someone had been watching him
for a very, very long time.